Soul Fire (24 page)

Celeste was waiting for me on their old wooden lawn swing. She was looking at her phone and texting. I sat down beside her, amid the scent of roses. Something pleasant. "Texting Brenna or Tara?" I asked.

"Yeah. Bet they're awake too." She finished and leaned back in the lawn swing. “You sore?”

“Yup. My headache’s back too. How about you?”

“Neck and shoulders.”

“Sorry about your car, Celeste. I guess it’s totaled. We were lucky though. Could’ve been so much worse. If it had rolled…”

Celeste shivered. “I keep thinking that too. We are so lucky. I don’t know what will happen about my car though—whether the insurance will cover it or not. I sure hope they can prove that it was Mako.”

“I wonder if the police would actually arrest him or even charge him.”

Celeste rested her head on the backrest of the lawn swing and gazed up at the stars. “It would be a first,” she replied and pulled her sweater around her. “He scares the crap out of me.”

“Mmnn, glad he didn’t come back, with all of us standing out there like that,” I added, reliving the whole thing all over again.

“Who knows what he would’ve done. He might have run us down.”

“You know it.”

I rested my aching head and searched the constellations for answers. They sparkled against the indigo sky as if all was well with the world. We sat absorbed in our thoughts, the lawn swing moving gently back and forth. Many summer nights, when sleep had escaped us, Celeste and I had met here and discussed our troubles. We never solved them, but we sure tried. The crickets started up and filled the night with their chatter.

“Your parents pissed about the car?” I asked.

“
Pissed
doesn’t begin to describe it. They are completely freaked. Dad wants to put the house up for sale. He says the sooner we leave here, the better.

I sat up too fast and my headache crashed inside my skull. “No!” I said too loudly. “He’s not serious. He’s just upset, right?”

“Shhh-h.” Celeste shook her head. “He’s dead serious, Ashla. He and Mom have been threatening to do it since we were attacked across the road. Tonight was too much for them. Mom’s convinced we could have been killed.”

I fell back against the backrest and closed my eyes. “I can’t imagine living here without you, Celeste, I just can’t.”

“Well, I’m not supposed to say anything, but apparently your parents are considering a move as well.”

“No way. We can’t move. Not with Mom’s daycare.”

“Dad says your parents are thinking about moving up near Mt. Vernon where housing is a lot cheaper, and it’s safer.”

I yanked the sleeves of my hoodie down over my fingers. “They forgot to mention any of this to me.” I considered this new eventuality. “It’s not a bad plan if we get a house that’s too small for my grandmother and our families move side by again. But what are the chances? Have your parents said where you guys will move to?”

Celeste shrugged. “Who knows. The whole thing is upsetting, but I don’t think they want to be near you. Sorry to say this, Ashla, but they’re convinced that the further we get from you the better. They think that what happened tonight wouldn’t have . . . if we weren’t friends.”

Ouch. That hurt, yet it was true. We drifted within our own thoughts . . . the cool night settling around us. After a while, I broke into the silence. “Remember that night at the pool, when you promised to stand by me through all this?”

“You mean the night it was on the news and in the paper?”

“Right. That one. Anyway, you said that you knew exactly how I felt. You said that you’d been where I was.”

“I remember.”

“Did you ever find a way to come to term with what you’d done—to forgive yourself?”

I heard an intake of breath, something she did when she disliked the question. “No,” she said softly. “I didn’t. And I never will. It still hurts to think of it.”

“Are you ever going to share?”

The lawn swing started moving faster and I could feel her tension. In the ensuing silence, the crickets started up again, filling the void. I could barely hear Celeste when she spoke. “Remember little Vicky Duanne?”

I flinched. “Yes.” She had lived three doors down, an only child born to two Chinese immigrants. Although she was a year younger, she played with us often . . . until that fateful day.

Celeste explained, “Vicky was sweet, but she had that habit of taking our toys home and not returning them, remember?”

I nodded. It had upset Celeste and me to the point where we were thinking in our five-year-old minds of de-friending her. We couldn’t understand why her parents didn’t step in. They had to be aware of it. Meanwhile, our own parents weren’t inclined to do anything about it either.

“Remember that darned doll that she dragged around with her everywhere?”

I had a flashback memory of the limp doll with a wrinkled blue dress that lived in the crook of Vicky’s arm.

“The day she was hit by the car I took the doll from her and went running up the street toward your house. Vicky was right behind me, crying and calling my name.” Celeste’s voice faltered. “She kept calling out, “Celeste, give me back my doll.” Celeste paused and covered her eyes. I reached for her other hand and held on tight.

Celeste searched the sky for a while and when she spoke again, her voice was raw. “I wanted to teach Vicky that it was wrong to
take things.
I wanted her to know how we felt when she did that to us. So, I took her doll, her favorite toy in this world. I had intended on giving it to you to put away for a while, but just then, your dad’s car came down the road. I ran across the street. I decided instead to hide the doll in the brush . . . maybe give it back to her the next day. So, when your dad turned into your driveway, I was in the middle of the road with Vicky running right behind me,” Celeste stopped.

I knew, of course, what was coming. The scene was vivid now in my memory, but I had never known what had led up to it.

“What neither of us realized,” Celeste continued, “was that there was another car right behind your dad’s. It missed me, but…”

I swallowed hard . . . remembering and turned to hug Celeste. Vicky had been hospitalized for awhile. We never saw her again as the family moved away not long afterward.

I staggered bleary-eyed into the kitchen, dragged the OJ out of the fridge, and poured a glass. I had overslept, so I was alone. Or so I thought.

“So, you finally rolled out of bed.”

The jarring voice affected my pour and orange juice splashed onto the countertop. My grandmother’s tone sent the usual shivers down my spine. I looked over my shoulder to see her standing in the dining room doorway. The woman had no compassion what-so-ever. You’d think after last night’s accident and everything that followed, she’d give me a small break. Angry, I popped the juice back into the fridge and grabbed the dishcloth to wipe up the spill. I bit down hard on my lower lip. I had said enough the other night.

“You’re late. Class starts at 8:30 a.m.
sharp.
Get your butt in here.”

My mouth dropped. “What? What are you talking about?”

My grandmother stepped back into the dining room and pointed to the dining room table. She wore a summer dress and pumps. Her curly gray hair was perfectly coifed. I hadn’t seen this side of her in years. Not since she had worked. Crossbow was over by the door, lapping the milk Mom had left out for him. He gazed up at her suspiciously, his hairless tail disappearing between his hind legs.

Her answer was full of distain. “If you want to pass eleventh grade, you need to write the finals and to do that, you need to prepare for them.”

I drank down the orange juice, and in sheer frustration, slammed the glass onto the counter. “I’ve been working on my own. We discussed this already. I don’t need your help.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Prove it!”

“What?”

“Finals are in two weeks. You say you’re ready. Great. I have a test here that will tell all. Let’s see how
ready
you are.”

Another one of her lose-lose situations. If I take the test and blow out, she wins. If I don’t take the test, it looks like she’s right anyway, so she wins. Truth was, I had been having a lot of difficulty focusing lately. Nothing sticks. My mind wanders. I worry about Dad’s health, our family’s growing debt, and our trying to survive on Mom’s daycare income. I fret about falling behind in my schoolwork, about Justin and his legs…and my intense feelings for him. I worry about Delta being alone and going off to California, about being attacked again, about my friends getting hurt because of me, about what’s being posted on those nasty websites, and above all…about Mako and his friends and what could happen next. Of course, now I can add
moving
to the list.

“Hurry up. I don’t have all day.”

“Oh really?” I snorted as I swung past her into the dining room. At the end of the long formal table sat the test, a pen, and a timer.

She glanced at her watch. “Day’s a’wasting.”

I gave her my
evil eye
and plopped down in Dad’s chair. She started the timer. “Two hours,” she informed me. “When the timer goes off, put down the pencil, and push back from the table.”

I scanned the test paper.

“Go,” she said.

Time flew. I struggled on some of the questions and kept going back to them, trying to dislodge the answer from my besieged brain. I really wanted to ace this and prove her wrong, but there were a few areas on the test that were new to me. Was I behind in my studies? I glanced up, pushing my hair back from my face. She was sitting in Mom’s chair at the opposite end of the table . . .  seemingly engrossed in a novel. Crossbow had come to terms with her new look and purred contentedly on her scrawny lap.

Suddenly the timer rang, destroying the silence, and sending the cat fleeing the room. My grandmother dropped her paperback face down onto the tabletop. “Put down your pen.”

I obliged and got up.

“Sit back down.”

“I need a break.”

“You’ll get it at lunch. Put your butt back in that chair.” She snatched up the exam and slid a package of papers toward me. “Here, get busy.”

I remained standing. “We were going to let the test results be the judge.”

“Oh, we are. But until I mark this, you’ve got work to do.”

I banged my fist on the table, angry with her for duping me, for her thorny, unlikable personality, for her pomp and cockiness, and especially for her living in our house. “I have no intention of spending six hours a day cooped up with you in this room!”

She scanned the exam, unruffled by my rude remark. “We can have a
working relationship.
Set some ground rules—“

“Yeah, like cut the nasty remarks—“

“We can treat this as a teacher-student relationship. You show respect—“

“Respect! Are you kidding—“

“Let me finish, for crying out loud! You show respect for me and I will do likewise.”

“Ha! That’ll never happen.”

“It can work. We set ground rules and boundaries. The minute we walk into this room, I become your teacher. You become my student. We leave
everything
else
at the doorway. In this room, I will treat you the same way I did my students. I will offer you the best of my teaching skills and in turn, I ask for discipline, hard work, completed assignments, and yes,
respect!”

Still steaming, I tried to consider this. We despised each other. I abhorred the sound of her voice, her nasty looks and putdowns, and her prickly personality. On the other hand, I had to pass those exams and I was troubled by the areas on the test that were new to me.

“Well?” Her foot tapped impatiently on the wood floor. Even that agitated me.

“I’ll let you know at the end of the day,” I replied, sitting back down.

“Good. We meet here each day at 8:30 a.m.
sharp.
And no more pajamas.”

After dinner, I called Celeste. She had spent over an hour at the police station going over what led up to the accident etcetera. I was anxious to hear how it went. “Let’s go for coffee,” I suggested.

“Can’t.” she whispered. “My parents don’t want me going anywhere with you, outside of our own homes. They’re freaked out about us being run off the road, and they’re terrified of what might happen next. They don’t think Mako will be arrested which means that he’s
out there.
I’m basically grounded, except for school. Mom’s going to be driving me up to Huntley. Just what I need. That’ll look really cool.”

“What about swimming?”

“That’s okay, but we come and go separately.”

“Great,” I said, once again feeling like an outcast. “I’ll call Brenna and Tara. See if they can come by. Back to you in a bit.” I disconnected and walked with the old cordless over to the window. I cracked it open and the warm breeze filtered into my room. Brenna’s mom had picked up and I waited. I could hear her talking to Brenna.

Brenna was uncharacteristically subdued. “Ashla?”

I replied, “I heard your mom warning you against seeing me. I’m out of bounds, obviously.”

“Sorry, Ashla. It’s because of last night. My parents are beside themselves. I can’t go anywhere except to school and even then—“

“Your mom’s driving you,” I filled in.

“My brother, actually. I’m so sorry, Ashla.”

“Not your fault,” I said, disconnecting. With trepidation, I punched in Tara’s number and when Kim picked up, she said, “Ashla, how are you doing? Hope you weren’t hurt last night.”

“I’m good,” I lied, waiting for her to tell me that Tara was out or some such thing.

“Ashla, things are getting pretty scary. The best thing you girls can do right now, is separate. And don’t put yourselves in harms way by going out. I know this is going to be hard for you guys, but it’s important.”

“I understand,” I said and ended the call.

My stomach turned to mush. This hurt more than being ostracized at school. They were my closest friends. They meant
everything
to me. Especially Celeste. I put one hip on my window ledge and looked outside at my world, trying to summon my grandfather’s words, but they wouldn’t come.