Liars and Fools Page 8

  “Yeah.” She studied our notes. “Kathy’s a medium, right? As well as a psychic.”

  “She’s a liar.”

  “You know what I mean.” Abby touched her lower lip thoughtfully. “Do you think we should try to, you know, communicate with someone dead as well? Like, be open to it and maybe see if anything happens?”

  I stared at her.

  Abby’s cheeks turned pink. “I didn’t mean…”

  “If it was possible…” My voice shook. I took a deep breath and started over. “If it was possible, don’t you think my mom would have done it by now? Don’t you think if it was as easy as that, she’d send me messages too?”

  Abby hesitated.

  “What?” I could feel that tight shaky feeling starting up in my chest again, the roaring noise in my ears like the sound of waves in a shell. I forced myself to take another long breath. I hadn’t ever lost it in front of Abby, and I didn’t want to start now.

  “Look, don’t get mad,” she said.

  “Don’t say anything stupid and I won’t get mad.”

  She blew out an exasperated breath. “It’s just a thought. Actually, forget it.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “No big deal.”

  I wanted to shake her. “Okay, okay. I promise I won’t get mad.”

  “Well, I wondered if maybe you haven’t been open to it because, you know, you don’t think it’s possible. And maybe—probably not, but we can’t rule it out— people who really believe in it and are open to it can see or hear things that the rest of us can’t.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said. “I think once you’re dead, you’re dead. And that’s that.” I couldn’t help wondering though. I feel as if there is someone who has a message for you, Kathy had said the first time she met me. What if my mother really was out there somewhere? What if she was trying to tell me something and I just wasn’t listening?

  There was a knock at the door. Dad’s face poked through the crack. “Girls? Don’t tell me you’re still up.”

  “Just getting in bed now,” I told him. We turned off the lights and snuggled down, Abby on an air mattress on the floor and me in my bed. Within minutes, I heard Abby’s breathing shift to the soft, even rhythm of sleep, while I lay awake staring into the darkness and trying to remember the sound of my mother’s steps on the stairs.

  twelve

  We were woken by a loud knocking at my bedroom door.

  I opened my eyes. “Mmph?” It felt awfully early, but bright sunlight was streaming in through a crack between the curtains.

  The door opened, and Dad’s head poked in. “Fiona? Kathy just called to see if you wanted to go shopping with them after all.”

  I groaned. “No. I told her already.”

  “Fine.” Dad cleared his throat. “Come on downstairs. I’m making waffles, and Abby’s mom is picking her up in half an hour.”

  Abby pulled the covers off her head. “We’ll be right down.”

  He gave her a grateful smile before retreating.

  As soon as the door closed, I scowled at her. “Traitor. All you care about is the waffles.”

  “How come you never told me she invited you to go shopping with them? You totally have to go.” Abby clambered awkwardly off the air mattress and grabbed her clothes from the pile on the floor. “It’s a great opportunity to ask her some questions without your dad around.”

  I flopped back down on my bed. “Ugh. You make it sound so easy.”

  “Tell her about our science project,” Abby suggested. She balled up my blue jeans and tossed them at me. “Or ask her about her work.”

  I caught the jeans without sitting up. “I’m not going, Abby.”

  “Fiona, come on. How are you going to prove she’s fake if you don’t take these opportunities to investigate?”

  “Easy for you to say. Besides, it’s too late. I already said no.”

  “So tell your dad you changed your mind. He’ll probably be happy.”

  I pulled my jeans on. “Don’t you think it’s weird, the way Dad wants me to get to know her? I mean, so he’s dating or whatever. But why involve me? Why do I have to get to know her? Unless…” I broke off, not wanting to finish the thought out loud.

  Abby shook her head. “It’s too soon. They’ve only been seeing each other for a few months.”

  “He gave her a key to our house,” I whispered.

  “Don’t go there. Seriously, Fi.”

  I stared at her mutely. I didn’t want to go there. But I was getting this awful feeling that Dad might.

  “In any case, if you’re right—if they are getting serious—that’s all the more reason to go shopping with her. To get some information. Knowledge is power, right?” Abby tilted her head to one side, eyebrows raised. “You might not have much time to waste.”

  Down in the kitchen, Dad was whistling. I have to admit he makes the best waffles. He makes them from scratch, different every time. This morning’s were made with buttermilk and blueberries, and doused with maple syrup. He piled them on our plates and waited. He’s like a little kid when he does this: hanging around to see what we think, wanting to hear how good they are. Abby had been eating his waffles for years, and he knew he could always count on her for a favorable review.

  She took a big bite, closed her eyes and moaned. “Mmmm,” she said, “these are out of this world.”

  Dad grinned. “You like?”

  “I love.”

  I grudgingly ate a few bites, trying to ignore Dad, who was lingering in the doorway.

  They really were good.

  “Okay,” I finally said, exasperated. “This combo’s a keeper.”

  Dad winked at me. “That’s my girl.” He wandered off to the living room, whistling to himself.

  Abby put down her fork. “Fi?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t get mad, but your dad seems so happy.”

  “I know.” The waffle turned to soggy cardboard in my mouth. I willed Abby not to say aloud what I knew we were both thinking.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t interfere,” she said, staring at her plate. Clearly, she wasn’t telepathic. “You know?” She glanced up at me. “If they’re happy…if your dad’s happy…”

  “It’s not just about them, Abby. This is my life too, and I’m not going to let Dad wreck it because he’s having some midlife crisis.” I pushed my plate away. “Kathy’s either a loony who thinks she’s talking to dead people, or she’s a fraud who’s deliberately ripping people off. Either way, believe me, Dad’s better off without her.” Under the table, my hands curled into tight fists. Abby was right. Knowledge was power, and I might not have any time to waste.

  “Dad!” I called. “Can I change my mind about going shopping? I just remembered that I really need new jeans.”

  Outside, the air was cool and fresh, the sky a soft damp gray. I looked longingly at my bicycle, chained to the front porch railing, and wished I was going down to the marina or over to Joni’s place or still sitting in the kitchen eating waffles and waiting for Abby’s mom to pick her up. Anything but this.

  Kathy jumped out of her car and opened the back door for me. “Thanks for coming,” she said. “I was so glad when your dad said you’d changed your mind.”

  She wouldn’t be so glad if she knew why. I slipped into the car behind Caitlin, who was wearing a short white skirt and a fluffy pink sweater. The car was spotless and smelled new, like leather and shampoo. I thought of our old Toyota and the way it always had empty pop cans and potato-chip bags scrunched under the seats.

  I buckled my seat belt, avoiding her eyes, and we drove in silence for a while. I was trying to think of ways to ask Kathy about her work without being too obvious. She drove fast, moving into the passing lane and skimming along Douglas Street toward the mall. The engine purred quietly, and some classical music played softly on the stereo. Dad never speeds, but that may be because our car starts to rattle before we even get close to the speed limit.


  I hate you, Kathy, I thought. I watched her face in the rearview mirror. If she could read my mind, she wasn’t showing any signs of it. I tried thinking loudly, projecting my thoughts toward her like arrows. Stones. Missiles. I hate you, and I’m not going to let you be with my dad. The car purred along, smooth and quiet, and Kathy didn’t say a word.

  “So,” I said, “I was wondering how you became a medium.”

  There was a pause. Caitlin glanced over her shoulder at me.

  Kathy’s hands tapped the steering wheel. Nervously, I thought. Didn’t that suggest she was hiding something?

  “It’s a long story,” she said. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”

  “I’m really interested,” I told her, trying to inject some sincerity into my voice.

  Caitlin turned and glanced at me again, but said nothing. When she turned away, she thumped back against her seat, stiff-shouldered. I wondered what that was about, but kept my eyes on the half of Kathy’s face that I could see in the rearview mirror.

  “I had another child, before Caitlin,” Kathy said.

  “You did?” I wondered why Dad hadn’t told me that.

  Caitlin turned on the radio. Country station.

  “Caitlin, do you mind? We’re talking.” Kathy snapped it off again, sounding annoyed. “She was born the year after Jack and I got married. Her name was Nicole.”

  Was. Did that mean what I thought it did? Kathy paused as if she was waiting for me to ask, but I didn’t say anything. I was not going to feel sorry for Kathy, even if she told me she had a dozen dead kids. She couldn’t suck me in that easily.

  Kathy turned and looked at me. “I wanted to have lots of babies. But…well, after Nicole, I couldn’t seem to get pregnant again. The doctors never found a reason. It was five years before Caitlin was born.”

  “The light’s green,” Caitlin said. The car behind us honked its horn.

  Kathy stepped on the gas, and we accelerated abruptly. Caitlin opened her window and stuck one arm out, palm facing the wind.

  “Anyway.” Kathy looked up at the rearview mirror, and I accidentally met her eyes for a second. I dropped my eyes back to my lap quickly. “Three years ago, Jack and the girls were in a car accident. They were on their way to a soccer game. Nicole’s team was in the playoffs. Jack was driving. It wasn’t his fault; the other driver was drunk. He plowed into them. Ran right through a red light.”

  My throat tightened. “Oh. That’s awful.”

  “Yes. Jack was killed instantly. Nicole died in hospital a few days later. She was only a couple of months older than you are now—a few days away from her fourteenth birthday. And Caitlin was almost uninjured. Everyone said it was a miracle.”

  Some miracle, I thought. A dead husband and a dead kid. You’d think if someone was there that day and in the business of performing miracles, they could have been a bit more inclusive.

  “And it was after that you became a medium?”

  Kathy turned to look at me, which was a bit worrying, as we were speeding along a busy road and talking about car accidents. “I couldn’t imagine how I could keep going. Only I had to, of course, for Caitlin.”

  Caitlin’s face was turned away so I couldn’t see her expression. She would have been eight or nine when her dad and her sister died, I calculated, and I felt a sharp stab of shame about how mean I had been to her.

  Kathy looked back at the road. “I don’t know if this makes sense to you or not, but I felt so guilty.”

  I swallowed. I knew all about guilt, but I couldn’t let myself think about that, or the whirlpool would suck me right in.

  “I should have been with them that day, going to the game, but I had the flu.” Her hands were gripping the wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. “I kept thinking that if I had been there, maybe I could have done something. After Jack and Nicole died, I was so depressed I could hardly get out of bed.”

  Like Dad, I thought, remembering all those weeks I stayed with Joni and Tom.

  “Then one day, I saw a poster inviting everyone to a meeting at a spiritualist church. I remember exactly what it said: Lost someone you love? Seeking comfort? I’d never been very religious. I’d never given much thought to what happens after we die, to be honest. But when I saw this poster, I thought, Well, why not? What do I have to lose?”

  “And what happened?” I asked.

  “I know this might be hard to believe, but I received a message,” she said. “A message from beyond. From Jack, that first time, telling me that he and Nicole were together and that everything was okay.”

  “Huh. How did you receive it? Could you, like, hear his voice?”

  Kathy shook her head. “One of mediums at the church meeting—a wonderful man—he picked me out of the crowd and said he had a message for me. He asked if he could come to me, and I said yes, and he came over and told me that he could see a tall man— Jack was very tall—and that the man wanted to tell me that he loved me.”

  I nodded, caught up in the story despite myself. “And?”

  “And then the medium said, ‘You have lost someone else too.’ And I started crying and told him about Nicole. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She was so young.’ Just like he could see her.”

  I thought again about Abby’s words: it’s all acting and guesswork. It wasn’t a huge leap for someone to guess that Kathy’s daughter would have been young.

  “After that I went to meetings for a while. And then I started getting messages myself. Directly. From Nicole, mostly.” Kathy took one hand off the steering wheel and rested it on Caitlin’s knee. “It was incredible, just incredible, to speak to her again. I thought she was lost forever, but she turned out to be so close.”

  I thought she was lost forever. All I could think about was Mom. She turned out to be so close. I blinked back tears so hot, they were scalding my eyes. Get a grip, I told myself. Only idiots believe this stuff. I cleared my throat. “So, do you talk to them both? Your daughter and your…” I wanted to say ex-husband, but that made it sound like they were divorced.

  “Jack never speaks to me directly,” Kathy said sadly. “Though of course I have friends, other mediums, who pass on messages from him.”

  Like they were all on some kind of online social networking site. Twitter for dead people. “So do you, like, talk to them too?” I asked Caitlin.

  She shook her head. “Mom gives me messages from them though.”

  Kathy squeezed her daughter’s knee and, without slowing down, swung the steering wheel around with one hand as we turned into the mall’s parking lot. I was starting to feel carsick.

  “Caitlin is a bit sad about not having my abilities,” Kathy said. “I tell her she shouldn’t worry about it. It’s a mixed blessing, you know?”

  I cleared my throat. “If you say so.”

  Kathy pulled into a parking space, unbuckled her seat belt and turned to look at me over her shoulder. Rain was spattering lightly on the windshield. “It’s a big responsibility. When I started receiving messages for other people, I didn’t understand why I had been given this gift, but I felt I had no choice but to use it to help others.” She met my eyes and gave a sudden, unexpected laugh. “If your eyes get any wider, they’ll fall right out. But I don’t blame you for being skeptical. If someone had told me a few years ago that I’d end up doing this, I’d have laughed my head off.”

  “But now you really believe it’s possible that after someone has died…?”

  “I know it is. I know that the spirits of those who have passed are still with us, and that they have a great deal of wisdom and comfort to share with us, if we only allow it.” Kathy stopped abruptly. “And I know I’m talking way too much about myself and what I think.” She waved her hands in the direction of the mall entrance. “Come on, girls. Let’s go shopping.”

  “Ooh, can we go in there?” Caitlin asked as we walked through the doors. She pointed to a store window display.

  I followed her gaze and tried not to shudder. Mannequins dressed in strapl
ess ruffled dresses; racks and racks of outfits in pastel peach, baby blue, mint green, candy pink. It looked like Easter had exploded.

  “Me and Mom love that store,” Caitlin told me.

  Me and Mom. My breath turned to ice in my lungs. Me and Mom. I’d give anything to be able to say those words again.

  thirteen

  Abby had to go to church on Sunday, but afterward her mom dropped her off at Joni and Tom’s. I was already there, finishing off the deck of cards we’d made for our experiment. Five different cards, each with a different shape drawn on it in thick black marker.

  Joni’s kitchen was warm and filled with cooking smells: onions, garlic, curry spices. I tossed the cards on the kitchen table, and Abby and I pulled up chairs. Joni was sitting across from us, wearing an old stretched-out sweater. She pushed her hair back from her face and looked at us expectantly.

  “Okay, Joni,” I said. “This is the test for telepathy. I’ll look at a card and concentrate on the shape. I’ll try to project the image toward you. Take as long as you need before guessing.”

  Abby leaned forward and planted her elbows on the kitchen table. “Not guessing, Fi. She’s supposed to wait until an image forms in her mind and then tell us which shape she sees.”

  I frowned. “Same diff.”

  “No, it’s not. Guessing implies she’s thinking about it. We don’t want her to think, we want her to intuit.”

  “Intuit? Is that a word?”

  Abby shrugged. “Use her intuition. Whatever.”

  “Okay. Okay. I think I have the general idea,” Joni said.

  Abby and I stopped arguing and looked across the table at her.

  “Right,” I said. “Ready?”

  “Whenever you are.”

  I looked at the black circle on the first card, closed my eyes and tried to hold the image in my mind. “Okay. Take your time.”

  “Circle,” Joni said.

  My eyes flew open and I flipped the card around to face Joni. “That’s incredible.”

  Abby grabbed the cards. “You’re not supposed to tell her how she did until the end of the test, remember? She has to do ten cards. And even by chance, you’d expect her to get a couple right.”