Crush Control (9 page)

Quinton sauntered over. He grabbed an empty desk and chair then picked them up into the air with no signs of strain, like he was lifting a Kleenex off the floor instead of a hunk of steel and wood. He placed them down into our mix. “Hey,” he said to Mia, not really even noticing me or Georgia.

“Where've you been?” Mia asked. “You weren't in history.”

Quinton shook his head slightly, like he was disgusted with himself. “I know, man. And we have a test on Friday. Can I borrow your notes?”

Mia nodded. “What happened?”

Quinton let out a long breath. “I woke up at my neighbor's house this morning—sleeping on their couch.”

“Sounds like a story there,” Mia said.

“Damn sleepwalking,” Quinton said. “It's getting worse. I've never left the house before.”

“You sleepwalked to your neighbor's?” Mia asked, wide-eyed. “How did you get inside the house?”

He shrugged. “Who knows?”

I laughed and he turned toward me, noticing I was there finally.

“Hey, it's the hypnotist girl,” he said.

I smiled at him, a small tingle coursing through my veins because he remembered a detail about me other than the humping dog, the M&M T-shirt, or Cher lyrics.

“Hypnotist?” Mia and Georgia asked at the same time.

Mia started to click the four different colors of her pen.
Click, click, click
.

“She's the Hip Hypnotist,” Quinton said, flashing a sparkly grin. “From Vegas.”

Another detail. My cheeks flushed. Suddenly I had this image in my head of me and Quinton and Mia huddled on the green chenille couch in my new house. Me with the top-of-the-pyramid people. A video of our hypnosis show would be on. They would be amazed at the volunteers, slumped in their chairs, heads fallen to the sides, performing like puppets on a string. They would laugh at all the shenanigans, ask if it was real, inquire how we got that stodgy old woman to kick her legs like a Rockette showgirl. But then I imagined what would happen next—Quinton's eyes would bulge and his mouth would drop open slightly.
That's your mother?
he'd drool as she walked around the stage in her tight black mini-dress with her long cascading locks of dark hair that framed her face.
She's so young.
And then Mia's forehead would crease as she realized that really it was Mom who was doing the hypnosis. I was just the sidekick, the girl next to the curtain, controlling the audio, moving the chairs, helping if any of the volunteers got too uncensored.

And then I'd be right back in familiar territory. New place, new school, new friends . . . exact same scenario: falling into the background. Always the sideline girl. I was tired of it.
New canvas,
I thought.
Blank slate. Reinvention.

So I closed
A Midsummer Night's Dream
and tucked it under my hands. I leaned forward on the desk and spoke in a hushed tone, like I was letting them in on a secret. “You know, some people think hypnosis is a crock—that it's fake—that we paid the audience members to act. But I can tell you with 100 percent honesty—it's real.”

Georgia inhaled a small gasp of excitement, and Mia and Quinton were fixed on my every word.

“When people think of hypnosis, they think of a zombie—someone compelled to obey no matter what's being asked. But that's not at all correct. Actually, when we hypnotize our volunteers, they're not asleep—they're alert the whole time. They're just deeply relaxed. When they're that relaxed, they tend to be highly suggestible. If someone tells them to do something, they embrace it wholeheartedly. Fear and embarrassment just . . . evaporate.”

A devilish grin played on Quinton's lips. “So you could make people do, like, whatever you wanted.”

I loved the sound of that—such control. I never really thought of it that way before, maybe because it was always Mom throwing out the commands. But I didn't tell them that. I smiled and enjoyed the spotlight. “Within reason,” I said.

“Awesome,” he said, and Mia and Georgia nodded in agreement.

Mrs. Stabile clapped her hands together in a sharp smack, interrupting my moment in the limelight, and told everyone that class was about over and that each group was to write a one-page homework assignment on what we discussed. The bell rang and everyone quickly gathered up their things.

Mia picked up the colorfully diagrammed paper and inserted it into the pocket of her notebook. She stacked her books into her bag. “I'll e-mail you the history notes after I type them tonight,” she said to Quinton.

“Thanks,” he said.

“I'll call you tonight,” Georgia offered to me. “We can work on the assignment together.”

“Thanks,” I said, still not knowing much more about
A Midsummer Night's Dream
than the complicated love triangle.

“So when are you going to show us some of this hypnosis?” Quinton asked, startling me. He tossed a backpack onto his broad, football-sculpted shoulders.

“Oh, I don't know,” I said. “It's not like I could do anything here at school.”

“What about this weekend at Jake's?” Quinton suggested, looking at Mia.

“What?” Mia asked, clearly taken aback.

I recalled Georgia's pyramid, with Mia and Jake at the top.

“It could be fun,” Quinton said. “Different, at least.”

Mia just stood there frozen as swarms of other students passed us on their way out of the room.

“No, no,” I said, waving my hand at the suggestion. “I don't want to crash.”

Georgia eyed me curiously, standing just ahead of us, pretending to walk toward the door but obviously eavesdropping.

“Plus, what if I did hypnosis and someone got mad at me because they were embarrassed?”

“Or
,” Quinton interjected, “it could be really funny. Because as I recall, outrageous antics sort of follow you around.” He gave me a crooked smile. He was so persuasive in a charming, cocky sort of way.

“I guess . . .” Mia squinted at me a little then looked over at Quinton, clearly not knowing the story of our encounter at the park. She started to move toward the door, maybe indicating that the conversation was over.

“Well, either way,” Quinton said to me, sounding like he was losing interest. He started to follow Mia toward the door.

And I knew I had to act now. If I hesitated, like I had on the porch with Max, the moment would be lost. I could lose a key opportunity to redefine myself. Instead of being the sideline girl, I could be invited to a top-of-the-pyramid party where I could have a chance at the spotlight for real.

“Okay,” I said, following behind them quickly. “I'd love to go to the party.”

“Cool,” Quinton said.

Mia smiled tightly. “Well, great.”

We walked into the hallway and the three of us went our separate ways. As I walked on to my next class, the realization hit me. I had done it. I had taken a chance. A surge of happiness floated up my spine. I was on my way.

When I got home, I flung my bag onto the counter and immediately dove into the stacks of DVDs lined up in the media cabinet. My heart pulsed because somewhere around sixth period I had realized my fatal error. Sure, excluding Mom from the stories today at school was exhilarating but now—the idea that they wanted me to do a hypnosis show was sobering because I had never actually done the hypnosis. Well, there was the one time when I attempted to hypnotize Max but he fell out of the tree before I could actually tell if he was truly under.

I had been onstage for five shows a week for years—I knew the routine, I knew the sequence of events . . . but could I do it? It felt like the first time I took Mom's car and drove on my own. I had been to my favorite Chinese restaurant a billion times, but had I ever really paid attention to how we got there? Could I make all the correct turns and find the right streets when it was just me behind the wheel?

I found a copy of one of our recorded performances and popped it into the DVD player with a notebook in front of me, pen poised to take notes. I watched my mother stand in front of the volunteers with confidence and control. “You're going to think it's not working,” Mom said with a little smile. “You're going to think you're not hypnotized.” She walked closer to them. “Close your eyes. Breathe in and out. Relax.”

I watched onscreen as the volunteers obeyed her every command. Such power. I wondered if anyone would ever follow instructions from me.

I had just propped Oompa on the coffee table and was improvising a trial run when the front door swung open. Mom walked in and stopped, frozen in the foyer.

“What are you doing?” she asked. She walked over and looked at herself on TV. She seemed lost in thought for a moment; then she turned the TV off. “Why are you watching that?”

I stood there like a thief caught red-handed.

She looked at Oompa sitting erect on the table, wide-eyed and a little dazed.

“Were you . . .” She bent over and snatched the fat dog into her arms. “Were you trying to
hypnotize
Oompa?”

“No, no,” I lied. “He was just so . . . homesick and I was trying to, um, make him feel better. Thought I'd let him watch the show and bring back some old memories.”

Mom's mouth cocked into a doubtful expression. “Oompa never saw any of the shows, Willow.”

I dramatically hit the side of my head with my hand. “Right! Silly me.”

Mom said something into Oompa's ear then put him back on the ground, and he ambled away, zigzagging across the carpet like he was confused. “Willow,” she said seriously, “what's going on? You're not going to show people this? Try and impress people or, God forbid, try and
perform
, are you?”

I threw on a big shocked expression. “What? No!” I waved my hand through the air as if to say,
How ridiculous.
“I've already made friends—no need to impress anyone. There's this other new girl, Georgia—she's really nice and she's calling me tonight to help with homework. And there's this guy, Quinton, and he invited me to a party this weekend.”

Mom seemed somewhat satisfied by this. “And Max? You two are all right? Even with Minnie in the picture?”

I nodded. “He picked me up and dropped me home from school. So maybe you were right—he will make time for me.”

She nodded. “Tell him I got that filter thing replaced in the car. Good thing he spotted it—the repairman said it was ready to go.” She kicked off her heels—black stilettos today—and wandered over to the wicker basket on the kitchen counter. She pulled out a bag of Otis Spunkmeyer cookies and tore it open, still looking at me suspiciously. She took a bite of a small cookie and swallowed, her gaze never leaving me. “I just really want to leave that life behind, okay? It was fun, sure, but like I said, it's time to grow up, use my potential, do something respectable. I don't want anyone around here to know about us performing in Vegas. Last thing I need is for one of Grandma's snobby friends from the garden club finding out.” She ate another cookie and looked a little sad.

I knew that Grandma had kept Mom's hypnosis show a secret. It had always made Mom upset that Grandma was embarrassed of her. I saw a small hint of red work its way across her cheeks. She examined the cookie wrapper as though she'd developed a sudden interest in the caloric content.

“Mom,” I said softly, “even if the show in Vegas wasn't something that Grandma liked, still, it's nothing to be ashamed of. People loved it. They loved you.”

She shook her head. “I don't need a pep talk, Willow. I just want you to promise me that performance hypnosis is a thing of the past. The only hypnosis in our lives now is the more respectable kind that I use at work for therapy.”

I looked at her soft, honey-colored eyes lined in ebony, and wondered if she was rehearsing for when we would see Grandma and Grandpa. I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “No hypnosis.”

And I wondered who I was going to disappoint: her, my new friends . . . or myself.

Saturday evening, I stood in my bathroom in my jeans and black top. I added another layer of black liquid liner to the rim of my eyelids, but all it did was make my pupils look darker, more bizarre. So I soaked a Q-tip in makeup remover and washed it away. Instead I asked Mom if I could borrow one of her necklaces.

“Sure, honey,” she said and rummaged through the pile of chains and beads on her dresser. She held up a thick silver chain with a round, heavy charm. She laid it against my chest.

I cringed. “It's kind of big and heavy.”

“Geez,” Mom teased. “Take a little fashion risk for once.” She put the necklace down and picked up another.