Who would paint their business this purple color?
I went to knock on the door.
“Coming,” someone said.
“Wait”—I pulled on Aunt Odie’s caftan—“is that . . . is that a man’s voice?”
“Yes, it is,” he said. The door opened wide, and a man as big and tall as the doorway stood before us. “Unusual, right? A male medium who happens to be the size of a giant.”
“Umm,” I said.
Aunt Odie offered her hand to him. “Paulie,” she said. “He is a jack-of-all-trades. Has a Gift that shames most.”
“Odie, don’t!” Paulie said, but I could see he loved her bragging on him.
“I was thinking . . .” My voice was drowned out by the rain on the tin roof.
“What everyone thinks,” Paulie said. “I should be a woman with kohl eyes wearing a frock like this.” He eyed Aunt Odie up and down. She beamed. Petted her dress.
Past Paulie, the room was like a hole. Maybe even darker because of the morning outside. The blue of the OPEN sign made the furniture look like monsters—or monsters like the furniture. A high-backed sofa. Three chairs. Was that a bear in the corner or a hutch? Would this medium turn on a light or what?
“Have a seat,” Paulie said when we crowded into the foyer. He gestured to two chairs, then moved himself faster than I thought someone his size could, to his own chair, where he plopped with a sigh behind a small table. I could hardly see him, it was so dark. I could hardly see Aunt Odie, who was close enough to touch.
We sat. Pulled in tighter.
Outside it sounded like the storm stood right over us. When lightning split the sky, it was as if someone had flashed an old-fashioned camera in the room. Then slammed a fist onto the roof.
The smell of rain almost covered the smell of cinnamon.
“Those are for later,” Paulie said.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Let me hold your hand.”
Aunt Odie giggled.
She extended her fingers to him.
Did she . . . did Aunt Odie have a crush on Paulie? I looked from my aunt to Paulie to Aunt Odie again. Did they? Like each other?
“Not you, Odie. Evie,” Paulie said. “I need to see her hand if you want any help here. I’ve already looked at yours.” In the darkness they stared at each other. Smiling.
“Of course,” Aunt Odie said. She sounded like a movie actress.
Just like that I thought about Buddy. His hair black as this room. Eyes too brown to look at. Would he ever smile at me the way these two smiled at each other? Did I want him to? Was I too young for a serious sixteen-year-old boyfriend?
“So there’s someone you’re interested in?” Paulie’s touch was like electricity.
“Not really,” I said. My face burned, and not because I’d lied. I hadn’t. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Buddy.
Except I wanted him to kiss me.
But I didn’t let him.
Maybe I never would.
Who knew?
“Pay attention,” Paulie said. “You’re thinking of everything but what we’re supposed to be doing here.”
I tried to focus.
Aunt Odie shifted in her seat. Thunder shook the walls around us. The line of pictures hanging there chattered. “It’s her birthday, Paulie,” Aunt Odie said. “Her special birthday.”
“I know that, Odie,” Paulie said, like the news wasn’t fabulous or news at all. “Let’s see.” He bowed his head. Fingered the silk of the tablecloth.
How could he see anything, my palm included, in this gloom?
“Sometimes I know things,” I said, trying to be helpful when Paulie didn’t speak at once. “Or I dream stuff.”
“You don’t need to tell me anything.” In the near darkness he peered into my eyes. His skin seemed to glow.
I blinked.
“Besides, everyone can do that,” he said, “if they pay attention. Nothing unique about knowing or dreaming.”
Lightning hit the house then. For a moment I was stone deaf.
Aunt Odie let out a scream, but I almost couldn’t hear her. For sure I saw her mouth go wide.
My fingers tingled like the electricity had traveled through my body.
The room lit up bright as day. I saw us all in there, like a photograph. Like I stared at a picture of the room instead of participated.
Paulie and I gripped hands, and he stared in that bright light, right into my eyes. Into my brain and heart and maybe into my blood vessels.
His mouth dropped open. His fingers squeezed mine.
“Ouch,” I said.
All that in less than the blink of an eye.
Paulie stood then, without warning. Knocked his chair to the floor behind him. Stumbled. “Wow. Whoa. No. Nonono.”
“Nothing,” he said. He turned from us, took a couple of steps toward a darkened doorway. “I see nothing special about her as far as a Gift.” His voice was two octaves higher, at least.
Aunt Odie didn’t speak.
Neither did I. Had some ancestor heard me wonder about not wanting the family Gift?
Then Aunt Odie said, “Well.”
My heart fluttered.
“So.”
I was . . . what? Embarrassed? “I didn’t really think . . . ,” I said, whispering.
“I see.”
I was an oddball. A Messenger oddball. In the darkness I accepted the fact. There’s an oddball in every family. Sometimes two. Aunt Odie said so.
Now she stood. “Are you sure, Paulie? She seems different from the others.” She worried at the hibiscus she’d stuck behind her ear. Mine, I noticed, was in full bloom, open-throated, on the table.
“You have to go.” Paulie waved a hand around. “I mean, I have to go. There are cinnamon rolls on the kitchen counter. I made them for you. From one of your mixes. You know the way, Odie.”
He reached behind him and seemed to pull a raincoat from thin air. Then he was gone.
I hadn’t wanted the Gift.
Not really.
Ask anyone. The Gift’s trouble with a capital T. Or maybe I should say a capital G.
Still, a bit of disappointment settled in my stomach, right near the over-medium egg. It squiggled around in the yolk, then rested in the hash browns.
You think all your life you’re going to be something. Have a talent. Be able to, I don’t know, get rid of warts by buying them for a few pennies (Great-Grandmother Price) or make people fat using a turnip and a little candle wax (Mary, my cousin twice removed).
You think you’re going to be a Messenger woman when you turn fifteen, and even if you sorta want to be like your friends at school, you accept there’s a part of yourself that’s different.
But no.
I wished it and I got it.
I was an oddball.