“Yeah, I can tell.”
Chelsea scooches closer to Henry. The look on her face surprises me, more anxious than anything else. Our subsequent painful, banal small talk is mercifully interrupted by two ten-year-old boys who begin to use the empty lifeguard chair as a jungle gym. Chelsea swallows her last piece of sushi. Her third, I think. The only thing she’s touched since sitting down. Meanwhile, I’ve had a turkey sandwich, potato salad, and two brownies.
“Damn,” Chelsea says, “I better go deal with that.” She checks her watch. “I’m back on the clock anyway.”
Nate’s on his feet. “I’ll help. I’ve already yelled at those two twice today.”
Chelsea looks directly at me. “It was nice to see you, Azra.”
I don’t think she’s ever said my name. I’m waiting for the catch, but all Chelsea does is smile. It’s so genuine, I know it’s fake.
“Talk to you later, Henry?” she says.
He flirtatiously replies, “Absolutely, my lady.”
My lady? Wasn’t long ago that Henry referred to me that way. How quickly ladies can be dethroned.
“So,” I say when Nate and Chelsea are out of earshot, “what’s that all about?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Henry says gruffly.
Holy attitude. Henry can’t actually like Chelsea, can he? He can’t actually think she’s for real? Every brain cell screams for me to warn him against trusting her, but his tone makes me strangle each tiny voice into silence.
“Did I … do something?” Chelsea or no Chelsea, I can’t risk losing Henry.
Henry’s face softens. “No, course not. I’m happy to see you.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.” I don’t want to be pouting, but I’m pretty sure I am.
“Oh, Azra, I’m sorry.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he says too quickly.
My skin still crawls from Chelsea’s phoniness. I need to know that Henry’s not being duped.
“Well, I’m worried something might go wrong. Horribly wrong.” I gesture to Chelsea. “Are you guys seriously … friends?” I don’t want to ask if they are more than that.
“She’s not so bad,” Henry says defensively.
I don’t want to (okay, so maybe I do), but now I feel I have no choice but to tell him how Chelsea was making fun of Lisa’s stutter. I’m being careful, not indicating how truly awful she was, when Henry cuts me off.
He waves his hand. “Don’t bother. She told me.”
She what? That seems completely and totally out of character. Unless she’s playing him.
Henry continues, “See, she’s not as bad as you think. She told me the other day. Lisa wanted to go up on the lifeguard chair again, but I said she couldn’t. Chelsea helped avoid a meltdown by giving Lisa her whistle and pretending it was a princess pendant or something. She’s into music, did you know that? She’s going to be choreographing the cheerleading routines this year. Anyway, after we talked, the next day, Chelsea came right up and apologized.”
I’m dumbfounded. I would have bet I’d get my silver bangle back before Chelsea would apologize to anyone. “So you like her, then?”
Henry shifts, sliding next to me so he no longer has to look me in the eye. “I don’t know. She’s okay.”
“But what could you possibly have in common? She’s so … so…”
“Fun? She’s fun, Azra. Easy. Uncomplicated.”
The opposite of me.
“Oh, okay,” I say, trying not to sound hurt.
“Hey, Az, it’s just that a lot’s going on right now.”
I touch my bangle. “I know this makes things different, but we can still hang out. It wasn’t just my powers we had in common, you know.”
“I know, but it’s harder. There’s more at stake. I don’t want to make you mess up again.”
I thought Henry knowing I was a Jinn would make things easier. Maybe there really is something to TMI. Because now he feels solely responsible. And afraid. Afraid I’ll get hurt because of him. I know because I am apparently in his head. In his head again. That day at the picnic table, the day after he saw me come home with Nate, when I thought I was just being intuitive, I must have been reading his mind. And Mrs. Pucher’s sister? It wasn’t being in the middle of the ritual that allowed me to hear her thoughts, was it?
“It’s not just stuff with you either,” Henry says. “My parents. Lisa. A lot’s happened since we last talked.”
“Like what?”
He shrugs.
“Tell me.” I put my hand on his forearm, and he tenses.
No. Because you’ll want to try to fix it. And you can’t.
“Henry, forget my magic. Just talk to me like you don’t know I’m the great, all-powerful Oz. Because I’m not. At least not right now.”
Mind-reading aside, of course.
Henry creases his forehead, eyeing me like he knows something’s not quite right. My words hit too close to his thoughts. Still, he off-loads everything that’s been going on while I’ve been under house arrest. And before that. Why didn’t he tell me sooner? Or had he been trying to? By following me, by saying he was stressed, by having that second beer?
Did me, my magic, and I push his problems to the back burner? Or did he use us as an excuse to push his problems to the back burner?
His voice lowers to a hair above a whisper as he explains his parents have been fighting more than usual lately. Lisa’s been upset, acting out.
“She’s peeing her bed,” Henry says. “She hasn’t done that in years.”
Of course Henry’s the one changing her sheets.
In one long breath, Henry then says, “My mom’s sick of having to work two jobs and says my father’s exhausted all possibilities for work around here so she wants us to move in with her folks in New Hampshire and rent our house so they can make their mortgage payments again and my father’s furious with her, saying he’ll never leave and never let strangers sleep in his house.”