Sidekicks (2 page)

He looked down at me. "Oh yeah? Why?"

"I'm usually a wallflower."

"Oh yeah?
Why?"

"Because I'm...er...shy?"

He snorted. "
You
asked
me
to dance."

"So?"

"A shy girl wouldn't."

"She might if she thought the guy was cool."

"I'm wearing a rented Shaggy costume with a tear in the ass, okay? I'm so not cool."

"Really?" I tried to look.

He wouldn't let me. The music ended. "Thanks for the dance."

"You're welcome," I said as he backed away from me. A nanosecond later, he disappeared into the crowd. I slowly made my way over to my friends.

Tyler glared at me. "He asked you to dance?"

"No, I asked him."

"Why?"

"Because I've met him before." My raised hand halted Brynn's question before she could ask it. "Where, I do not know."

She gave me a hint of a smile. "You two looked like a couple."

I sighed. "I wish."

"But you don't even know the guy." Tyler almost sounded jealous.

Luckily, I knew that he was simply in big brother mode, the result of having two preteen sisters--one eleven, one thirteen, both boy crazy. "And never will if I don't do something about it."

"You got that right." Brynn gave me a you-go-girl nudge.

It had been a while since we'd had boyfriends, so both of us were ready for a little romance. More than once she'd mentioned dating Tyler, who she alternately loved and hated. I sincerely hoped she wouldn't go with love and screw up a solid three-way friendship.

As if sensing my distraction with Shaggy, a couple of spirits crossed the imaginary boundary I'd set for them. A young male presence showed me a boutonniere. I realized he'd once been to a dance in this very gym. Prom, I decided, probably in the seventies and with someone now here, but obviously not one of the students. A teacher, maybe? I almost opened up to him to find out, but caught myself. I hadn't come to the dance to conduct a session.

The other spirit came across as female. An older lady, I thought, who had a grandson within these four walls. She showed me dreadlocks. I spotted a Jack Sparrow lookalike nearby and knew it must be him. That put me in a quandary. Did she have a message for me to pass along?

So far I hadn't revealed my gift to my new classmates, but not because I was embarrassed about it. There just hadn't been a good moment. Of course that would change if spirits started pestering me to pass along messages to fellow students. So far, they hadn't, thank goodness.

Most of the teens who'd been moved here from Ville Cachée, population three thousand, knew all about my sidekicks thanks to me being on a television show called "The Inner Eye". I'd been in third grade at the time, a medium with normal parents struggling to come to grips with what I could see. The show had featured a weekend with a seasoned psychic and other fledgling clairvoyants from six to sixteen years old. I'd taken away three things when it came time to go home: courage, confidence in what I could do, and a new best friend.

The courage had kept me sane until my confidence grew into understanding and acceptance. The new best friend, a third grader named TC Ray, had stayed in touch for about a year before he dropped off the planet. That gave him the dual distinction of being the first boy I ever kissed on the lips as well as the first boy who'd ever broken my heart. For that reason, I remembered those days as bittersweet even though they'd changed me and my parents forever and for good.

Tyler, Brynn, and I goofed around most of the night, mixing and mingling enough to satisfy our adult chaperones, but mostly enjoying the music and sticking to ourselves. I didn't see Shaggy again until much later, when Brynn's elbow jab to my ribs alerted me to the fact that he now stood a couple of feet away, his steady brown-eyed gaze glued to me. I briefly wondered how I could've confused him with Tyler.

"Everyone freeze!" The DJ's cry stopped us in our tracks. The gym went silent. "It's almost eleven. Drum roll, please." He flipped a switch on his console. The requested percussion began. "Together now: five, four, three, two, one! Unmask!"

Everyone did. Laughter, yells, and dozens of excited conversations shattered the quiet. I stepped up to Shaggy, with his tousled black hair and those dark chocolate eyes. "Hi, I'm Mia Tagliaro."

"Hi back. Cooper Marsh."

Marsh? Oh please no. "Distantly related to the principal, are you?"

"Not exactly."

"Closely related, then?"

"You could say that."

"What would
you
say?"

"That he's my stepdad, which means we're not really related at all."

Shit, shit, shit all the same. "Please don't misunderstand what I said earlier. I'm sure your stepdad is a very good administrator. He's just facing a lot of challenges and coming on a little strong to those of us who don't belong here."

"I'll tell him you said that."

"Oh no! It might discourage him or something. Besides,
this
--" I swept my arm to draw his attention to the boisterous students crammed together on the dance floor. "Seems to be working. I mean, the two of us are talking, and we never have before tonight." I narrowed my gaze. "Or have we? Now that your mask if off, I'm pretty sure we have. Do I know you?"

Impulsively, I framed his face with my hands to keep his head still, hoping to put a vaguely familiar face with a solid name. He quickly ducked back, but it was too late. I knew him, all right.

My heart dropped into my stomach.

"TC Ray, is that you?"

His jaw dropped. "Bella?"

I vaguely registered Tyler and Brynn exchanging startled glances, but I didn't have time for them then. "Holy crap! How long has it been? Nine years, ten? You live in Louisiana now?"

"Er, yeah. When Mom remarried--"

"Your parents split?"
Wow. That was a shocker. They'd been so tight the last time I saw them. But that was years and years ago at a McDonald's in Mississippi, halfway point between Ville Cachée and Birmingham, where he'd been living at the time. Anything could've happened since then and clearly had.

"Actually, Dad died."

I gasped and pressed my hand to my thudding heart, which was somehow back in my chest. "Oh no. When?"

"About a year after you and I--" He abruptly braked. "You know what? I can't do this. I mean
really
can't." Pivoting, TC Ray aka Cooper Marsh aka the love of my life, vanished into the boisterous crowd yet again.

I spun to face Brynn and Tyler. "What just happened?"

"I believe that's
my
question," said Brynn. "You really do know him?"

"Oh yeah."

Tyler dragged his Scooby-Doo hood off his damp blond curls. "From where?"

I started to tell them, but instantly had second thoughts. I didn't know where Cooper stood as far as revealing his gifts, and it wasn't my job to out him if he hadn't. "We met as little kids."

"How little?" asked Brynn.

"I'm not sure. Six, maybe?" I lied, of course. I knew exactly how old we'd been.

"And you went by Bella then?"

I managed a laugh. "Don't you remember me going through that stage?"

"Yeah, but we were in third grade. I know that because you drove Mrs. Mason nuts about it."

Ah. Dear Mrs. Mason. So patient with little girls who loved make believe. I abruptly changed the subject to keep from going there. "Wow it's getting hot in this old gym. Is it time for a getaway?"

"Finally!" Tyler mopped his face with the hood of his costume. "I wanted to leave before I got here."

"Could you be more of a dud?" Brynn sashayed past him and made for the closest exit.

Tyler and I looked at each other. I'd never seen him so baffled and tried to explain without giving away Brynn's vacillating feelings for him. "You could've danced with her at least once."

"Why?"

"Because she doesn't have a boyfriend and, unlike me, won't dance alone."

"And that's
my
problem?"

Giving up on him, I trailed after Brynn, just bursting through the double doors into the night. The cool air felt deliciously refreshing. "Is your stepdad coming for you?"

"No, thank God. I told him I'd catch a ride with someone."

"Good. I'll take you home." Feeling the weight of someone's stare, I glanced over my shoulder. TC, standing in the shadows with his eye on me. I knew he wanted to talk, which was good, because I did, too. "On second thought...will you hate me if I don't?"

Brynn's gaze followed mine. She softly gasped. "Of course not. Um, good luck."

"Thanks."

"I'll drive you," said Tyler, who'd finally caught up with us.

She gave him a reluctant nod. As they walked to his truck, I heard him say, "If you wanted to dance, you should've told me."

"Who said I wanted to?"

He flicked a backward glance my way, but didn't spill the beans. "No one. It was just a feeling..."

"Leave the feelings to Mia, okay?" Their voices faded to nothingness.

TC walked over, his hands stuffed into his front pockets. "Hey."

"Hey."

"We should talk."

"Ya think?"

"Patrick doesn't allow anyone to sit in parked cars on campus, but we can find a corner inside where no one will hear us."

So he called his stepdad by his first name just as Brynn did. Interesting. I glanced at my watch. It was only eleven-fifteen. Since the dance didn't officially end for another forty-five minutes, I wasn't expected at home just yet. "All right. But it's really loud in there."

"We'll be okay." TC already had the gym door open and was waiting for me to enter first, which I quickly did. We kept to the edge of the room, winding our way through the diehard antisocials still edging the walls until we reached the hay bales. TC moved a couple of the pumpkins so we could sit.

I spoke first. "So what am I supposed to call you? TC or Cooper?"

"I go by Cooper now. The TC thing was a nickname my dad gave me. After he died, it didn't feel right anymore, so I went with the C part--Cooper--which is my middle name. Why are you Mia?"

"I've actually always been Mia, well, except for when I was on TV with you. Bella, was going to be my stage name." I laughed at the memory of my childhood delusions. "Guess I never told you any different." I picked at a piece of straw on my dress. "I'm really sorry about your dad. What happened?"

"He had a knee replaced. A clot formed and went straight to his heart in spite of the blood thinner. Mom moved back to Louisiana to be near her folks right after the funeral."

"No wonder we lost touch. I wrote and wrote..."

He flushed and began to study the floor. "Mom remarried about a year after that to Patrick Marsh. He was just a teacher then."

"And he adopted you?"

"Yeah."

I felt a couple of spirits hovering. "Not now, okay?"

Cooper looked both ways to see who I was talking to, frowning his confusion when no one was there.

I shifted my full attention to him in bewilderment. "You don't feel them?"

"Feel who?"

"Those spirits."

"Oh. No, not anymore."

My breath caught in my throat. "You mean you lost your sidekick?"

"Years ago."

My eyes brimmed. I laid my hand over his. "That's horrible."

"Horrible?" He took his hand back. "It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I mean, who really wants to be a freak?"

Freak. The label every misunderstood psychic on the planet dreaded; the label I couldn't believe he'd just used. "Me?"

Cooper clearly didn't buy it. "Don't tell me you've never wished you weren't different."

"Only at first. "The Inner Eye" changed everything for me. For you, too. That's what you said, anyway."

"That was for the cameras, as in me trying to give our producer the happy ending he wanted. After all, he'd paid our way out there." He moved his hand in front of us, face level, as if he were placing subtitles there. "Misfit Psychics and Their Families Find Peace in One Short Weekend."

Cooper's sarcasm stunned me. No one had been listening in on the heart-to-hearts we'd had during those three days. Why had he been lying then? "So it was all an act?"

"Every bit."

"Even...us?"

"What us?"

Could he have sounded any colder? I didn't think so. "Our friendship. Was that why you stopped answering my texts, emails, and letters? Because I was a pest instead of a friend?"

He hesitated just long enough for me to get the message.

"Oh my God. It was! Wow." Feeling like a knife had just been shoved into my heart, I jumped up and right ran out of the gym. In seconds, I was sitting in my car boohooing like a baby. I slid down in the seat just in case Cooper had followed and might be looking in cars for me, but I knew that he hadn't. Why would he?

I was a freak.

When my tears slowed enough for me see, I drove straight home. My first instinct was to wake up my mom and sob on her shoulder. I didn't, though. For some reason I couldn't bear the thought of my parents thinking badly of Cooper. Gut instinct told me things might not be what they seemed, and I always trusted gut instinct. Or maybe I simply couldn't believe my very first crush would really do that to me.

Either way, I stripped and showered instead, standing under the warm spray a long time and not just because I was washing hair with way too much hairspray in it. I couldn't get my mind off Cooper.

How could he have fooled me, a girl with sidekicks, so thoroughly? Surely I'd have picked up on his insincerity...or not. My talents were mostly limited to feeling, seeing, and communicating with the dead, though I had occasional flashes of insight that involved the living. Cooper's had gone far beyond that. He'd not only communicated with spirits, he'd picked up thoughts and emotions from the living, as well.

How sad that he'd lost his gifts. The thought of losing mine made me sick to my stomach. I honestly couldn't imagine my life without the ability to help people consumed by grief or guilt. The resulting rush I got was addicting, and so much a part of my own mojo that I was sure I'd have an identity crisis if I couldn't do it anymore. Was that what had happened to Cooper? Nothing else could explain why he'd changed so drastically.