Head Rush (33 page)

I toss my skates on the floor.

“Justine, we have not vanquished Otto yet. However,” she raises a finger, “we know where glasses are. In Self-Store Village out by suburb of Wild’s Way. Packard told you, no doubt.”

“He did.”

“So very perfect that Avery would choose Wild’s Way. Finding these glasses, being sleuth of Avery’s mind, it has made me love him more.”

“Wild’s Way.” I peel off my damp exercise clothes.

“There is new problem now, though,” she says.

“It will take longer to get them than you originally thought?”

She looks surprised. “Yes. Your wedding has triggered city to have holiday. Owner of Self-Store Village has gone on overnight fishing cruise. Out on Lake Michigan. We will get glasses, Justine, but we must hire speedboat to track him. Simon wants to break in, but I do not think that is best way, and I know Packard will agree. I know we will get glasses, Justine—” She tilts her head, twirls Gumby by his arm.

“Don’t change him,” I say.

“How did you know it would take longer?”

I pull a hotel bathrobe around me. “I saw Fawna.”

Shelby’s mouth falls open and she stops twirling Gumby. “And?” Gently, she sets Gumby on the table. “And?”

I swallow, unsure where to begin. Her eyes fall back on Gumby. She turns back to me, alarmed.

I give her the story of how Dad’s comment led me to find Fawna, and I tell her Fawna’s prognostication: if I fight Otto at the ceremony, my friends will walk in the sun again and Packard will grow to old age. But I will die.

“Justine!”

“But if I don’t fight Otto at the ceremony, Packard dies. I’m going to do it. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

“But, Justine—” Her eyes brim with tears.

“Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

She sinks to the bed. I sink next to her.

After a long moment, she says, “If I could go back to be shot in place of Avery, I would do so.”

“I know,” I whisper.

“Not merely that I
would
do so, I would exalt to do so.” She purses her lips, stares into nothing. “In both a dark and a bright way, I would exalt to take that death as my own. Do you understand what I mean, Justine?”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

She watches me, brown eyes grave. “I do not exalt in
this
, however.”

I touch her arm, feel the tears come. “I know.”

She shakes her head. Sucks in a breath. “You did not tell Packard, of course.”

“Definitely not,” I say. “He wants to move in together after this.”

“Oh, Justine.”

“It was really hard, Shelby. He wanted to talk about the future, and it was horrible. Even the idea of going to the movies tomorrow.”

“Packard hates the movies. After being imprisoned, the space is too dark and enclosed for him.”

“That’s just like him. To go just because I wanted to. To push through it.” I smile bitterly. “Well, that’s what I’m doing. I worried before that I wouldn’t be able to step up to the challenge, but I’m not worried now. Something’s different. He trusts me, and I trust myself, but it’s not just that”—I pause, trying to put my finger on what feels so different inside of me—“it’s like I trust life too. Things seem more solid somehow.”

“You have found your feet.”

“Yeah, and I’ll do this thing and if I die, okay, I’ll trust that’s how it had to be. But I’ll tell you something else—I know Fawna’s supposedly so powerful and has this perfect record, and I’ve made my peace with that. But other times, I think,
Screw it!
You know? I’ll make my own future. Nothing is written in stone! I want to step up and save everybody and after that, I want to live with Packard. I want to have dogs together.”

Shelby gives me a pitying look. “The bad things are almost always written in stone, Justine. I am sorry…” she shakes her head. “Oh, Justine, I do not exalt in this at all.”

I can’t help but smile. Of course Shelby would accept Fawna’s dark and dire prediction. “On the bright side”—I point at her—“I think I’m going to eat the most fried and potato-ey breakfast possible. And I already had one breakfast. But why not?”

Shelby sniffle-laughs. “Then I will too.”

“And, today, after I zing Otto, you’re supposed to zing him. You and Simon. You have to follow up right away. We’ll make him let everybody go, possibly even confess. Packard thinks he will confess. Jordan will be at the fun house, and she’ll call us as soon as they’re free.”

“Is your zing that will do it.”

I don’t feel quite as pleased about this as she does. “Packard was very keen on the combo,” I say.

Shelby nods. “Otto will have combo. But your fear, that is true weakness for Otto. Your fear is our cannon. And I will make sure that he pays. I will be there with you, like the second in old-fashioned duel. And I will help you get him and make him pay.”

“I don’t think
making the other guy pay
is what seconds in old-fashioned duels did. Seconds made sure the weapons were in order, and that the rules were followed, and sometimes they fought the other seconds.”

“I am different kind of second, for different kind of duel. And he will pay. In tears of agony he will pay.”

“You don’t need a death on your conscience, Shelby. And our friends don’t need it—”

She crosses her arms, clearly insulted. “I know.” She doesn’t appreciate my reminding her that if Otto dies, our friends are stuck in the fun house forever. But she doesn’t seem entirely in control.

I smile. Poke her arm. “I think this is the only wedding in history where the maid of honor considers herself to be just like a second in a duel.”

She narrows her eyes. She likes that. “You know, Otto will sense antihighcap glasses. As soon as I bring them into church, he will feel fields weakening.”

“But he won’t know who has the glasses. And once I put them on, his fields will be completely down.”

“You will render him pitiful.” Thoughtfully, she touches a finger to her cheek. “Packard must be nowhere near church.”

“He promised me he wouldn’t go in.” I tell her about his promise.

“His promise will not be enough if he believes you are in danger. I will hire somebody to detain him.”

“He’ll hate you,” I say.

“He will hate me already when he finds out I knew what Fawna saw. He will hate me for not telling him, not allowing him to die in your place. He will be right to hate me for that, but you are my best friend.”

I take her hand. She allows it. I say, “You have to give him Gumby, from me. Okay?” I pick Gumby up. “Gumby has to stay just like this. This is what Packard gave to me. You tell him that. This happiness. It was all worth it.”

She closes her eyes. Her coal-black lashes shine with moisture.

“It’ll all work out.” I stand. “I have to take a shower.

Shelby settles back in the couch. There’s nothing more to say. I look down at the table, at the
Midcity Eagle
. The headlines are all about Stuart the dream invader being captured, and then escaping again. Conspiracy theories abound.

It seems like somebody else’s story. Somebody else’s newspaper.

The shower is warm, and I let it pound my back and neck and head, washing off all that sex and sweat. It feels like I’m washing off a little bit of life.

Chapter Nineteen

The day passes like a fever dream. I wear my favorite green-wool dress, and I eat an outrageously fattening breakfast with the Daughters of Midcity Industry while they ask me questions about our planned Caribbean honeymoon and discuss the new port.

Shelby trades home décor tips with the women at her end of the table. They think she’s joking when she tells them she prefers holes in the walls, so that she can see the lathing and mouse nests, because that is what is really there, so why conceal it? She informs them that she paid extra to get the best view of the Tangle. I can very nearly mouth along with her at this point: “Do I want view of beauty? No! Pfft. I say, do not give me lies.”

Afterwards, I bundle up in the hat and coat that go with the wool dress and head out to the sunny, snowy Midcity graveyard with my bridesmaids, minus Shelby. The schoolchildren who meet us there are so fascinated with Simon, so taken with his strange fur coat, not to mention his bruised face, his tattooed chest, and his top hat, that they can barely remember the words of the songs to honor the Midcity dead.

The look of rapt wonderment Simon wears on his face while listening to the song makes the children giggle, and, judging by their facial contortions, has Ally and Ez dangerously close to hysterical laughter.

After that, there’s the laying of the flowers and the reading of the names. I don’t laugh at any part of this ceremony; I think it’s all lovely, and kind of meaningful. And the air is crisp and sweet, and the walks are shoveled so that they’re clean and dry; the snow elsewhere is new enough that it sparkles in the light. Even gnarled, old hickory trees look more glorious than usual, with their craggy, black fingers grasping at the sky. At the top of one of the hillocks I catch sight of the blue, blue lake, and I wonder if Shelby and Packard have caught up to the storage place owner yet. And I wish fervently that it was me on that boat with Packard.

The fitting of the wedding dress goes quickly, since there’s really nothing much to fit or alter. Even after that mammoth breakfast, my dress hangs just right; it’s a simple, elegant, tulle silk empire-waist dress with tiny straps, winterized by long gloves that stretch clear up over my elbows, and the white faux-fur coat that I’ll wear for the horse procession. The seamstress alters the length of the gloves, and there are last minute adjustments to my jeweled tiara. Ez and Ally have tagged along, plus some of my old friends from the dress shop.

I try not to think about what will happen. Unsuccessfully. I can feel my fear building, hot and grating inside of me. Well, there’s nothing I can do about it, except not let it stop me. That’s my thinking as I sit there with people buzzing around, asking me questions, showing me glittery jewels, and worriedly informing me that Shelby is nowhere to be found.

We do my hair opera-style, piled on top of my head and cascading down in ringlets behind my tiara. Sometimes I wish the wedding were finally on, so that it would all be over with. Other times the clock seems to be moving far too fast.

A big glass of champagne at the Fashionista fashion event does me good. Ally grows increasingly concerned that Shelby hasn’t shown, but Simon invents some explanation. I’m thankful, and as soon as we’re alone, the only two at our table, I take Simon’s hand. “Your friendship means a lot to me,” I say. “
You
mean a lot to me.”

Simon looks down at my hand and then sends his piercing gaze up into my eyes. His left eye looks more piercing than normal due to the dark bruise around it. “Spill.”

“Just that.”

“Liar,” he says.

“What?”

“This isn’t a real wedding. It’s just another day at the job. Why would you say something like that?”

“I can’t say that? When I’m about to do something dangerous?”

“Don’t bluff a bluffer, sister.”

I hesitate. The more people I tell, the more real it makes Fawna’s prognostication. But he is a good friend, and I tell him what she prognosticated.

And he laughs.

I whisper angrily: “Do contain your grief, Simon.”

“Justine, when they tell you that you’re screwed, that you’ve lost everything, that’s when the fucking game
begins
. You’ll beat the odds. I don’t care how stacked they are, there is
always
a way to pull it out of the fire. You have to decide not to accept it. Fuck Fawna and her predictions. If Fawna was standing right here, I’d say that to her face. God, I hate prognosticators.” He balls up a cocktail napkin and whips it onto the empty stage. “I hope she shows up at the wedding, so I can tell her she’s full of shit right to her face, and laugh at her when both you and Packard pull through.” He snorts. “This wedding is really shaping up. After you fight Otto, we should get the schoolchildren in there to serenade you.”

“Stop it.”

“They can sing you one of their insane songs as you walk out of that church unscathed.” Simon smiles, and I just start laughing suddenly, and I can’t stop. I’m laughing, but I’m crying a little. Then the makeup woman comes back. She’s not laughing.

Things begin to move with heightened speed. My bridal party—still minus Shelby, of course—takes a limo to the courthouse, which is the gathering point for the horseback procession. The parade will stretch about three blocks long, and Otto and his party will join it at the end, once it’s going. Midcitians don’t want the groom and bride intermingling any more than I do.

My dad emerges with difficulty from his limo, being that he’s decked out in his full hazmat exoskeleton. I introduce him to my friends. By this time they all know, all except Ally, that he’s the go-to guy if we end up needing weapons. Who knows if we will? No matter how hard we’ve hit the grapevines, nobody has been able to figure out what big thing Otto has planned.

Dad asks me if I found
our friend
, meaning Fawna, and I tell him it’s all good, all okay, and I smile. I guess that’s what I want him to understand—that if I do die, it’s all okay. It’s not a lie.

People want to hold up the procession to wait for Shelby, but I tell them to go forward, that she’ll catch up.

We’re matched up with our horses. All of us get our own horses to ride except for Dad, who will be riding along with a stable hand, because there is some fear that his gear will upset the horse. My horse, Mercurious, is white with gray spots. He’s strong and gentle. I have to ride with my legs off to the side—sidesaddle, they call it—with the help of a saddle that’s adjusted for that sort of thing.

We set off behind the new Midcity Chief of Police, who leads the procession, alongside two of the horse handlers. I ride between Dad and Simon, with Ez and Ally on the outer flanks, and we wave at the people lining the streets. More horse handlers are behind us, followed by the band and classic-car-riding dignitaries and baton-twirling groups, and more, with Otto and his party at the rear, presumably.