“I’m never going anywhere again without a backup vision plan.”
“I should hope not.”
“And I’m only accepting your help because I don’t want to run into something and accidentally rip this glorious polyester uniform.”
“Understood.”
“And
none
of this has changed
anything
between us.” My voice shakes.
“Also understood,” he says softly.
I take a deep breath. “Okay.”
Neither of us moves. He’s leaving it up to me. I tentatively reach for him again. He extends his arm, and I take it. The gesture of one friend helping another. There’s nothing more, because as long as there’s Max, there can’t be anything more. And I love Max.
So that’s that.
“So,” Cricket says, one quiet block later. “Tell me about this famous dress.”
“What dress?”
“The one you’re making the stays for. It sounds important.”
My conversation with Max rushes back in, and I’m embarrassed. Dances are such feminine affairs. I can’t bear to hear scorn from Cricket, too. “It’s for my winter formal,” I say. “And it’s
not
important.”
“Tell me about it.”
“It’s . . . just a big dress.”
“Big like a parachute? Big like a circus tent?”
As always, he makes me smile when I’m determined not to. “Big like Marie Antoinette.”
He whistles. “That
is
big. What are those things called? Hoop skirts?”
“Sort of. In that period, they were called panniers. They went out to the side, rather than around in a perfect circle.”
“Sounds challenging.”
“It is.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Maybe it would be if I had any idea what I was doing. Panniers are these giant, structural contraptions. Making them isn’t sewing; it’s construction. And I have illustrations, but I can’t find decent instructions.”
“Do you want to show me the illustrations?”
My brow creases. “Why?”
He shrugs. “Maybe I could figure it out.”
I’m about to say I don’t need his help, when I realize . . . he’s
exactly
the right person for the job. “Um. Yeah. That’d be nice, thanks.” We’ve reached my steps. I gently squeeze his arm and let go. “I’ve got this part.”
“I’ve taken you this far.” His voice becomes unsteady. “I can take you that much farther.” And he reaches for me one last time.
I brace myself for the contact.
“Cricket!” A call from between our houses, and his arm drops like an anchor. She must have been taking out the trash. Calliope hugs him from behind, and I can’t really see her, but she sounds like she’s about to cry. “Practice was a nightmare. I can’t believe you’re here, you said you couldn’t come. God, it’s good to see you. I’ll make hot cocoa and tell you all—Oh. Lola.”
Cricket is oddly petrified into silence.
“Your very kind brother walked me home from work,” I explain. “My glasses broke, and I’m completely blind.”
She pauses. “Where is it you work again?The movie theater?”
I’m surprised she knows. “Yeah.”
Calliope turns back to Cricket. “You went to the movies? What about that huuuge project due tomorrow? I thought that’s why you couldn’t come home. How
strange.
”
“Cal—” he says.
“I’ll be in the kitchen.” She stalks away.
I wait until she’s inside. “You have a project due tomorrow?”
He waits a long time before answering. “Yes.”
“You weren’t coming home tonight, were you?”
“No.”
“You came home for me.”
“Yes.”
We’re quiet again. I take his arm. “Then take me home.”
chapter eighteen
I
’m encouraging him. And I can’t stop.
Why can’t I stop?
I press my palm against the front door, and my forehead comes to rest against it, too. I listen to his footsteps descend on the other side. They’re slow, unhurried. I’m the one making our lives harder. I’m the one making this friendship difficult.
But he’s the one who won’t stop coming back.
He’s smarter than that. He should know it’s time to move on and to stay away from me.
I don’t want him to stay away.
What DO I want? The answers are murky and unreadable, though it’s clear I don’t want another broken heart. Not his and certainly not mine. He needs to stay away.
I don’t want him to stay away.
“That Bell boy grew up well,” Norah says.
I startle. She’s in the turquoise chaise longue that rests against the front bay window. How long has she been here? She must have seen us. Did she hear us? She watches him, until I assume his figure disappears, before turning her attention to me.
“You look tired, Lola.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Fair enough.”
But she’s right. I’m exhausted. We stare at each other. Norah is blurry, but I can see enough. Her gray shirt hangs loosely against her chest, and she’s wearing one of Andy’s grandmother’s old quilts wrapped around her for warmth. Her long hair and her thin arms are limp. Everything about her hangs. It’s as if her own body has rejected her.
I wonder what she sees when she looks at me.
“You know what we need?” she asks.
I don’t like her use of the word
we
. “What?”
“Tea. We need tea.”
I sigh. “I don’t need tea. I need to go to bed.”
Norah pulls herself up. She groans as if her joints are sore, as if they were as old as the blanket around her shoulders. She takes my arm, and I flinch. The warm, comforting feeling of Cricket’s hand disappears and is replaced by hers, clammy and sharp. She leads me into the kitchen, and I’m too worn out to stop her.
Norah pulls out a chair at the table. I sag into it.
“I’ll be right back,” she says. I hear her climb the stairs, followed by the sound of my bedroom door being opened. Before I can get worked up, my door shuts again. She returns and hands me another pair of eyeglasses.
I’m surprised. “Thanks.”
“What happened to the pair you left in?”
“They got stepped on.”
“Someone stepped on your glasses?” Now she sounds pissed.
“Not on purpose. Jeez.” I scowl. “Are my parents still on their date?”
“I guess. Why should I care?” She fills the copper teakettle with tap water and sets it down with more force than necessary. It shakes the stove.
“You had another fight,” I say.
Norah doesn’t respond, but the manner in which she roots through her cardboard box of tea is resentful and angry.
Her
box of tea.
“No!” I jump up. “You’re not reading my leaves.”
“Nonsense. This is what you nee—”
“You don’t know a thing about what I really need.” The bitter words spit out before I can stop them.
She freezes. Her hair falls before her face like a shield. And then she tucks it behind her ears as if I didn’t say anything, and she removes something from her box. “Fenghuang dancong oolong. Fenghuang means ‘phoenix.’ This is the one for you.”
“No.”
Norah opens our cabinet of drinking glasses and takes out a pink teacup. I don’t recognize it, so it must be one of hers. My blood fires again. “You put your cups in our cabinets?”
“Just two.” She pulls out another, the color of jade. “This one is mine.”
“So where’s your crystal ball? Beside the television? Will I find your turban in the laundry room?”
The empty cups rattle against their saucers as she sets them on the table. “You know I hate that crap. A costume doesn’t signify meaning or experience. It’s a lie.”
“And what you do
isn’t
lying?”
“Sit down,” she says calmly.
“I’ve never let you read my leaves before, so why would I start now?”
Norah thinks for a moment. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“No.” But I say it too quickly. She spots a waver as the back corners of my mind answer differently. Who isn’t the least bit curious? I know fortune-telling is a deception, but my life has become such a struggle that I can’t help but hope for an answer anyway. Maybe the fortune will tell me something about Cricket. Maybe it knows something I don’t, or maybe it will make me think of something I wouldn’t have otherwise realized.
Smugness on her lips. I sit back down but avert my eyes to show how much I dislike being here. The kettle whistles, and Norah scoops a spoonful of tea directly into it. The house creaks quietly while the oolong steeps. The longer we wait, the edgier I become. I almost get up to leave a dozen times, but curiosity has a strong hold on me.
“Drink,” Norah says, when it’s finished. “Leave about half a teaspoon of liquid.”
I sip the tea, because it’s hot. The flavor is light, and it tastes like a peach, but with something darker hidden inside. Like smoke. Norah doesn’t mind the heat. She gulps hers down and pours another cup. I finally reach the bottom. I hold the pink cup close and frown at the brown-green leaves, looking for symbols. It’s all lumped together.
“Now what?”
“Take the cup with your left hand.”
“Is that my magic hand?”
She ignores this, too. “Now turn it three times, counterclockwise—faster than that. Yes, good. Turn it over onto your saucer.”
“Won’t all the leaves run out?”
“Shh. Keep your hand on the bottom of the cup. And close your eyes and take a moment to think about what you’d like to know.”
I feel stupid. THAT is what I think about. And . . . I think about Cricket Bell.
“Turn it back over. Carefully,” she adds. I slow down and right my teacup. The leaves have used the last remaining droplets of liquid to stick to the sides. “I’ll take that now.” She’s silent for many minutes. Her bony hands tilt the cup every which way, to gain different perspectives or perhaps just to see the shapes better in the dimmed kitchen light. “Well.” Norah sets it down and gestures for me to scoot closer. I do. “Do you see this cloud here, close to the handle?”
“Sort of.Yeah.”
“That means you’re in a stage of confusion or trouble. But with me living here, we didn’t need leaves to tell us that. And this triangle down here, that means you possess a natural talent for creativity. But we didn’t need them to know that either.”
I’m surprised by her frankness, as well as the rare compliment. I scoot a little closer.
“But do you see these dots, traveling around the edge of the cup?”
I nod.
“A path of dots means a journey. This one will be taken over the course of several months. If it circled all the way back around, it would have been at least a year,” she explains. “But the journey ends here, into this shape. What does that look like to you?”
“Um. A moon, maybe? With a . . . stick coming out of it?”
“How about a cherry?”
“Yeah! I see that.”
“Cherries represent first love. In other words, this path you’re on leads to first love.”
I jolt, and my legs smack the table. The way she doesn’t startle makes me believe she expected this reaction. Does she know how I feel about Cricket? Or, should I say, how I felt about him in the past? She was certainly around, but how much did she observe?
Norah is messing with me.
She pauses. “Why don’t you tell me what shapes you see in the cup?”
I stare into it for several minutes. I look for dogs or shoes or anything recognizable, but all I see are wet leaves. My eyes keep returning to the cherry. I set the cup down. “I don’t know. There’s a pile of sticks on that side. And a curlicue thing.”
“Okay. The loop is near the rim, so that means you’ve been making—or you’ll soon be making—impulsive actions.”
“Good or bad?” I quickly ask.
She shrugs. “Could be either, but are things done on impulse ever really a good idea?”
“Is that something your therapist told you?” I snap.
Norah’s tone darkens. “And see how the sticks are crossed, all on top of each other? That suggests a series of arguments. It usually leads to a parting.” Her voice is short.
“A parting.” I stand. “Yes, thank you. This was very educational.”
Arguments, partings, impulses. Clouds of confusion. I thought fortunes were supposed to make people feel BETTER about their lives. I thought that’s why people paid money to hear them. And a journey to first love? Just because Max insulted her doesn’t mean she has to steer me into the arms of another guy.