I was counting on the key to be there, and it still is. I open the door and bring everything inside. Soon, I’m done. The heavy, green door of the Church of the Seven Wizards squeals loudly as I pull it closed. The lock makes a satisfying clunk as I turn the key. Not all locks are bad. I smile grimly to myself. Then, I pocket the key. Someone will likely find all this sooner or later, but at least it won’t be the old woman. I try to imagine the scene as someone, wizard or landlord, makes their startling discovery. I think I created a nice display inside the Wizards’ one-room church. The biggest painting, one almost as tall as I am, of a blue-faced acrobat with a contorted body, is propped up on the card table, which now sits, altar-like, against the far wall. I set Marguerite’s crystal candelabras on either side of the painting. Every inch of floor space is covered with colorful canvas. I even hung a few on the walls, where old, bent nails still cling to bare plaster.
“Goodbye,” I whisper out loud to the closed green door. A nice touch of melodrama, I thought. Mrs. Thackeray can call the police, but I don’t know anything. I’m nothing more than a young girl who can’t speak correctly, here for the summer to study art. They can look all they want in Sylvie and émile’s apartment, but they’ll never find anything.
I make it to the nearby bus stop and collapse onto the bench, where I pull out Sylvie’s borrowed phone.
Jada, are you there? Please, please, please answer me!
Sylvie said things were “all right,” whatever she meant by that, but Ansel is still coming home, which means I am homeless when summer ends.
I have to talk to my best friend. I need her help.
The phone suddenly rings in my hand, startling me. Jada! She’s calling, instead of IMing me back? Why, when it’s so hard for her to talk on the phone?
“Girlfriend!” Jada says, as soon as I pick up. I hear her laughter in the background, so loud it practically drowns out her stiff, robotic voice.
“Jada, I have to talk to you,” I say, but she wasn’t done talking to me.
“Mitch and I engaged!”
She only leaves out words when she’s excited. “What?” I splutter.
I hear Jada’s labored breathing as she prepares her next sentence. I usually like the wait, because I can think about what I’m going to say next, and how I’ll say it. Now, the waiting is like watching ice melt at thirty below. My raw nerves scream and I can’t sit any longer. Instead, I pace back and forth in front of the bus stop. A large woman with several chins stares at me.
Ignoring her, I count seconds that tick on the large, ornate clock atop a metal post at the corner of the street. Twenty-two seconds pass.
“I want you to be my maid of honor,” Jada finally says.
“What?” I blurt, breathing hard, like I’ve been running. I don’t know how many more surprises I can digest today. “Do your parents know?” I squeak.
Forty-two seconds tick by, achingly slow.
“Yes. I have to wait until I’m eighteen. Mom said.”
I’m shocked. Not that Jada’s Mom said to wait until she was “legal,” but that she said yes at all. Because Jada will never be able to live on her own. Neither will Mitch. They think they’re going to get married?
“Uh, okay, Jada. I mean, congratulations,” I finally say. “I’m happy for you, seriously. But please, listen, okay? I need help!” I plead.
Six seconds pass.
“What?” she answers. Finally, she’s listening.
“I wasn’t going to come home,” I whisper. There. I said it. It was hard to push the sounds out, but I did. Clearing my throat, I raise my voice and pour out the whole story, sounds vomiting out of my mouth and mixing together into what would be nothing more than a stream of nonsense syllables to anyone but Jada. She always understands me. So, I tell her everything, turning my back on the woman with the bulging chins whose dark eyes continue to stare with open curiosity.
I tell Jada about the paintings, and Mrs. Thackeray, trying as hard as I can to speak clearly. I tell her about Ansel still being alive. I even tell about Gavin and the kiss as an afterthought. I’m dying for someone to know. Jada listens, gasps once in a while, but most often barks out her harsh laughter. How can she think this is funny?
“Jada?!”
She doesn’t answer for another forty-three seconds. I pace even more, trip over someone’s feet. The bus arrives; everyone else gets on, the driver waits, staring at me. Finally, I notice his quizzical expression, with bushy eyebrows almost touching his hairline, and wave him on. He makes that typical French grimace combined with a shrug that means, “Whatever,” and closes the bus doors.
Jada finally talks. “I don’t laugh at you. Mitch is here. He’s so funny!”
My head is about to explode.
“Jada, how could you? You didn’t even listen! What do I do?” I shriek into the phone. “Ansel’s coming back home, so I have nowhere to go when summer is over. I need you to help me find a new exchange program, fast. Please! Help me!”
The answer comes in a few seconds.
“What?” Jada asks. I don’t hear any laughter this time.
“Didn’t you hear what I said? I’m not going back to Idaho! I can’t go back to Mom, Jada! I can’t . . .” I sob. “It would be like going back to prison!”
I take a trembling breath and try to fight the tears, but they won’t stop.
Five seconds later, Jada responds.
“Prison?” she asks.
I try to control my tears and make my words come out slowly. “It’s true, Jada. I’ve never been anywhere without my Mom since, well, since Shreveport. I mean, since I was four! I’m never alone. Ever.”
This pause has to be the longest, but I don’t count the seconds. My eyes are too blurred with tears to see anything.