Ask Me (2 page)

“Oh,” said Gran. She put the paper down on the table.

“What?” I asked. There was something about the way she’d said it that made me think of how she sounded when she talked about my mom, her absentee daughter.

“A hit-and-run.” She slid the newspaper even farther away on the table, like she could push death away. “One of those farmworkers of Dale Walker’s. Happened near Laurel Creek last night …”

“An illegal, I bet,” said Granddad. He wasn’t a big fan of Dale’s or his business practices. He had a reputation for being cheap and cruel to his workers, at least according to Granddad. We heard about it a lot at the breakfast table. Living in a small town meant everything was everyone’s business. Besides, Granddad had worked on a farm when he was young, and he still complained about the blisters. I think it morally offended him that Dale never actually broke a sweat himself. Slave labor, he called it.

“There’s nothing here that says he was,” Gran said, waving at the paper.

“What was his name?” Granddad replied.

“Armando Huerta,” said Gran and I at the same time.

“But I don’t see how that matters anyway,” continued Gran sharply. “Same result. A man is dead, and he’s left behind his wife, Gabriella, along with three young kids. It’s a shame, is what it is.” Gran bent her grey head down to say a quick prayer. I ducked mine as well, though I really didn’t have anything to say.

“Yeah.” Granddad was quiet a moment, though he didn’t bow his head down like Gran. “Still, I’d bet good money it’s Dale’s fault somehow. Probably had the poor guy out working late or something. Wouldn’t be surprised if he ran him over himself.”

Gran raised her head. “Drop it, Porter,” she said sternly. “You’re like a dog with a bone.”

“I’m just saying,” continued Granddad, worrying his pancake into shreds. “You think Dale even noticed the guy didn’t show up for work today?”

“No,” I answered unwillingly. “Not until the police showed up.” Gran threw Granddad a menacing look, but he was on a roll and didn’t even notice he’d asked a question.

“You see,” he said, waving his fork in the air, stabbing at nothing to make his point. “Who do you think even found the poor guy? Not Dale, I’d bet you that.”

Everyday kind of questions didn’t really have much effect on me, other than causing me to spew out some kind of answer. They were nuisances, like mosquitoes buzzing around my head, and were gone as soon as I spoke my answer. But big questions, life-or-death kind of questions or questions deeply felt, those had a way of hitting me directly in the middle. This one sailed right through me,
leaving a dull burning sensation in my stomach. “Guts and blood—red is everywhere.” I spit out. “Love lost. Anger fills her.” I felt my face flush and then grow pale. “
Useless …
except rage takes away …” A small moan escaped my lips. Oh, God, the pain. For a moment I felt like the wife, staring down at her husband in a puddle of blood on a dirty road.

I fumbled for my glass and took a big sip, trying to ignore the way my hand shook until I dropped it, my pancakes cushioning the blow and saving the glass. Juice spread across the table in a sickly orange film. Gran jumped up to grab a towel from the kitchen.

“Sorry about that,” said Granddad, dropping his fork into the sticky mess as he grabbed his own napkin to staunch the flow. “Always forgetting and running my fool mouth, aren’t I?”

“Yes. It’s okay,” I said, breathing through my mouth, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to drink juice again for a while, not that it would be a big loss. A metallic taste filled my mouth, like blood. “I need to get to school anyway. Sorry about the mess, Gran.”

“No worries,” she said, hurrying in with the towel. “You go on. Take another pancake with you. You need to eat, especially after that. Get something in your stomach.” She whacked Granddad in the back of the head, and he nodded meekly.

I took a fresh pancake from the platter, knowing I would throw it away as soon as I was far enough down the road that they couldn’t see me.

I rolled down the windows in my ancient Dodge Colt as I drove, trying to ignore the way my stomach was still twitching. Even this early in the morning, the heat in the car sucked at me, and I let myself sink into it like it was a blanket. The air-conditioning in the Colt had breathed out its last long before I took possession of it, and only three of the four cylinders actually worked. But it ran. Besides, even with no air and the slow pace, it was better than the hour-long bus ride to Lake Mariah High School filled with kids and their questions. I had been saving up for a car since my freshman year, though I still wouldn’t have been able to afford one if Granddad hadn’t traded our lawn mower and some tools with one of Dale’s workers.

It was worth it. Every bus ride had been a small trip through hell. Whatever it was that made me answerable to everyone didn’t care whether a query was actually directed at me, only that I could hear it. Answers burned inside me,
even for rhetorical questions. Watching quiz shows on TV gave me a headache for days, and it had nothing to do with the annoying hosts. Grandpa joked that I’d clean up if I went on a show, but I knew there was no way I could survive it.

I tossed the pancake out the window when I reached the main county road, and my tires hit pavement. I watched in my rearview mirror as it sailed out into a copse filled with oaks and pines, dripping with Spanish moss. The pancake would likely be gone in an hour or two, devoured by any number of creatures. Florida may be full of retirees and tourists, but in the center of the state, the wilderness still ruled. Once you came in from the beaches and the sherbet-colored coastal towns, you were in old Florida. It had teeth.

I was born in Michigan, in the cold and the snow, but four years here had made me a child of the heat. I did not miss the cold or the brittle stares of the girls who had once been my friends, before my gift had turned them against me. Who wants a friend who only speaks the truth?

We lived a good half-hour from town in our little shanty shack, which suited me fine, even with the long ride into school every day. The only time I felt at peace was out in the forests and wetlands. There the only sounds you could hear were the endless chants of the cicadas and the low buzzing whine of mosquitoes. They, at least, were honest bloodsuckers. They never questioned me.

Too soon, I pulled into the school parking lot. I parked in the no-man’s-land by the mosquito-filled drainage ditch, grabbed my drab, army green backpack, and put
my headphones in. I just had a cheap, store-brand MP3 player, but it was the one thing that got me through the day still sane. I turned it on and cranked it up before I headed into the main building. Even with it on, I kept my eyes down and headed straight to my locker. You never knew when someone might shout out a question—“Hey, how was your weekend!”—loud enough to break through the music. Mumbling answers mostly worked, but it definitely wasn’t foolproof and if I was sufficiently surprised, my answer always seemed to come out too loud. If I could get away with listening to my MP3 player in class, my life would be a lot easier.

Someone bumped their shoulder into me, dislodging my backpack and one of my earphones. I looked up into the sneering face of a boy. Hank? No, Tank. A nickname, I assumed. Surely his parents would never have guessed that he’d turn into such a hulking specimen when he was first born.

“Freak,” he said and slammed his shoulder into me one more time for good measure, knocking my backpack the rest of the way off of my arm and onto the floor.

I stumbled, catching myself on a girl’s arm to keep from falling, making her spill the contraband soda she was carrying. It splashed all over the front of my skirt, missing her entirely. She threw me off with a look of absolute revulsion, making me wish I actually did have the plague or leprosy so I could pass it on to her.

“What’s your problem?” she said. “Get off me.”

“I can only live the future, not see it,” I said.

Probably a deeper answer than what she was looking for,
but she walked on without waiting for a response, anyway. I put my stray earphone back in and flicked the volume louder. Then I went after my backpack, which had been kicked farther down the hall by some of Tank’s friends. I snagged a shoulder strap before anyone else could kick it again and turned against the crowd to go to the bathroom to see what I could do about my soaked skirt. I was sure jokes about me having peed myself were swirling around me, but all I could hear now was The Dandy Warhols. I let my hair fall around my face as I nodded my head in time to the music, my eyes downcast and half closed.

I pushed the door to the bathroom open. There were two girls standing in front of the one mirror that hadn’t been completely defaced by Sharpies. The blonde one was leaning over the sink, shoulders shaking. The brown-haired one turned her head as I came in, a pained look on her pretty face. Delilah Jenkins, which meant that the other girl had to be Jade Price. Delilah never went anywhere without Jade. Or, rather, Jade never went anywhere without Delilah following along behind. Delilah said something to me, gesturing wildly at the same time. Against my better judgment, I stopped and pulled an earphone out.

She pursed her lips and blew out a stream of air, exasperated with me already. “Get out,” she snapped. “Can’t you see we’re busy?” She glared at me as I stood half in, half out of the doorway. A mother hen protecting her chick.

“I only see pain and tragedy,” I said softly, but apparently loudly enough that Jade heard.

Jade lifted her head to look at me, her blue-green eyes red-rimmed. She looked strange and wild with her hair
hanging lank around her face. I was used to seeing her smiling and perfect, always in control.

She hiccupped once and put a hand on Delilah’s arm. “It’s only Aria,” she said, her voice raw. She’d been crying for a while. “Leave her alone, Delilah.” Gracious even in her sorrow, she waved a welcoming hand at me. “Don’t mind me, I’m just—” she hiccupped again “—having a crisis.” She managed a watery smile.

Even though she was popular—maybe even the most popular girl in school—Jade had always been, if not exactly my friend, at least kind to me. On a few occasions, my defender. I wasn’t the only one. She had risen to her adored status within the school not by climbing over the backs of others, but on the strength of her personality and her kindheartedness. Of course, it also helped that she possessed that brittle kind of beauty that made you want to protect her even as she protected you: those wide-set eyes set within a delicate, heart-shaped face, all framed by wispy pale blonde hair.

“Sorry,” I muttered. I went to a sink. Delilah sniffed but ignored my presence and went back to rubbing circles on Jade’s back.

The front of my skirt was soaked. I grabbed a handful of thin brown paper towels from the dispenser and dabbed at my leg. Luckily it was early enough in the day that there were actually still towels to be had. By the end of the day you were lucky to get toilet paper.

Being here with Jade reminded me of the first time she had saved me. As a freshman, before I had discovered that music would allow me to roam the halls relatively
unscathed, I had spent a good deal of time in bathroom stalls, cursing Gran for not letting me be homeschooled any longer. She said that someone who had barely finished high school herself had no business teaching “higher subjects.” But really she wanted to force me into dealing with people. She said I couldn’t hide at home forever. Instead, I wound up hiding in the john.

Then one day, snotty Shelley Roman asked me what my problem was. I stood wedged in the corner by the trash can, pretending to look at nothing. She had been watching me in the mirror as she put on mascara, her mouth half-open in a perfect moue. Bad timing for that particular question: my period had arrived early and with vengeance that morning. My answer said as much. Jade had been there, too. Instead of cackling with embarrassment and delight like Shelley and her crew, she’d kicked them out, given me some pads and ibuprofen, and stood guard at the bathroom door so I could have privacy until I was done. She ran off before I could even thank her. I wondered if she even remembered.

“Just tell me what happened,” Delilah said, bringing me back to the present. I got the feeling from her wheedling tone that it was the same thing she had been demanding of Jade before I arrived. “It can’t be
that
bad. Why won’t you tell me?”

My memories had gotten the better of me. I should have put my earphones back in, especially in such a small space. I whispered, “Some things can only be confided to the earth.”

Delilah had chosen to fall silent at exactly the wrong
moment. “Are you eavesdropping?” Her voice dripped disbelief.

“Yes,” I said, wanting to say no. I didn’t look up from brushing at my skirt, though the cheap paper towels had actually made the mess worse rather than better. They had disintegrated into shreds of muddy brown and were now plastered to the rough cotton of my skirt.

“What did you say, Aria?” asked Jade, her tone more curious than confrontational. Gentle, even. It occurred to me that perhaps she had been kind all these years because she, too, thought I was touched in the head.