Chapter Ten
Smoke filled my lungs and burned my eyes, causing them to water. I used the silk skirt of my dress as a mask, covering my mouth and nose as I moved deeper down the corridor. Alarms blared from the speakers attached to the walls, but I disregarded them. Devon was still in here somewhere; she had to be.
The thick clouds of grey-black smoke made it hard for me to see more than a couple of feet in front of me; I pressed forward, using the wall as a guide. While the fire hadn’t spread to this section of the building yet, the heat was nearly unbearable. My skin felt like it was blistering with the worst sunburn I’d ever experienced.
“DEVON!” I screamed her name, but it came out raspy and was followed by a coughing fit that caused me to double over.
The air was slightly better close to the floor, reminding me that smoke rises. On hands and knees, I crawled down the wooden floorboards, careful to keep my mouth as close to the ground as possible.
“DEVON!” I cried again.
This time my efforts were rewarded. A banging sound came from somewhere at the end of the hallway I was crawling down. Relief washed over me ― she was still alive. Forgetting that I should stay low to the ground, I stood and began running in the direction of the banging.
“Devon, I’m coming,” I promised her. “Keep making noise.”
The gold heels on my feet became an impediment as I hurried to reach my best friend. I kicked them aside, regretting the decision as I moved deeper into the smoke. The wood was hot beneath my feet. By the time I reached the source of the banging, it felt like I was walking on coals. Sweat and soot caked my face, and my lungs ached from all of the smoke I’d inhaled.
The banging was coming from behind a door. I wrapped the hem of my dress around my hand and tried the door handle. It wouldn’t budge.
“DEVON!” I screamed, pressing my face against the door. It was so hot I flinched and pulled away instantly.
The banging stopped. “Eel? Eel, get out of here!” came Devon’s muffled reply. Her demands were followed by a series of choking coughs. Then a loud boom rocked the ground beneath my feet. I fell backwards, not bothering to break my fall with my hands. Dazed, I scrambled to my knees. The smoke filling the hallway swam before my eyes. Bells rang. Belatedly, I realized they were inside my head. I screamed Devon’s name over and over again, but the sound of my voice was swallowed by a second explosion.
“Endora! Endora!” a panicked voice yelled in my ear.
I lashed out toward the sound of her voice, slapping it away. Thin fingers grabbed my wrists and held them firmly.
“Get off of me!” I shrieked.
“Endora, wake up!” the voice ordered me.
My eyes finally flew open. Devon’s haggard face stared back. Yanking my wrists free, I frantically searched my body for signs of damage. I inhaled, long and deep. The air was fresh as it filled my lungs, nothing like the smoke-filled breaths I’d taken in my dream. I expected to find angry red blisters on my skin, but my arms were pale and smooth in the moonlight seeping through Devon’s bedroom window.
“Bad dream?” she asked tentatively.
“Maybe we shouldn’t watch Troy before bed again,” I said, laughing uneasily. My skin burned from the inside out, the memory of the smoke creatures still vivid in my mind.
“Speak for yourself. Until you started shrieking like a banshee, I was Rose Byrne in that tent with Achilles.”
It took me a while to fall back asleep after the nightmare. I kept sniffing my shirt, expecting to smell smoke and campfire. My skin felt cold to the touch, but sweat dotted my forehead as if I had a fever. The last time I remembered looking at the clock, bright red numbers glowed 5:13 am.
Nails tapping on a keyboard woke me too soon. I groaned, tiredly rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand. Devon was sitting at her computer desk, her back to me. A pen protruded from the messy bun of blonde curls on top of her head.
“Good, you’re awake,” Devon said, her voice muffled around whatever she was eating.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled. My body ached and it took more effort than normal to sit up.
Devon swiveled in her computer chair to face me. “The folder that your father left at the Moonlight,” she tapped the manila folder sitting next to the mouse pad, “it has an Excel spreadsheet with names, email addresses, and phone numbers. I am Googling the names. These people probably know your father.”
After reliving my humiliating conversation with Kaydon and learning that there was an entire group of people in the world who shared at least some of my idiosyncrasies, the search for my father had been temporarily put on hold. I felt extremely guilty about it in retrospect, but at least Devon was on top of things.
“What have you found?” I asked, suddenly very awake.
A paper plate with a half-eaten brownie and a glass of milk sat on the left side of the computer desk. Devon shook her head as she popped a piece of brownie into her mouth. She swallowed and cleared her throat.
“Since your father is a professor, I thought maybe they are people who have been helping him with his research. Like other professors. But as far as I can tell, none of them work at an institute of higher learning in this country.” She paused and ate another bite of brownie. “It’s weird. None of these people seem to exist in the cyber world. No Facebook pages. No articles written about them, or by them. Nothing.”
“You said there are email addresses?” I scooted to the end of the mattress and peered over Devon’s shoulder. She had eight separate webpages open. In addition to Google, she appeared to be perusing various college history department websites.
“One step ahead of you.” Devon spun her chair around and pulled up a Gmail account with a username I didn’t recognize. “I set up this dummy email account and sent each one a message. This Klinefelter woman doesn’t have any additional information, though.”
The manila folder was open and a single sheet of white paper sat on top. Dad, I assumed, had made a spreadsheet with ten names and corresponding contact information. Next to Betsy Klinefelter, all the boxes were blank.
“Hopefully one of the others will respond,” I said, reaching around Devon to take the folder.
Besides the spreadsheet, there were lined pages filled with Dad’s tiny, indecipherable handwriting and several pages that had been torn from books.
“Did you look through this stuff?” I asked.
Devon shook her head. “Not yet.”
I split the stack in half. “I need to get home, but I’ll take a look at this,” I held up my half, “if you want to keep going through the rest.”
“Deal.” Devon turned to face me again. Her smile was sympathetic. “We’ll find him, Eel.”
The emotion in my best friend’s eyes was too much. I had to turn away. “I hope so.”
Once in my own bedroom, I gave maximum and minimum limits the most attention I could manage. Between flipping out on Kaydon the night before and the increasing worry over my father’s whereabouts, the desire to crawl under the covers and not resurface for a year was strong. I contemplated calling Kaydon and explaining, like Devon had suggested. After all, he couldn’t think me crazier than he already did. And that was at least something I could do. I had no way of getting in touch with my father. The papers that I had taken from the folder made no sense to me. My best guess was that they were notes on Dad’s latest research project. But none of them held any clue as to where he might be now.
I found Kaydon’s number in my cell and hit send. I chewed my bottom lip, half of me hoping he would answer so I could get this over with, and half of me praying it would go to voice mail. The latter happened. Kaydon’s deep voice brought a smile to my face as he instructed me to leave a message, saying that he’d call back as soon as he was free.
“Hi, it’s Endora. Look, I am really sorry about last night. You must think I am the biggest spaz. I can explain, though. If you still want to talk, maybe you could call me back?” Great, I sounded like a moron. “Anyway, you have my number.”
I set the phone on the comforter next to me, double-checking that the ringer was on high so I wouldn’t miss Kaydon’s call. I tried to focus on my homework, but ended up doodling little balls on the end of my integral signs. Somehow I doubted my teacher would appreciate me turning in an assignment with no answers, even if it were aesthetically pleasing.
Before long, I gave up on the pretense of calculus and began flipping through the manila folder for the fifth time that day. I was trying to make sense of a poem printed on yellowed paper with a coffee cup stain in the center when my phone came alive. Hurriedly, I snatched it up, my heart leaping into my throat. The excitement quickly faded when I saw Devon’s name on the display.
“Any luck?” I asked, not bothering to say hello.
Devon sighed. “Nah. All of this research is about Greek mythology. Unless your father is in Athens, and living thousands of years in the past, it’s useless. You?”
“Nada.” Pause. “I called Kaydon,” I added to change the subject.
“And?” she prompted.
“Didn’t answer. I figured you were right, though. I should at least try and explain why I jumped down his throat.”
“Good. Meeting him was the best thing that has happened to you in a while. I fully support the two of you getting to know each other.”
“Really?” I asked doubtfully. “Why?”
“A, he is hot. B, he is weird - but, as it turns out, weird in the same way you are, which gives you something in common. C, the look on Jamieson Wentworth’s face when she finds out will be worth every mean thing she has ever said about you. Revenge is sweet,” Devon crowed.
“I like to think I’m a better person than that,” I said dryly.
“You might be. I’m not.”
“Whatever. He probably won’t even call me back,” I mused.
“You know what you need?” Devon asked and I could imagine her eyes lighting up with some brilliant idea.
“What?” I replied suspiciously. When Devon asked, “You know what you need?” I typically ended up with streaky highlights, getting thrown into a pool fully clothed, or eating an entire blueberry pie in one sitting.
“A shopping trip!” she exclaimed.
Well, that was unexpected. However, the mall held little risk, except to my wallet.
“We’ve kinda hit a dead end in the dad search department. I say we wait a couple of days to see if we hear back from any of the people on the list. If not, we can go talk to the old guy at the Moonlight. In the meantime, though, we do have prom to think about. That means we need to go dress shopping.
Prom, the quintessential rite of passage for every high school senior. For Devon and Elizabeth, ours wouldn’t be the first they’d attend. Both had accompanied one boy or another over the past four years, but our senior prom would be a first for me. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t looking forward to it. Although, with the sudden influx of uncertainties in my life, the allure of wearing a beautiful dress and having my hair done had worn off slightly
“Okay,” I slowly agreed. “Why not?”
“I’ll be there in an hour.” With that, Devon clicked off.
An hour and a half later, Devon’s Chevy idled in the driveway, the latest overplayed song blasting from the radio. Elizabeth sat in the back, singing at the top of her lungs. My mother had been less than thrilled when I told her about the shopping trip, but my promise to bring dinner home so we wouldn’t have to go out propitiated her.
“Took you long enough,” Devon chided over the blaring music.
Without thinking, I turned the dial until the words were barely audible. “Sorry, Mom wanted a rundown of all the stores we planned on going to,” I replied, only exaggerating slightly. She had asked who I was going with, what time we’d be home, which mall, and what I planned on buying. “Hey, Liz,” I called, waving at her in the review mirror.
Elizabeth had her compact out and was reapplying a thick layer of the Dr. Pepper lip gloss she loved so much. “Missed you last night,” she said, her words garbled slightly as she attempted to speak without moving her lips.
“What was last night?” I asked.
“Party in the Vines,” she replied, snapping the compact shut. “I texted you.” The Vines was one of the many cookie cutter developments in Westwood. Since the houses were so close together, the cops usually broke up parties before they became interesting.
I checked my phone. No texts from Elizabeth. “Sorry, must not have gone through.”
“You didn’t miss much,” Elizabeth said.
Devon floored the accelerator, peeling out of the drive. I grabbed for the door handle to steady myself.
“Where’s Mandy?” I asked Devon.
“Who cares?” Devon mumbled.
“I called her,” Elizabeth chimed in, scooting to the edge of the back seat to be part of the conversation. “She’s all mopey because Kevin didn’t talk to her last night.”
I made a mental note to call Mandy when I returned home. She had sent me several messages earlier that morning, but I’d ignored them in light of everything else going on. I really needed to be a better friend to her.
“Poor Mandy,” I said.
“Don’t feel too badly for her. I think she had a pretty good time with some hottie from St. Paul’s,” Elizabeth replied.
At the mention of Kaydon’s school, my stomach tightened. “Were a lot of St. Paul’s boys there?” I asked, failing to sound nonchalant. Considering the hour travel time, it always amazed me how often they crashed parties in Westwood.
“Not yours,” Elizabeth responded, reading between the lines.
Before I could make up some other reason for the inquiry, Devon changed the subject. “So, I figured we should start looking for prom dresses.”
I shot her a grateful smile.
“Oh, Eel, who are you going to go with?” Elizabeth cooed.
Great, my father was missing, my dreams were coming true – but not in the way everyone hoped for – and now I needed to worry about finding a prom date.
“I don’t know. Maybe we could just go together,” I said. “The four of us are all single now.” I turned to face Devon. “We are all still single, right?”
To my dismay, guilt filled Devon’s features. Either she’d already forgiven Rick, or was about to.
“Dev, really? Come on. There are a million guys who would love to date you. Why do you keep taking that loser back? For such a smart girl, you are really stupid sometimes,” I said.
“I haven’t taken him back,” she protested. “We are having dinner this week. Just to talk, though.”
An uncomfortable silence settled over the car then. I rarely spoke up about my feelings regarding Rick, save our requisite bashing sessions after one of his many screw-ups. There wasn’t a point. Trying to talk Devon out of dating Rick was about as productive as telling a two-year-old that the Easter Bunny wasn’t real; neither one was willing to give up the illusion.
I think my outburst surprised all three of us. Devon managed to look even guiltier, like she’d disappointed me. And Elizabeth scooted back in her seat, suddenly finding her cuticles incredibly interesting.
“I’m sorry, Devon,” I told her after a couple long minutes. “I just hate how unhappy he makes you.”
“Don’t apologize. You’re right.” She wouldn’t look at me, though, making me regret my rant. No, I decided. I don’t regret it. Devon needed to hear it from someone, and if her best friend couldn’t tell her, then who could?
My cell buzzed in my purse as we made our way to the mall entrance. I figured it was my mother checking to make sure we’d made it to the mall without encountering any nefarious people. Honestly, I had no idea what she was so worried about. It was the middle of the day and Westwood wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity. I mentally prepared myself to launch into the list of reasons Mom needed to back off and start trusting me. When I saw the display, though, my blood froze in my veins. My mother wasn’t the caller. Jamieson Wentworth was.
I swore under my breath.
“What’s wrong?” Elizabeth asked.
“Nothing,” I muttered, sending Jamieson to voice mail. “Jamieson is calling to warn me off her boyfriend, again.”
“Boyfriend? That Kaydon guy is her boyfriend?” Elizabeth asked, confused.
“No, but apparently she hasn’t gotten the memo. She thinks she has some claim to him,” I told her, shoving the phone into the bottom of my purse.
“You should ask him to our prom,” Elizabeth said decisively. “That would really ruffle Jamieson’s panties.”
Devon snorted. “Now that is a good idea.”
“I barely know him,” I mumbled. And I doubt he wants to go to the prom with a whack job, I added silently. Elizabeth’s suggestion sent my imagination into overdrive, however. Before I could stop myself, I was picturing Kaydon in a tux with a red rose boutonniere and me standing beside him in a gown that perfectly matched the green of his irises.
I shook my head to clear the ridiculous fantasy. First things first, I reminded myself. Get Kaydon to call you back.
My friends and I traipsed from one department store to the next. We tried on gowns that ranged from too expensive to overly revealing. We took pictures with our camera phones so we could analyze them later.
While Elizabeth was in the dressing room at Nordstrom, Devon pulled me aside. “So, I did a little more internet research before I came to get you. That’s why I was late,” she began. I grinned in spite of myself. Of course she had. “On NDEs and electromagnetic sensitivity,” she continued. “I didn’t find any credible sources, but there are some people out there who believe that dying and coming back can alter a person’s brain functions.”
Great, I have brain damage.
“One guy in Idaho, or some other fly-over state, believes that certain people who have had an NDE can predict the future. Like they see it in their dreams.”
My palms immediately went clammy. The dress hanger in my hands felt like butter, slippery and hard to hold. Devon’s words struck a chord, vibrating in my mind. People who have had an NDE can predict the future…they see it in their dreams.
Were all of my freakish quirks related? Did Kaydon really dream our meeting before it happened? Ten days ago I would have said no way. Now, I clung to the hope that Devon’s research was right, a concrete explanation for every abnormal facet of my otherwise normal life.
“Maybe Kaydon’s déjà vu thing isn’t so farfetched.” Devon was still talking, oblivious to my inner turmoil. “Have you had any dreams came true?”
The confirmation was on the tip of my tongue. The truth that I had been withholding was ready to ride out on a wave of relief.
“Is this dress amazing, or what?” Elizabeth asked, startling both Devon and me. The dress hanger slipped through my fingers, becoming a puddle of taffeta and lace on the plush carpet.
Elizabeth twirled in front of a tri-fold mirror, blonde hair spilling down her back like a shimmery curtain, blood-red silk cascading from thin straps to pool around her ankles.
“You look great,” I managed, swallowing thickly.
Elizabeth focused on Devon and turned her thumbs up, then down, seeking a unanimous vote. Devon gave the gown a thumbs up.
“It’s settled. We have a winner,” Elizabeth declared, clapping her hands excitedly. She headed into the dressing room to change. She paused with one hand on the doorknob. “What’s with the serious faces? We’re prom dress shopping; it’s not life or death.”
If only you knew, I thought.
Devon agreed to stop at Amy’s Thai on the way home so I could pick up dinner for Mom and me. I hadn’t checked my phone since Jamieson’s call, but assumed if Mom’s plans for the evening had changed she would have called one of my friends when I didn’t answer.
With an assortment of primary-colored curry in hand, I unlocked my front door. Mom was still sitting at the kitchen table, laptop open, yellow legal pads scattered. I set up two TV trays in the living room and fixed us each a glass of water, since that was the only unexpired beverage in the house. We ate in companionable silence. My mother’s mind focused on the trial she was working on and mine cycled through what Devon had told me at Nordstrom.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Jamieson Wentworth called,” Mom said as I rose to put our dishes in the sink.
I froze, one empty plate perched in each hand. “What did she want?” I asked, working hard to sound only mildly interested. Calling my cell phone to bitch me out was one thing; calling my house and talking to my mother was another.
“Not sure. She called while I was in the shower. I heard the phone ring and checked the answering machine, but she didn’t leave a message. But it was the Wentworths’ number on caller ID,” Mom explained.
“Okay, thanks,” I told her, hurrying to the kitchen so she wouldn’t hear my heart beating a frantic rhythm in my chest.
“You aren’t friends with her again, are you?” my mother called after me. “That girl is trouble, Endora Lee.”
Tell me about it.
“No, Mom,” I told her. “It’s probably something to do with lacrosse.” Or the fact we are obsessed with the same boy, I added silently.
I left the dishes in the sink for Mom and made a mad dash for my bedroom. A mountain of schoolwork still waited to be finished, and I figured that would be a good distraction since shopping hadn’t worked.
I had yet to check my cell phone. Gingerly, I perched it on the edge of my desk and engaged the device in a staring contest. The phone won. Eight missed calls: six from Jamieson’s landline, one from Mandy, and one from Kaydon. Surprisingly, only one voice mail.
The solitary message turned out to be from Mandy. She wanted to talk about the party in the Vines, and asked if I would drive her to school the next morning. I felt horrible, but I had no desire to talk to her. Instead, I simply texted Mandy to inform her that I would gladly collect her at 7:00 a.m.
There was no way I was calling Jamieson back. I didn’t have the energy to trade verbal insults with my former best friend. Kaydon, though, was different. He and I needed to talk. My finger was poised over the send button, with Kaydon’s number highlighted on my screen, when suddenly the phone vibrated in my hand. It was him. Did dying give you ESP?
I took a deep breath.
“Hey,” I breathed into the mouthpiece.
“Endora, finally. I thought maybe you’d changed your mind about wanting to talk.”
“Yeah, sorry. I spent the day shopping with Devon and Elizabeth,” I babbled like he knew who they were.
“I didn’t mean to freak you out last night.” Straight to the point. That was probably for the best - no reason to drag this out longer than necessary.
“You didn’t. Well, you did. But I overreacted. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. It’s just that Jamieson and I have history, and pretending to sympathize with me is something she would do,” I rambled nervously.
“I am not into petty games,” Kaydon said seriously. “I’m too old for that.”
“She started it,” I replied, because that made me sound mature. Inhaling deeply to regroup, I continued, “I’m sorry. I get it now. This has nothing to do with her. I do want to talk about the whole…dying thing.”
“What are you doing right now? Can I come over? Or maybe we could meet somewhere?” Kaydon sounded desperate, like there was more riding on the conversation than two people commiserating over a near-death experience.
I didn’t respond. I wanted to see Kaydon. And not just because he was the first person I’d met like me. I genuinely wanted to spend time with him, which was absurd since I barely knew him. Devon was right; I was channeling Elizabeth and her silly soul mate notion.
“Endora? You still there?” Kaydon asked.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I hurriedly replied. “I don’t know about tonight. My mom is home, and I doubt she’ll let me go out right now. How about tomorrow? I have practice until five, but maybe we could meet at seven?”
“I can do that. Where?”
“The Moonlight Diner. It’s on the county line between Westwood and Baltimore.” The words were out before I’d given them much thought. Why had I picked the Moonlight Diner of all places? Two birds, one stone. Henry Haverty said my father was a regular. Maybe he’d be there. At the very least, I could quiz Mr. Haverty on my father’s habits.
“I’ll be there,” Kaydon promised. “Dream well, Endora Lee.”
Dream well. Those were the same words he’d said to me at Elizabeth’s party. A simple goodnight would have sufficed. Then again, when your dreams have a tendency to come true, having pleasant ones was preferable.
“You too,” I said softly.
Homework forgotten, I crawled into bed. It was still fairly early, 9:15pm according to my phone, but I was exhausted. I wanted nothing more than to sleep. I closed my eyes. In no time I succumbed to the exhaustion.