CHAPTER SEVEN

MY PHONE CHIMED GENTLY and I pulled it off the nightstand to see Evelyn texting me. My head had hit the pillow when everyone else’s did—well, I don’t know if Morty’s hit a pillow or the whole damn floor because the house shook and had aftershocks for a good twenty minutes after—but I hadn’t gotten to sleep yet. I read the screen with one eye open, hoping if I kept the other eye closed I might have a chance of falling back to being nearly asleep.

Invites???

I groaned. Somewhere in the depths of my backpack, I had a fistful of them I’d totally forgotten, and a promise was a promise. I scrunched a foot out from under the covers and hung it over the side of my bed, fishing with my toes until I found a canvas strap and hoisted up my backpack onto the covers. I thumbed back Wait a min and put the phone aside while diving into the depths of the bag. Hockey clothes—ew, totally forgot about them, too—I needed to drop them into a speed wash tonight and hope the machine didn’t wake everyone up. I shuffled downstairs, threw a few things into the washer, and set it up, phone screen lighting my movements from my pajama pocket and hands dealing through the various envelopes.

Funny what a difference handwriting makes. Or even the ability to print decently. The educated side of me wanted to toss the bad ones aside immediately, but I pushed that impulse down. At least the guy hadn’t made his mom address the invite! We’d already tossed two out that had been handled that way. Still squinting with one eye, I trudged back to my room with possibilities in one hand and ughs in the other.

I opened the most intriguing one first, naturally, sliding soft lavender colored paper out of its matching envelope. A delicate branch of cherry blossoms decorated the upper left-hand corner and, as I scanned to the bottom, it was no surprise to see that Joanna Hashimoto had penned it. Joanna had never been close to us, but her father was backing Evelyn’s father in the election. So the invite hadn’t been shocking. Well, it was and wasn’t. That the letter seemed almost an art project wasn’t startling, I had seen Joanna’s papers over the years and always admired the serene beauty of them—but that she’d sent this to Evelyn, well. That opened both my eyes. I scrubbed the lazy one a bit before focusing on the letter.

Wow. She had planned not only for the night of the auction, but for the day too. Pickup for a light tea lunch cruising down the river, followed by a massage and a custom makeup artist, then dinner at her father’s restaurant, which was stellar in all respects, with American and Japanese pavilions (including those delicate paper sliding screened doors to divide a few rooms, I’d heard). The food got raves. The country club with its golf course, restaurant and spa was a sprawling, high-class destination. From dinner, of course, they’d just trot across the greenbelt to the country club meeting rooms where the bash would be held. I’d no idea if Joanna was sending signals or just thought that girls ought to have fun, but Evelyn needed to have a look at this one.

By the time the third yawn hit me, I’d found two other fairly coherent auction plans and set them aside to text her. I led with Joanna. The screen stayed blank for a very long moment, and then Evelyn replied.

Joanna? Really?

I sent back an affirmative and the condensed version of the date.

Got back a lingering: Hmmmmmm.

Answered: Looks fun.

Another Hmmmmmm.

I keyed Time is running out, you know. Then I followed up with the other two she might consider, because she’d turned down the twelve I’d sent her over the last few weeks.

I could see on the screen that she was still connected, if quiet.

Then she sent WTH. Drop off Joanna’s invite too. Sounds like fun.

I told her I’d do it in the morning and closed the phone down. My work there was done. I put my head back a minute, trying to imagine myself at the auction. I wasn’t even sure I’d ever wanted to go. I remembered daydreaming once that it would awesome to go, knock Carter’s socks off, and be the subject of a bidding war, but that had never really been in the cards. As if he’d ever ask. My plans could go up in flames and, unlike a phoenix, stay in ashes. What filled my mind instead whirled round and round in time with the washer downstairs, as if my thoughts were on spin dry. The professor. My dad. Morty. Brian. Steptoe. Remy. And the mysterious don’t-mention-his-name Malender. Downstairs, the washer let out a tiny melody letting me know it had finished the job, so I tiptoed down, threw everything in the dryer, and let it rip. Wrinkled in the morning was good enough for me.

I feel asleep thinking of Japanese pavilions with cherry blossoms drifting about and Evelyn tripping over the hem of her too-long kimono while firebirds flew in to carry me off into the horizon. I kept arguing with them until they finally dropped me, and that woke me up.

I hate falling dreams. I don’t like the part where your stomach knots up and feels as if it’s gone into another dimension. No slingshot roller coasters for me. If I want to scream, all I have to do is venture outside and let Steptoe pop out of nowhere again.

I fluffed my pillow up. Downstairs, a very low rumble sounded now and then, so deep in tone it sounded primal, as if the tectonic plates of the earth had shifted, and I realized Morty must be snoring. It was kind of comforting, almost like a white noise barrier against the deep night. I settled back in, intent on making it all the way till dawn when another, furtive, very quiet sound caught the edge of my hearing.

I hadn’t been listening, honest, but identified the unexpected: crying, soft and muffled, from my mother’s bedroom. We’d been through a lot together, but she rarely cried. I lay very still, hoping the sounds would stop.

They didn’t.

I slid my feet to the floor, cool and solid under me, and then got the rest of me out of bed as silently as I could. There are floorboards that creak in the hallway, but they can be avoided if you take the right steps, easy to remember on the faded pattern of the worn carpet. Nearly threadbare, its royal red and blue oriental pattern was a mere shadow of what it used to be, but Evelyn and I had discovered a pathway over it that kept it silent. You know, just in case. I traced the way, stopping every now and then to see if my target still showed distress. She did.

Finally, at the door, I took a deep breath. Knocked and opened it anyway, edging inside. “Mom?”

The noise halted and then she said, “I’m all right, honey. Go back to bed.”

Instead I went and perched on the corner of her mattress. “It’s not all right.”

She gave a little, choked laugh, blew her nose and turned on the small bedside lamp. It cast a very faint glow into the dark of the room. I smiled at her face.

My mom cries like a movie star. Her complexion gets dewy, her eyes brim with wetness, and the tears flow in exquisite streams down her cheeks to her chin. She still looks awesome. I, on the other hand, cry ugly. Blotchy, red, bloated disgusting ugly. My freckles pop out. Luckily for both of us, we rarely resort to tears. She reached out and grasped my hand.

“I’m sorry, Mom. About this whole mess. Tell me and I’ll kick ’em to the curb. They can do what they want on their own.”

“It’s not that.”

“Sure it is. It’s wicked strange, and I’ve decided I don’t want to be in the middle of a Harry Potter book. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. You’re worried and that’s not right.”

“Well, I am a little worried.”

“See?” I squeezed her hand back. “In the morning, I’ll pack them up and tell them where to go, politely. Like to Washington and stuff. I can’t handle the weird stuff either.”

“You can’t?”

I shook my head vigorously.

“I thought you were solidly in the camp declaring that magic is just science that hasn’t been discovered yet.”

“That’s a saying?”

She inclined her head.

“Wow. Still, if you’d seen what I’ve seen . . .” I stopped dead at that one, deciding that shadow hounds in a pack and raven eavesdroppers weren’t going to make her feel any better. Nor would knowing whatever had been big enough and bad enough to do in Morty’s heavy cudgel. “I’m sorry if I worried you. I’ll let them go on this thing on their own.”

“If that’s what you want, but that’s not why I’m . . .” She sniffed and waved her hand clutching a soggy tissue.

“Then why?”

“I miss your father. I know, I know—” She held my hand tighter to keep me from turning away. “You asked. The least you can do is listen.”

My back had gone stiff. “Right.”

“Seeing those clothes of his walking around again just reminded me of when we were both young, and I could trust him.”

I had to do something but without any clear idea of what, I decided to give her a fresh tissue. She took it with a sigh.

“What would you do if he came back?”

I shrugged. “What would you do?”

“Make sure he was clean and sober. I guess that’s the phrase, even with gambling.”

“He’d have to be! He can’t ruin everything all over again.”

“We wouldn’t let him,” Mom told me. “This time we’d know.” She squirmed around in the bed until she sat next to me.

“I don’t know. What if he’s not really even? . . .”

“Still alive?”

I nodded, a miserable knot of something holding back the rest of my words.

“I’d like to say that I’m one of those people who’d somehow know if their loved one is gone or not, but I’m not, and I’m not sure anyone really is.”

“Seems impossible, huh?”

“It does. It’s a difficult world out there. Anything can happen.” She blew her nose again, softly, daintily. It made me grin and she put an elbow to my ribs. “I can’t help it if you’re snotty.”

“Yeah, well. It’s DNA.” I scratched my head. “The professor mentioned he’d had ‘a dealing’ with Dad.”

“Really?” She set her jaw and thought hard. “I don’t think they even knew—no, wait. There was that big cross-college society meeting about three years ago. The professor—doctor, really—was giving one of the talks. It was a fundraiser, very academic, a little stuffy. I was very intimidated, but your dad and Brandard got on like a house on fire.”

“Don’t say that.”

“What? Oh. No.” Her face pinked. “You know what I mean. They talked for quite a while. Your dad valued pragmatic intelligence, you know.”

“The professor is a wizard. How pragmatic is that?”

“You never know. Maybe that’s what it takes to make magic.” She smiled a little and dabbed at her nose again. “I’d forgotten that.”

“Morty says the professor is very good at finding things. And people.”

She looked at me. “Really.”

“Besides our friendship, that’s one of the reasons I decided to help him. I was going to ask, before all this—” I waved my hand.

“Do you think it will do any good?”

I shrugged. “And if it does, is it something we want?”

“I really love your father, Tessa. How about you?”

“I did. The other dad.”

“It’s the same dad.”

I shook my head, hard. “No. Not at all.”

She squeezed my hand again. “It’s more complicated than that.”

I stood up. “It shouldn’t be. Giving everything you’ve got for the people you love shouldn’t be complicated at all.” I uncurled my hand from hers. “Anyway, unless you tell me not to go, I’ve got a big day planned for tomorrow.”

“Ditching school?”

“That’ll be the start. Missing a class now and then is practically a college tradition.” Silence followed me as I went to the door and left.