Head Rush (8 page)

We find each other’s specialties amusing; our dark natures click, like disillusionist puzzle pieces. What’s more, we read the same books, and we love eating and shopping together, and she’s a hoot at movies, especially if you trick her into going to a life-affirming one.

I wait, hoping she’s still okay with all this. I’d told Otto that having our wedding just two months after Avery’s death was too soon, but it was Shelby who talked me into it—literally out in the car after Avery’s funeral. It shocked the stuffing out of me.

“You must grab happiness while you can,” she’d said.

“You don’t even believe in happiness,” I’d reminded her.

She’d gazed over at the funeral home. “Of course, I do not. Is all doomed. But for a little while we can pretend it is not so.” And then she’d turned to me, there on that gray January day, and she’d said, “What is wrong with feeling safe and good?”

My line.

My line when she’d criticized my engagement to Otto just a week before that. She’d accused me of wanting to marry him out of fear, as a reaction to the shooting. And I’d said,
What’s wrong with feeling safe and good?

I watch the numbers above the elevator door flash, one after another, thinking about that bizarre conversation. It was as if we’d switched places, philosophically.

“Will be Camelot wedding,” she’d told me.

Camelot wedding.
This from the woman who says all celebrations are useless and empty. She’d insisted on being my maid of honor. She’d pressed me until I’d consented.

I’m startled out of my memory by the
ding
and the doors, and Shelby steps out, lush and lovely in her luxurious black curls and black outfit.

“Hello, Justine,” she says in her usual monotone.

“Hi, honey.” I go to her and squeeze her hands. She’s not a big hugger. She’s barely a toucher these days.

I take her black coat, missing the garish, clashing colors she used to wear. “How are you? What did you do today?”

She sighs. “Mooned around apartment.”

“Ah. Mooning. But no starring? No sunning?”

She doesn’t think that’s funny. We go into the living room and sit close to the fire. I serve us a glass of champagne from a bucket and tell her about getting back my car. She doesn’t seem surprised or unhappy about Simon being a bridesmaid, and even weirder, she isn’t angry about Packard’s visit or my failure to turn him in quickly.

Instead, she’s philosophical. “Why would he do this, Justine?” she asks. “Why should he take such a risk? To see you?” She asks this pointedly, as though she really wants me to come up with an answer. She waits, lips parted, revealing her chipped front tooth, which makes her look like a beautiful thug.

I snort. “Who knows? Otto always says you can only understand Packard’s motivations in hindsight.”

She frowns, disappointed with my answer. “Killer of Avery will pay and pay and pay,” she hisses; then she stands and strolls across the bright oriental rugs to the far wall, touches a large oil painting Otto recently acquired. Otto tends toward magical realism in his art tastes. Forests and winged beasts.

My heart breaks to look at her there, so fiercely isolated. During the short weeks they were together, she and Avery had become a unit in every way, and instead of softening her grim view the world, Avery brought his own fiery brand of it to her, and they challenged and enlivened each other.

And she’d loved him.

Shelby speaks without facing me. “Did you check it? Check car?”

“What do you mean, check it?”

“If anything is gone? Anything unusual?”

“I’m not messing with the trunk or glove compartment until it gets dusted for fingerprints. Except, one weird thing—Gumby was different.”

She turns. “How?”

“In a happy position. I guarantee you, I didn’t leave him like that.”

“Really!” She comes and sits back down with me, her gaze boring into mine. “What do you imagine might explain that?”

“Either the tow truck driver changed Gumby, or a certain somebody’s trying to make me think I’m crazy…” I raise my eyebrows. Meaning Packard.

She sits there looking intense.

“What?” I ask.

“Must be another explanation,” she says.

“Like what?”

She wrings her hands. “You always see your way to truth, Justine. You will figure it out.”

“It seems like you have an idea.”

She stays silent.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

Something’s up with her. “Have you zinged lately?”

She meets my eyes. “I zinged Midcity Mavens fan on street yesterday. Hooting at night. Waking up neighborhood.”

“Oh, Shelby.” Now that we disillusionists aren’t assigned to criminals, it’s a zinging free-for-all. Except for me, since I’m trying to walk the high road.

“Was good for him. He had too much drunken joy.” She crosses her arms. “One zing. Does not hurt anybody. Justine, you should pick person with too little fear and give them yours. You could try Simon.”

“I want to get over my fear the right way. By overcoming it. I want to earn it.”

“Shelby!” Otto strolls in with a tray of cheese and crackers. “Welcome!”

Shelby stands, startled, then seems to gather herself. She hasn’t seen much of Otto in the two months since the funeral.

“How lovely you look,” Otto says.

“Thank you,” Shelby says brightly. Her tone stops me; she never speaks brightly. She sits back down on the couch. “What are citizens of Midcity to think,” she says, “to see you act as waiter?”

Otto hands us each a napkin. He’s donned a dapper suit with a midnight blue shirt; he’s one of those men who look perfectly at home in finery. “Maybe they would think I’m in love with your friend.”

“Perhaps so.” Again brightly. Shelby takes a cracker and dips it into a soft cheese as we both look on. Surely Otto’s picking up on her weirdness.

Her attention drifts back to the magical beast painting. “Is lovely,” she waves her hand toward it. “In the style of Dutch Masters. Yet subject is quite unexpected.”

We discuss the painting a bit, then he returns to the kitchen.

“What’s up?” I ask once he’s gone.

“What?”

“The cheery act.”

“You do not want me to be cheery for your dinner?”

“I want you to be normal for my dinner.”

“Pfft.” Again she stands. “Perhaps you should put up your Japanese prints here.”

“I can’t redecorate.”

“Is half yours soon,” she says.

“I’m holding off until I know what I’m working with.” She knows my suspicions about the floor below being turned into more space for us.

“Have you seen yet? Downstairs?”

“Of course not. Why would I want to spoil Otto’s surprise?”

“They continue to work down there?”

I nod.

She lowers her head conspiratorially. “Like what?”

“Remodeling sounds.” I’d told her all this before. Why is she so interested? “Hammering. Drilling.”

“How many workers?”

“I’m on the floor above; how would I see them? What’s up with you?”

“I am curious. Tell me, if he makes new wing below, how do you get from here to there?” She looks around. “Are they joined?”

“Right now, it’s just the elevator, but I’d think they’d blast through.”

“Or perhaps the fire escape.”

“Use the fire escape to go between floors of our own home?” I laugh. “I hope not.”

“Do they work nights and weekends?” she asks, then adds, “In preparation for wedding?”

“God, Shelby, stop it.” I sit back. “I want it to be a surprise. I want it to be…” I want it to be lots of things. I want it to blot out the confusion inside me. The sense of being empty. Of Packard with snowflakes melting in his hair. I feel like crying, suddenly, and I close my eyes. “I need to turn off my brain for a few days.”

“Do not,” she whispers. “You must not.”

“I was kidding.” I sip my champagne. “So guess what? My pop says he might come.”

Her mouth falls open. “No!”

“Yes.” I smile. Dad hasn’t gone anywhere for decades. “You’ll recognize him by his biohazard suit and level-four respirator.”

“He would not.”

“Oh, he would,” I say. “He’s an airborne pathogens guy of the first degree. I don’t know how I feel about him giving me away in all that gear, but I’ll be grateful if he even comes.” I inspect my manicure. “I think he won’t, though. Fear is a powerful thing.”

She looks at me sadly. Then, “You must not let Simon wear a dress.”

I snort. “I’d prefer it over the leather and chain shirt and top hat he has planned.”

Chimes. A minute later, Kenzo escorts Simon and Ez in. Ez wears a lovely forest green dress. Simon’s a study in contrasts, a fine white suit setting off the glowingly dark bruises on his mouth and eyes. Intentional, of course.

Ez hugs me, looking around at the lavish living room. “Bet you’re glad you got evicted.”

Otto enters, saving me from having to answer.

“Ez, Simon, welcome,” he says warmly, drawing near to them, taking Ez’s hands. My heart swells with pride. Like Stuart, Ez is a dream invader, and all she needs is skin-to-skin contact to forge a link. But my fiancé risks shaking her hand, to show his trust. “Justine is so lucky to have such friends. We both are.”

Ez smiles her elfin smile. “Thanks for having us.”

Otto moves to Simon.

“Twice in a week,” Simon says as they shake.

Kenzo has brought out more champagne. Simon and Shelby talk in the corner while Ez entertains Otto and Kenzo and me with anecdotes about her new role in the Midcity Rep—she’s Hedda in
Hedda Gabler
. Ez shows us five different ways a person can angrily hold her tongue during another actor’s monologue, which amounts to four hard stares at a couch, and one blank expression.

I sometimes wonder if Otto pulled strings to help her get the part. I know he feels badly about wrongly imprisoning her for three years—he’d used his force fields to seal her inside a coat check booth.

Shelby and Simon have moved farther away, deep in conversation. It’s strange to see them being friendly after so many years of despising each other. Then again, we’re the only three disillusionists who haven’t gone to the dark side with Packard. It makes sense we’d pull together.

Kenzo and Otto want to know if I think the rest of the hors d’oeuvres should be put out, even though my last bridesmaid, Ally, is running late. I decide yes on that.

Otto and Kenzo leave; I spin around just in time to catch Ez exchanging meaningful glances with Simon and Shelby.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Ez hopes to see your night garden,” Simon says, sauntering toward me.

“What? Did she just communicate that silently?”

“No,” Simon says. “She told me before.”

“Famed night garden. Ez has never seen it,” Shelby adds.

Why are they acting so weird?

I take them out to the humid rooftop patio full of the tropical plants that Otto tends obsessively. I do my best to replicate the botany tour I’ve heard Otto give other guests.

“How the hell do they get this dome thing on here in winter?” Ez asks.

“Helicopters and workmen.” I cross my arms. “So you all think you’re all off the hook? Something’s going on. Not about the garden.”

Simon says, “I’m sorry, are the bridesmaids not allowed to have awesome secret surprises for the bride?”

“Where is the girl Ally?” Shelby asks.

“The girl Ally is late. She called.” Yet another change in subject. I watch their eyes. “What’s the surprise?”

“We will not tell you,” Shelby says.

I think they’re lying. Am I being paranoid?

“Will the king be joining us?” Simon asks.

“Don’t call him that. His prisoners are putting a lot of pressure on his head today.”

“I thought that was all in his imagination,” Simon says.

“It’s not, and it’s an enormous strain to keep those people confined. It’s not as if he can put someone like the Belmont Butcher or the Brick Slinger in a human jail—they’d escape in a minute.”

“If it’s such a strain, maybe he should lay off the personal force field of his,” Ez says. “Must take a truckload of energy to power that thing.”

I spin around. “What? A personal force field?”

She gets this blank look. An
oops
look.

“Like a force field around himself?” I say. “Otto doesn’t have that power. His power is only with buildings.”

“Oh, okay.” Ez shakes her head. “Brain fart.”

But I can tell she believes it. “Why would you think he has a personal force field?”

“Never mind,” she says.

Simon gives her the eagle eye. “You mean his personal magnetism, Ez? Is that what you meant?”

Simon’s covering for Ez’s misstep. Why?

“Does not matter what she meant,” Shelby says. “Is all the same, anyway. Is all the same utterance in the end.”

I focus on Ez. “Even if it was within his power to do that—to somehow secretly have this personal force field I don’t know about—he wouldn’t. If you recall, Otto walked around in the public even at the height of the Dorks, exposing himself to enormous danger.”

Ez doesn’t reply, but she clearly differs. This, of course, is not the kind of conversation we can have around Ally, who is a normal human and completely in the dark about us.

Ez shrugs. “Forget I said it.”

“Yet you won’t retract it.”

“Brain fart,” she says again, like that explains everything.

“Look, it’s obvious you think he’s fielded himself,” I say, “And I want you to understand that I touch his energy dimension, and his skin, all the time. He just couldn’t, and wouldn’t.”

Ez’s gaze turns diamond bright. “Just because
you
don’t detect it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“Actually, it does mean that,” I snap.

“Excuse me,” Ez says hotly, “but I was imprisoned inside an Otto Sanchez force field for three years. I think I know what one feels like.”

“Kids, kids,” Simon says.

“Otto would tell me if he’s developed an entirely new branch of power, like he’s in a walking protective field,” I say. “And I touch his energy dimension all the time.”

“A highcap power isn’t like a jacket you put on; it’s more like a secret skin,” Ez says. “The only way you could tell it’s there is if you tried to penetrate it.”