Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always (20 page)

I wonder. Should I … should I ask her to come along to the concert in the Cities? The thing is, I could see it working maybe a year ago, when Kayla and I were on more solid ground. Maybe we would have looked at a weekend with Drew as a fun challenge—a makeover, a project. But this weekend
I’m
the project. It’s the Cassandra Makeover Challenge
—transforming me into someone interesting enough to keep my best friend. So, bringing Drew along is not going to bring success in that arena.

But maybe later. Maybe, once I get all this stuff figured out with Kayla, I’ll be able to widen our circle.

“We’ll be going to her cousin’s church,” I tell Mom. “For the baptism.” I have no freaking clue if Drew even has any cousins, or if her cousins have any kids. What if my parents say something to her before I have a chance to fill her in? What if she
won’t
lie for me?

“We’ll see.” It’s an answer far more positive than I ever hoped.

Eric sits directly behind me, in the last row of seats. He won’t stop poking me in the back, but I don’t turn around. I know he’ll try to talk me out of this, give me some stupid warning about how angry Mom and Dad would be if they found out. But you know what? It’s time I did something dangerous, took a little risk. Maybe next time, I’ll have something to write on that stupid survey. Maybe I could write the stupid Song of Myself.

At church, I see Drew before anyone else does, and I run over to say hi. Very uncharacteristic, of course, but she doesn’t seem surprised. Probably now that I’ve baked cookies with her, she thinks I’m her best friend.

“Hey, Drew. I have a huge favor to ask.” I go right in for the kill because there’s no time for circling.

“Hey, Cass. What is it?”

Ooh, she’s sharp, doesn’t agree before hearing the favor. Possibly I’ve underestimated her. Or overestimated her desperation.

“I … I know this sounds ridiculous, but I need you to cover me to my parents about where I’m going to be this weekend. I’m super, super sorry to ask you to do this, but it’s important. It’s pretty much an emergency.” I mean, really. It’s a friendship in crisis. And Darin. Just the thought of him makes me feel a little giddy. And it
will
be a legit emergency if she won’t lie to my parents for me.

“Oh.” Her face is expectant. She doesn’t look appalled or horrified or judgmental or anything. “What’s the emergency?”

Oh, crap. What is the persuasive version of the emergency? I haven’t thought much about convincing her. I sort of thought she’d be thrilled to do anything to help me out, and I guess I feel a little bit rotten about that, like it never seriously occurred to me that she’d turn me down. “It’s … well, it’s kind of a little bit about a boy, but listen. My parents are going to walk over here and ask you about this in like thirty seconds, and I swear, I’ll … ” I’m about to say I’ll be her best friend forever
—not for real, but, like, that’s just what people say when they’re asking for a favor. But Drew’s probably not the kind of person people say that to. “If you could tell them that I’m going with you to the Cities this weekend for your cousin’s baby’s baptism?”

Oh god, she made me uptalk. It’s freaking contagious. I wait, searching her face, but she still has that weird, expectant look, like she’s waiting for the punch line. For the April Fools? For me to tell her I’ll be her best friend forever? I can’t say that. “Could you tell them we’ll be going to church on Sunday morning, and then be back here by supper time? Please? And … ” Okay, so am I seriously asking her this? “And, uh … then would you be willing to stay home from church on Sunday so that it looks like you’re at the baptism?”

She isn’t going to say yes to that. Out loud, it sounds as ridiculous as it is. I’m asking her not only to lie to my parents, but then to stay home from church and hide while I go down to the Cities to have fun. And I’m not even inviting her to come along.

Her face flickers with indecision, but I give her my best pathetic pleading face and she nods faintly, her mouth settling into a small, downward-tilting smile. “I guess so,” she says. “But I don’t know. Won’t they want to talk to my mom or something?”

“Tell them something. She can’t talk to them. Tell them … ”

“Well, my mom can’t talk to them anyway. Or she won’t. She’s out of town this whole week for business.” Drew shrugs. “She’s in Italy, buying fabric or something.”

“That’s okay. Tell them that. Your mom’s out of the country, so she wants you to stay with your aunt and uncle in
Minneapolis for the weekend, and she wanted you to be able to bring a friend for company.”

“And my cousin’s baby is getting baptized?”

“I guess so. That’s what I told them.”

“So what’s my fake cousin’s fake baby’s name?” She laughs, but it’s an uncomfortable sound. It’s the kind of laugh that’s hard to forget when it’s gone.

31. What worries you …

I have another reading that I want to do, and I’m contemplating if I dare try it on my bedroom floor again, sitting against the door. Mom and Dad are in bed, and Dicey’s sleeping too. I might even be able to sneak onto the computer and type up my answer tonight.

Eric knocks.

Good. He can help me keep watch. I open the door.

“Hey, Cass.” He’s slouching in the hall.

“Sit right there,” I say, pulling him inside the room and closing the door behind him. “Give me as much warning as you can if anyone comes.”

He sits, his face in the shadow of my dresser, his back against the door. “What did Dawkins say about the poem you turned in?”

“He said it was enough to get me up to a C, anyway.”

“Cass, this thing with Drew has been bugging me all day. It’s going too far.”

“Don’t worry so much, Eric.” Inside the closet, my voice echoes, fills my head with its own certainty. I crawl out backwards, the box of tarot in my hand, and then I spread them out on the carpet in front of me, face down, and swirl them around in circles. “Should I do a reading for you?”

He frowns. “I’m serious, Cass. This … it isn’t
you
, any of this
.
You’re getting more and more into these cards. You’re making Drew lie for you. The blog … I know it seems like innocent fun, and I admit, I was a little excited to see how much attention it was getting at school. I even thought maybe … ” He stops. “I’m worried about this coming back to hurt you, sissy.”

I pull the cards together and shuffle. “I’m offering comfort and advice to people in trouble. How could that be a bad idea? How can a deck of cards be good or evil?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” he insists. “Someone at school will find out it’s you. I know it.” He gets up and leans over the cage to give a treat to Pumpkin and Nut.

“Nobody will find out unless you tell. You’re being insufferable, Eric. I’m helping people make sense of their futures.”

I flip the cards down, arrange them into the cross formation that now seems so familiar to me, and concentrate on my next questioner, a girl who wants to know if she should give her boyfriend a promise ring at the Winter Carnival. She writes:

Dear Divinia,

I can’t decide if it’s a good idea to write to you. I’m pretty sure it’s not a good idea, but I’m looking for advice and it’s hard to ask anyone in person, for reasons I’d rather not get into. I want to do something really special for my boyfriend at the Winter Carnival, since it’s our last one before we both go off to different colleges. I bought him a ring—not an engagement ring, but like a promise ring, I guess. I’m nervous about people’s reactions, and about how he’ll feel about getting the ring, especially in public. I need your advice. Will you please ask the cards if this is a good idea?

—Nervous Nellie

Eric leans back against my door, Pumpkin tucked into his arms. “I’m not going to tell,” he says. “But I don’t think you’re on the right track in this whole ‘finding yourself’ business. I don’t for one second like what’s going on with Drew.”

“Drew is awesome,” I say. “She didn’t mind at all.” It’s not entirely true, and I still feel sick when I think about what happened to her poems, what still
might
happen to them, but I push that out of my mind and take a long look at the cards lying in front of me. This isn’t a bad thing. I’m
helping
people with these cards, like this nervous girl who wants to give her boyfriend the promise of her heart. I wonder about the “reactions” she says she’s worried about. Jealousy? Maybe her friends think she shouldn’t tie herself into a relationship so early. I admit, I’m not one who can really believe in that Romeo and Juliet love-at-first-sight kind of thing, but just because someone is a teenager doesn’t mean she can’t fall in love for real, forever. Maybe this girl has a boyfriend like that.

I turn over a card, and there’s Death staring at me, all skull-faced, kings lying prone on the earth beneath his horse’s hooves. Eek. Okay, so maybe she’s making a mistake.

I flip quickly through the guidebook, taking notes in my English notebook, which is still empty of poetry. Death, as a card in the Major Arcana, isn’t actually as terrible as its name implies, according to the little book, but there’s still something muddled about these cards, something hard to read.

“That poor girl,” says Eric.

“What about her?” I frown at the cards I’ve flipped over, wondering what he sees when I can’t even make sense of it all using the book. This reading is making me almost as nervous as Nellie herself. There’s something dramatic and unexpected about the ending, and I hope I can understand it enough to spin my response to be true and helpful while not altogether devastating.

For a second it occurs to me—a sense of my own power in all this. If a questioner believes Divinia Starr, the reading becomes a sort of prophecy. Something to believe in. Something to guide the person’s actions. I think about that other Cassandra, the one Darin told me about, in the doomed city of Troy. Her knowledge of the future was a burden that would have been heavy even without the curse of doubt on all sides, but would her predictions have remained true if people had believed her?

“
What about her?
” Eric repeats. “Well, we can start with the fact that you’re forcing her to lie for you. You know, Drew Godfrey? The girl you’re
using
so you can sneak out to a stupid concert?”

Oh,
her
. I look away.

We’re both quiet, and the awkwardness is so thick I can’t look at him. I can’t bear the accusation that I know will be in his eyes. That I know I deserve. But … Drew didn’t really seem to mind. Besides, I’m not
using
her. She’s doing me a favor, that’s all. A favor I’ll repay someday. Whatever. It’s not like I’ve never done anything nice for Drew.

I shake my head to clear it and tap my pen on the notebook page, looking for a way to start my post to this nervous girl with the complicated ending. Should she give her boyfriend a promise ring? Should she make a big deal out of it or do it somewhere quietly? Slowly, the words come to me—words that comfort at the same time as they caution. Words that encourage Nervous Nellie to give the ring, to face the fear, to have hope in the power of love even in the certainty of an uncertain future, full of changes and growth and difficulties and joys.

I survey the cards with a strange assurance. Their bright surfaces seem to speak to me, almost in full sentences. I scribble away, making the side of my hand dark with ink—the black ink of Darin’s pen, which I seem to have stolen.
No matter the outcome, the cards show that your ring will be received with joy.
Forget about everything; this is the truth, even if it won’t stay true for always.

I barely look at the guidebook. The words flow up to me, into me. Suddenly I stop—how do I know this? Where is it coming from?
How would you know?
Eric had asked. How would I know if I were possessed?

I look up to find Eric studying me closely. “I have a bad feeling, sis. A greasy, no-good feeling, like a black splotch in the future. And I’m worried about you.” He tilts Pumpkin gently back into her cage, turning his attention away from me.

What if Eric is the prophet instead of me, speaking truth? What if I’m the idiot who doesn’t believe? Whatever. It’s ridiculous that he’s worried about me instead of the other way around. I’m not the one who’s been threatened via hate-urination.

I tuck my cards back into their hiding place and tap my notebook, where my reading is now ready to be typed up tomorrow morning in homeroom. Everything’s under control. “I’m fine,” I say. “Really.” Except maybe for English class.

32. You don’t believe in …

By Friday-night youth group, Drew has warmed up to the lie and tells my mother charmingly humorous anecdotes about her fake cousin Lainey’s fake baby, Simon, who will be baptized on Sunday morning. She tosses her head back and stops fiddling with her ponytail as she gets more comfortable. I’ve honestly never seen her more confident; it’s like telling stories about a fictional cousin is easier for her than being herself.