Hanging by a Thread (19 page)

“Nana. It isn’t
normal
. I mean, did it ever occur to you to see someone? A …”
Psychiatrist? Doctor? Researcher?
I realized how ridiculous it sounded. After all, I’d never told anyone besides her and Mom.

“And become a curiosity? Someone to be studied, like those poor twin baby girls joined at the head, or someone who can memorize a whole book word for word? No thank you, Clare,” Nana said with conviction. “I never wished that for myself and certainly not for you. That’s why when you stopped telling me about it, I thought maybe it was for the best.”

“I stopped telling you because Mom
made
me,” I blurted out, angry tears threatening to spill from my eyes.

Nana looked stricken. “Oh, honey … When was that?”

“When I was in grade school.” I bit my lip, remembering.

“Tell me what happened. Please.”

“I liked my teacher a lot. Ms. Applethorn—she was young and fun. She used to let me borrow her orange vest to help with recess supervision. One day I put on the vest and I felt how happy she was and I saw her kissing Mr. Clay, the principal. I was so excited because I thought they
would get married and—anyway, I came home from school and told Mom.”

“And?”

“And …” I sighed, remembering. “Turns out Mr. Clay was married already and his wife was pregnant with their second child. Not that I knew it at the time. All I knew was that Mom freaked. She made me swear that I would not tell anyone what I knew. Not Ms. Applethorn, and especially not Mr. Clay, none of my friends … not you or Dad either.
No one
. She was really angry.”

“Oh … honey.” Nana’s expression sagged.

“And then she told me I had to stop reading the stories in people’s clothes. I told her I didn’t think I could, and she … She took both my hands and squeezed them hard, hard enough that I started to cry, and she got really,
really
close to me so I couldn’t look away and she said
yes you can
. She repeated it like three times and then she made me promise again. I was afraid if I didn’t, she would … punish me and get mad all over again.”

But that wasn’t the truth. The thing I worried about when Mom talked to me that day, her face inches away from mine and her voice deadly serious, was that she would stop loving me if I didn’t do what she asked. I’d never seen her so upset about anything. I had almost wished she’d punish me, spank me, ground me—but she had just stared at me for the longest time until she finally seemed satisfied that I meant my promise, and let go.

“Clare … Clare, I am so sorry. So sorry that you had to
make that promise and so sorry that … You know, when I was younger I used to think it was a blessing, something that made me special. I wasn’t particularly careful with it. I used it to know things about other people, their secrets … I thought it was a good thing, a way to get close to people.”

She pushed a few strands of gray hair out of her face and they promptly fell right back down again.

“Your grandpa Quinn—he knew what I could do. In fact, it was what brought us together. I caught him cheating at cards, you see. He took me out and stole a kiss, and I touched his jacket and suddenly understood why he always had a pocket full of money, but I couldn’t resist. I’ve always loved the bad boys.”

“Nana!”

“Well, I can’t help it, darlin’.”

I had never thought about what it was like for Nana trying to raise a child on her own, having lost her husband. Of course she’d tried to protect my mom—it was just the two of them, at least until Nana remarried.

“And then one day I made a mistake,” she continued, subdued. “I told your mother something about her best friend. I don’t even remember what it was anymore, nothing terrible, some little thing girls did. You see, I never made a secret of it with your mama, what I could do. And she got so angry with me. She must have been about your age, and … Well, I hadn’t noticed that she’d practically grown up on me. Doyle was gone by then, and I was learning to live alone, and here your poor mama just wanted to be like all the other girls. And it was hard, with us living up
here in this big old house.… Anyway, she barely spoke to me for a week. Told me if I didn’t stop prying—because that was how she saw it, you see, touching other people’s clothing and prying into things that weren’t my business—then she was going to run away, and I’d never see her again.”

Nana’s eyes were red and watery. She grabbed a dishcloth that was folded over the back of a chair, dabbed her eyes, and cleared her throat. I tried to picture my mother at my age, but I could barely imagine Mom young. I could certainly imagine her being angry at Nana, since she seemed to have been furious with her forever.

“I was so scared,” Nana whispered. “I’d buried two husbands and I couldn’t stand the thought that I might lose my daughter too.”

She’d given up the gift. She had once been like me, able to read clothes, the fabric that she held in her hands, and she had stopped. All because my mother had asked her to.

And that meant I should be able to stop, too. Put this behind me and pretend I’d never been different, never been this way, be a completely normal girl. It might be hard for a while, since what I loved most was working with vintage clothing—but I could switch to using only new materials, fabric and trims off the bolt. There was no reason I had to come in contact with other people’s castoffs. I could start fresh, sell the rest of my creations dirt cheap next Saturday and use some of my earnings to buy supplies. I’d taken a pattern-making class; I had a portfolio of designs all ready, and ideas for thousands more.

There were a dozen different reasons for me to put an
end to my gift, and only one—well, two—why I shouldn’t. First, I truly loved working specifically with vintage things, thinking about the history of a garment as I sewed. And second …

Second was wrapped in a plastic bag and jammed in my backpack. I’d taken it with me when I left Mrs. Stavros in an attempt to save her from painful memories. But I also knew that the denim jacket—and the terrible story that went with it—was not ready to let me go.

“Nana,” I said haltingly, “I—I can’t. I just can’t stop yet. There’s this … Something happened.”

And then suddenly I was telling her everything. Finding the box at the flea market, the clothes tumbling to the floor, the denim jacket seeming to draw me closer. The terrible sensations when I touched the fabric the second time, the vision of the darkened interior of a car, the lurching, the impact. I told her about going driving with Jack in his truck, and the vision with Rachel and the necklace, and my visit with Mrs. Stavros. Nana listened to all of it without interrupting, holding my hand in her surprisingly strong, cool one, her eyes intent on mine.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I wish …”

I hesitated, aware of how selfish what I was about to say would sound.

“You wish it would just go away,” Nana said softly. “It’s in the past, and at this point it’s pretty clear that Amanda is never coming back, and people have moved on, except for her poor mother.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

Like when I would make a castle down at the beach as a little girl with my mom—the same beach where I now went with my friends on Saturdays to party. I used to love making complicated castles with bridges and moats, sticks and shells for decoration.

But if I made my castle too close to the water—and I always built it too close to the water—eventually the tide would creep up the beach. The waves would lap at the base of my castle, nibbling away at it, and each time they would come farther. Sand would start to seep into my gullies and moats, and the details would be melted away until one big wave would come and immerse the whole thing, leaving a sodden lump where my beautiful castle had been.

Amanda’s disappearance was like that. There was a reason people didn’t speak about her. It was too sad, too scary for those left behind to think about how vulnerable we all really were.

“Honey, you
can
quit, if you want to. But … it’s harder than you might think. The first time I tried, I failed. I started up again, almost without even knowing I was doing it. Just little things, a vision here and there, strangers I ran into at the market or at church. And I hardly ever did anything about them. I had a busy life. You came along, and even if your mom and I had our differences, we were happy then. You and your folks visited me all the time; I thought nothing could hurt our family. And then … Well, you don’t need to know the details. But something happened. I—noticed
something, something that I wasn’t meant to see. It put a question in my mind and the way these things do, it nagged at me and grew until I couldn’t stand it, and I decided I would use the gift just one more time, to find out what was going on.”

“What was it?”

“Oh, no, sugar, it’s not my place to tell you that. It doesn’t concern you, anyway, it’s between me and your mom. But I broke my promise. I thought no one would ever know. I … found out the answer to a question, and I thought that would settle my mind. I thought then I could keep my peace.

“But in the end, even after I swore that I would keep it to myself, I couldn’t. I’d used the gift and now it was like I had no choice but to pass along what I had learned. But that was a mistake, Clare. I had to tell, and in telling what I knew, I set into motion a series of happenings.… Well, I have had to suffer the consequences ever since. And I will until the day I die.”

“But this other thing, whatever it was you found out—it wasn’t your fault, right? All you did was tell someone.”

Nana shook her head. “Sometimes knowing and telling is the worst thing you can do.” Her voice wavered and she took a moment, dabbing at her forehead with the handkerchief she pulled from her pocket before speaking again. “If you dig deeper into this mess, there is no telling the terrible things you’ll see. Amanda is gone and it is very likely that she will never come back. We just have to be realistic about it. The odds, in a disappearance like this—well,
I’m just saying that knowing things can hurt you. It could hurt her poor mother and that woman has suffered enough. Let it rest, Clare, angel. Let it go. It’s for the best.”

“But Nana—”

“You have to trust me on this. I’m old.” Nana said it matter-of-factly. “I’ve lived through a lot and seen a lot, I’ve made my mistakes and I like to think I’ve learned from them. You let this go, now.”

I couldn’t promise that, but I nodded anyway.

“Now you remember what we talked about. You’re being careful this week, right?”

“Yes, Nana.”

“You’re coming to the festival, aren’t you? You and your friends come see me at the loggerhead booth, okay?”

“Sure,” I promised, my heart sinking, knowing I was lying to her. There was no way I was dragging my friends over to see her and all her weird friends with their life-size photos of endangered turtles.

She gave my hand a final squeeze and got up from the table, going to the wall where a calendar hung on a nail, its image a photo of sea lions sunning themselves on rocks. “Now let me take a look … I think I’ve waited long enough for your mom to call me, so I’m just going to have to call her. I think I can probably guilt her into a dinner invitation, don’t you?” She gave me a sly look and a wink, but I knew she was nervous about contacting my mom.

“Why don’t you let me suggest it to her?” I said. “I’ll work on her and then I’ll call you. And Nana—” I hesitated,
not sure how to apologize for ignoring her. “Um, I’ll come visit more often,” I finally said. “If that’s okay.”

“More than okay,” Nana said. “When am I going to meet this boyfriend of yours? I know his uncle Arthur. He takes care of Peaches. Lovely man.”

I felt myself blush. “Nana! He’s—we’re not—”

“I don’t suppose I need to know what you are or aren’t, Clare, it’s just a dinner. Invite the boy, it’ll take the pressure off me a little. What do you say?”

“I—I’ll think about it.”

“Can’t ask for more than that. Now, get on home before Susie gets to worrying.”

A
S
I
COASTED DOWN THE HILL
on my bicycle, stealing glances at the sun sinking low in the sky, I tried to convince myself that Nana was right, I should just stay out of it. I would get rid of the box of clothes today.

But when I got home, I found my mother sitting on the porch staring out over the ocean. Her face looked tired, the lines around her eyes and mouth more pronounced than usual.

“Are you feeling okay?” I asked, locking my bike to one of the posts that held up the porch.

“Fine,” she said tightly. “Only, this came, after I thought we’d talked about it. I thought we’d come to an understanding.”

She lifted a piece of paper off the table and held it out to me as though it were radioactive.

“Oh,” I said after I scanned the print. It was the application to the Los Angeles Fashion Institute, the one I’d
ordered from the website. “I, um, I wanted to see the application.”

“Clare, you’re only sixteen years old. You have two years left in high school. College applications aren’t due for an entire year. And when that time comes, you’ll have a lot more opportunities than just going to a two-year trade school.”

I felt myself getting angry all over again. We’d had this conversation so many times before, and neither one of us could ever get the other to budge.

“This is what I want to do!” I said, louder than I intended. If my mom wanted to start a fight on our porch, then all the neighbors could damn well know about it. “I want to go into fashion. I always have. You
know
that. You see how hard I work. I do everything you ask me to, I have good grades and—”

“But that’s exactly the point!” Bright pink spots stood out on my mother’s cheeks. “You have
great
grades, Clare. You have the potential to do something meaningful. Go to a good school, take your time, study the humanities—”

“Why? So you can say I went to UCLA or Berkeley or somewhere you can brag about? And who are you going to impress, anyway, since you don’t have any friends and you’ve even managed to drive your own mother away?”

I saw my mom’s eyes go wide and I instantly regretted the words, but I was too upset to take them back. “You need to get a
life
, Mom. You can’t live through me anymore. If you won’t help me with design school, I’ll pay for
it myself. I’ll work, I’ll save, I don’t care if it takes me ten years to get through the program, I
will
do it.”