His jaw dropped. "Bella?"
I vaguely registered Tyler and Brynn exchanging startled glances, but I didn't have time for them then. "Holy crap! How long has it been? Nine years, ten? You live in Louisiana now?"
"Er, yeah. When Mom remarried--"
"Your parents split?" Wow. That was a shocker. They'd been so tight the last time I saw them. But that was years and years ago at a McDonald's in Mississippi, halfway point between Ville Cachée and Birmingham, where he'd been living at the time. Anything could've happened since then and clearly had.
"Actually, Dad died."
I gasped and pressed my hand to my thudding heart, which was somehow back in my chest. "Oh no. When?"
"About a year after you and I--" He abruptly braked. "You know what? I can't do this. I mean really can't." Pivoting, TC Ray aka Cooper Marsh aka the love of my life, vanished into the boisterous crowd yet again.
I spun to face Brynn and Tyler. "What just happened?"
"I believe that's my question," said Brynn. "You really do know him?"
"Oh yeah."
Tyler dragged his Scooby-Doo hood off his damp blond curls. "From where?"
I started to tell them, but instantly had second thoughts. I didn't know where Cooper stood as far as revealing his gifts, and it wasn't my job to out him if he hadn't. "We met as little kids."
"How little?" asked Brynn.
"I'm not sure. Six, maybe?" I lied, of course. I knew exactly how old we'd been.
"And you went by Bella then?"
I managed a laugh. "Don't you remember me going through that stage?"
"Yeah, but we were in third grade. I know that because you drove Mrs. Mason nuts about it."
Ah. Dear Mrs. Mason. So patient with little girls who loved make believe. I abruptly changed the subject to keep from going there. "Wow it's getting hot in this old gym. Is it time for a getaway?"
"Finally!" Tyler mopped his face with the hood of his costume. "I wanted to leave before I got here."
"Could you be more of a dud?" Brynn sashayed past him and made for the closest exit.
Tyler and I looked at each other. I'd never seen him so baffled and tried to explain without giving away Brynn's vacillating feelings for him. "You could've danced with her at least once."
"Why?"
"Because she doesn't have a boyfriend and, unlike me, won't dance alone."
"And that's my problem?"
Giving up on him, I trailed after Brynn, just bursting through the double doors into the night. The cool air felt deliciously refreshing. "Is your stepdad coming for you?"
"No, thank God. I told him I'd catch a ride with someone."
"Good. I'll take you home." Feeling the weight of someone's stare, I glanced over my shoulder. TC, standing in the shadows with his eye on me. I knew he wanted to talk, which was good, because I did, too. "On second thought...will you hate me if I don't?"
Brynn's gaze followed mine. She softly gasped. "Of course not. Um, good luck."
"Thanks."
"I'll drive you," said Tyler, who'd finally caught up with us.
She gave him a reluctant nod. As they walked to his truck, I heard him say, "If you wanted to dance, you should've told me."
"Who said I wanted to?"
He flicked a backward glance my way, but didn't spill the beans. "No one. It was just a feeling..."
"Leave the feelings to Mia, okay?" Their voices faded to nothingness.
TC walked over, his hands stuffed into his front pockets. "Hey."
"Hey."
"We should talk."
"Ya think?"
"Patrick doesn't allow anyone to sit in parked cars on campus, but we can find a corner inside where no one will hear us."
So he called his stepdad by his first name just as Brynn did. Interesting. I glanced at my watch. It was only eleven-fifteen. Since the dance didn't officially end for another forty-five minutes, I wasn't expected at home just yet. "All right. But it's really loud in there."
"We'll be okay." TC already had the gym door open and was waiting for me to enter first, which I quickly did. We kept to the edge of the room, winding our way through the diehard antisocials still edging the walls until we reached the hay bales. TC moved a couple of the pumpkins so we could sit.
I spoke first. "So what am I supposed to call you? TC or Cooper?"
"I go by Cooper now. The TC thing was a nickname my dad gave me. After he died, it didn't feel right anymore, so I went with the C part--Cooper--which is my middle name. Why are you Mia?"
"I've actually always been Mia, well, except for when I was on TV with you. Bella, was going to be my stage name." I laughed at the memory of my childhood delusions. "Guess I never told you any different." I picked at a piece of straw on my dress. "I'm really sorry about your dad. What happened?"
"He had a knee replaced. A clot formed and went straight to his heart in spite of the blood thinner. Mom moved back to Louisiana to be near her folks right after the funeral."
"No wonder we lost touch. I wrote and wrote..."
He flushed and began to study the floor. "Mom remarried about a year after that to Patrick Marsh. He was just a teacher then."
"And he adopted you?"
"Yeah."
I felt a couple of spirits hovering. "Not now, okay?"
Cooper looked both ways to see who I was talking to, frowning his confusion when no one was there.
I shifted my full attention to him in bewilderment. "You don't feel them?"
"Feel who?"
"Those spirits."
"Oh. No, not anymore."
My breath caught in my throat. "You mean you lost your sidekick?"
"Years ago."
My eyes brimmed. I laid my hand over his. "That's horrible."
"Horrible?" He took his hand back. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I mean, who really wants to be a freak?"
Freak. The label every misunderstood psychic on the planet dreaded; the label I couldn't believe he'd just used. "Me?"
Cooper clearly didn't buy it. "Don't tell me you've never wished you weren't different."
"Only at first. "The Inner Eye" changed everything for me. For you, too. That's what you said, anyway."
"That was for the cameras, as in me trying to give our producer the happy ending he wanted. After all, he'd paid our way out there." He moved his hand in front of us, face level, as if he were placing subtitles there. "Misfit Psychics and Their Families Find Peace in One Short Weekend."
Cooper's sarcasm stunned me. No one had been listening in on the heart-to-hearts we'd had during those three days. Why had he been lying then? "So it was all an act?"
"Every bit."
"Even...us?"
"What us?"
Could he have sounded any colder? I didn't think so. "Our friendship. Was that why you stopped answering my texts, emails, and letters? Because I was a pest instead of a friend?"
He hesitated just long enough for me to get the message.
"Oh my God. It was! Wow." Feeling like a knife had just been shoved into my heart, I jumped up and right ran out of the gym. In seconds, I was sitting in my car boohooing like a baby. I slid down in the seat just in case Cooper had followed and might be looking in cars for me, but I knew that he hadn't. Why would he?
I was a freak.
When my tears slowed enough for me see, I drove straight home. My first instinct was to wake up my mom and sob on her shoulder. I didn't, though. For some reason I couldn't bear the thought of my parents thinking badly of Cooper. Gut instinct told me things might not be what they seemed, and I always trusted gut instinct. Or maybe I simply couldn't believe my very first crush would really do that to me.
Either way, I stripped and showered instead, standing under the warm spray a long time and not just because I was washing hair with way too much hairspray in it. I couldn't get my mind off Cooper.
How could he have fooled me, a girl with sidekicks, so thoroughly? Surely I'd have picked up on his insincerity...or not. My talents were mostly limited to feeling, seeing, and communicating with the dead, though I had occasional flashes of insight that involved the living. Cooper's had gone far beyond that. He'd not only communicated with spirits, he'd picked up thoughts and emotions from the living, as well.
How sad that he'd lost his gifts. The thought of losing mine made me sick to my stomach. I honestly couldn't imagine my life without the ability to help people consumed by grief or guilt. The resulting rush I got was addicting, and so much a part of my own mojo that I was sure I'd have an identity crisis if I couldn't do it anymore. Was that what had happened to Cooper? Nothing else could explain why he'd changed so drastically.
Before I fell asleep that night, I decided to have a little chat with my spirit guide, an elderly male presence I'd named Nick, as in Old Saint. Yeah, he could've doubled for Santa Claus right down to the white beard he always presented. He'd first showed up when I was seven, and I'd been terrified of him since he seemed to be stalking me. Then the "Inner Eye" psychic had explained how spirits were sometimes there to guide and protect us. We'd summoned him; I asked his name; he told me his story.
With a lot of help from the psychic, who had guides of her own, I learned that Nick had been sent by my deceased grandpa, a man who'd kept his own sidekicks secret. Gramps didn't want me to go through that alone. From that moment on, I'd felt safe in the knowledge that no evil spirits--and I'd been told there were some--would get to me with Nick anywhere around.
"Hey, are you there?" I asked aloud. An apparition actually manifested at the foot of my bed, which was rare. I usually felt more than I saw.
Always.
"Do you know about Cooper?"
I do.
"What do you think?"
He's hurting.
"Knew that. Can I help him?"
Yes.
"Thought that. Tell my granddad, 'hi.'"
Tell him yourself.
I smiled at the spirit now fading to nothing. "Night, Gramps." A warm, fuzzy feeling was my reply.
* * * *
I loved Sunday breakfasts, especially when the morning sun streamed through the kitchen window. Mom always made pancakes, a favorite at our house. Today she shaped them like pumpkins in honor of Halloween, which was tomorrow. I sat across from Dad who was reading a Martinsburg Times headline: Body of Second Homicide Victim Found.
"Yikes," I said. "Do you think we have a serial killer?"
"I think some bored journalists wish we did," said my father, ever the skeptic.
That made me smile. "I saw TC Ray last night."
Mom bobbled the plastic spatula she held and turned away from the griddle, obviously surprised. "Where?"
"At the dance. Would you believe he's lived in Martinsburg for years? Goes by Cooper Marsh now."
She frowned. "He changed his name?"
I told her about the death, remarriage, and adoption.
That got my father's nose out of his newspaper. "So TC has lived twenty miles away all this time and never called?"
"It's Cooper, Dad, and he lost his powers when his father passed, so maybe that's why."
"I'm sorry to hear it." Mom went back to her pancakes. She scooped the last ones from the griddle onto the platter. "He must've been so traumatized."
"Are you two going to hang out?" asked Dad.
I shrugged. "I honestly don't know. He was...different. I'm not sure we have anything in common anymore."
Mom sent a smile of sympathy my way. I guess she remembered how attached we'd been and my subsequent heartbreak. He'd been the first boy I ever loved, after all, even if I was only eight and way too young to understand stuff like that. "How'd he look?"
"Good. Taller and older. Short, messy hair now, but the same brown eyes and thick lashes. Probably plays football or basketball or both. Anyway, he looked fit enough."
With the platter in hand, Mom walked over to the table and sat, looking at me. I deliberately avoided her gaze and slid my fork under one of the steaming stacks so I could transfer it to my plate. Then I reached for the butter and syrup.
"Seeing you probably resurrected some old memories for him," said Mom after a thoughtful silence. "But I'll bet he'll come around."
She made it sound as if I were disappointed, and though she was right, I really didn't want my parents to feel sorry for me. I changed the subject. "How many appointments do I have this week?"
"Just one." Mom, who acted as my manager to protect me from the public, now beamed at me over her short stack. Nothing made Shelly and Tug Tagliaro prouder than the scheduled readings their only daughter gave each week and for a couple of reasons. First, they loved seeing the difference it made in people. So many times clients who'd been burdened by a death left me smiling and at peace. Second, the small fees I charged were going toward my college education. That was important. As a mostly B, occasional C student, I wasn't going to get a free ride anywhere.
Did I feel guilty about making people pay? Sometimes I struggled with it. But more than one experienced psychic had told me charging would not only give my gift validity, but keep me from being overwhelmed with needy people. Not that I didn't pass along information if a spirit showed up at the mall or a restaurant and pointed out someone who needed a message. I did that all the time and for free. But anyone except law enforcement specifically requesting my help paid for my services.
My plan was to attend a reputable college offering a degree in metaphysics. I figured the courses would help me hone and even expand my talents as well as give me better options to make a living with them. Weird? Absolutely. But I was sure that my parents, who owned Tagliaro's Fine Italian, would always keep me grounded.
After breakfast, I did the homework I should've done Friday night just to get it over with. My thoughts kept straying to Cooper. Would I see him on Monday? I thought not. We didn't have any classes together, and I doubted he'd look me up. In his eyes I was a "freak." He'd made that very plain.
Brynn called around two to ask what had happened after she and Tyler left me the night before. I told her everything I could, of course, but still kept the details of our past secret. Twenty minutes later, she was standing at my front door. We spent the rest of the afternoon in my room, lying across my bed and verbally bashing first Cooper and then Tyler, who'd been even grumpier than he was at the dance while driving her home.
Our conclusion? Guys were way more trouble than they were worth.