Surviving Valencia (20 page)

She seemed genuinely wise. I wondered how she ended up in this tiny shack with so little. I tried to wash my mind of the thought, quickly, quickly. I peered at the right side of the cup, which seemed to represent my future. The good news was that it was not blank. I gave a small shrug and a wry smile to one of the cats, but he just hissed and ran away.

I became aware of minutes ticking by, and finally I stood up, feeling I should go to see what had happened to my host. As I parted the velvet curtain she reappeared, her face white and troubled. She looked at me tensely, her mouth drawn in a puckery frown. She looked stressed, and even a little angry.

“Is something the matter?” I asked her.

“You need to leave.”

“What? Why? Are you going to finish my reading?”

She shook her head. “You need to leave here. Don’t come here again.”

“Did I do something?” I asked her.

She walked past me and removed my cup from the table. She was shaking.

I turned and went back to my chair, and picked up my purse off the floor. I reached inside, looking for money.

“No,” she said. “I’m not going to take anything from you. You need to leave. Be careful, and do not ever come here again.”

“Who was at the door? Was there someone here for me?” I asked.

Silently, she walked me to the door and opened it. Numbly I stepped through and halted on her front step. I turned back to her but she had already closed the door. There was a click and a soft thud of the door being locked, twice, behind me. I surveyed the neighborhood, shielding my eyes from the sunlight. I looked up and down the street for the doorbell ringer, but no one was around. The sun was high and white, and a slight breeze was blowing. It was the same day it had been when I arrived at the little purple house, but I felt as though infinite time had passed. I turned and looked at the house in confusion. Feeling like a fool, I went to my car and got inside, starting the engine, but waiting. The street remained deserted; the little purple house remained still.

“Was it John Spade?” I whispered aloud. I was confused. Her weird house was getting to me. It all probably meant nothing. Bad people didn’t bother to ring the doorbell. Right?

I drove to the Lucky Duckling and bought the blankets that I had apparently been destined to own. Then I went home. I was not used to our stately new fence yet, and the imposing sight of it surprised me, offered a small drop of relief to me, as I remote-controlled my way into the driveway. And there was Adrian. Rich, famous, gorgeous, green-eyed Adrian. He was watering the flowers with a garden hose, shirtless. He paused to playfully spray my tires, and then he pretended he was going to spray me. I smiled and put my window down, stopping the car in the driveway.

“Hi, Babe,” he said, leaning in to give me a kiss. “It looks like someone has been shopping.”

“That would be me.”

“What’s the matter? You look a little dazed. You haven’t been drinking, have you? You know babies don’t like that.”

“Adrian! Of course I haven’t been drinking!” I put up my window and parked the car in the garage. He followed me inside, and like a gentleman, he brought in my shopping bags and paint for me. Along with the blankets, I had picked up some onesies and little socks that were on sale. I switched my sandals for flip flops and took a look through the catalogs and magazines on the kitchen table, waiting for Adrian’s reaction. My purchases had all
seemed
cute, classy, properly sophisticated, but I was only right about half the time. While I drank a glass of water and pretended not to see, I noticed his face scrunch up a bit at the swab of color on top of the paint can. I turned away.

“Why don’t you come outside with me? I want to show you my plans for the patio.”

“Sure.” I pulled back my hot, sweaty hair into a ponytail, and I followed him outside.

“So how are you liking this fence? It’s great isn’t it?” He surveyed our yard, looking very pleased. “I saw the truck from the fence company over in the Kilbourne’s driveway this morning. I think we started something.”

“It figures.”

“Are you feeling okay? You look pale. Are you nauseous?”

“No, I’m fine. I was just thinking how good I have it. How lucky I am.” I smiled up at him.

“It’s not luck; you deserve this.”

“Do you really believe that? I’m not even a nice person. Aren’t you supposed to be nice to deserve good things?”

“You’re nice. If you were any nicer you wouldn’t be fun.”

“You know I’m going to the doctor tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, that’s what you said.”

“Do you want to come with me?”

“So I was thinking of tearing out that little side wall, and leveling it, and making the patio about twice as big.”

“I really like it back here like it is now. If we tore out that wall, wouldn’t we also lose that tree, and the hammock?”

“We can always move the hammock.”

“Well… Whatever. Where’s Frisky?”

“On the other side of the house, digging holes, I imagine.”

“You’re coming with to my appointment, right?” I asked. I noticed I still had my purse slung around me, so I reached inside for a gummy prenatal vitamin. They were like candy. I could barely control myself to not eat them all.

“Sure, I’ll be there. So, that paint looks more purple than I was imagining.”

“Yes. I gathered you didn’t like it.”

“It’s alright. If you like it, I like it. I think I’m going to get started in there. Are you going to join me?”

“I’m not sure. The fumes might be a little much for me.”

“No problem.” He gave me a kiss. “Come and visit me if you get bored.”

“Adrian, wait. I want to tell you something… I went to a psychic today.”

“What?” He stopped and spun around, looking disgusted. His reaction was much more severe than I had expected.

I shrugged. “I thought it would be fun.”

“Why would you do something like that?”

“Just… I don’t know. I guess, I mean…” I pressed my palms together in frustration. “Like I said, I thought it would be fun.”

“So what happened?”

“She was amazing.”

“Amazing,” he scoffed.

“Yes. She knew
so
much that it was crazy. She knew that I was going to paint the nursery
periwinkle
. She actually
said
periwinkle. She knew that I was going to go to the Lucky Duckling for blankets. She was seriously amazing…”

“Really,” he said, pulling a paint sample from the outer pocket of my purse, clearly labeled
Pacific Periwinkle
. “Was this sticking out of your purse like this all day?”

I felt my face grow hot. “I don’t know.”

“Honey, those people are scam artists. Have you gone to her before?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Why have you been withdrawing so much money lately?”

“Just to shop.”

“Why do you need cash?”

“Some of the stores I like don’t take credit cards.”

“Will you do something for me?”

“What is it?”

“Don’t see any more psychics. Ever again. Promise me.”

“Adrian, don’t make me promise that. I don’t know why you’re so upset.”

“Do I ever ask
anything
of you?”

“Frisky. You asked me to let you have Frisky here with us.”

“Frisky is for our protection. I am being serious. Do I ever, I mean do I
ever,
ask
anything
of you?”

We stood across from each other, silent, our eyes locked. Typically situations like this put me a peculiar mood to giggle hysterically. But not this time.

“No, I guess not.”

“So do this one thing for me.”

“You’ve got it,” I said. I went outside, slamming the door behind me, and sat down in the soon-to-be-upgraded hammock. I popped another prenatal vitamin. As I replaced the bottle, I noticed the advertisement I had torn from a local magazine reminding myself about monogramable cashmere blankets available at the Lucky Duckling. I shook my head in disgust at myself, at my gullibility; I wadded up the glossy sheet of paper and threw it in our firepit.

After enough time went by that I was sure Adrian wasn’t going to come out to see how I was doing, I tried calling Jeb. Again it went straight to his voicemail. I left a brief message telling him to call me. I was worried about him. He had never been unreliable before. I picked at the fringe on the hammock. If he never responded to me, sooner or later, I was going to have to tell someone.

“Frisky, stop it!” I cried, distracted by the dog lunging at a bird in the birdbath. He put his front paws on the heavy edge of the birdbath and the whole top of it flipped off its base, nearly landing him. To my amazement, he ran up to me, whimpering, and tried to hide behind me. I petted his head and he looked up at me, adoringly. It was easy to forget he was still just a puppy.

The back door opened. “Look at you two. Best friends. Do you want to see how it looks, now that I have some on the walls?” asked Adrian, standing before me with a paint roller in his hand, smiling.

“Sure,” I said, squishing the Lucky Duckling advertisement deeper into the firepit and smearing my flip flop off on the grass as Frisky and I went inside to join him.

My freshman year in high school, I made a friend. Her name was Marnie Hopkins. She was pretty, funny, and a sophomore. Unlike myself, she held all the potential in the world. Her family had just moved to Hudson from Dallas, and she had to take Geography with our class because she had missed it at her old school. On the first day of class, we were told to pair off into ‘geograbuddies’ to work on papers and projects together throughout the year. By the process of elimination, as our classmates all quickly buddied up, soon she and I were the only two left. So our teacher made us partners.

Our first project was due in early October.

“Do you want to come over after school and work on it together?” Marnie asked me. Her voice was like slow honey, and already she was gaining attention from all the boys in school. Were she and I possibly going to become friends?

“Sure,” I said, acting like it was no big deal.

Marnie was the oldest of nine children. I rode the bus with her to her house, a three story Victorian in an old neighborhood, listening to her chatter the whole way there. Everyone on the bus within hearing distance stared at her and eavesdropped. Her accent was so foreign, so mesmerizing to us Midwesterners, that she may as well have been from some other planet.

“My daddy works on computers and my mama stays at home. She’s a great cook and we’re having homemade pizza tonight, you’re going to
love
it. She makes a few different styles so there’s something for everyone. Watch out for the ones with the whole-wheat crust.
Yuck
. She likes to get creative and once she even tried putting
corn
on it. It wasn’t as bad as you’d think, but she didn’t try it again. My sister Karlie is eight years old and you’re going to
have
to play with her rabbit; it’s just something she makes everyone do when they come to our house for the first time…”

It went on and on. Marnie was perfect. Bright and cheerful, accepting and non-questioning. I had never had an insta-friend before. It seemed too good to be true. By her second week of school, everyone loved her. She nonchalantly scooped up friends like we were discarded seashells, as likely to choose a scummy broken seashell (me) as a rare piece of yellow seaglass. From the first time we rode the bus to her house together, she approached our friendship as if it were a sure thing. She had none of the self-doubt that weighed me down and caused me to assume that
of course
no one would want me near them.

She openly said hello to me in the hall and sat by me at lunch, oblivious to the rule of ignoring me. Some days she hung with the popular crowd; other days she slid into the seat next to me in study hall as if it were the most natural thing in the world. How could someone be fifteen and
just not care
about the social structure of high school? Even more befuddling, her behavior seemed to trump all the other rules in place. The popular girls took her back again and again without question, even if she’d just been seen talking to me or some other nerd. Why did they let her do what she wanted to do?

Her family was much the same. One of those made-for-TV clans, a house filled with pets and laughter, the constant smell of food cooking, the sounds of violin lessons and video games. There were so many people coming and going that I could take a second piece of chicken or laugh a little too loud without feeling paranoid.

Marnie’s mother listened to our speech about the Sahara Desert while she cleaned up the kitchen one evening. It was almost ten o’clock. We had been working on the speech for two weeks and had to present it the next day. I was spending the night, which meant I would get to show up at school getting off the same bus as Marnie, and everyone would know what great friends we were.

When we were finished, Mrs. Hopkins rinsed her dishcloth out in the sink and said, “That was great, girls. Two A-pluses for sure. I especially liked the facts about camels.”

“Thanks, Mama,” said Marnie. She got up to help her mother put away a mixing bowl up a high shelf. It would not have occurred to me to help my mother put away a bowl, even if I were taller than her. I wondered if there was anything someone small could do, to be as helpful and considerate as Marnie. I decided if my mother lost something down in the couch, I would reach my skinny arm down there and get it for her.

Mrs. Hopkins then turned her attention on me. It was the first time there’d been much contact between the two of us; normally, there was too much going on in their house for that. “I’m sorry to hear about your sister and brother,” she said. I was caught completely off-guard.

“You have a sister and brother?” asked Marnie. She had never been to my house, but if she had, she would have seen plenty of pictures of Van and Valencia. Still, I had assumed someone from school had probably filled her in about me. At that point we were well into the school year.

“Uh, well, they’re…”

“They passed away in an accident,” Mrs. Hopkins told her daughter. She turned back to me, “I’m sorry if I’m upsetting you. I just mentioned your name at church, said you were Marnie’s best friend, and some of the ladies there told me what happened.”

“Mama!” exclaimed Marnie.

“What?” asked Mrs. Hopkins.

“She’s not my
best
friend,” whispered Marnie, her face red and angry.

I rode the bus to school with her the next morning, but aside from two more awkward encounters as geograbuddies, we did not talk much after that.