The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball (15 page)

“Where are we going?” I ask him for the thousandth time, and for the thousandth time he tells me that I'll see.

Finally, after at least ten minutes of me clutching onto Jesse's hand for dear life, we reach the bottom. In the moonlight, all I can see is something that looks like steam, rising up from a pile of rocks. It's beautiful.

“What is this place?”

“It's a hot spring,” he tells me, still holding onto my hand even through we're on stable ground now. “It's one of the only ones on the entire east coast. It used to be a popular swimming hole in the 1800s. In 1884 they closed it to the public and put a sanitarium here. Doctors thought that sitting in the hot water could cure arthritis, so people came from all over the country for treatment. In the 1920s it was shut down and turned into an inn that's been run by the same family ever since. But now the family is down to one old lady in her nineties, and she stopped taking in guests about fifteen years ago. And what's crazy is that hardly anybody remembers that the hot spring is even
here
.” He bends down and picks up a stone, then tosses it into the water, where it lands with a soft
pling
. “I'm sure the second she dies, some developer will rush in and turn it into a health spa or a fat farm or something stupid like that.”

I shake my head in awe. “How do you know all of this? And more importantly,
why
do you know all of this?”

He shrugs. “I don't know. I'm just interested in history, I guess. I like knowing about what things were like before I was here to see them for myself.” He unclasps my hand and bends down to untie his shoes. “Come on,” he says. “Let's go in.”

“Go in? There?”

“Yeah. The water's, like, a hundred degrees. Think of it as the original Jacuzzi.”

I stare at him like he's crazy as he kicks off his shoes.
Oh God
, I think nervously. Is he going to get undressed? Is he expecting
me
to get undressed? Because I'm not.
No way, Jose
. I quickly turn around so that my back is to him, but I can hear the fabric of his T-shirt rubbing against his skin as he lifts it off, and I almost faint as I hear the
ziiiip
of his jeans.

“You can turn around,” he says, but I stay where I am and shake my head, too nervous to say anything. Too nervous to breathe, even. “It's okay,” he laughs. “I'm not naked or anything. Jeez. What kind of a guy do you think I am?”

Finally, I exhale. Well, that's a relief. For a second, I wasn't sure
what
was going on. Slowly, I turn around to face him…

I let out a little laugh. His boxers have red chili peppers all over them, and the chili peppers are wearing dark sunglasses and smiling huge, toothy smiles.

“Come on,” he says, stepping into the water. “You have to come in. If you're going to trespass, you might as well take full advantage of the property.”

There's a part of me that wants to go in so badly it hurts, but a boy swimming in boxers is not the same as a girl swimming in her bra and underwear. Especially when the girl wearing the bra doesn't have anything to fill it with.

“That's okay,” I tell him. “I'll just wait here. You have fun.”

He dunks his head under the water, then pops back up again and leans his elbows on a rock next to where I'm standing.

“Please?”

I hear Samantha's words echoing in my head again:
Thanks a lot, Captain Buzzkill
.

“I don't think so, Jesse. I'm sorry.”

He bats his eyelashes dramatically. “Pretty please? With sugar on top? I promise I won't look, if that's what you're worried about.”

You just crowd-surfed at a punk rock concert. Go with that
.

I don't answer him. Instead, I start undoing my studded belt.

“Yes!” he says, pumping his fist. “I knew you had it in you.”

“Just turn around,” I order, dropping my skirt to the ground and pulling off the sleeveless hoodie, then the T-shirt, and then, finally, removing my shoes. I dip my toe into the water. It really is like a Jacuzzi.

“Can I turn around now?” he asks, once I've slid into the water up to my neck.

“Yes. You can turn around now.” He turns, slowly, and faces me, his black hair slicked flat against his head, his blue eyes blue even in the dark. He reaches out and puts his hands on my bare shoulders, and my whole body trembles.

“So, you've never been to a punk concert before, have you?”

Uh-oh. I guess my head-banging wasn't all that convincing. I press my lips together and shake my head in mock shame. Jesse smiles.

“And you don't really like the Flamingo Kids, do you?”

I shake my head again, trying not to laugh. “How'd you know?”

“Um, let's see…the outfit was the first tip-off. Not that you didn't look good, but most people don't get quite so dolled-up for a concert at the Corridor. But I knew for sure when you said you like the pit. No girls like the pit.”

“That's a little chauvinistic,” I tease.

He raises his eyebrows and grins. “Oh, really? So you did like the pit, then? Should we go back for our second date?”

“Okay, fine. I hated the pit. I felt like I was in a bad movie, in one of those rooms where the walls are closing in all around me.”

We both laugh, and then his face turns serious again.

“It's funny, you haven't really changed at all in the last two years, but somehow, you've changed completely,” he murmurs. “Do you know what I mean?”

I nod. “I could say the same thing about you.” I lift his right hand off of my shoulder and turn it over, so that I'm looking at his wrist. I study his tattoo in the moonlight. It's some kind of a word, but it's not written in English. It looks like Hebrew maybe, or Arabic.

“What does it say?” I ask.

“It says ‘truth.' It's Hebrew.”

“What does it mean?”

He smiles. “It means that I should never forget who I am. That I should always do what feels right, and not what everyone else thinks I should do.” I trace over it with my fingers. His skin feels soft and raised just the slightest bit along the edges of the ink. He lifts his wrist out of my hand and puts his fingers under my chin, tilting my face up toward his. He looks so deeply into my eyes that I feel like he must somehow know everything that's going through my mind. And then all of a sudden my eyes are closed, and he's kissing me, and I'm kissing him back.
This is amazing
, I think.
Everything is falling into place, just as the ball predicted
.

After a minute or so he pulls back and looks at me, brushing a piece of my hair away from my face. “That was so much better than it was in Jeff DiNardo's closet.”

I look back at him, totally shocked. So he does remember!

“I thought you'd forgotten about that.”

He shakes his head and widens his eyes. “Are you kidding? I've thought about that kiss every night for the last two years.” This time, my eyes are the ones that get wide. Jesse Cooper has been thinking about me? For the last two years? God, I'm stupid. No wonder he was so weird at the museum. He probably thought I was a horrible person for not talking to him all of this time, just because he had changed his look. Just because he was living his life according to his tattoo.

“But what about Kaydra?” I ask.

“What about Kaydra?”

“Well, I don't know. I thought you two were…I mean, she's really pretty, and she was flirting with you at the museum and everything.”

“First off, she's, like, twenty, and second of all, she's not my type. You're my type. And I've missed hanging out with you. A lot.”

Jesse leans in and kisses me again. His mouth tastes soft and sweet and delicious, like a ripe strawberry in the middle of summer. So I'm his type. I didn't even know I
was
a type. But I like the way it sounds.

“We should get going,” he says, when we finally come up for air. “It's almost eleven.”

I know he's right, but I so do not want to leave. I make a mental note that when I get home, I need to ask the ball if my parents will extend my curfew.

The next evening, Lindsay is lying on my bed, her hands crossed behind her head, relaying the horrible details of the weekend with the Girlfriend. Or the G/F, as I've come to think of her, given all of the texts that Lindsay sent yesterday while she was at her dad's.

“Seriously, she was so annoying. She kept acting like we were friends or something. Like we're the same age. She even asked me if I wanted to go hang out with her at
the mall
. And the worst part is, my dad thinks that it's awesome. He's, like, ‘Oh, Lindsay, isn't this so great, it's like having a big sister.' And I'm, like, ‘Yeah, dad, except she's your girlfriend, remember?' If this goes anywhere she could be my
stepmom
.” Lindsay shudders. “Ugh. Could you imagine?” She lifts her head up when I don't answer and looks across the room at me. “Erin?”

I quickly snap myself out of my daydream about me and Jesse, kissing in the hot spring last night.

“No,” I say dramatically, even though I'm not exactly sure what it is I'm supposed to be imagining, since I kind of tuned her out there for a minute. But it doesn't matter. I can tell from her tone that it's something bad. “It would be
awful
.”

Satisfied, Lindsay lies her head back down. “I know, right? I mean, what does he even have to talk to her about? My little sister is smarter than she is.”

“I kissed Jesse Cooper last night,” I blurt out, unable to contain myself for another nanosecond.

Lindsay sits straight up. “You
what
?”

“I kissed Jesse Cooper. In a hot spring.” I close my eyes and sigh. “It was amazing.” I proceed to tell her the whole story from the very beginning, from asking the ball if I would get to see Jesse's hot body, all the way to my kiss. Lindsay's mouth is hanging open, getting wider and wider with every detail.

“Okay, let me get this straight. You
crowd-surfed
in a mosh pit? And you climbed through a hole in a fence on private property? And you took off all of your clothes and went swimming in your bra and underwear?” She gapes at me. “Who are you? And what have you done with Erin?”

I laugh. “I know, right? It's like something came over me last night, and I just went with it. It's like I was someone else completely.”

I don't tell her about what Samantha said to me in the parking lot. My feelings are still too raw for me to talk about it. Although, I suppose I should thank her, really. I mean, if she hadn't said what she did, I might never have crawled through that hole in the fence and into the best night of my life.

“It's your aunt,” Lindsay says, matter-of-factly. “I'll bet you she's channeling her spirit through you. I've heard of that happening before.”

“Okay, I don't necessarily think that she's channeling her spirit, but it's funny you say that. I kept thinking about her all night. How I was doing the kinds of things that she would have done.”

Lindsay has a goofy smile on her face, and she's looking at me like a proud parent. “Do you know what you are?” she asks.

“No. What? And why are you looking at me like that?”

Her smile widens. “
You
are not boring. Not anymore.”

I tilt my head to the side as I think about this. She's right. I mean, how could anyone who goes to a concert wearing Hot Topic and crowd-surfs in a mosh pit and illegally trespasses on private property be boring?

“Thanks, Linds,” I say, beaming back. “I think that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Only, how do I turn that into an essay about why I should get picked to go to Italy?”

“Hmmmm,” she says. She looks up at me, blank-faced. “I have no idea. But what about Samantha? Did the ball work for her? Did she hook up with Aiden?”

This is an excellent question. I must have texted her ten times last night when I got home, and I've been calling her all day, but she's not responding to anything. Which, I think, can only mean one of two things: Either a) things went really well and she can't talk because she and Aiden are still making out, or b) things went really, really badly and she doesn't want to talk to anyone at all. Given the circumstances, it could have gone either way.

Before I can answer Lindsay, my cell phone rings. “Maybe this is her,” I say, reaching for it. “I haven't even spoken to her yet.” But when I look at the caller ID, my stomach flips over, just like it did last night. It's Jesse.

“Hi,” I answer. Lindsay raises her eyebrows—
is it her?
—and I shake my head. I mouth that it's Jesse and she smiles and bites her lip.

“Hi,” he says. “I had a really good time last night. I think it was one of the best nights I've ever had. I mean, can you believe the lead singer of the Flamingo Kids signed my T-shirt?” I'm silent. That wasn't exactly what I thought he was referring to. “Kidding,” he says with a laugh, and I laugh back, relieved. “But seriously, do you want to know what he wrote?”

“Yeah. I meant to look last night but I forgot.”

“It says, ‘To Jesse, you have hot friends. Eric Anderson.”

Hot
friends
? Plural? I can feel myself blushing a little as I think about what I was wearing last night.

“I'll let Samantha know,” I tell him. “Not that she'll care.”

“Yeah, right. Did she hook up with Aiden? Have you talked to her?”

“No. Not yet. She's not answering my texts or phone calls or anything. Lindsay and I were just sitting here saying that we're a little worried.”

“Hi, Jesse!” Lindsay shouts enthusiastically.

“Hi, Lindsay,” he says back.

“He says hi,” I tell her, and she giggles.

“You told her everything, didn't you?” he groans.

I try to keep my voice serious. “No. I didn't tell her anything. We've just been talking about our math homework.”

Lindsay bursts out laughing.

“All right. I'm obviously intruding on your girl time. Go back to pillow fighting or whatever it is you do. I'll see you tomorrow at school?”

“Yes, definitely. And Jesse?”

“Yeah?”

“I had a really good time last night too.”

I hang up the phone and Lindsay screams.

“Oh my God, you two are soooo cute! I love this! I can't believe you have a boyfriend!” She looks at me, her eyes twinkling. “Aren't you glad now that you listened to me about the ball?”

“Yes,” I admit to her. “I am. I am
so
glad that I listened to you about the ball.” I pause, turning around to face my closet. Suddenly, a thought occurs to me. I whirl back around to look at Lindsay.

“Actually, would you mind looking at the rest of the clues with me? I think I just realized something. I think I won't be ready until I've figured out what all of the clues mean.”

“Ready for what?”

“I'm not sure, exactly. Just, my aunt's friend, the one who gave me the ball, she said I should call her when I'm ready. I didn't know what it meant before, but I'm starting to get an idea.”

Before I even realize what I'm doing, I throw open the closet, grab the ball from the shelf, and spread out the papers on my desk. Lindsay hunches beside me to pore over them.

“‘Absolute knowledge is not unlimited; let the planets be your guide to the number,'” Lindsay reads. “What do you think that means? What's the number?”

“I don't know. But what about the word ‘
unlimited
'? If something is not unlimited, then that means it has to have a limit. So, absolute knowledge has a limit?”

Lindsay nods, like all of a sudden she gets it. “It ends,” she states confidently. “I think it means that eventually the ball isn't going to work for you anymore. Look at the last clue. ‘You will know more when no more is known; then it is time to choose another.' I think it's saying that when the ball stops working for you, you have to choose someone else to give it to. Like how your aunt chose to give it to you.”

“But my aunt died,” I counter. “It didn't stop working for her. She died. And she left it to me.” A serious thought occurs to me, and I turn sideways to look at Lindsay's face. “Do you think I'm going to die when the ball stops working?”

“No,” she says adamantly. “No way. Think about it. Your aunt would not have left you the ball if she thought it would bring you harm. She would never have done something like that.”

“Well, she did stop speaking to me. She must have been angry with me about something.”

“Angry enough to want you to die? I don't think so.”

“Okay, but maybe she didn't know that would happen.” I can feel my voice rising as the pieces of the puzzle start coming together in my head. “Think about it. She died in a freak accident, right? Maybe it had something to do with the ball. Maybe when the ball had run its course with her, she suddenly got struck by lightning.” I feel panicked, and I slump in my chair. “Oh my God. That's what happened. It makes too much sense for it not to be true.”

Lindsay shakes her head again. “No. It doesn't make any sense. If she didn't know what was supposed to happen, then how could she have written a clue about it?”

I think about this for a second, and then I exhale, relieved. “You're right,” I say. “Of course you're right. But—”

Lindsay pats me on the back before I can go on. “You shouldn't worry so much. The ball is working. It's bringing you everything you want. Your aunt obviously left it to you because she wanted you to improve your life.” She grins. “And it definitely has improved.”

My cell phone rings again.

“Ooh! Maybe that's Samantha. Or maybe it's Jesse calling to tell you that he loves you, and he wants to father forty children with you.”

I roll my eyes at her, even though I'm blushing. “It was just a kiss.”

“Yeah, well, that's what Sleeping Beauty probably thought, and the Prince married her, like, on the spot. And…” She doesn't finish.

“What?” I ask.

“And they just had
one
kiss.”

But it turns out that it's not Samantha or Jesse calling. It's Chris Bollmer.

“Chris?” I say, frowning into the phone.

Lindsay moves her hands back and forth and shakes her head, letting me know that I shouldn't tell him that she's with me.

“Have you seen Lindsay?” he asks, his voice filled with anxiety.

“No,” I lie. “I don't know where she is. Have you tried calling her?”

“She blocked my number. I can't get through.”

“Really?” I ask, remembering how he hacked through my email filter. “You've figured out that getting-through problem before, haven't you?”

“It's important,” he says, ignoring my accusation. “I just wanted to warn her.”

“Warn her about what?” I ask. Hearing this, Lindsay rolls her eyes.

“Check your email.” He pauses, then lowers his voice to a hiss. “You should have listened to me.”

“What? Chris, what are you talking—?”

But it's too late. He's already hung up. Lindsay looks at me, waiting for an explanation.

“He said he wanted to warn you about something. He said I should check my email.”

She sighs. “Okay. Here we go again.”

Lindsay stands over my shoulder as I click on my inbox. Nothing.

She exhales loudly. “There is something seriously wrong with that guy. I mean, does he think this is funny? Like I don't have enough stress in my life.”

“Wait a second,” I say, remembering the email filter yet again. “Maybe there is.” I go into “Unknown Sender” alerts and, sure enough, there's someone who's been trying to email me. The sender is listed as “anonymous.” Hmmm. I click on it to allow the message, and it pops into my inbox.

“Here it is.”

I click on the message, and within seconds my entire screen is taken up by an enlarged picture of Lindsay in her bra and underwear. Someone Photoshopped a red cape around her neck that appears to be floating out behind her, and they've rotated the picture onto its side so that it looks like she's flying. At the top it says, “The Amazing Adventures of Fart Girl.” Underneath, there's a caption that reads, “Incredibly propelled by the power of natural gas!”

So
that's
what Megan meant when she said that Lindsay had better watch her back. I knew she wasn't bluffing. But I never thought she'd go as far as this. She must have
planned
. She must have hidden her phone in the locker room and snapped a picture when Lindsay wasn't looking. How else could she have gotten Lindsay in her bra and underwear?

Lindsay puts her hands over her eyes and starts to cry.

“How many people got it?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper.

I click on the recipient list, and my heart sinks when I see that it was sent to the entire tenth grade. “Not that many,” I lie.

“How many?” she asks, her voice stronger this time.

I sigh, not wanting to tell her but knowing that I have to. “She sent it to the whole grade.” I click on the sender again, to see if it will give me any other information aside from “anonymous,” but it doesn't.
Smart
, I think to myself. Now nobody can prove it came from her.

Lindsay looks up and angrily wipes the tears from her eyes, like she's pissed at them for even being there.

“I'm going to kill that bitch,” she says, and I look at her, surprised.

That sounded so weird coming from her mouth. First of all, Lindsay never curses, and second of all, Lindsay wouldn't hurt a fly. Literally. If a fly gets into her house, she tries to trap it in a jar and then takes it outside and sets it free.

“She is awful,” I say, trying to calm her down with my usual let's-just-agree-and-she'll-get-over-it routine. But this time, it doesn't seem to be working.