Through Indigo's Eyes (17 page)

I raced into my bedroom and put on the fake leopard print coat. Then I ran to Brian's bedroom, grabbed his Union Jack flag from the back of his chair, draped it around my neck, and ran into the kitchen. When I entered the kitchen, I knew Mom and John were talking again, so I slid on the floor and yelled, “Miss Geri Halliwell.” Then I started singing again.

“I thought she was the redhead,” said John over my singing. “Does your band sound like this? I sure hope not.”

I continued dancing and quickly answered, “I'll wear a wig to be Geri, and no, our band does not sing these songs.” I started singing again. Then I pretended to play air guitar. “We play rock ‘n' roll!”

John started howling like a dog along with my singing. Sheena started whining, and Sasha wagged her tail. The cacophony of sounds made us burst out laughing.

Mom smiled and shook her head at us. “You kids are crazy.” Then she pointed at me with the kitchen tongs. “Did you really get that jacket at Value Village?”

“Yup.” I stuck my nose in the fake fur. “It smells like old people.”

“Who smells like old people? Indie?” Brian strolled into the kitchen but stopped as soon as he saw me. “
What
are you doing with my flag?”

I twirled around. “I need it for a project.”

“A
Spice Girls
project,” John added.

“You're shittin' me.”

John held up his hands.

Brian glared at me. “You've lost it, little sister. Don't wreck the flag.”

“Dinner will be on the table in fifteen,” said Mom. She pulled a pan out of the oven and placed it on a pot holder. Then she turned to John.

“We have lots of books in the den on that topic we were discussing. Get Indie to show you where they are while I'm finishing dinner. You're more than welcome to take any that you think might help with your paper.”

How could she do that? How could she just switch topics? I thought I'd successfully moved them both along.

In all John's visits to our house, he had never once set foot in the den, because I had made sure that was one room we avoided. I always closed the door or just simply skirted around it, telling him it was my dad's study and he didn't like anyone in there. Now I had to take him in there myself. And all because of my mother.

“Indie,” said my mom, pointing her finger, “the den. Dinner will be on the table in minutes.”

“Do you really want to do homework now?” I said to John. “Let's talk music instead. I
promise
, no Spice Girls. Over at Zoe's the other day, we practiced this great Pearl Jam song, and it sounded pretty good.”

He frowned at me. “For what it's worth, I think you should quit your band. And we can talk music later. I'll take any book I can get now. If it's one I don't have.”

The den was near the back of our house, off a hallway near the laundry room. I trudged down the hall with John on my heels. Once we were out of sight of my mother, he said, “How come your mom knows so much about Cayce?”

“My mother has books that I know nothing about.”

When we entered the den, John whistled. “Man, oh, man. Talk about books! This is amazing.” John immediately went to the shelf while I stood at the doorway, my feet glued to the floor, unable to venture into the room. I hated this room. Reminders of my elementary school days flooded my mind and made me dizzy: doctors, diagnoses, ulcers that ripped my stomach apart and made me spit blood. Why was I being dragged through this again and again? Why did I have to fall for a guy who liked this stuff?

I watched as John went from book to book, totally absorbed. He'd open one and read a bit then open another and read, and within the span of minutes he had a stack beside him. From the doorway, I could feel his energy, his vibrations, and there was no doubt about it—he was buzzed.

And I was deflated.

Then he pulled out the exact book he had given me when we first met:
The Sleeping Prophet.
I didn't even know we owned a copy.

“That's your book,” I said. I had never given one back to him because I didn't want him to know that I had never read it.

With a quizzical look on his face, he opened the cover. “No, it's not,” he said. “Mine was from a secondhand store, and someone had written in it.”

“You're taking all of those books?” I asked, trying desperately to change the subject.

He turned and stared at me, and I saw something in his eyes that made me want to sink through the floor and into the basement to hide. I shuffled my feet, trying to uproot them, and I crossed my arms, hoping to keep all his energy away from me.

“You really know nothing about these books?” he said accusingly.

“Nothing,” I answered with conviction. Then I looked him in the eyes and said, “It's my mom's deal, not mine.”

“I want to meet
your
mom,” I said to John after dinner when we were outside and he was about to drive home.

John opened his car door and jiggled his keys. “Okay,” he finally said. “I'll talk to her. See if a night works this week.”

I waited for him to kiss me good-bye, but he didn't. He waved, got in his car, and drove away, leaving me standing on the curb, watching the red of his taillights. I was quite sure he didn't look back at me either.

The next day at school, we set a date for Thursday night for me to come over to his house and meet his mother.

Thursday night arrived, and I dressed in jeans and a nice shirt. I couldn't help but wonder what Lacey would have thought of the purple shirt I had chosen. If only she could forgive and forget. It had been well over a month now since we'd talked. She was still with Burke. I was with John.

John picked me up and we drove out of South Keys and toward the Alta Vista neighborhood, a mix of suburban homes, high-rise apartments, and town houses. As we drove, we listened to music. My stomach flip-flopped. I was so nervous.

We only drove for 15 minutes, then John parallel parked his car on the street and in front of a small but nice-looking town house that had no garage. From the outside, it looked a bit worn but cute and comfortable. Mature maples and oaks, some with a few straggling leaves, lined the street. I sucked in a deep breath and undid my seat belt.

We walked up the small walkway, but he didn't hold my hand. He was too busy jingling his keys. Staring at him, I realized he was way more nervous than I was. He unlocked the front door, then walked inside ahead of me, almost pushing me behind him and scanning the hall as if he were casing his place to prevent me from seeing something I shouldn't. I couldn't help but glance around to see if anything was out of the ordinary, but there was nothing. Perhaps the cleaning standards weren't on par with my mother's, but then, whose were? She was obsessive. The furniture was simple, nothing elaborate, but it was livable.

“Mom,” John said. Not loudly, like I would have done if I was searching for my mother and couldn't see her right away.

“I'm in the kitchen,” said a voice.

Right away John's tense shoulders relaxed. He turned to me, took my hand, and smiled. “She's in the kitchen,” he repeated. As if this was a really good thing, an unusual occurrence. My mom was always in the kitchen.

I smiled back at him and squeezed his hand. Then we walked down a small hall and into a tiny kitchen with big windows that overlooked a small backyard cluttered with stuff, including an old rusted tricycle. I was staring out the window so intently that I walked right into a counter just as I entered the kitchen. The pain shocked me, and I screeched. John's mother turned from the stove to look at me.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I was such a klutz! “I'm fine,” I replied. I rubbed my hip bone. What would his mother think of me now?

“Mom,” he said, “this is Indie.”

She wiped her hands on a dish towel. “It's nice to meet you, Indie.”

I hadn't been able to get any picture in my mind of her at all before tonight. I had tried, but nothing came—my mind stayed blank. Dressed in jeans, a pink T-shirt, and casual moccasins, she was slim and attractive, with long, thick, brown hair. From the way John spoke about her, I was sort of expecting her to be downtrodden and a bit ragged. How could I have been so wrong?

“Sorry for the entrance,” I said.

She smiled, and it was then I noticed her glassy blue eyes and how they appeared vacant, and dull, almost as if a layer of fog covered them. Bags hung underneath her eyes. Had she not slept in days or was she missing some sort of vitamin in her diet? She had high cheekbones, a cute nose, straight white teeth, and beautifully shaped eyes—it was the look behind them that threw me. Her raggedness was hidden inside her.

When she did smile, I noticed a little flicker in her eyes, but it faded as if the light had sputtered and died. Something wasn't right, something I couldn't pinpoint.

“I'm just glad you're okay, Indie,” she said, sticking out her hand.

I shook her hand, and I could feel it trembling. Her fingers were tiny and frail, and although I wasn't big, I felt like a giant shaking her hand. Just the feel of her clammy skin made me start to sweat. My breathing grew shallow.

I inhaled, trying to get air into my lungs.

Act normal, Indie.

My throat kept closing.

“Hi. It's nice to meet you,” I replied, as if on automatic pilot.

Do I sound okay? Do I sound too breathy?

Bring some air into your body, Indie.

A pulsing started in my forehead, and my eyes burned as I tried to keep them open and focus on John's mom. Oh, great, now I was having a vision. I was totally spazzing out.

Go away. Go away!

Stronger, stronger, the pulsing hammered my forehead. My vision grew narrower, and tunnel-like, the telescopic lens getting closer and closer to the fishbowl. I let my arms hang to my sides, hoping to stop what I knew was coming. This was not going to be just a snapshot—the pulsing was too intense. It was right in the middle of my forehead, in what some people called the third eye.

John went to the stove. “I'll flip these for you, Mom,” he said.

“Can I get you something to drink, Indie?” Mrs. Smith asked.

“Water would be great,” I managed to reply.

When I looked at her face, I tried to smile to appear normal, but all I could see was a garden shovel, one of the spade ones like my father used for digging dirt. Dirt covered the spade as if it had just been used.

This was crazy. A garden shovel?

As she turned to get me water, the shovel started to dig. And dig. And dig. Faster and faster. But I couldn't see anyone holding it. Just the shovel. Then I started to smell dirt. Dirt. Why dirt? It was as if I were on a farm somewhere. The scent wafted through my nostrils. Fresh dirt. The shovel was digging a hole and dirt flew, creating a big pile. The hole got bigger and bigger.

Why was I seeing a shovel?

Why was I smelling dirt?

Was I still smiling?
Say something, Indie. Speak.

As suddenly as the shovel had appeared, it vanished, and I found myself standing in the middle of John's kitchen, shaking, my knees almost buckling under the weight of my body. Mrs. Smith still had her back to me. The tap ran, and water trickled into a glass. Good thing I was wearing jeans, because I was sure my knees were knocking together. And it was a darn good thing I had taken a wide stance, because I was so dizzy I could have lost my balance and ended up a big heap on the floor.

Inhaling and exhaling as quietly as I could, I tried to slow my breathing down and get my heart rate back to normal before she turned and gave me the water. I had no idea if my face was white or red or yellow, but I suspected it didn't look normal because it felt so clammy and hot. John still had his back to me and hadn't noticed a thing.

When I thought it was safe to move, I stuck my hands in my jeans pockets.

“Have you been gardening?” I asked.

Stupid question, Indie. Stupid. Stupid.

My throat was dry, and my tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of my mouth.

“Gardening?” Mrs. Smith turned from the sink and, laughing, handed me a glass of water. “I'm not much of a gardener,” she said.

With a plastic cooking flipper in his hand, John also turned to look at me. “Why would you ask that?” he asked. “Sometimes you say the craziest things.”

What the heck was I supposed to say? I say crazy things because I
am
crazy?

“I thought … I smelled dirt.” I tried to laugh, trying to at least sound semi-normal, if that can happen after asking such a weird question. What was with the shovel? And the dirt? Now my visions were bordering on ridiculous. Were there house plants around that I smelled?

“Dirt?” John raised his eyebrows, obviously thinking I was nervous, which, if I hadn't been so freaked with the vision, would have been kind of cute. But nothing about this moment was cute.

“I'm not a gardener or a cook,” said Mrs. Smith. “I've made sandwiches for dinner.” Then she laughed. “Grilled cheese.”