Foretold Page 2

  “Ma’am, I feel for you. I promise that I do. But with all due respect, I don’t have to defend the city’s plans for this lot. I’m just doing my job here. What you do, where you go, or how you use the restitution offered…” He shrugged. “That’s all on you. Retain counsel and formally push back if you want, but it doesn’t take a crystal ball to work out how this will end.” He pulls out a handkerchief and wipes his brow before noticing me for the first time. His smile fades when I fail to return it.

  Mrs. O looks deflated and close to tears. “Please leave,” she whispers.

  The man picks up a candy bar and places a large bill on the counter. “Keep the change.” He leaves, a sad silence trailing in his wake.

  I watch the expressions dance across Mrs. O’s face. “Who was that?”

  Mrs. O jerks, as if she’d forgotten I’m still in the room. “Life isn’t always fair, Cassandra. You’ve already learned that lesson well. We’re always at the mercy of forces more powerful than us.” She raises her downcast rheumy eyes. “The city is going to take this place, and I’ll be forced to move.”

  “They can’t do that!” I’ve never heard her sound so defeated. This is Mrs. Never-Let-Anything-Keep-You-Down-Otero. She always has an answer. Always has advice.

  My panicked tone breathes some life into her. Mrs. O straightens and visibly pulls herself together. “Don’t fret, dear. I’m sure everything will be okay.”

  I leave the store, unconvinced.

  My street and the ones surrounding it have the feel of a cozy neighborhood tucked into the middle of an enormous city. Proud old brownstones line both sides of the street, their stone staircases bowing in warm welcome, and most everyone knows everyone else. A few neighbors greet me as I pass and I half-heartedly wave back, kicking at a coupon for a free psychic reading on the ground, my mind fixated on the moment I can finally close my eyes on this day. Mr. Williams stops hosing down the sidewalk in front of his building long enough for me to pass. I mumble a quick thanks and hurry along.

  The brownstone attached to ours has been under heavy construction for the past year. It was my favorite even before the restoration effort, but now I’m positively obsessed. It’s one of those little pockets of the city that feels plucked out of a history book. It’s four stories of gleaming white stone, gracefully arching glossy black windows, intricately carved balconies. Mrs. O told me the entire building is for the owner’s family, unusual for our block; most brownstones are like mine, subdivided into apartments.

  Though I’ve never been inside, this building gives me a feeling I can’t explain, like a tickle in the back of my mind. Sometimes I picture myself curled up on a comfy sofa in an elegant room with a book and a cup of tea. I close my eyes to capture that feeling, letting it wash away the worry burning holes through me. When I open them, the beady black pearl eyes of a crow are trained on me. It’s perched an arm’s length away, on the wrought iron fence in front of the building.

  I scream. I can’t help it. The bird flaps its wings and shuffles along the fence, cocking its head to watch me. I can almost smell it from here: wind and musk and fear. Maybe the fear is me.

  The crow watches me closely as I edge away and dash up the brick steps leading to my building, almost tripping as I take them two at a time. I fumble with my keys and look down, but the crow is gone. To my left, though, in the doorway to the brownstone I love, someone is stepping outside. I feel at once as if my stomach has dropped down to my feet. I’m going to barf all over the steps.

  No.

  He smiles at me—a boy who is all dark hair and blue eyes, who has my body quivering and my heart breaking. It’s a miracle I’m still standing.

  The most beautiful dead boy in the world is looking over at me for the second time today.

  Chapter 3

  I remember hearing a pilot on TV once describe a cloudless, vivid sky as “severe” blue. This boy’s eyes are bluer than that. They’re even bluer than they looked from across the street earlier today.

  I catch myself. There was no “earlier today.”

  “You alright?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “I know I’ve been pushing furniture around for an hour, but I don’t look that bad, do I?” His hair reflects the almost-summer sunshine, and those bright eyes brim with humor.

  I grimace, not sure what he saw in my expression. “No, you look good. I mean, sorry, I was thinking of something else.” My face flames.

  He throws one hip onto the stone rail by his door and grins wryly, a gut punch of even white teeth. “Ah. Okay. Colin,” he says, gesturing toward himself.

  “Cassandra,” I rasp in response.

  “Pretty name. Nice to meet you. You’re literally the first person I’ve met in the neighborhood.” He smiles, radiating an open friendliness, and I resist the urge to lean over my stoop’s railing to bask in its warmth.

  His nose must have been broken once, but was set in a way that doesn’t take away from his looks; it keeps what could’ve otherwise been a too-flawless face grounded in reality. That perfectly imperfect nose is set above a firm chin split by a slight indentation. He’s all tall, rumpled sweatpants’ed adorableness.

  He tries to get a conversation going, like a dog walker pulling along a reluctant hound, and I answer on autopilot. Or at least I must, since the exchange continues. All I can think of is how surreal this is, and how comfortable he feels to me. Familiar, like my favorite sweater.

  “What do you guys do for fun around here?” he asks.

  “’You guys?’” I look around questioningly, surprising myself and probably him with the sudden upspring of playfulness. He has that effect on me.

  “Nice.” He gives me a lazy smirk.

  I peer up at him from under my eyelashes, forcing some words past the squeal blocking the exit to my throat. “I don’t know. Most kids hit the park. Otherwise, they scatter like cockroaches in the light, all over the city. Working or whatever.”

  “Okay, so that covers everyone but you. What do you do?”

  “I’m like veal. I kind of hang around in the dark and—”

  He lets out a bark of laughter. “Fun fact, veal is why I’m a vegetarian.”

  “I’ve never had it,” I say, and smile as he earnestly fills me in on all his veal-related objections and love of animals.

  I used to be like this: happy to meet new people, playful. It’s been so long that I nearly forgot what it was like. The thought brings me back to reality. Back to when I watched my mother die. Twice. I turn, shove the key in the lock, and stammer, “It was nice meeting you. I’ll see you around.”

  I rush through the door and up the stairs, ignoring his startled look with a pang. I can’t have any part of this beautiful dead boy—even if he happens to be alive for now.

  “Hope you’re hungry. I made lasagna,” Dad calls out from the kitchen.

  I hang my coat, trying with all my might to ignore that the red fringe on the long hall rug is mussed directly in front of the kitchen door. I shake out my hands and roll my head to stretch my neck like an athlete before a race. I will not fix that fringe.

  “Smells good,” I respond, pushing thoughts of the boy, of Colin, down deep. A quick peek into the trash on my way into the kitchen confirms that Dad forgot to hide the take-out containers again.

  “You’re late. And on your last day, too! Thought you’d run out of that building like it was on fire,” Dad says as he drops a kiss on my forehead. No, just running away from birds and dead boys.

  “Sorry. Stopped by Mrs. O’s,” I say, inhaling the steamy Giuseppe’s Ristorante goodness and grabbing silverware to set the table.

  Friday night dinners are an intricately choreographed dance. I sit and wait as Dad scoops lasagna onto our two plates, watching as he fights with a stubborn strand of gooey mozzarella cheese. He’s almost always forced to use the kitchen scissors to cut that cheesy thread, and when he does, he will turn to me, cock an eyebrow, and say, “My apologies, ma’am.” It’s so dumb, and even th
ough it’s ten-year-old boy humor, I laugh every time.

  Within seconds I am stuffing my face with much-needed comfort food across the small wooden table from him.

  “How was your day? Breaking hearts and taking names, or what?” Dad asks.

  I snort. The way he talks sometimes, it’s like he’s got a carnival mirror image of me in mind. Except the carnival mirror version is the real me, a distorted mess of a person agonizing over a hall rug fringe.

  “Yeah, I got married like three times on the way here,” I say. Colin, lying in the street, flashes through my mind. I shove him and his ghostly accident out of my head, but my eyes drift to the doorway and that mussed rug fringe instead.

  It happens once, twice, three times, back and forth, thoughts of Colin, eyes on the rug, like a psychotic seesaw I can’t stop. Like I have to choose to concentrate on one or the other.

  I fight it. With OCD, the more you can think about an urge without giving in, the less control that impulse has over you. Supposedly.

  “Married! And you didn’t have me walk you down the aisle?” Dad tsks, ripping off a hunk of bread. “So, no boyfriend, just a few husbands. What about Christine and Lara? Are they dating yet?”

  “Each other? Or boys? The answer to both is no.”

  “Cute.”

  I shrug and don’t volunteer that I haven’t talked to my former best friends in ages. I have no idea what they do or don’t do anymore. They could be madly in love with each other, for all I know.

  “When your mom was your age, she had a bunch of suitors. You know, a lot like Odysseus’s wife.”

  I latch onto our game, ignoring the part about Mom. I can only touch my tongue to one sore tooth at a time. “Penelope. First guess, correct answer. Twelve points,” I say in response, our board game of Trivinometry having spilled over into regular conversations a couple of years back.

  Dad smiles. “You’re so confident you’re scoring yourself now?”

  “Yup. Speaking of faithful, too bad this monarch didn’t feel the same. He had a bunch of wives. Even executed two of them.”

  “Henry VIII,” Dad answers automatically.

  “First guess, correct. Twelve points. Okay, but if you count his annulments, how many wives did he technically have?”

  “Four. No, wait. Two. He had four annulments.”

  “First guess, wrong. Second guess, correct. Three points for you, nine for me, plus your twelve stolen from the first part. Twenty-one for me.”

  “My, oh my, the student becomes the teacher.” Dad tries to salute me with his fork, but a string of mozzarella connecting that fork to his plate prevents it. He glances down and mutters, “They use too much cheese.”

  “They?” I grin.

  “I. I use too much cheese. So, if you won’t dish on boys, at least tell me about your day.”

  I take a long drink of water. Dad laughs at my obvious dodge. What do I even say? There’s this boy I’m crushing on, but he’s probably going to croak because I hallucinated his death. Dad’s got enough on his plate with me. He doesn’t need more to keep him up at night.

  When I don’t answer, Dad says, “Come on, Cass. Give me something.”

  And suddenly, with a flash of brilliance, I realize there is something I can share. “Mrs. O might have to move.” I fill him in on her exchange with the man from the city as we stand and clean up the remnants of our dinner. I wait for Dad to roll up his shirt sleeves before handing him a plate.

  “That’s a real shame. She is this neighborhood. Such a toxic application of a policy meant to help people,” he says, scrubbing at the dish. “It’s interesting, actually. The concept of eminent domain has been around since the 1600s. The Dutch—”

  I groan and Dad chuckles.

  “Sorry, I’m a history professor. We can’t help ourselves.”

  We migrate to our overstuffed sofa and lose ourselves in TV. Dad retrieves the Trivinometry box from the bookcase and re-parks himself near my feet as he sets up the board.

  “Real game?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “It’s funny to think this started out as a way of helping you with school, and now it’s a weekly crushing defeat for you.”

  “You won two in a row. Relax, Dad.”

  “I’ll relax when I’m crowned Trivinometry Master of the Universe for the third week in a row.”

  “Is this how old people trash talk?” I ask, reaching for an orange to peel.

  Dad smiles. “Remember how your mom used to decimate us both?”

  “Yeah,” I say, quietly. Weird how her death is now my very own B.C. and A.D. split in time.

  “Alright, I’ll start.” Dad grabs a card. “The word is ‘octothorpe.’”

  “Octo is eight, and thorpe… isn’t that a small village? So… eight villages? That can’t be right.” I think for a minute, then sigh. “Fine, I give up.”

  “Kids these days might know the octothorpe symbol as a ‘hashtag.’ Your twelve points are mine. Read ‘em and weep,” Dad crows as he grabs the pencil and marks his score on the little game pad.

  I sit up, hand him half of my peeled orange, and pluck a card. “You’re going down.”

  A knock sounds at the door, and Dad moves to answer it. “It’s probably 4D. He wants to borrow that new Queen Boudicca bio.” Daryl, our down the hall neighbor from apartment 4D, uses Dad like a personal library—to Dad’s delight. “One sec,” Dad says, and rushes off to answer the door, book in hand.

  “Jeffrey! You don’t look a day over ancient,” a woman says. If I hadn’t already recognized that voice, the commingled scents of expensive, excessively floral French perfume and stale cigarettes would’ve tipped me off. Aunt Bree has come to visit. “Security in this building is lax, you know. A drug fiend let me in, no questions asked.”

  “Well, if you’d let us know you were coming, I would have made Cassie stand down there in her red jacket and doorman’s cap. You know we own a telephone, right?”

  Dad enters the room and rolls his eyes, his sister hot on his heels. I stand to greet her.

  “Look at you!” she says, inspecting me. “You’ve grown like a beanstalk. How long has it been?”

  “Two years,” I respond. Two years, nine months, seventeen days. Since the day we buried Mom.

  She beckons, and I allow her to kiss the air somewhere near my ear. She drapes herself on our flea market living room chair and sets down her handbag, Cleopatra lounging on a beaten-up pleather throne. I drop back onto the sofa across from her.

  Aunt Bree is one of those people so pretty their presence alone can make you feel completely inadequate—and her attitude basically lets you know she agrees you are, in fact, a lesser being. Perfect features, silky, obedient dark hair that always curls the way it should, and cat-like mercurial eyes that flash green one moment and brown the next. Dad and I have the same hazel eyes, and they’re my favorite feature—except when I see them reflected in Bree’s face.

  “So, I’m back from Italy… obviously.” Aunt Bree spreads her arms in a “voila” gesture.

  “And you left your phone on the plane?” Dad suggests.

  “Oh, let it go, Jeff. You always loved surprises. And I’ve missed you two! Especially you, young lady. You were all knees and bangs before, but I can work with this. I bought you something.” She studies me a moment before pulling a small glittery box out of her purse and putting it on the table. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  I glance at Dad and reach over, pulling at the ribbons and the lid. I hold up a thick gold bangle.

  “It was very expensive,” Aunt Bree offers.

  “Thanks.” I set it on the table.

  “You’re welcome. Us girls should do something. Maybe a spa day! We can fix your hair then, too.”

  I hate that my hand automatically reaches up to touch my hair. There isn’t much to it. It’s long, plain, light brown—sun-streaked if I spend enough time outside—and usually in a ponytail. Another insecurity added to the pile. Awesome.

  “It’ll pull
double duty since highlights also prevent lice,” she adds.

  “That’s not even remotely true. And Cass doesn’t have lice.” A muscle in Dad’s jaw flexes and his right eyelid twitches. He gives me a tight smile.

  Aunt Bree reaches into her handbag again and pulls out a cigarette and lighter. She sparks up and leans back, exhaling toward the ceiling as if in relief. I look between Dad and Bree and back again. He and his sister may look alike enough to pass for twins, but they’re complete opposites when it comes to anything else.

  “You can’t smoke in here, Bree,” Dad says.

  “You breathe in worse walking down the street, Jeffrey.” She turns and ignores him. “So, what’s new and exciting? Two years is a lot of ground to cover.” I open my mouth to respond, but Bree’s certainly not done talking. “Me, I’ve been on a recruiting mission for work the past year. All over creation.” She leans forward and shields her mouth from Dad with the hand holding the cigarette. “I’ll share the R-rated stories when someone isn’t around.”

  “Aubrey,” Dad says warningly.

  “Fine, PG-13.”

  Dad shakes his head, and I choke back a reluctant laugh.

  “Anyway, Cassandra.” She says my name like someone searching for a word that’s finally come to them. “You’re nearly a woman! How exciting! If you need advice on anything—boys, clothes, shaving legs… that last one you might be on your own for, actually. You take after your mother, bless her soul. But, other than that, if you need anything at all, I am completely here for you. Every girl needs a mother.”

  My brief amusement goes up in smoke. “I have a mother.”

  “I was a wreck for ages after she left us, by the way. Awful.” She shudders delicately. “We shouldn’t dwell on the past. Always look to the future. Haven’t I always said that, Jeff? You can’t do a thing to change the past, but the future is simply paved with possibilities.” She studies me and then delivers an exaggerated wink.