“Nothing.” Rose realized she was rubbing her jaw and stopped. That strange pain hadn’t gone away yet. She headed for her room just as Darcy Franzen was leaving—practically in tears.
“My personal life is none of her damn business,” Darcy said.
“What’d she say?” Rose asked her.
“Oh my God.” Darcy waved Rose away.
Rose felt bad; kids were supposed to be having fun.
Rose’s room was surprisingly quiet behind the closed door. She sat and faced the psychic—a tanned woman all in white, cinnamon-colored hair in many braids with colorful beads that clicked. Well, she certainly dressed the part. She spoke in a hushed tone, but her voice filled the room. “You live here,” she said.
“How’d you know?”
“By the way you entered. This is your room and you didn’t need to look around. May I take your hand?”
She held Rose’s hand in her rough fingers. Rose smelled peppermint. A long time passed, or maybe it only seemed that way. The beads clicked. Selena had made it sound like the details of your life would come spilling out.
“Well?” said Rose.
“Perhaps you could tell me about yourself.”
“I thought it was the other way around.”
“Please,” the psychic said.
Rose cleared her throat. “Okay, I’m a tenth grader at Belle Heights High. I live with my stepmother, Evelyn.”
“Do you two get along?”
“Lately, yes.” Rose hadn’t known she would say “lately” and instantly wished she could take it back, rub it out.
“Lately? Since when?”
“This whole week has been great.”
“Before this week?”
“Well, I was kind of moody,” Rose said. She caught sight of a bald stuffed elephant on her bed. So embarrassing, that kids saw that when they came into her room. She should’ve hidden it away in the closet.
“Do you have friends?”
“Of course. I’m very close to a girl I’ve known since I was a kid. She’s supposed to be here. She lives in Belle Heights Tower, a hop, skip, and jump away—my dad used to say stuff like that—but another friend of mine forgot to invite her . . . well, maybe not forgot, and that’s wrong, isn’t it, when you say you’re going to do something and then you don’t? Sometimes it’s really wrong. I mean—”
Rose stopped short. Why was she doing all the talking?
The psychic paused too. “Where is your father?”
“He died when I was eight.”
“And your mother?”
“She died when I was a baby.”
“I’m so sorry.”
This whole conversation was heading in the wrong direction. Why such an emphasis on the past? What about the future?
“Dear girl, I should be sensing something in you, even years after such loss. The work of mourning.”
Rose had to smile—it sounded like school service. “I’m over it. I’m very happy.”
But it was as if the psychic wasn’t listening. “It’s as if you’re not here.”
Rose felt her throat tighten. “So, where am I?”
“Somewhere else.”
Rose couldn’t believe it. What was she talking about?
“I’m truly sorry. You may send in the next person.”
Rose went back to the party, telling herself she didn’t believe in psychics any more than she believed in zombies or Hypno-Friends. She started dancing, watching the other kids and copying their movements, hoping she didn’t look like one of the bobbling skeletons.
Finally—there was Nick Winter. He looked spectacular, dressed as a pirate with an eye patch. Rose went right up to him; instantly he grabbed her and held her close.
“Hey, it’s farmer girl,” he said.
She noticed, among lots of other thrilling things, that at over six feet he was the perfect height for her. “I’m here,” she said, and didn’t care how it sounded. “I’m here.”
“You don’t have to convince me.” Nick grinned. There was that diamond in his front tooth.
“Did that hurt, putting a diamond in there?”
“No nerves in the teeth. You like it?”
It sparkled like a star. “Yes.”
“I like you, farmer girl,” he slurred. He tilted his head at the music. “Yeah, great song!” He kissed her. Her first kiss! But she tasted something musty and sharp on his breath. He couldn’t have been smoking or drinking here, not with Evelyn keeping close watch. But maybe that was why he’d arrived so late. This wasn’t her idea of what a perfect first kiss should be, far from it. But Nick liked her. He’d said so.
By the time everyone went home, it was nearly two. At the door, Selena’s elbow managed to poke Rose’s ribs again. “Look at you, getting all up close and personal with Nick.”
Rose couldn’t help grabbing hold of that elbow of Selena’s. “You’re not upset or anything?”
“Oh God, no. A bunch of us are getting together for brunch at noon tomorrow, or should I say later today? At Stella Dallas, that place next to the old movie house. You know where that is?”
“I’ll find it,” Rose said.
“We can plan the next party!”
CHAPTER 10