The Hourglass Door (11 page)

Jason tightened his grip on my hand. “And the hug? Were you just being nice back?”

My temper flared a little, burning away my good mood. I shook my hand free of Jason’s. “Yes, actually, I was. Being nice is what
friends
do.”

Jason stopped in the snow and looked at me for a long moment, an unreadable expression on his face. “Maybe someday you’ll be that nice to me.” He turned and walked into the school.

“Jason!” I called, but he didn’t turn around. I balled up my hand into a fist. What was wrong with me? I hadn’t meant to make him unhappy or upset.

As soon as I entered the auditorium, Jason saw me and turned away. I started to follow him, but he disappeared backstage and out of sight. Dave called my name and waved me over. I sighed. I’d have to apologize later. If he’d let me.

I took off Dante’s coat and laid it on one of the chairs. I transferred the chocolates to my backpack. A few minutes later, I saw Dante slip through the door, and he gave me a quick wave before he took his place on stage.

I slouched in my seat, my notebook open on my lap, but I wasn’t taking notes on the play. Instead I was doodling random designs in the margins and thinking. Without a doubt the last few days had been some of the strangest I’d experienced. In fact, ever since Dante had walked into the auditorium last Thursday, my life had felt a little off-kilter, a step behind everyone else’s.

I watched Dante walk across the stage, following his blocking for the play. He scratched at his neck with one gloved hand.
What is the deal with those gloves?
I wondered. He wore them all the time, but he didn’t seem comfortable with them on, like they didn’t fit. I wondered why he didn’t just take them off. Maybe he was covering a rash, or a birthmark.

Or maybe he wears them for protection,
I thought absently.
Like motorcycle gloves.
Protection from what, though? I thought of how careful he was not to touch anyone. I remembered how, on Saturday, he’d almost touched me at Helen’s Café, but then hadn’t.
Could that be it?
No.
He carried me to the car that same day,
I argued with myself,
and he touched me at lunch today. And just now, in the parking lot.

But that brought up another question: Why had he apologized for carrying me to the car? He’d made it sound like he’d done something wrong. Of course, that was silly. He hadn’t wanted me to ruin my slippers in the snow, that was all.

I doodled a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers in my notebook. I remembered how I’d felt that strange sense of time slowing down when he’d held me in his arms. It had been the same feeling I’d had when I’d gotten home after breakfast—of time being out of whack—but it was then that time had seemed to snap back into place for me. And after that, the horrible white flashes of the future had started.

Idly I wrote down
white flashes
in the middle of my paper. On the left side I jotted down a short list—the befores:
Dante carried me to the car; weird thing with time; breakfast at Helen’s; breakfast at home.
I tapped the pen against my lip, wondering where my wandering thoughts were taking me. On the right side of my paper I wrote another short list—the afters:
glimpses of the future; horrible pressure; Dante’s touch at lunch; chocolates in the parking lot.

Since our meeting in the parking lot, the tight pressure that had been lodged in my heart all week had been exorcised completely. And somehow I knew the white flashes were gone and wouldn’t be coming back.

I circled Dante’s name where it appeared on both lists and then drew a line connecting them directly through the words
white flashes.
It was like Dante had healed a rip in time itself. And how exactly had he done that? I wondered.

I was starting to realize that when it came to Dante, there were a lot of questions I just didn’t have the answers to.
Curiouser and curiouser
. . .

I drew a rabbit standing in the bunny slippers and holding a watch.
I’m late for a very important date,
I wrote in a thought bubble above his head. That reminded me: Natalie had said something about going to the Dungeon on Friday with her and Valerie and Jason. I hoped I could smooth things over with Jason before then.

I looked up in time to see him walking up the far aisle of the auditorium with Robert and exiting out the back doors. He didn’t look at me once. I sighed. It seemed like lately I could never get my timing quite right.

I closed my notebook over my fractured thoughts and tried to concentrate on the end of rehearsal, though without much success.

~

After dinner, I fished out my chocolates for a late-night treat and noticed a slip of paper stuck to the bottom of the box. Unfolding it, I saw a list of words written in a bold, slanted script running along the left-hand margin:
breakfast, Italy, dream, beauty, temptation, goal, wish, love, future, laughter, hope, heaven.
Next to each word my name had been written in the same bold script.

Confused, I flipped the paper over but it was blank. What was this? And then I knew.

It was Dante’s getting-to-know-you list. Apparently he had thought about me and, following the rules, he’d written down my name every time.

Every time except for the last one.

I read the last line and felt a chill run a finger along my spine. There in black and white were two words:

Deadly. Me.

Chapter

7

You remembered the tickets, right?” Valerie asked Natalie. Parking at the Dungeon was always at a premium, but it was even worse on show nights, so all four of us had squeezed into Valerie’s convertible Lexus. It was a tight fit for me at five-six; it was almost impossible for Jason’s six-foot frame.

After finding me with Dante in the parking lot, Jason had barely spoken to me. But I knew he wasn’t one to hold a grudge, so on Thursday I had apologized and said all the right things and smoothed everything over. There was still a slight strain in our relationship, and I hoped a date at the Dungeon would help put us back on even footing.

“Right here,” Natalie said, flipping through the tickets like playing cards before passing two of them to me and Jason in the backseat.

“Zero Hour?” Jason read the name on the ticket. “Never heard of them. Are they any good?”

“Never heard of them?” Valerie almost choked on her Diet Coke, and the Lexus veered alarmingly to the left. “They’re only the hottest rock band right now.”

“If they’re so hot, why are they playing the Dungeon?” Jason asked, trying to shift his legs into a more comfortable position in the limited space.

“Because this is where they got their start,” Natalie explained quickly before Valerie could open her mouth. “A couple of years ago, these three guys showed up and started playing gigs at the Dungeon. Leo managed to get some big-time music producer to come to a show, and he signed the band that same night. They’ve been touring for almost a year promoting their first album—
Ten to Midnight.
”

“Honestly, Abby, has your boyfriend been living in a cave?” Valerie demanded as she pulled into the parking lot of the Dungeon.

“Well—” I said, but Valerie braked hard and swerved to the right, sliding her Lexus into a narrow space between a green Jeep Cherokee and a white Honda, saving me from having to respond.

“Um, Valerie, I don’t think this is a parking space,” Natalie said, looking out her window.

“Nonsense. My car fits, doesn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but I can’t open my door.”

Valerie sighed dramatically and pushed a button on the dashboard. The top of her convertible peeled back. A light snow fell from the dark sky. “Everybody out before the snow ruins the leather.”

I shot Jason a grin, which thankfully he returned, and we scrambled out the back of the car, sliding down over the trunk.

“And don’t you dare scratch the paint job,” Valerie called over her shoulder without looking at us.

Leo’s Dungeon was a simple two-story building with a hand-painted sign over the front door. Tonight there was also a single poster for Zero Hour next to the door. As boring as the outside of the building was, though, the inside more than made up for it. Posters from bands that had played there covered one entire wall: the Zombie Heads, Complicated Shoes,
Swedish Bitters, even Darwin Glass. The Dungeon was open every night but Sunday, and every Friday night was live music night, where Leo invited anyone with a band to come play at his place. Leo believed that kids needed a place to hang out, but he had three strict rules: no drugs, no drinking, no smoking. Breaking one of his rules meant lifetime banishment from the club. Even the rowdiest kids behaved themselves under Leo’s watchful eye.

A festival atmosphere settled over the crowds of people who were milling around the parking lot and wandering in and out of the Dungeon. Everyone was talking or dancing to the music that poured through the open door. I waved to Sarah and Lily, who were hanging out with a couple of the guys from the football team. Jason took my hand and we followed a trail of footprints in the snow that led to the door.

If the Dungeon was the hottest club in town, the Signature Wall was the coolest place inside. When Leo first opened his club, he had started an unusual tradition: you come in, you sign your name on the wall. Now, decades later, the wall was covered with names and messages from his customers. There was one signature that looked eerily like Jimi Hendrix, and another that Valerie swore was from Kurt Cobain, but Leo would never confirm or deny any of the rumors.

When we finally made our way inside, we headed straight for the wall to sign our names. Since Valerie always dotted the “i” in her name with a heart, and since she was at the Dungeon almost every Friday, I saw her heart all over the wall. Natalie’s signature was a narrow scrawl of pink. I signed my name beneath Jason’s. He hesitated, then quickly drew a plus sign between our names. I slipped my hand into his and gave it a quick squeeze. It was nice to know he wasn’t mad at me anymore.

Because I knew they were playing tonight, I scanned the wall for the signatures of the band. I saw the bold, blocky letters of Zero Hour almost immediately. Both the “o’s” in
Zero
and in
Hour
held two arrows pointing to where midnight would have been on a traditional clock face. The only numbers on these blank clocks, though, were the Roman numerals MDVI that crawled along the bottom curve. A thick black chain with three links connected the two clocks, and inside each link was a name: Tony. Zo. V.

The band certainly knew how to make a statement, I’d give them that.

Across from the Signature Wall was the bar where Leo usually held court, overseeing his customers like a benevolent deity. Tonight, though, I was surprised to see Dante behind the bar instead of Leo. He wore a crisp white shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His black gloves were shadowed blurs as he poured drinks for the steady stream of customers crowding around.

“What’ll you have tonight?” he asked us as we slid onto the stools lining the bar.

“Strawberry soda,” I said.

“Make that two,” Jason chimed in, leaning against the bar next to me.

“Make that three,” Natalie said.

“Diet Coke,” Valerie said, breaking the rhythm.

Dante nodded. He flipped a bottle of Diet Coke from underneath the bar, resting it on the back of his right hand. With his left hand, he quickly slapped a glass down, filling it with a scoop of ice. Gripping the bottle in his left hand and then passing it to his right, he spun the glass in a tight spiral, pouring the soda into the center of the glass. Bubbles fizzed and spat. Dante splashed a slice of lemon into the drink and the glass came to a stop in front of Valerie’s hand.

“Show-off,” she said with a wink as we all applauded his flair.

Dante grinned, showing his teeth in a flash of white. “I can’t help it if I’m good with my hands,” he said. “Three strawberry sodas?”

Quicker than my eye could follow, Dante had placed three tall, narrow glasses on the bar and filled each with a rich red liquid, a splash of soda water, and a paper umbrella. A split berry on the rim completed each drink.

“Wow,” I said, taking a sip. “This is better than Leo’s.”

“Where is Leo?” Jason asked, reaching past me for his drink.

Dante fussed with spinning an empty glass on the bar. “Leo’s . . . on vacation for a time. I’m filling in for him.”

I had just opened my mouth to ask another question when Julia, farther down the bar, signaled for a refill. Dante nodded to us and walked away to help the other customers.

Jason ate his strawberry in one bite, then leaned down to kiss me on the top of my head. “Be right back.” Jason pointed across the room at Robert, who was waving him over to his table near the front of the stage. Robert had his arm around a girl I didn’t know.

Valerie and Natalie were having a conversation, so I took my strawberry soda and wandered past the pool tables at the back of the Dungeon to the glass cabinet standing next to a door marked “Employees Only.” In addition to owning the Dungeon, Leo also collected antiques and curios. He kept his treasures on display, and there was always something new to see.