The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball (5 page)

Thanks to Jesse, I had almost forgotten about the box.

When I arrive home from school today I'm surprised for a second to see it there, sitting on my desk.

I glance at my watch. Lindsay and Samantha are going to be here any minute. Normally, I would wait for them and make them open it with me, but there's just something about the way Roni said those words—
it was very important to Kate that you not open it until you're alone
—that makes me think I should do as she said.

Moving quickly, I slit the packing tape open with my house key. I don't know what I'm expecting, exactly. Pictures? Letters? Some sort of explanation? My stomach flutters nervously and I hold my breath as I pull open the top flaps and look inside. It's…

It's a pink, plastic ball. Well, technically, it's a Pink Crystal Ball; just the type of retro-kitsch toy that never ceased to amuse my Aunt Kiki. You ask it a question and shake it, and then a silly, new age-y answer floats up to the surface. It's supposed to tell the future like a crystal ball, except, you know, it's plastic. And pink.

I reach inside and remove it from the box. The ball itself is actually clear, but it's filled with a pink, glittery liquid that's reflecting the sunlight and scattering tiny dots across one wall of my bedroom. The bottom of it is flat, so that it can rest on a plastic, silver pedestal, which, I notice, is also inside the box. I pull it out and examine it. Someone etched “RC 52” onto the underside of the base, but otherwise, it looks just like every other Pink Crystal Ball that has ever graced the shelves of Toys“R”Us.

So that's it, then? My dead aunt left me a fake crystal ball?
That's
the big secret that I needed to be alone to see? I'm starting to wonder if maybe my dad is right. Maybe she really
was
kooky. What am I thinking? Of course she was! That memorial service was like a circus sideshow gone horribly wrong.

I look inside the box again to see if there's anything else, and I notice an envelope taped to the bottom, as well as a thin, rolled-up scroll, tied with a piece of raffia. I untie the scroll first and unroll it, hoping for some sort of explanation. But it's just a long list of names. Names I never heard of except for the very last one, Kate Hoffman—written in my aunt's handwriting. Seeing her signature there like that creeps me out, and I look at the goose bumps that have suddenly appeared on my arms. I roll the scroll back up and carefully untape the envelope from the bottom of the box.

This has to be it. This has to be the letter from her, explaining why she wanted us out of her life so badly.

But when I open it, I'm disappointed to see that it's a not a letter at all. It's just a list that she wrote that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

• Absolute knowledge is not unlimited; let the planets be your guide to the number.
  
• There are 16 ways to die, but four of them you will never see.
  
• The future belongs to you alone. Other voices will be disappointed.
  
• One rotation is as far as you can see. Only uncertainty lies beyond.
  
• You will know all when no more is known; then it is time to choose another.
  

That's it. That's all it says.

Wow, Aunt Kiki
, I think bitterly.
Thanks so much
.

Lindsay and Samantha burst into my room just as I'm putting the paper back inside the envelope. Lindsay immediately notices the ball and snatches it off of my bed.

“Oh, my God!” she squeals. “A Pink Crystal Ball! I love these!” She shakes it and looks up at the ceiling as she asks her question.

“Is Megan Crowley going to suffer from a long and painful bout of chicken pox that will leave permanent scars on her face?” She looks at the ball for an answer. “‘Your future is obscured. You must ask again.'” She shakes it a second time. “Okay, how about…is Megan Crowley going to get stood up at prom and become the laughingstock of the whole school?” She looks down at the window. “‘Your future is obscured. You must ask again.'”

“Let me see that,” Samantha says, grabbing it out of Lindsay's hands. “Does Aiden Tranter want to devour me like the men in those cheesy romance novels that my mother hides under her mattress?” She looks at the ball expectantly. “‘Your future is obscured. You must ask again.' Ugh, forget it.” She hands the ball to me. “Here, you try. You're the genius, maybe you can figure out what's wrong with it.”

I shake my head. “No thanks. You know I don't believe in that kind of stuff.”

“Oh, please,” Samantha says. “Don't be ridiculous. You don't have to believe in anything to play with a Pink Crystal Ball. It's just for fun. Come on, ask it a question. You know you want to. Ask it if Spencer Ridgely thinks you're smexy.”

I roll my eyes at her. “Spencer Ridgely is, like, the hottest guy in the whole school. Possibly even the whole world. And he's a senior. He doesn't even know who I am.”

“Not the point,” Lindsay says, jumping on Samantha's bandwagon. “Come on, just do it. It's not that hard. Repeat after me. ‘Does Spencer Ridgely think I'm smexy?'”

“What is ‘smexy'?” I ask, immediately wishing I hadn't.

Samantha rolls her eyes at me this time. “It means smart and sexy, stupid. God, you need to hang out in some classes that aren't AP. Maybe you'll actually learn something useful. Now would you stop stalling and just ask the question already?”

“Fine,” I say, succumbing to their peer pressure. I pick up the ball and shake it. “Does Spencer Ridgely think I'm smexy?” I ask, not even trying to hide my annoyance. I peer into the plastic on the flat side of the ball. It takes a second for the message to come up.

Yes, your fate is sealed.

“Well?” Lindsay asks.

I frown. “It says, ‘Yes, your fate is sealed.'”

She claps her hands excitedly and Samantha laughs.

“Give me that thing,” Lindsay demands. “I want to try it again.” I hand it to her, and this time she shakes it extra hard. “Is Megan Crowley's boyfriend going to cheat on her with a slutty girl from St. Joseph's and give her a raging case of syphilis?” Her lips twist in a frown. “‘Your future is obscured. You must try again.' This thing sucks,” she says, tossing it back onto the bed. “Where did you get it, anyway?”

“My aunt left it to me. Her friend gave it to me at the memorial service yesterday. It came with these.” I show her the paper and the scroll.

“I thought crazy aunts were supposed to leave people gobs of money that nobody knew they had,” Lindsay says, half to herself.

“Hey, that would be a great T-shirt,” Samantha interjects. “‘My crazy aunt died and all I got was a fake crystal ball.'”

Even I have to laugh at that one. To be honest, it feels good. It hurts less to think of Kiki as just some “crazy aunt” who didn't have a grip on reality. Before the laughter fades, Lindsay says that she can't stay. She just stopped by to see how I was doing. She promised her mom that she would help her move some stuff out of the garage.

Poor Lindsay
, I think. Ever since her parents got divorced, she's become the man of the house. She takes out the trash, hangs pictures, helps with moving heavy stuff. I always tell her that, one day, she's going to make some guy a fantastic husband.

“Have fun,” I say.

“Oh, don't worry, I will. This is Mr. Lindsay Altman, signing off.” She gives us a salute and then bounces out of my room and down the stairs.

“I should go too,” Samantha says. “My mom is having a dinner party tonight for some really important clients of my dad's, and I need to be home so that I can totally ruin it.”

“Ha! Nice attitude.”

She shrugs. “Hey, it's quid pro quo in my house. She makes me miserable, I return the favor. Not all of us are lucky enough to live in a sitcom family like you.” She pauses suddenly, as if she might have said too much, then quickly smiles. “Cue laugh track here.” She grabs her black Prada backpack and disappears out the door.

Alone again, I take the paper out of the envelope again and stare at it, trying to make some sense of the words. What does that mean, “There are sixteen ways to die”? And what's “the number”? Why did she leave all of this for me? Why was it so important to her that I have it?

There's got to be something I'm missing.

My stomach lets out a deep rumble, and I realize that I haven't eaten anything since lunch today. Dinner isn't for another couple of hours, so I walk out of my room and start to head downstairs to get a snack. But before I make it to the bottom, I overhear my mom talking on the phone. From her tone, I can tell that she's upset. It must be about Kiki. I walk back up a few steps so that she won't see me, and I listen.

“Why would she do that?” Mom yells, her voice breaking.

Who is she talking to? Dad?
“I don't know why,” she goes on. “I have no idea. Ask those lunatic friends of hers.” She's quiet. And then she starts to yell again. “No. No way. She was a lot of things, but she was never suicidal. No, it's
not
a possibility!”

Okay. It's definitely
not
my dad.

“You know what? Thank you. I think I'll find someone else.” I hear the beep as she presses the end button, and then she slams the phone down onto the counter.

I stand there for a few seconds, trying to process what I just heard. So, the person on the other end of that line thinks that Kiki was out in that field on purpose. Which would make sense, if you didn't know Kiki. But I'm with my mom. Kiki was so in love with the world; her crazy lifestyle was testimony to that fact. Mom is right. It's
not
a possibility. But then, why? It suddenly occurs to me that maybe Kiki was attacked. Maybe some random attacker threw her in the field, unconscious. And maybe that's when she got struck…
Oh my God
—

There are so many questions.

But like the T-shirt will say, all I've got is a fake crystal ball.

The girl at the ticket desk has red hair and really pretty green eyes, which perked up as soon as Jesse and I walked through the huge bronze double doors of the otherwise empty museum.

It must be so boring to work here; no wonder she keeps staring at us. She must be trying to figure out why two normal (okay, one normal, one with ridiculous hair) young people would choose to come here of their own free will.

As we approach her desk, I notice that she has a psychology textbook spread out in front of her, and I realize that she must be a student at the university, which is affiliated with the art museum. She's probably eighteen or nineteen, and now that I'm this close to her, I can see that she has a tiny gold stud pierced into the side of her nose, and her cleavage is spilling out of her dark green V-neck T-shirt. Her skin is perfect and she's got a full pouty mouth like Angelina Jolie's, glistening with pink lip gloss.

Okay
, I think to myself.
When I grow up, I want to look like that
.

Jesse, however, seems unfazed by her hotness. He barely even looks at her as he flashes his Grover Cleveland student identification card and holds up two fingers.

“Two, please,” he says quickly.

The girl raises her eyebrows, an amused look on her face. “Is this a date?” she asks playfully.

Jesse squirms uncomfortably in his black Converse and I am caught between a) thinking that she's completely out of line for asking two total strangers whether they're on a date, and b) wondering how Jesse is going to respond.

He responds with a sigh. “Cut it out, Kaydra, would you? We're not on a date.”

Kaydra? Wait a second, he
knows
her? So now he's hanging out with artsy punk rock types
and
hot college girls?
Ugh
. That is so typical. And how perfect is it that her name is Kaydra? That's almost as good as Trance.

Kaydra grins and bats her eyelashes, her green eyes flashing in the overhead lighting. “Oops, sorry. Well, come on, then, Jesse, aren't you going to introduce me to your not-a-date?”

Oh my God, she is totally
flirting
with him. It occurs to me that maybe
they've
dated, or possibly even hooked up. I stare at her cleavage again. No wonder he doesn't remember kissing me.

Jesse looks down at the floor as he mumbles an introduction.

“Kaydra, this is Erin. Erin, this is Kaydra. We're working on a project together for school. The teacher assigned us to teams.”

Oh, right, how nice of him to point out that the
teacher
assigned us to work together. Because, clearly, he would never have chosen to work with a slightly awkward, completely flat-chested, gangly girl with boring brown hair and boring brown eyes, who is wearing a boring Abercrombie T-shirt and little gold hoop earrings that she actually wears in her ears, and not in some other body part where earrings don't technically belong. I might as well change my name to Just a Boring Girl from AP Art History Class with Whom Jesse Is Being Forced to Work. Doesn't have the same ring as Kaydra, but what does?

“Nice meeting you, Erin,” Kaydra says as she hands us each a ticket. “Have fun working on your project.” On the word
project
, she winks at Jesse.

I half-smile and lie that it was nice meeting her too. I can feel her eyes on our backs as we walk away. And just because she didn't make me feel insecure enough, I accidentally trip over the front of my sneaker and almost wipe out on the black and white tiled floor. Thankfully, however, Jesse doesn't notice. Or at least, he pretends not to. Though he's probably cracking up on the inside, where he apparently keeps all the rest of his emotions too.

Once we're out of earshot of the ticket desk, I try to be all nonchalant about it.

“So, how do you know Kaydra?” It's not like I'm jealous or anything. Because I'm so
not
jealous. I don't care who he makes out with. I'm just curious how he knows her. I mean, it's not normal for a high school sophomore to just know insanely beautiful, pouty-lipped college girls, is it?

Jesse shrugs and gives me a funny look. “From here. I know everyone here.”

He knows
everyone
here. Hmm. Would he care to elaborate on that? I glance at him, but once again, his eyes are focused on the floor, as if he's been hypnotized by it.

“So, what, do you come here a lot, then?”

“Yeah.”

That's all? Yeah? Nice. I. Too. Can. Play. The. One. Syllable—Oh, forget it.

I give up trying to fill the many awkward silences between us and follow Jesse into the European gallery. I recognize a few names and paintings from class as I glance around at the walls: Botticelli, Caravaggio, Bosch.

Spirituality
, I say to myself, thinking about our topic.
Look for spirituality
.

I wander over to a Botticelli called
Saint Mary Magdalene Listening to Christ Preach
, circa 1484. The greens and oranges of the robes worn by Jesus and the people surrounding him are still surprisingly bright for paint that's over five hundred years old.

“What about this?” I call out to Jesse, who's on the other side of the room. “It's Mary Magdalene listening to Jesus preach. That's spiritual.”

“It's really not,” he says, turning around to look at me from across the room, but, I notice, not even glancing at the painting. “If you really look at it, you'll see that it's all about the architecture.” He walks over and stops so close to me that I can smell his…well, I'm not sure if it's his soap or one of what must be his many hair products, but it smells clean and citrusy, like a freshly peeled orange. He reaches his arm out toward the painting, accidentally brushing me on the shoulder with his hand. I look at him to see if he noticed, but he's gazing appreciatively at the painting, waving his fingers up and down in front of it.

“Just look at these columns,” he explains. “It's a perspective piece. A very technical one too.” He glances at me quickly and then looks back down at the floor. “You have to be careful. Just because a painting has Jesus in it doesn't necessarily mean that it's spiritual.”

Well, la-di-da. Look at the art expert over here. I deliberately do not act impressed with him, even though…well, it is kind of impressive. What's even more impressive is that he can pull off a line like that without sounding pretentious. How does he know so much, anyway? We never learned anything like that in AP Art History class. Suddenly, an image of Jesse and Kaydra strolling through the museum, holding hands, flashes through my head, and I think I have a pretty good idea.

“Fine,” I say, rolling my eyes at the back of his dumb hair as he walks to the other side of the gallery. “So what's your suggestion, then?” I follow him and stop next to where he is standing. Directly in front of us is an enormous painting of a naked man, his wrists chained to a rock. On top of him, a massive eagle is ripping out part of his insides with its beak. I look over at the gold plate on the wall:
Prometheus Bound, Peter Paul Rubens,
circa 1611–1612.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “But what is so spiritual about a man getting eaten alive by a bird?”

Jesse points to the gold plate. “It's Prometheus,” he says matter-of-factly, as if that is supposed to explain everything.

“Yeah, I know. I can read. But what's your point?”

He gives me a sideways glance. “I thought you'd remember it from when we learned Greek mythology.”

I stare at him blankly. We learned Greek mythology?

“Eighth grade,” he reminds me. “In Mrs. Deerfield's class?”

Mrs. Deerfield was our English teacher, aka the Teacher Most Likely to Put You into a Coma from Which You Will Never Awake. I don't remember
anything
from that class. I shake my head at him.

“Sorry,” I say. “Mr. Prometheus is not ringing a bell.”

A brief look of—I can't tell if it's disappointment or annoyance—flashes across Jesse's face, which infuriates me. I mean, is he seriously annoyed that I don't remember the story of Prometheus when he doesn't even remember that we kissed in a closet for seven entire minutes? Honestly, what is his deal?

“Okay, well,” he says. “Zeus wouldn't let mortals have fire, so Prometheus stole it and gave it to them. When Zeus found out, he chained Prometheus to a rock while an eagle ate his liver. And then every night his liver grew back, and every day the eagle ate it again, over and over, for all of eternity.”

Oh, wait a second. I actually do remember that story. In fact, Jesse and I made a poster together about that story. It was our end-of-the-year project, and we worked on it in his bedroom, just a few weeks before we kissed. What I remember most was feeling nervous about being alone with him, in his room, even though I'd been alone with him in his room a dozen times before and had always felt fine about it. I sneak a look at him; is that why he was annoyed? Because I didn't remember making the poster with him? He really is the most confusing person I have ever encountered.

“Okay,” I say. “That's a nice and also kind of disgusting story, but I still don't see what makes it spiritual.”

“It's an allegory,” Jesse explains. “When Prometheus stole the fire, he changed humanity. People went from being at the mercy of the gods to being in control of their own destinies. Prometheus represents the triumph of the human spirit over those who try to repress it. He
is
spirituality.”

Oh.

“All right,” I say, shrugging my shoulders as if that wasn't a totally brilliant interpretation of Prometheus. “I guess that sounds fine. But I still think one of the others we choose should be a religious painting. You know, just to have a more traditional take on it too.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I figured you would choose something traditional.”

I glare at him. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just forget it.”

“No, I am not going to forget it. You can't say something like that and then not tell me what you mean.”

He looks down at the floor. Again. “It's just that, you know, you never were someone to think outside the box much.”

I raise my eyebrows, offended. Could he be any ruder? “That is not true,” I huff. “Just because I don't have a tattoo or, or,”
or cleavage, or pouty lips, or
swingy red hair
, “or a nose ring doesn't make me ‘in the box.' I think outside the box plenty.” But I can feel my face turning red, the way it always does when I'm embarrassed, or when I lie. Or both. I mean, come on, who am I kidding? I've never thought outside the box in my life.

I look at Jesse, and I can tell that he's trying not to laugh. I keep forgetting how well he knows me.

I smile—I can't help it—and then I roll my eyes and cross my arms in front of my chest in mock defiance. “Okay, fine. I don't think outside the box. But it's not my fault. Both of my parents are doctors. How am I supposed to be creative with that kind of genetic hard-wiring?”

Jesse chuckles and gives me a sympathetic look. “Look, I'm sorry,” he says. “I wasn't trying to make fun of you. It's just that this project is really important to me. I am dying to go on that trip to Italy, so we have to get an A on our presentation.”

“
You
want to go on the trip?” I blurt out, not meaning to sound quite so shocked. It hadn't even crossed my mind that he might want to go to Italy too. Suddenly, my stomach feels all queasy and anxious inside. What if he gets picked and I don't? I can just picture myself sitting on my bed, rationalizing it to Lindsay and Samantha.
I didn't really want to go, anyway. I mean, could you imagine having to travel for two whole weeks with Jesse Cooper?
But then again, what if we both get picked? There goes my stomach again, but this time it's a different kind of queasy. An excited queasy. I mean, could you imagine, traveling for two whole weeks with Jesse Cooper?

Jesse's face is lit up like a sky full of fireworks. “I want to go on this trip more than anything I have ever wanted,” he answers. His openness about it surprises me, and for a second, it's almost like we're back in middle school again. Just Erin and Jesse, hanging out. Except I don't remember his eyes being so blue when we were in middle school. Or maybe they just stand out more against his hair, now that he's dyed it jet black.

“Wow,” I remark. “How come?”

He blushes a little when I ask him, and his face immediately changes back to the way it was before, as if he realized that he'd let his guard down, and he needed to put it back up again.

“Oh, I don't know,” he says, trying to sound ambivalent about it. “Lots of reasons.” Aaaaand now we're back to high school, which is good, because I was really starting to miss those vague, short answers of his. “What about you?” he asks, obviously trying to change the subject. “Do you want to go?”

“Yeah,” I admit. “I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since Mr. Wallace handed out those flyers.”

Jesse puts his hands in his pockets and nods. I search his face for a clue as to how he feels about this. Is he happy that I want to go? Or does he see me as competition? As usual, he's completely unreadable.

“There's just one problem,” I tell him. His eyes snap to attention.

“What's that?”

“I don't know if they'll let me take my box on an airplane. And I won't be able to think if I'm not inside it.”

A slow grin spreads over his face, and he punches me lightly on the arm. “Come on. We should get back to work,” he says. “The museum closes in twenty minutes.”