JUICE: ORANGE AND BITTERSWEET
I was a little floored that Ashlee had joined us for lunch, but when her attention kept flitting toward
Glitch, I was even more floored. Like carpet on installation day.
Brooke and I had four classes together, and our seventh-hour Foods and Nutrition class was one of them. We walked in about five seconds late, but Ms. Phipps didn’t notice. She didn’t seem to feel well and decided to show a video on nutrition so she didn’t have to teach. Which worked out perfectly, since I didn’t want her to teach. My mind was full up for the day.
I poked Brooke in the ribs. We’d scooted our desks closer under the pretense that we couldn’t see the video.
“What?” she whispered, eyeing Ms. Phipps, who was sitting at her desk with sunglasses on. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she had a hangover. Then again, I didn’t know any better. She could’ve been a lush, for all I knew. “I’m trying to sleep.”
I leaned closer and whispered, “I saw into that picture.”
She pointed at the screen and asked through a yawn, “Can food get any more boring? I thought lettuce was supposed to be green. You saw into what picture?”
“That picture from the newsletter. I was touching it with my elbow, and I saw into it. I saw it literally being shot.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand. What does your elbow have to do with it?”
“No, nothing. Brooke, stay with me. I was there. Melanie what’s-her-name was taking pictures. The kids were on the playground equipment. I was there. In the middle of it all.”
Brooke’s mouth parted as my meaning dawned. “You mean, you had a vision?”
“Yes, only, I don’t know. It’s like I went into the picture. Like I was just there.”
She leaned forward. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others. I don’t know what this means.”
“It means you’re the coolest chick I know, that’s what it means.”
I pursed my lips before saying, “Besides that.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t know either, but whatever it means, we need to work on it. To hone it.” She splayed her fingers in the air. Not sure why. Then she bounced back. “This must be part of your gift.”
“I love that you call it a gift,” I said.
“I’m sorry. It’s just, well, it is a gift. It’s just hard for you to see it as such with you becoming suicidal and all every time you get a vision.”
“I don’t become suicidal every time. And they’re counting on me, Brooke. My grandparents are counting on me. Jared is counting on me. Even people who died hundreds of years ago are counting on me, if the ancient texts in the archive room are any indication. It sucks.”
“I know. And I’m so sorry, Lor.” She gave me a moment, then asked, “But, really, are you finished wallowing in self-pity yet?”
I breathed out a heavy sigh. “Almost. Give me another minute.”
“Can’t.” She did a head dive toward her backpack. “We have to work fast.”
“What? I don’t want to work fast. Slow and steady wins the race.”
Brooklyn reemerged with a grin and a picture. She passed it to me. “Try this. Try to see into it like you did at lunch.”
I handed it back. The girl was a menace. “Brooke, it’s been a long day. I think I’m visioned out. And I need a break.”
“Oh, okay, I can respect that.”
She turned back to the program projected on the screen that showed some kind of yellow squishy stuff and swore it was good for building muscle and keeping the body lean, but I could tell from the tone of her voice that this conversation was nowhere near over.
Sure enough, about twelve and a half seconds later, she leaned back to me. “When the apocalypse begins and the world is ending, let me know if your break is over yet, okay? I’d sure hate for you to miss that.”
I rolled my eyes until I saw stars, then snatched the picture out of her hand. Without even looking at me, she grinned again. A wickedly conniving thing that would’ve made Stephen King proud.
“I don’t even know what to do.” The statement was more of a whine than a … well, statement.
“Do what you did before.”
“Touch it with my elbow?”
She chuckled, then caught herself and looked over at Ms. Phipps.
“I honestly think she’s out,” I whispered.
She was sitting up straight, her head unmoving, her body rigid.
“How can she sleep like that?” Brooke asked.
“I don’t know, but I want lessons.”
We laughed softly together before Brooke grabbed the picture. “Okay, tell me if you get anything,” she said. She touched it to my elbow, and we burst out in more hushed laughter that, had Ms. Phipps
Snatching the picture back before we woke her, I took a deep breath and focused on the image. It was a picture of Brooke at her seventh birthday party, which would have been about a year before I’d met her. A banner hanging in a doorway said HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY, BROOKLYN!
She nudged me with her shoulder. “I want you to tell me three things,” she whispered. “One, what was in my shoe?”
“Your foot?” I offered.
She grinned some more. “Besides that.”
“Okay, sorry. Two?”
“Two, I want you to tell me how it got there.”
“You’re getting very demanding in your old age.”
Then she leaned closer. “Three, I want you to tell me why this picture is so very special to me.”
Cool. Intrigue. I looked at it more closely, studied the kids as they ate ice cream and smiled for the camera. It wasn’t a posed picture but a candid, random record of the events of that day. Brooke was running into someone’s arms, a tall, African American man’s, her mouth open in surprise.
Okay, I could do this.
I concentrated for several minutes, but nothing happened. I held my breath and squinted my eyes.
Nothing. I clenched my teeth and ordered myself inside the image. Nothing.
Brooklyn swayed toward me again. “You weren’t concentrating today at the lunch table. And you don’t concentrate when you get visions throughout the day. Maybe that’s what we’re doing wrong. Maybe I’m pushing you too hard.”
“You think?”
“Smarty pants. Okay, just relax. Think about something else.” She paused a moment, then added, “Not
Jared, though.”
She had a point. I let my fingertips rest on the photo and relaxed with deep and steady breaths, calming my heart and letting the rest of the world fall away. I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth several times. Then I imagined a sheer curtain over the party. I reached out mentally and pulled it back. It slipped through my fingers a few times like smoke before I got a good grip and swept it aside. I blinked, waited for the image behind the curtain to crystalize, then slid inside.
Everything in my periphery dissolved. The colors melted together, then reshaped themselves, molecules fusing into patterns until they formed the items in the Prathers’ living room nine years ago. On the day Brooklyn turned seven.
“Mom!”
I heard a little girl yelling above the roar of grade-schoolers and looked over at Brooklyn, fascinated that I was there, at her seventh birthday party.
