Walking through the doors of the art supply shop now doesn’t feel very heavenly. The owner does not appear interested in Bailey or our situation, and shrugs when we ask if we can hang her poster in the vestibule. When we step back outside, a neon sign across the street catches my attention. PSYCHIC READINGS INSIDE. The store is called Enchantment Crystals and it’s next to a head shop.
“Hey.” I nod toward the store. “Look.”
“No,” Jade says. “There are some sketchy-ass people in there.”
“Well, aren’t we supposed to make sure everyone sees her picture?”
Jade shifts. Pulls her scarf up around her mouth. I can only see her eyes, but she mumbles something inaudible, which I take to be a concession.
We cross the street when it’s safe. When I open the door to the small shop, the smell of incense brings water to my eyes. I want to cover my nose so I don’t start sneezing, but I’m afraid of offending the big-haired woman behind the counter whose gaze is locked on us.
“Good morning, ladies,” she says. “Are you shopping for yourselves, or for a friend?”
Jade’s eyes narrow at the jangly metal bracelets on the woman’s arm—rows of copper, bronze, and silver, almost up to her elbows. I step forward, Bailey’s poster in my fist.
“Our friend is missing,” I say. “Can we hang this somewhere?”
The woman slides the poster from my hand. Peers at Bailey’s face. “Pretty girl.”
They all are, I think. I stomp the thought down, not entirely sure where it came from. Jade coughs into her shoulder. Says in her gravelly voice: “Can we hang it or not?”
The woman hands the poster back to me. “Of course. Maybe one in the window and one on the board?”
She gestures to a bulletin board by the door we came in. It’s papered with flyers in shades of neon, advertising Reiki sessions and tantric healing. As I pin Bailey’s poster among them, one catches my eye. MEDIUM FOR HIRE—COMMUNICATE WITH THE DEAD VIA A PROFESSIONAL SPIRITUALIST. WILL COME TO YOUR HOUSE!
I run my finger over the strips with a phone number stamped on them.
“I also offer similar services.” The woman is behind me. “You know, I could read cards for your friend. The missing one. It could provide some insight to her situation.”
Jade snorts. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
The woman rounds on Jade. Gives her a sad smile. “You miss her so much. But you have to stop beating yourself up.”
Jade scowls, but there’s the slightest flash of something in her eyes. Curiosity, maybe. “What are you talking about?”
“You think that if you were with her the other night, she wouldn’t have disappeared.” The woman takes a step toward Jade. “You didn’t want to be split up from her.”
I stare at Jade, who shakes her head. “You read the news. They’re saying Bailey left the party alone.”
I put a hand on Jade’s arm, ready to herd her out the front door. She pulls away from me as bony fingers clasp my shoulder.
The woman is looking at me. “Your aura is brown.”
“Okay,” I say, stupidly.
The woman is still clutching my shoulder. “You know what happened to her. Deep in your soul, you know the answer.”
I pry myself away and muster up my best dirty look. “What are you talking about?”
Jade yanks me and drags me out the door. Her eyes demand answers. “What the hell was that about?”
I shake my head. My tongue has gone numb. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”
When Jade’s head is turned, I look back at Enchanted Crystals. Through the window, I see the woman, still standing at the bulletin board, frowning at the poster with Bailey’s picture.
Jade and I don’t say anything to Andrew or Tyrell about the woman in the spiritualist shop. But when we get back to the car, Jade leans against the side. She’s crying silently.
I start toward her. “Hey—”
Jade shakes her head. “Just give me a minute, okay?”
I nod and stay back, breathing warmth into my hands. Does Jade really blame herself? If Bailey insisted on leaving the party alone, Jade shouldn’t feel guilty—
—or maybe it’s not guilt. Maybe it’s the fact that our best friend is gone, possibly not coming back. Jade is crying because she’s sad, and that’s what normal people do when they’re sad.
I put a hand to my cold, dry cheek. What is wrong with me? What kind of person doesn’t cry when their friend goes missing?
There is something broken inside me. That creepy woman in the store—those types of scam artists are really good at reading people, right? That’s why she made that comment, about my aura and my knowing what really happened to Bailey. She could see the ugly thing that lives in me, the thing that only makes me care about myself and my own survival. I wonder if Jade sees it too.
What kind of girl doesn’t cry when their friend goes missing?
Junior Year
April
I have a new friend! She’s very weird, but I’ll get to that part.
First let’s take a moment to appreciate how strange that is, making a friend junior year. Especially a friend who’s a girl. Girls are so weird. They have their cliques and their squads and trying to break in once they’re set will only get you laughed at or pitied.
It’s really just been Jade and me since eighth grade, since Val dropped me once she made dance team. And no, I’m not over it. You don’t get it: Val and I showered together when we were little. We spent hours in my basement playing house; I was the father, banging away at Wonder Brother’s play work bench with a plastic hammer while Val cradled her Just Born baby doll, her free hand smoothing her stomach, swollen with a pillow under her shirt.
And then when she had the chance to become popular, I was Val’s six pieces of silver. I spent so many nights crying and listening to Dad’s old sixties folk albums, and then years after that wondering what I did wrong to deserve to be dropped by my best friend in such a callous way. I’ll never get an answer, I guess. Sometimes I imagine cornering her, grabbing her by the shoulders, and shaking her, demanding one. Why? Why wasn’t I good enough for you?
Thank God for Jade moving to Broken Falls, or I would have been absorbed into whatever social group would take me. And being a loser or a freak is worse than being Nothing. People might think Jade and I are aloof because it’s always just the two of us, like we think we’re too good for Broken Falls, but really, they’re the ones who decided we’re Nothing. We’re fun at parties (if we get invited) and they laugh at our jokes in class (when we crack them), but otherwise, we don’t exist.
And that’s fine: we’re BaileyAndJade. JadeAndBailey. Always one. Just the way we like it.
But now there are three of us. Bailey and Jade and Kacey.
Jade and I’ve been hanging out with her quite a bit now that I’m not grounded for what happened with Cliff anymore; my parents let me out of my one-month sentence early for being a Very Good Girl. How I convinced them I am a Very Good Girl: come home after school and my shift at Friendly Drugs, do my homework, then numb my mind with reality television until I pass out. In other words, become my dad.
So yesterday at lunch, Kacey kept twirling the faded purple end of her braid over her finger. Jade paused from slurping her iced tea and pointed. “I can fix that for you.”