Prism (5 page)

Once, in a dream, I couldn’t dial my own telephone number. I punched numerical buttons in a myriad of orders, 3-6-8-2, 9-8-7-1, but nothing came out right. That’s how I felt now. No matter how I processed what had just happened, the events remained twisted. The images…I couldn’t shake them loose.

When I got home, Jace was sitting on the family-room couch, flipping through television channels. There was an advanced physics textbook on his lap and several pieces of paper sprawled out before him. My brother was wearing khaki cargo pants and a white-turned-gray-from-too-many-
washings T-shirt. His hair was messy, probably from raking it with his fingers. He did that when he concentrated on schoolwork.

I stopped at the doorway between the kitchen and the family room, attempting to catch my breath. I was profoundly affected and if I approached Jace in the wrong way, he’d just accuse me of being hormonal or hysterical.

“Jace…I need to talk to you.”

His eyes were still glued to the television. “Sure.”

I sat on the couch. It was ugly but comfortable, igniting an ongoing debate between Mom and Dad as to whether it should be chucked or saved.

“This couch is a catalyst for so many arguments in this family.” I was picking at my nails.

He looked up from the TV screen and regarded my face. “Somehow I don’t think that’s what you want to talk about.”

Just get it all out.
“I saw a guy get rammed by a car after school,” I announced flatly.

“Ugh! That’s messed up!”

“It was terrifying. And the worst part was that no one seemed bothered by it. Everyone around pretended it was no big deal.” Except Zeke, and there was no reason to get him involved right now.

“The first time I saw something like that, I was freaked out, too.” He turned down the television. “I understand.” He seemed to be collecting his thoughts. “Speaking from older brother experience, I can tell you don’t worry. It’ll pass.”

“Don’t
worry
? There was blood everywhere.”

Jace looked up me. “Didn’t the cleanup crew show?”

“The cleanup…” My mind was whirling. “Some guys in white took him away in a van…is that what you mean?”

Jace looked at me as if I had just come from the moon. “It’s over, Kaida. Don’t talk about it anymore. It’s messy stuff.”

I was momentarily stunned. “Nine-one-one didn’t work.”

Jace looked at me with a puzzled expression. “Nine wha-what?”

“Nine-one-one.” When Jace still didn’t get it, I said, “You know, the emergency line.” I paused. “What’s
wrong
with you?”

Something inside him snapped. “Kaida, are you being provocative just to get attention? It’s sad, but things like this happen all the time. It’s part of life. Just deal.”

“Thanks for being so understanding.”

His eyes softened. “Look, I’m sure you were scared when you saw all that…mess. It must have been gross. But it’s over. Stop worrying about it.”

“Are you
crazy
?” I stared at him. “Am I crazy?”

“That’s a very good question!” He became angry, grabbing his schoolwork and jumping off the couch like someone had lit his cargo pants on fire. “Maria did get you drunk.” He heaved a disappointed sigh. “Kaida, this is part of your nasty little hangover. Go hydrate yourself!” He stomped to the stairs, but not before giving me a hard glare. “Stop talking, Kaida. Keep
your thoughts to yourself and your mouth shut tight.”

That,
I thought,
is something I have never been able to do.

The next morning I met Maria right before first period. I wanted to tell her all about the accident, but she had a glazed look in her eyes.

“Feel.” Maria pressed my hand to her throat. “It feels puffy.”

“You have a cold, babe, take a sick day.”

“Shhhh…” Maria got annoyed. “Stop talking like that.”

“Take a day off. What’s the big deal? No important tests coming up.”

“I’m fine!” She was emphatic.

But she wasn’t fine. I tried a different approach. “Go to the nurse and—”

“The nurse?”

“Yeah…the school nurse.”

She laughed and hit my shoulder. “You’re in a mood. Should I also be seeing the school purse? How about the school curse?”

I couldn’t respond. It was getting easier to take Jace’s advice and keep quiet because nothing was making sense. I put the accident recitation on hold.

Maria brightened. “Food would help. I’m starved. Let’s get lunch.”

“Good idea.” The cafeteria was packed. I checked the menu
posted on the walls, and it was macaroni day, hence the hoards. “I’m going to just grab a candy bar from the vends.”

Maria considered her options. “Not in the mood for sugar. I think I’ll brave the crowds.”

“You think?”

“I’m willing if you are, babe.”

“Then let’s do it.” I mock-dived into the thick swarm of teenagers. Maria laughed, then disappeared into the teenage mob. A second later, I regretted my decision not to go with a candy bar.

“Ow!” I complained. “Come on, now!” Within a few moments, my toes had been stepped on, my hair had been ripped on someone’s button or pin, and my arms had been smacked in three different places. Plus I was nowhere near the front of the line. I was sandwiched by Ellen Garten in front and Mr. Addison, my history teacher, in back. Today he was wearing a golfer’s cap.

“Hello there, Hutchenson.”

“Hi, Mr. Addison. Would you like to go ahead of me?”

He gave me the famous “Addison smile”—lopsided with just a touch of irony. “That wouldn’t be very democratic.”

“I never knew Buchanan was a democracy.”

“True enough, Hutchenson. I thank you for your offer, but I’m willing to suffer the slings and arrows with the plebes. Are you all set for the upcoming field trip?”

My heart started racing…field trip…nightmares.

“…all right?” he asked.

Mr. Addison was talking to me. “Yes, sir, I’m fine.” But I wasn’t. “I think I’m just hungry. Are you sure you don’t want to go ahead? It’s taking a long time.” I backed away. “I insist.”

My teacher was staring at me. “Okay. Thank you, Kaida.” Another smile, but this one was kindly. “Eat a good lunch, all right?”

I nodded. After a fifteen-minute Herculean struggle, I obtained a minuscule dollop of macaroni in a tiny bowl with a side of potato salad. I exited the line, dreaming of those few cheesy bites of macaroni, they’d be so glorious, so victorious, so—

“Gah!” I shouted as a large guy bumped into me.

My hard-fought-for and well-earned macaroni lay on the floor.

And I had almost made it to my table.

“Clean that up!” a prissy girl shouted from her table. Her glossy hair was slicked back into a high ponytail, the kind that always gives me headaches. Her large wet eyes grew in diameter and she shook her head impatiently. “Do it before someone friggin’ slips!”

“Since when are you so concerned about public welfare?” I snapped back.

But it seemed like she genuinely was. She left her table and reappeared a minute later with a bunch of paper towels, scrubbing at my pathetic floor-tainted macaroni. “It’s people like you!” she snarled at me.

“I was going to clean it up,” I explained. “You were just too quick for me.”

“Yeah, right!”

I didn’t know why she was so angry. I was still staring at the shiny spot on the floor when someone tapped my shoulder. I snapped out of my daze.

“I do believe it’s our second encounter.”

I looked up—way up—trying to place the face to the smooth voice. The boy was half smiling, with a trace of a five o’clock shadow.

I liked him already.

“You bumped into me yesterday morning,” he stated with unabashed bluntness.

I sucked in air. “
Au contraire, mon frère
,
you
bumped into
me
.”

“Is that so?” He shook his head, and bluish black waves undulated. I suspected he dyed his hair—a kind of lame thing for a guy to do—but it didn’t matter because the color looked so good on him. He folded his arms across his chest. “I disagree with that assessment. But I do admit that I bumped into you just now. Think of it as revenge.”

“Or karma.”

“Same thing, different forces.” He looked at the shiny spot. “I am sorry about the macaroni, though. Do you want me to get you another one?” he asked.

“Nah, I’m all right. It’s still too crowded.”

“We can share. I’ve got enough for two. I even have two forks.” When I hesitated, he said, “Offer only goes once.”

I held out my hands like a scale, each palm on either side of me. I tipped one up and the other down, then reversed it. “I think I’ll take advantage and say yes.”

We sat at a cafeteria table occupied by three people who were hunched over textbooks, concentrating on AP calculus. I spotted Maria a few tables away, and she regarded me with an expression that was both confused and entertained.

He handed me a fork and we dug into the gooey mess. It was perfect. As soon as it hit my mouth, I started feeling better. Food was normal and ordinary. After the last couple of days, normal and ordinary were good. After studying him, I decided he might have looked vaguely familiar. How someone that cute could have escaped my notice was puzzling. “So,” I began, “had we ever met before yesterday’s collision?”

The AP study group gave us dirty looks and left en masse for another table. He laughed. “Is it my breath?”

“Grinds…don’t you love them?”

“Some people just have to work harder than others.” He shoveled macaroni into his mouth, but at least he chewed with his mouth closed. “We’ve never met because I just got here. I’m trying out the school for a couple of weeks. I got into Fairfield Prep on scholarship, but I wanted to see how I liked the public school. Hey, are you friends with Jenna Michaels?”

“No, not at all. Why would you think that?”

“Because she dyes her hair wild colors, too.”

“Jenna has blue hair,” I pointed out. “I have purple. Purpleish.”

“What’s your real hair color?”

“What does it matter?”

“Just making conversation.”

“It would help if I knew your name.”

“Ozzy.”

“Like the rock star?”

“If you want to associate me with him, that’s cool.”

There was an overly long silence. “Are you going to ask my name?”

Ozzy had dark green eyes, not mint green like mine. “I would love to know your name.” He smiled impishly. “Speak to me of it, Juliet.”

“Just for that, now you’ll have to guess, Rumpelstiltskin.” I prompted him with a wave of my hand.

“It’s either very unique or ridiculously ordinary. And by the way, it wasn’t Rumpelstiltskin who did the guessing, it was the mother of the child.” Before I could zing him a nasty retort, he said, “Your name is either common like Ashley or quirky like Mocha or Rose. Give me a hint…like the country of origin?”

“Good call, Ozzy. My name is Japanese.”

“Japanese?” He threw his head back. “You’re joking, right?”

“Not at all.”

He took in my contradictory appearance: freckles with purple hair and a long face on a small body. “Yoshi?”

“Never heard of it.”

“Megumu?”

“Haven’t heard of that one, either.” I looked up at the ceiling. The perforations on the tiles reminded me of sky constellations on crack. “Kaida.”

“Katie?”

“Kai-da.” My body filled with warmth when I said my own name. It was also filling with heat from those gorgeous eyes. Where had he been keeping himself? I hid behind a forkful of macaroni before I could embarrass myself further and I ate a few bites. Then I decided to change the subject. “Were the phones out yesterday?”

“I don’t believe so. Why?”

“I saw a car crash. I called nine-one-one, but no one answered.”

We sat still, staring at each other. His face had suddenly become grave and even a little scared. I tried out a smile, but his expression remained stiff. I felt very stupid and random.

“So I think I’d better go.” I shot out of my chair and ran through the crowds of the cafeteria. Running away from the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.

He could’ve called after me. And maybe he even did. But I couldn’t be sure, so it would have been stupid to turn back.

“Why am I so socially awkward?” I plunked myself down in a chair next to Maria.

Her brown eyes narrowed as they bored into mine. “Who was that?”

“His name is Ozzy.” I answered with feigned disinterest, stealing the cinnamon bun that she had gotten from the vending machine.

“Oh, don’t be so nonchalant.” She grabbed her pastry back. “He’s hot!”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Right, and I don’t have twelve toes.”

This was true. Maria was extremely proud of her twelve toes. She had the nicest shoes of anyone on the planet because they had to be custom-made. “I really shouldn’t go around advertising that.” A nervous laugh. “Don’t want too many people thinking I’m a freak.”

“And I shouldn’t have purple hair, but it is what it is.”

“Oz-zy!” She pronounced the name like her whole tongue had been dunked in honey. “Ozzy is quite fetching.”

“That’s enough out of you,” I said. “He just got here. He’s trying out Buchanan for a couple of weeks. I hope he likes it.”

“Taken, are we?” She raised an eyebrow and sipped her root beer.

“You
have
a boyfriend!” I said this without knowing whether my statement was legitimate. Maria went through guys like Suzanne went through diapers—daily and not very
cleanly. “So really, you think he’s cute?”

“I think he’s, h-h-h…” She sneezed and wiped her nose on her sweater.

“You sound like someone stuck Mount Kilimanjaro up your nose,” I remarked.

“Yeah, well,” she mumbled in a nasty tone.

“Why the bitterness?”

“You know why!” she shot back in an undertone.

I shrugged. “Just take a sick day—”

“Stop talking smack. Change the subject, Kaida. You’re not being funny now.”

And just then I saw Ozzy walk by. His mossy eyes zeroed in on Maria and me. They finally settled on my face.

“Hey.” Maria smiled at him. “How goes it?”

“Not bad.” He gave us a half smile and waved. Then he walked away, turning back once more to look at me.