Chapter Twenty-Two

 

On Wednesday, I’m so confident of Cecille’s happiness that I spend the entire day with Vera. It isn’t until Vera packs her bag to go home that I realize Cecille isn’t at her locker. I think Vera notices too because she keeps looking to her left like she’s expecting Cecille to appear and invite her to another rehearsal at any moment.

Thinking maybe Cecille’s already headed to the auditorium, I whisper to Vera, “Go to the theater anyway.” Vera heads down the stairs. Gregory stands outside the auditorium.

“Gregory, do you know if Cecille is practicing today after school?”

“You didn’t hear?” Gregory rubs his scraggly beard.

Vera shakes her head.

“She fell down the stairs before lunch. Twisted her ankle. There goes our musical piece for the variety show.”

“Wait, what? How did it happen?”

Gregory shrugs. “Just clumsy, I guess.”

Clumsy? How did my graceful ballerina of a sister suddenly turn clumsy?

“So you’re not going to sing the song at the variety show?”

“It’d seem weird now without the dance.” Gregory spots another senior boy from drama club over Vera’s head. “Hey, Roger. Let’s talk with Mr. Cardone about those changes in the Olympics skit.”

“There in a minute,” Roger calls back.

Gregory turns back to Vera. “Don’t feel too bad, kiddo. We can always use the number for the spring arts festival.” He gives Vera a little tap on the shoulder and enters the auditorium.

The spring arts festival? I can’t wait that long. Vera’s circled November 2 as the target date on her calendar. If my suspicions about that day are true, I only have three days left.

Vera simply stands there, clutching her bag and holding onto her coat like it’s a security blanket. Other students move around her like a river flowing around a boulder. Eventually, the hallway empties. Students have either gone home or found their way to after-school activities.

When Vera lifts her head to look around, she seems startled by how empty the place has become. She sets down her bag and puts on her coat. After a glance toward the auditorium door, she heads out of the building.

My mind whirls. What on earth do I do now? Oh God, help! I have no idea what to do next. Vera must be devastated. My sister must be devastated. For a few moments, I think about going to check on her and leaving Vera to fend for herself, but I can’t do that. Cecille is probably being taken care of by Mom. Vera will end up alone again. Still, the temptation is there. Cecille needs me, too.

When we get to Vera’s home, the utter darkness inside tells me that the shadows are waiting for her. I throw myself in front of Vera’s door.

“Don’t go in, Vera. Go anywhere but here.” I spread my wings wide, but Vera doesn’t slow her steps. “There are too many memories of your mother inside and too much loneliness without your father home.”

Vera plows right through me and into the house, and I am plunged into the darkness.

 

The darkness doesn’t last long. Before I’m able to collect my thoughts, I hear a door slam shut at the back of the house, and I hurry around to see Vera stomping across the yard. She has left the bag in her house and is headed for the detached garage. In her hand, she clutches her phone and studies a map she’s pulled up on it.

Vera unlocks the side door of the garage and steps inside. Within seconds, the large garage door opens, and Vera pulls out an old girl’s bicycle. Parking it on the driveway, she closes the garage door behind her and takes one last look at the map on the phone before shoving it in her pocket and hopping on her bike.

I have no idea where she’s headed. Her path seems to take us back to the school, but she rides past the turn that would take us there. As I follow her, I’m glad my wings are fully functioning now. With the way she’s pedaling, I never could have caught up with her before my wings grew.

I wonder if she’s riding hard just to burn off anger and frustration, but then I remember the map, and I know there’s a purpose to her trip. My next thought is that she’s looking for the cemetery her mother’s buried in, but after a few more turns, the streets become more and more familiar. With the final turn onto Chestnut, my heart begins to ache. I know exactly where she’s going, but I don’t know if I can handle going with her.

The sight of my house splits my heart in two. Why did it never look so pretty when I was alive? It doesn’t matter that it’s fall now, and the trees are all bare. The little front porch on our farm-style home is so welcoming I want to cry out in agony. Why didn’t I appreciate it when I was alive? Once again, I am reminded of Emily Webb’s words, “Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

Vera flips down the kickstand after dragging the bike up the little path that leads to the porch. She double-checks the address on her phone before ringing the bell. I hear every little sound in the next few seconds. The squirrel scratching its way up a nearby tree. The breeze blowing some dead leaves across the sidewalk. The muffled sound of padded slippers making their way to the front door. Vera rubs her arm as a cool breeze passes by. With a squeak, the door opens, and I see my mother close-up for the first time since my death.

“Oh, Mama!” I moan. She looks so thin, so frail, and she wears a scarf to hide the chemo-induced baldness. I don’t want to look. I pray that God won’t make me look, but I have to. I have to protect both Vera and Cecille now.

“Can I help you?” my mother asks.

“I’m here to see Cecille. I really need to see Cecille.” Vera blurts out the words like she’s afraid if she doesn’t get the words out fast she’ll lose any confidence she has.

“Are you a friend?” Mom narrows her eyes.

Again the words tumble out one after the other. “I’m in the drama club with her. We were working on a number for Friday night’s show, and when I showed up for rehearsal after school, I heard she got hurt.”

“That’s right.”

“Is she okay?”

“Her ankle is twisted pretty badly.”

“Can I see her?”

I can tell my mom is studying this girl with the flushed face, the wind-blown hair, and thrift-store jacket. She is not the well-put-together type my sister usually hangs out with.

“I don’t know...the painkillers the doctors gave her made her pretty woozy.”

“Please,” Vera begs. “Tell her I’ve got a plan for us to save the number.” Another cool wind blows and Vera rubs her arm to fight off the shivers.

“Why don’t you wait inside? I’ll go see how she’s feeling.” Mom opens the door, and Vera steps inside. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”

Vera surveys the living room. The inside of my house hasn’t changed since the day I died, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me to see. Near the front picture window is where I waited for Billy Michaels to pick me up for my first school dance. On the mantel above the fireplace are pictures of Cecille and me taken over the years at school. On the end table is the purple vase I’d made in ceramics class. My mother’s favorite cooking magazine rests on the coffee table. It simultaneously feels like just yesterday and a million years ago that I last stood in this room.

I’m actually relieved when my mom shuffles back into the room and tells Vera that my sister is sleeping. I can’t look at my house without being reminded of how much I loved it.

“Could you give Cecille a message for me?” Vera begs as my mom shows her to the door. “Could you tell her to call me or text me?” Vera pulls a piece of paper from her pocket. “Here’s my number.”

My mom takes the slip. “I’ll let her know you stopped by,” she says as she closes the door on Vera.

Outside the house I feel like I can breathe again, but Vera is clearly devastated. She slowly gets back on the bike and pedals home. I don’t know if Cecille calls her later because I’m thrown into darkness as soon as I follow Vera into the house.

 

Cecille is back at school the next day, but she’s on crutches and wearing an ankle boot. As soon as Vera sees her hobble down the hallway, she runs up to her.

“What happened? I went to your house yesterday, but your mom said you were sleeping. I gave her my number but you never called.”

“Sorry,” Cecille’s eyes are cast down.

“Listen, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got a way we can still perform the song.”

Cecille rests her crutches against the row of lockers and slides the backpack off her shoulders. “In case you haven’t noticed, Vera, I’m not exactly in a position to dance.”

“You don’t have to dance tomorrow night. You’ve already done the dance.”

Cecille looks at her. “Huh?”

“We’ve got it all in your phone.”

“What good does that do?” Cecille starts unpacking her bag while Vera chatters excitedly beside her.

“It does all the good in the world. Listen, here’s my plan. You send the videos from your phone to my email. I’ll edit the footage from the different rehearsals together and make like a multimedia kind of presentation with it. You know, sort of a music video. Gregory can perform the music live while the video is playing on the big screen in the auditorium.”

“It won’t be the same.”

“You’re right, it won’t.” Vera’s shoulders slump. “But it could still be really good. I mean, you did such a great job with the dance. People should get to see it.”

The two girls are silent while Cecille arranges the last of the books and hoists her bag onto her shoulders.

“How did you fall anyway?”

“I didn’t fall. I was tripped.”

“What?”

“Cathy Ringles was headed up the stairs when I was headed down to lunch. My arms were full of books because I had stuff to drop off at the library. Cathy stuck her foot where I couldn’t see it behind all the books, and I tripped. Next thing I knew I’d fallen four stairs to the landing.”

“She did it on purpose.” Vera’s words aren’t a question.

“Yeah, I think so.” Cecille sighs and picks up her crutches.

“Did you tell anyone?”

“I told the school nurse who brought in Principal Rainer. He told me he’d ‘investigate’.” Cecille squeezes the crutches under her elbows in order to do the air quotes.

“So did he?”

“When my mom called the school after I got home from the doctor, Principal Rainer said Cathy Ringles told him I must’ve tripped on my own two feet, and none of the kids who were in the stairwell at the time saw anything.”

The warning bell rings.

“I’ve got to get to class,” Cecille mutters.

“What about the video idea?”

“I’ll think about it.” She hobbles off in one direction as Vera heads in the other.

I no longer expect to see Warren or Ms. Kitchin in English class. The students don’t seem surprised by her absence either. No one whispers when Mr. Carter walks in for the umpteenth day in a row.

At lunch I’m not surprised when Vera sits at the table with Vicki and her friends since she’s been eating there all week, but I nearly fall over when Vera gets up from the table and heads to a different one. In her hand she carries a copy of the literary magazine. It’s folded open to her poem and the student drawing that was picked out to run alongside it.

“Excuse me,” Vera says to a boy several tables away from her own. He’s wearing an oversized basketball jersey, but that doesn’t stop his boxers from showing over a pair of jeans worn way too low. I’ve seen him before. Must be in one of her classes. “You’re Hugo Vasquez, aren’t you?” Her voice squeaks, and she swallows hard.

He glances at her briefly before saying, “Why do you want to know?”

“I like your drawing.” Vera holds out the magazine.

Hugo’s eyes flicker to the magazine and then Vera. “So?”

“So I want your permission to include it in a video I’m...the drama club is making.”

“What kind of video?” Hugo chomps on a few cafeteria fries.

“The drama club is doing this whole thing with the poem I wrote. It’s going to be part of a video shown at the variety show tomorrow night, and I think it’d be cool to show your artwork in the video.”

Hugo looks at Vera for the first time like he’s really seeing her. “You wrote that poem?”

Vera nods.

Hugo goes back to his fries. “What do I get if I let you put my drawing in the video?”

“Fame?” She gives a sheepish grin.

Hugo snorts. “They won’t even know who did the drawings.”

“I’ll put in a special ‘artwork by’ section at the end of the video.”

A boy on the other side jumps into the conversation. “You should do it, Hugie. Give her those other ones you did, too.”

“You have other drawings?”

Hugo lifts a shoulder. “I got some other stuff the magazine people didn’t use.”

“Do they match my poem? ‘Cause this whole video’s kind of built around the poem.”

“Yeah, I tried out a couple ideas after reading your poem.”

“Could I take pictures of them?” The growing excitement can be heard in her voice.

“I’ll be in the art studio after school. You can come by then.”

Vera does a little happy jump.

“You better be quick. I’m not stickin’ around forever waiting for you.”

“I’ll be there right away.”

 

I’m worried Vera has put the cart before the horse. Adding Hugo’s drawings is a great idea, and I’m shocked by how willing she was to approach a guy she didn’t know, but none of it’s going to be any good if my sister doesn’t send her the video.

The next time I see Cecille she’s fuming. Vera is packing up her bag and ready to rush down to the art studio when Cecille comes hobbling up.

“You were right, Vera.” She sets her crutches against the wall. “Cathy did trip me on purpose.”

“You have proof?”

“Not exactly. I just passed by Cathy’s locker. She was there with a couple of dance team girls, and when she saw me, she gave me this totally fake, ‘Oh, how sad! Now you won’t be able to dance tomorrow night!’ And the girls next to her started giggling.”

Vera lifts her bag from the floor. “You can’t let her get away with this.”

“What can I do? It’s her word against mine.”

“Send me the videos off your phone. I’ve got this whole plan. Listen, I’ve got to go. I promised someone I’d meet him.” Vera heads away. “Just send me the video. I’ll take care of everything.”

Vera means what she says. In the art studio, Hugo lets her take photos of several of his pieces that he had made based on her poem. Then he shows her some mixed media work he did, and Vera snaps more photos. A number of his pieces are focused on single colors, like a collage of pieces that are all yellow: photos of daffodils, pieces of yellow yarn, cut-up sections of yellow cereal boxes.

When she finishes with Hugo, Vera runs to Mr. Cardone’s room. He’s still there grading papers when Vera dashes in and spills her plan. I marvel at how smart she is being. Where did this girl come from? You give her an ounce of confidence, and she runs with it.

In fact, by the time Vera is home and working on the video, mixing clips of Cecille’s dance with photos of Hugo’s artwork, I’m wondering why I’m not moving on yet. This girl is way too excited to be suicidal. Perhaps God hasn’t called me to sainthood yet because He needs me to help my sister. Maybe I’m not here for Vera anymore. Maybe I’m here for Cecille.

I wish Warren had been at school today. I could really use his advice. Maybe I should fly over to my old house to check on Cecille. No, I don’t think I’d last long in there. The memories of what I’ve left behind are too painful for me. I resolve to simply wait and see what tomorrow brings.