The Cost of Knowing, page 2
But I can’t savor this moment forever. I concentrate and command my brain to end the vision. The sunlight zooms at me like I’m flying toward a light at the end of a long tunnel, and suddenly I’m back in the shop, behind the counter, and the J.Crew woman is staring at me expectantly, as if she just asked me a question.
“I—I’m sorry,” I say, without missing a beat. “Could you repeat that?”
“Oh, I asked if you go to school nearby. You sound so well-spoken.”
Well-spoken? I’m talking about ice cream flavors here, not quoting MLK. But I know what she means. People tell me all the time that I’m “well-spoken,” as opposed to however they were expecting me to sound.
“Thanks,” I say.
She smiles at me and asks, “Canna try the caramel peanut butter pretzel?”
I pick up a plastic sample spoon and see a vision of it being thrown into the dirty spoon bin in just a few moments, and when I cancel the vision and the real world comes zooming back, I’m staring down at the ice cream flavors. I scoop out a tiny bit of the caramel peanut butter pretzel, not really caring that there’s not a single piece of pretzel in the sample, and hold it out to her. She takes the spoon without touching my hand, thank goodness. Every vision I can prevent is an act of precious self-preservation.
“Oh, that’s delicious!” she marvels. My head is spinning. My temples are throbbing. I’m dizzy.
I miss the days when my gloves used to work.
I finally get through scooping a scoop of caramel peanut butter pretzel into a cup, and a scoop of cookies and cream into a cone for Mabel, and get all three of us back to the register so they can pay and leave and take Mabel’s thumb-sucking sounds with them. The mom hands me a twenty-dollar bill. Dammit. I have to count back two fives that I see are about to get stuffed into her purse, and two ones that are about to be dropped into the tip jar.
“Thanks.” She smiles at me. “Mabel, say thank you to the nice young man.”
Mabel looks up at me through her straight red bangs and blinks a few times in gratitude. I’ll take it.
“My name’s Ena,” the woman says with another grin. “Mabel and I are new to Chicago. I own a consignment shop down the street. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s called Mabelena’s?”
I don’t care. I can’t care. I don’t have the energy to care. My eyes are throbbing. The pressure in my sinuses is crushing. Ena and Mabel are kind, and I should probably be glad that they came in instead of some entitled asshole who’s a hair trigger away from asking to speak to a manager. I suddenly feel guilty for hating this interaction so much. I should be grateful.
“I’ve heard of it,” I finally say.
An explosive crash behind me rattles my ears, and I flinch. I look to my right to see Ashlynn standing behind the counter, looking over her shoulder at me with huge eyes. The empty plastic napkin dispenser lies in pieces on the floor next to her.
“Sorry,” she says, her voice monotone and unwavering as she kneels and picks up each plastic shard and heads back down the hallway to retrieve the broom and dustpan, leaving me alone in here with Ena and Mabel again.
I turn back to Ena, whose eyes are still bright and trained on me.
“You have excellent customer service skills. In this industry, that’ll get you far,” she says, glancing around the room before reaching into her purse.
I may live in Naperville now, west of Chicago, but I was born and raised in East Garfield Park, where people don’t reach into their bag at the register after paying unless they’re about to rob the cashier. I flinch and step back reflexively, and Ena looks up at me with a hint of confusion on her face. She pulls a single business card from her purse and holds it out to me.
“I just wanted to give you this,” she says. “Come over to Mabelena’s and apply if you ever get tired of working for”—she leans in close and lowers her voice to a whisper—“Scoop. Met him in here a couple times myself. If you ask me, you should be the one running this place.”
This woman has clearly been here before, scoping the place out. Maybe she’s the mysterious buyer that Scoop will eventually sell to? But the person I saw in my vision grabbing the scoop was Black. Whatever. I’ll be outta here before any of that happens. I have to keep reminding myself not to care what happens to this place. The pope could buy it and it wouldn’t change a thing about my life.
I take the card with trembling hands and a polite “Thanks,” and Ena turns and guides Mabel to the front door. I force the vision of me throwing the card in the garbage can under the register to end. When I zoom back into reality and find myself staring down at the card in my hand, I toss the card in the trash. I’m alone at the front counter, so I do what I always do when I have a moment to myself—allow my brain to torture itself with “what-abouts” and “what-ifs.” Did I throw away that card because I saw the vision first? Or did my vision happen because I would’ve thrown the card away anyway, even if I was normal? If it’s the former, are these visions altering my life timeline? Could I have had a different future without them? What happens if I pick the business card out of the trash and don’t throw it away again? I guess it wouldn’t do anything because the vision was that I would throw it in the trash, and that happened already, whether I pick it out of the trash or not. But what if, just to see what happens…
I lean down and pick the card out of the trash and force the ensuing vision to end—the vision of my hand sliding it into my pocket. I’m back to reality, and I glance around the room as if I’m about to test some unwritten rule of the universe by trying this. I lean down, hold the card over the trash, and begin to spread my fingers to let it go, and just as it’s about to fall from my hand, Scoop’s voice explodes through the hallway.
“Hey, what was that noise, huh? Did something break?”
I hear Ashlynn’s dry voice from down the hall.
“Broke a dispenser. Sorry.”
“Another one?” asks Scoop, stepping into the front room and marching up to the ice cream counter. He looks over to the other side, where the full napkin dispenser sits intact. “That’s the second one this month! Those are thirty bucks apiece, Ashlynn. Be careful, please!”
He’s clearly frustrated, but his voice breaks at that last “please,” and something tightens in my chest. When I first met Scoop, his smile was bigger, his eyes were brighter, and he weighed about thirty pounds more than he does today. His glasses didn’t used to have scotch tape around the bridge between the lenses, and he didn’t used to have dark circles under his eyes. I remember sitting across from him four years ago, at the round blue table that’s still right here in the lobby. I was eleven. My résumé was a joke—I mowed Mrs. Zaccari’s lawn for a few months and vacuumed around the house for Aunt Mackie whenever we’d visit—but my mother insisted I have a résumé, even if I was asking a childhood friend of hers for a job tidying up his ice cream shop’s break room once a week. So there I sat at that little blue table, heart pounding, as Scoop—then I called him Mr. de la Cruz—pretended to scrutinize every word of my list of qualifications before shaking my hand to make my employment as official as under-the-table work can be.
That day seems like forever ago. That was a year before I lost my parents. A year before I woke up in that hospital bed seeing my very first visions, of what would become of my hospital blankets and the IV drip bag. A year before I started frantically googling what the hell these visions were, why I was getting them, where they came from, and how to get rid of them. Google can be hella scary. I found whole forums full of people with “visions” who said their premonitions were from God or Satan or their “higher self.” None of them wanted to get rid of theirs.
They just wanted to charge people for their services.
So I googled. I searched. I read. I prayed. And, after months, nothing.
No solutions.
No answers.
No peace.
I catch myself staring out into the lobby at that little blue table until Scoop’s voice throws my train of thought off its tracks.
“Hey!” he snaps, startling me. I clutch the card a little tighter in my hand.
“What’s that?” he asks me, nodding to my hand with his chin. I look at the card, and then at the trash can, where I’m supposed to leave the card. If I leave it there, I’ll have proven my vision wrong. I look back up at Scoop, and when his eyes narrow slightly and he takes a step toward me, I realize I can’t leave it in the trash. He’ll pull it out, read it, figure out I’ve been offered another job, and hire my replacement before I can quit.
I end up slipping the business card into my cargo shorts pocket and whipping up a lie.
“A therapist just walked in. We got to talking, and my parents came up.”
Scoop’s eyebrows soften and his shoulders fall a little. His dark eyes blink a few times, searching mine.
“Sh-she,” I stutter for maximum believability, “she gave me her business card… in case I need it.”
Scoop folds his arms across his chest, takes a deep breath, and stares at the ground as if he’s trying to find words. You could get Scoop talking for hours about literally anything, but when I bring up my parents, my mom especially, his childhood friend, he locks up. Freezes. Can’t get the words out, or doesn’t want to. Sometimes I wonder if he remembers her at all. If he ever thinks of her. Maybe when this store goes under, he’ll pretend it never existed too. I turn my attention back to the register, pick up a nearby rag, get through the vision of me dragging it across the counter, and then drag it across the counter. I shut my eyes and pray to whatever name the greatest force in the universe goes by that I can make it through this shift without having to touch anything else, and that miraculously, no customers will come in for the next two and a half hours.
And then the front door opens again.
“Hi, welcome to Scoop’s,” I say, focusing all my attention on making my voice sound less exhausted than I feel. I drop the rag and look up at the front door. A girl slightly shorter than me steps into the shop in all black—ripped jeans pulled up to waist height, a crop top that leaves about half an inch of midriff right in the front when she turns to close the door behind her, and combat boots. She grins up at me with a knowing smile framed by bubblegum-pink lips. All of her hair is tucked up into her hat, but I’d recognize those big brown eyes anywhere. Relief washes over me like rain across the wildfire of stress I’ve been battling all morning.
“Hey, Tal.” I smile, genuinely, for the very first time today.
You ever just be standing somewhere—like at a bus stop or something—and someone gets the giggles, and everyone around them starts smiling, and then you start smiling, and maybe even suppressing laughs, just because they are? That’s how it works with Talia—her laugh, her smile, the way she flips her hair. The whole room feels brighter, and for a split second, I forget how miserable I am.
“Hey, babe!” She beams, clasping her hands in front of her and rocking side to side. She glances up at Scoop.
“¡Hola, señor de la Cruz!” she exclaims, a bit too loudly for the space of this lobby.
“¿Cómo estás, Talia?” he says with sparkling eyes. “¿Cómo está tu mamá?”
“¡Bien!” She smiles.
Talia’s always been like this—always smiling and bursting with energy. But she’s bouncier than usual today, even for her. Her whole face, the color of a perfectly toasted marshmallow, is pinker than usual. Maybe it’s from the summer heat. But her eyes are twinkling, like she has something important to tell me.
“You good?” I ask her.
What we used to ask each other after my parents died. After her dad left. After we lost Shaun. Whenever we really need to check in with each other. You good? is code for Tell me everything.
“Nah-ah-ah.” She frowns, holding up her index finger and pretending to pout as she looks away. I roll my eyes and sigh. Oh, right. Spanish.
“¿Estoy bien?”
“Yo no sé,” she says, rolling her eyes. “¿Estás bien?”
I blink.
Talia’s been trying so hard to teach me Spanish, throwing phrases at me constantly, leaving sticky notes all over Aunt Mackie’s stuff whenever she comes over to study with me after school, pointing to random objects when we’re out in public and quizzing me on whether I know the Spanish word for it. I can’t keep up. Nothing sticks. I appreciate it, though. I’ve always wanted to learn a second language, and since Talia speaks Spanish fluently, it might as well be that one. It’s a great addition to my résumé. Mom would be proud. I hope.
“Hey,” she says, “are you listening?”
“What?” I ask. Shit, I was lost in thought again. “Oh, sorry. I mean… ¿qué?”
Talia takes in a deep breath and opens and closes her hands, which she does whenever she’s decided to just move on and not make the situation an incident. She’s on to the next sentence before I can correct my error and ask ¿Estás bien? instead. She’s talking to Scoop again.
“¿Te importa si hablo con Alex por un momento?”
“Sure,” he says in English, nodding at me before switching back to Spanish. “En realidad, Alex, Ashlynn me ha estado pidiendo más horas últimamente, así que si quieres irte a casa ahora y dejarla tomarse las últimas horas de tu turno, siéntete libre.”
All I got out of that was Ashlynn’s name and the word for “hours.”
“What?” I ask. But Talia’s halfway through an eruption of squeals and jumping up and down. She reaches over the counter, grabs my hand, and guides me around to the front of the store. Her hand feels hot—blistering, like I’m touching red coils on a stove—and a vision overtakes me that’s more powerful than all the others I’ve been through today. My chest feels like it’s being squeezed in a vise. Talia is standing in front of me, looking up at me with those captivating eyes of hers. Her dark curls just barely touch her shoulders. Her black sundress flutters slightly. It’s night outside, and I can feel a gentle breeze against my skin, with the moon high above us. This whole place is bathed in moonlight. No, harsh yellow light. Lots of harsh yellow lights, actually. I think they’re cars, passing by slowly, crawling down the street. We’re on the sidewalk, staring each other down. It’s cool enough outside to raise goose bumps on my arms, but my heart is pounding with fear and shame and regret. I look at Talia’s eyes. They’re traced with the blackest liner I’ve ever seen her use. Big black circles and huge lashes. Dark lipstick. Dark everything. And, the scariest part, Talia is looking at me like she wants to kill me. Like I’ve done something unforgivable. Like it’s over. I don’t recognize her. She’s never looked at me like this. Even as I watch her in this vision, glaring at me like she’s trying to drill straight through my head with her eyes, I know she’s actually standing in Scoop’s ice cream shop right now, holding my hand, but I don’t know if she’ll hold my hand like this tomorrow. I don’t know if she’ll look at me the same way next week. I don’t know if we’ll be together next month. I don’t know if I’ll have her number in a year. But this moment, standing with her on the side of the road, with her looking at me like she doesn’t know me, with searing hatred in her eyes—I don’t want to know when that moment is coming.
I don’t want to know what happens after that.
When I return to the ice cream shop, I’m gasping and pulling my hand from hers.
“Hey, you good?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at me in confusion where her smile used to be.
I’m not good. There’s a lump in my throat that I can’t swallow. My armpits are soaked with sweat, and my right eye is burning from a sweat droplet that’s fallen into it. It’s getting harder and harder to find the differences between my visions and my anxiety attacks.
I think this time it’s both.
I breathe and try to think. I’ve never seen her look at me like that—like I did something horrible, like I really hurt her. Like she never wants to see me again.
Are we going to… break up soon?
I don’t want to think about it. We’ve been fine. We’re fine!
…Right?
I blink, trying to steady my breathing so she doesn’t get nervous and think something’s up. I look at her to see if it’s working.
It’s not.
She reaches for both my hands, and I flinch away before she can touch me.
Her eyebrows sink down, and the look of disappointment in her eyes breaks me.
“Tal, uh,” I say, scrambling for control of my words, “I’ve, uh, been feeling kinda sick. I don’t think I should be holding your hand.”
What kind of man has to make up excuses not to touch his own girlfriend?
And… how long can I go without touching her?
I’ve never had to before. I’ve always just cancelled the vision before it took over.
I don’t know exactly when that night is coming, but at least I know I’ve got some time. As far as I know, she doesn’t own a black sundress—I’ve never seen her in one anyway, and at some point her hair is supposed to go blue. I’ve seen it. She’s going to dye it electric blue soon, and then brown again. That should give me a while until we’re somehow standing on the side of a road jammed with traffic, right? But what happens if I see what happens after that? What happens if I find out that’s the night we break up? What happens now that I’m too scared to even touch her, and she thinks I’m mad at her or something and my fear causes her to break up with me?
“Oh, uh… okay, then,” she says.
Talia tries not to let it bother her by smiling at me, but her eyes betray her. My heart is still pounding and my head is spinning. I’m relieved when she keeps talking.
“Scoop said Ashlynn wants to take your hours,” she says cheerfully, leaning in so close to me I can smell her shampoo and whispering, “Which means we can head back to your place early. Come on. Let’s grab some ice cream and get the heck outta here. We’re burnin’ daylight.”
“Okay,” I concede with a sigh, still reeling from that vision. How am I supposed to keep from touching Talia without her figuring out something’s wrong? “Just let me get some cash out the ATM for bus money first.”
