Lurlene McDaniel (12 page)

I'm speechless. And worse, other girls have come into the bathroom and are listening, standing and watching while the seniors girls diss me. For a moment, I'm afraid I'm going to break down. This isn't working. Being Quin's girl is not the road to popularity I thought it would be. I retreat from the bathroom telling myself I should give up. But I don't.

When I get home one afternoon, Mom's practically dancing around the kitchen.

“Why are you so happy?” I ask. “Big sale?” That's usually what makes her happy—a big commission.

“Oh, my angel! I have the most wonderful news.”

Angel?
She hasn't called me that since I was ten. “I'm listening.”

She dances over and cups my face in her hands, giving my cheeks a squeeze. “I owe it all to you.”

“Me?” I figure Mom's finally lost it. Dating Quin Palmer for a few months has not magically turned me into Lindsey Duvales.

“Guess who's been offered the job as marketing manager for Spencer Palmer's newest housing development?”

I get a funny fluttering feeling in my stomach. “You?”

“Don't sound so skeptical. Yes, me! I'll be on staff and bringing home a huge salary.” She leans closer. “So much more money that I can buy you a car of your own. How's that sound?”

I'd really like my own car, especially because I've been riding the bus since I turned sixteen in January. Now that I'm eating lunch with Quin's crowd, Judie's found new friends and hasn't been picking me up for school. We don't hang together much either these days. “I don't need a car.”

She gives me a surprised look. “But you want one, don't you?”

I ignore her question and ask, “But what about your real estate office? I thought you work for Treasured Homes.”

“Worked
for,” she says. “I quit today. As soon as I walked in from having lunch with Spencer.”

“B-but you can't!”

“Why ever not? Laurie, I thought you'd be happy for me. For us. This is a huge career step up.”

My brain's in a tailspin. Mom working for
Quin's dad! I've run into the man at his house and at the ball field, but we've never had a conversation. “Tell me about the job,” I say.

“He called me out of the blue and invited me to lunch and offered me the job. Told me he remembers how I hustled and sold homes in his other divisions. He said he's been watching my work grow and mature. For crying out loud, Laurie, I've arrived! Let's show some enthusiasm.”

“But I date Quin.”

“Of course you do.”

“What happens if … when we break up?”

Mom pats my shoulder. “Give me some credit here. I think Spencer did take more notice of me because of your relationship with Quin, but I'm a good worker, and I deserve this break.”

She's getting upset and I sure don't need that. I drop the books still clutched in my arms and grab her in a hug. “I'm sorry. I—I wasn't thinking. You do deserve this, and you'll be great at the job.”

She pulls away. “That's better.” She flashes a smile and her eyes light up. “Of course, we must celebrate. Dinner at our favorite place?” Before I can say anything, she adds, “That is, if you don't have other plans with Quin.”

I shake my head. “Not tonight.”

“Then let's change. Let's wear pretty clothes. Something springlike.”

I watch her dash from the room, leaving me to feel like I'm being sucked into a tornado.

Sometimes when I see Laurie sitting in the bleachers pretending to cheer for me, I want to pop a fly ball her way in hopes of knocking her out. I tell myself,
Just another couple of months and she's history.
Once spring break's over and I'm back from California, it's only another six weeks until I graduate. I'm making certain she doesn't welsh on our deal to break up with me by leaving for baseball camp two days after graduation. Dad's arranged everything. I intend to leave little Laurie in the dust.

What I can't stand is the way she lords it over me when we're with my friends. She hangs on my arm. She giggles and cuddles next to me when we're out with others. When we're alone, it's a different story. She won't let me touch her. Not that I want to. Not anymore. If she walked in front of
me naked, begging me to have sex with her, I'd walk away. That's how much I don't like her.

I could tell Dad. But I won't. I couldn't stand him having something else to rub my nose in, the way he did about Cory. I can hear him say,
“Screwed up again? What's with you, boy? Do I have to clean up every mess you make?”
He doesn't need to know that Laurie was in the car that night I hit a deer that was most likely not a deer, but Analise Bower, whom the school still treats like a saint. Her best friend is even holding pages open in the yearbook for a tribute!

So I endure Laurie and questions from my friends about why I'm dating her, and what I see in the little drip. I'm thinking that if I make her miserable enough, she'll call off the deal. Wouldn't that be sweet?

One night I'm watching a cop show on TV and the story line is about blackmail. That's what Laurie's doing. She's blackmailing me. And then one of the characters says something that opens a door for me.
Insight. Understanding.
I do some research on the Web, get the details straight. I don't have to just sit still and take Laurie's crap anymore. I can strike back, make her run scared too.

We go to a movie with Karen and Dylan on
Saturday night. Laurie's all lovey-dovey until my friends split in the parking lot and Laurie and I are alone in my car. She moves to the far side of her bucket seat, treats me like I've become a leper. Before I crank the engine, I say, “You know, Laurie, I've been thinking about the night of the accident.”

I see her stiffen. “What about it?”

“Maybe you're wrong.”

“I've heard that the police have closed the investigation. If I say something, they'll open it again.”

I want to wipe that smugness out of her voice. “You realize that if you do, you'll be implicated too.”

“No way. I was just a passenger.”

“But you knew about it. You've known about it for months. And you've never said a word.”

“So?”

She's looking hard at me now and I return her look, move in for the kill.

“So in the land of law and order, you'd be called an accessory. That's someone who helps someone else commit a crime. It's a criminal offense.”

“I didn't help you!”

My pent-up venom gushes out. “You were
there. You never came forward. You've helped me hide it all this time. Oh, you're guilty, all right. Guilty as if you were driving the car. You think about that.”

The shocked look on her face is worth a million bucks. I start the engine and drive her home.

I
n my dreams, I fly.

Do doctors know that coma patients dream? Perhaps I'll tell them when I wake up. I love my dream state, am amazed and rewarded whenever I achieve it. At first, the scenes I visit are from my past. Memories flow like a steady stream of water. I see me younger, Mom and Dad holding my hand, taking me places. … Disney World when I was seven and Washington, D.C., when I was ten. I see Amy, and I watch us growing up. I see Jeremy and watch us growing together. I taste our first kiss. I see the high school, the halls full of kids, walking, chattering, believing that these days must be hurried through. I long to meld into the stream heading to classes.

I don't know when I realize that I can control my flights into memory, but one night, I sense a shift. I no longer stare into the past. I float upward
and look down and I see my body on the bed, as if I'm hovering over myself. I see what I have become. Not Analise. Not the girl in my memories. I look grotesque. I feel sorry for me. Then one night my consciousness rises out of my body, soars through the confinement of my room, sends me out into the night. Like a vampire, I seek blood. Not literally, of course, but metaphorically. I want to find the person who did this to me.

As I soar, I am aware that a flesh-and-blood body is a cumbersome thing. It moves with difficulty, like a machine from another age run with pulleys and rubber bands. I realize that the human body is hard to manipulate and is bound by gravity. No wonder it takes babies and children years to control these inferior vessels. Not so with my consciousness. I float freely through time and space, unhampered by walls. I am spirit instead of flesh and bone. Perhaps God gave us bodies so that we are forced to slow down, although I can't imagine why. If only I could tell the people I love that I'm here, above their world, in their space, but not visible to them.
I think, therefore I am.
Did Descartes form his philosophy because he too could send his consciousness into the invisible world?

Each time I drift out of my body, my mind
grows stronger while my body grows weaker. I sense my life force draining away. The doctors check me, but they don't sense the weakness stealing over my flesh, too subtle, I suspect, for their instruments to pick up. No matter. When I'm free-floating, I feel invincible.

The only downside of my freedom is how sensitive it makes me to the thoughts and emotions of others. I sense people's joy, pain, anger, fear—a spectrum of human feelings that leaves me confused, exhausted. The mental storms bombard me, strike like misfiring electrons that snap and crackle and crowd out my presence. The energy waves of others toss me back into the body on the bed and into the realm of coma. Here I, Analise Bower, disappear until, through strength of will and the magic of dreams, I again break free to visit the world of the living, of those trapped inside physical bodies and locked in time.

“Hi, Daddy!” I throw myself into my father's arms the second he opens the door of his hotel room.

“Wow! This is some greeting, baby girl.”

I bury my face in his chest and I want to cry, but I stop myself. Too much explaining if I do.

“Let me take a good look at you, Laurie. It's been so long. I'm really sorry I couldn't get here over Christmas.” He holds me at arm's length and looks me over. His smile fades a bit. “You look beautiful—just thin. You're not on one of those crazy teenage diets, are you? Because you shouldn't be.”

I assure him I'm not.

“Good, then let's go to lunch.” He grabs his jacket.

I'm not hungry. All I want to do is curl up on the sofa and be Daddy's little girl. “All right.”

“You can show me that new car of yours.”

“It's not so new,” I tell him as we go down in the elevator.

“Man, I remember my first car—a Dodge Charger, red with chrome wheels, black leather interior. I restored it myself. Sure wish I'd hung on to it. It would be worth a fortune today.”

Outside, the signs of spring are everywhere. Daffodils are thick in the beds in front of the hotel, and cherry trees are bursting with pink blossoms along the downtown street. The sun's bright, the air is cold and I shiver. I lead Dad to my car, parked down the street. He walks around the older-model blue Honda Civic, patting the hood and trunk, kicking the tires and peering inside at the gray interior. “Your mother chose well. She must be doing great.”