Liars and Fools (12 page)

“So give it back then.” Abby looked hurt.

I handed the book back. “Sorry,” I muttered. “It's cool that you want to be a psychologist. And at least your mom is behind you.”

“You're thinking about sailing, aren't you?” Abby gave me a sympathetic look. “Your dad's just worried about you.”

“I know, but it's not like I'm planning to do anything dangerous. That's the whole point of learning: so that I can do it safely. If I'm going to sail to the South Pacific, I have to be prepared.” I stood up, leaned against the school's brick wall and shoved my hands into my pockets.

“You'll need a boat.” She looked at me. “If your dad sells
Eliza J
.”

“I know,” I said. I hadn't been to the marina all week. I was scared I might see an empty slip where our boat used to be.

Abby had that look on her face that meant she wanted to say something.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Abby, come on. What is it?”

She sucked on her bottom lip for a second. “Don't get mad, okay?”

I sat back down on the step beside her. “Okay.”

“Well, I was wondering…Your dad knows how much you want to sail, right?”

“Of course he does.”

She hesitated. “He won't let you because of what happened to your mom, right?”

“Mostly, I guess. But he never really understood about sailing anyway.” I thought about all the fights my parents had about it: about the expense, about safety, about
priorities.
That was the word that always came up, again and again, drifting into my bedroom on the updraft of their raised voices.

Peter, you know how much I've always wanted to do
this. Doesn't that count for something? Don't you think
all our dreams should be equally important?

I think your family should be your first priority,
Dad had said.

Fiona doesn't mind. She understands how I feel
about this.

Dad's voice was low and defeated.
We all understand
how you feel, Jennifer. I just wish you would try to
do some understanding yourself.

“Maybe.” Abby hesitated. “Maybe you should talk to him about it again. Try and explain how important it is to you.”

The bell rang, and I stood up slowly. “I don't think so.”

“Why not?”

I started walking up the steps to go back into the school. “I don't know, Abby. I don't think he'd want to talk about that.”

Abby followed me. “It might be good for you both, you know.”

“No. Drop it, Abby.”

“It might be healing, you know? To talk about it.”

I turned around, anger flashing up out of nowhere and exploding in my chest. “I said, drop it. Go play psychologist with someone else.”

Abby's eyes widened, and her face flushed pink. She looked like I'd slapped her. “You know what, Fiona? Maybe I will. Maybe I'd rather hang out with someone who didn't bite my head off when I'm just trying to help.”

My chest tightened and my breath caught. I didn't think I could stand to fight with Abby right now. “I'm sorry,” I said awkwardly. “I didn't mean it.”

She didn't look at me, and I could see that she was getting teary. “Sometimes I feel like I can't say anything right,” she whispered. “You're so sensitive sometimes. I was only trying to help.”

“I know. And if I wanted a psychologist, I'd pick you,” I told her. “Honest.”

“Okay.” She gave me a tiny smile, but her eyes were still guarded.

My stomach hurt. I didn't understand why I kept pushing Abby away when I needed her so much. What if she got tired of putting up with me? “Come for dinner,” I said. “I bet psycho woman will be there again.”

She pulled out her phone to call her mom. “Then I'm there too.”

fourteen

At dinner that night, I felt like a cat waiting to pounce on a mouse. I amused myself by asking Kathy questions about the future, dropping them into the conversation like little time bombs. So Kathy, you think it'll rain this weekend? Who do you think will win tonight's game? What do you think Dad's made for dessert? I was pretty sure she was no more likely to be right than anyone else. Still, even if she was 100 percent wrong, it wouldn't be enough to convince Dad.

Finally Kathy asked how school was going, and Abby made her move. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and leaned toward Kathy. “Fiona and I are doing this science project together,” she said. “It's on psychic phenomena. I just think it's so interesting.”

Kathy paused, her hand halfway to her mouth. She slowly lowered her slice of pizza back to her plate. “Do you?”

I watched her face carefully, trying to decipher her expression. Guarded, I decided. Wary.

“Oh yes,” Abby assured her. “I've always thought so, but now that you and Fiona's dad are dating, that's practically like having a psychic in my own family.”

That was going a bit too far. It wasn't like they were getting married or anything. I glanced over at Kathy and saw her reach for Dad's hand under the table.

“Anyway,” Abby went on, “we've been doing this experiment to see if any of our friends have any psychic powers—telepathy or precognition—but so far, not a single person has.”

Kathy nodded. “It's not common. I hope you weren't too disappointed.”

I met Abby's eyes, gave her a tiny nod and held my breath. Do it, I thought. Ask her.

She bit her lip. “A little,” she said sadly. “It would make our project a lot better.” She gasped as if the idea had only just occurred to her. “Kathy? Would you take part in our experiment?”

There was a moment's silence, and Abby rushed to fill it. “It'll only take a few minutes. We just have to turn over the cards and you predict which ones will come up next. It's easy.”

Watching Abby nod enthusiastically as she spoke, I felt a surge of hope. If only Kathy would agree, we'd be able to prove to Dad that she was no different than anyone else.

But Kathy shook her head. “I'm sorry to disappoint you girls,” she said, “but those tests aren't sensitive enough to pick up most psychic phenomena. Besides, I never know what kind of messages the departed will bring me. Often it's only a few words or images. I don't always know what meaning they have, though the person I'm doing the reading for usually understands.”

Waves. Bright lights. I'd understood, all right, and she knew it perfectly well. But at the same time, she had given herself a perfect excuse for failing the test. “That's a bit of a cop-out, don't you think?” I blurted.

Kathy's eyebrows flew up. “A
cop-out
? ”

I could feel Dad's eyes burning holes in me, but I refused to look at him.

“Yeah. If you can't put your powers to a test, how do you know they're even real? How do you know you're not just imagining you have psychic powers?”

Kathy frowned. “I know it's probably hard for you to accept it. It's a new idea for you. It's unfamiliar—”

Anger flared inside me, and my words flew out, loud and sharp-edged. “Oh, so if I don't buy it, it means I'm just too narrow-minded, is that it?”

“Fiona!” Dad pushed his chair back from the table and stood up, eyebrows lowered warningly.

Kathy held out a hand toward him. “It's okay. She has a right to ask.”

“Not like that, she doesn't.”

“Peter, it's understandable that she's skeptical.”

Dad grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. His fingers dug into my wrist. “Skeptical is fine,” he said. “Disrespectful is not.” He put his index finger under my chin and it so I had to look at him. “You owe Kathy an apology.”

My eyes slid from his steady gaze and registered the circle of faces staring at me from around the table. Abby's round startled face, Caitlin's interested one—she was enjoying this, I thought—and finally Kathy's. She caught my eyes and gave me a tiny smile. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought she looked almost sympathetic.

I hated lying, but Dad was still holding my arm and I had to say something. “Sorry if I said something I shouldn't have,” I muttered. There. Not a lie. I didn't say anything I shouldn't have, and I wasn't sorry.

Dad let go of my arm, and I sat back down. Abby nudged my foot under the table, and I knew she wanted to cheer me up, but I just stared at my plate, cheeks burning. There was a long and very uncomfortable silence. The only sound was Caitlin chewing.

“It's okay, Fiona,” Kathy said softly. “I understand. Honestly, I used to be skeptical about this sort of thing myself.” She hesitated. “Listen, I don't know if you'd be interested at all, but I have an idea. I've got a booth at a psychic fair in Sidney tomorrow. Why don't you come? Both of you, I mean. See for yourselves what it's all about?”

Abby grabbed my arm. “Yes! We'd love to.”

My heart sank at the thought of spending the next day with Kathy, but I couldn't say no: a chance to observe her at work was exactly what we'd been hoping for.

Kathy turned to Dad. “Is that okay? I'll be working, but Caitlin could introduce them to people; she knows everyone. It'd be a great opportunity for them to do some research for their project.”

Dad shook his head. “You don't have to do that.”

“I'd like to. Really.” She sounded like she meant it.

He looked at me, his eyebrows pulled together and forehead knotted. “Do you want to go?”

I nodded, and he gave me a big relieved smile. I had to look away. If he knew the real reason I wanted to go, there was no way he'd agree.

It was a relief when the meal was finally over and Abby and I could escape to my bedroom.

“I
knew
she wouldn't let us test her,” I said.

“Yeah. Tedium. Never mind though. It'll still be a great science project.” She gestured toward our pile of notes and the poster board display we'd begun constructing. Green and purple letters on a black background spelled out
PSYCHIC PHENOMENA :
FACT OR FICTION?

“Whatever.” As far as I was concerned, there was no point in the project if it didn't help me get Kathy out of my life.

Abby adjusted a slightly crooked border. “I bet we get an A on this.”

I flopped onto my bed, ignoring the display. “Maybe the psychic fair will give us a chance to see what she does. See how she tricks people into believing she's communicating with dead people.” I realized that I hadn't told Abby about Kathy's dead husband and daughter. Jack and Nicole. I opened my mouth to tell her.

“You know, Kathy seems nice,” Abby said. “The psychic thing's weird, okay. But otherwise, don't you think she's all right?”

“Sure. But that's like saying she'd be okay if only she wasn't a big hypocrite and a fake. That's a pretty big
if only
.”

“I guess,” Abby said. She didn't sound convinced, and suddenly I was glad I hadn't told her about Jack and Nicole after all. I didn't want to give her a reason to feel sorry for Kathy.

I needed Abby on my side.

fifteen

The next day dawned bright and clear, with the kind of steady breeze that would fill sails without kicking up waves. I stood on the front porch and watched the soft white clouds floating high in the blue sky and the cherry blossoms fluttering from the trees and forming velvety pink drifts on the sidewalk. I could smell grass and damp earth and the clean salt tang of the ocean beneath it all.

A perfect sailing day
.

If Mom was here, she'd have woken me up with a nudge and a grin. C
ome on, get up. Life's too short
to spend sunny days sleeping
. We'd take travel mugs of hot tea and get in the car, me grumbling about how early it was but not really minding, Mom quiet and liars and fools smiling to herself, listening to CBC on the car radio as we headed down to the marina where
Eliza J
was waiting. I remembered how
Eliza J
would tug at her dock lines as the wind pushed her off the dock, and how Mom would laugh.
Look, she can't wait to be away
.

Kathy's car pulled up in front of my house, horn honking loudly. I shook my head, and the daydream shattered into pieces as sharp-edged and fragile as glass.

I got in the car and nodded hello. Kathy was wearing a straight black skirt, tall leather boots and a burgundy sweater. She said good morning, and Caitlin smiled at me, her pale hair damp and freshly combed. I smiled back automatically, but inside my head I was trying to catch hold of the fragments of memory. Mom's laugh, the smell of her perfume—
Paris.
She only ever wore that one kind, and I had her last half-empty bottle hidden in my T-shirt drawer. Sometimes I would put the tiniest drop on my pillow. I'd close my eyes and remember the way Mom used to nudge me with her elbow and look sideways at me, the way she said my name…

“Seven thirty sharp,” Kathy said, giving me a crooked-toothed smile. “I didn't expect you to be ready. Thought I'd have to come and drag you out of bed.”

“I like getting up early,” I said.

“Well, it's sure nice weather,” she said. “Pretty day for a drive.”

The psychic fair was in Sidney, a half-hour drive. Mom and I used to sail there often. There was this long sandy bar—Sidney Spit—where we'd drop the anchor, eat some lunch and stroll on the beach. Sometimes, if a perfect sailing morning happened to dawn on a weekday, Mom would let me miss school to sail with her.
Days like this one don't come all the time.
Carpe diem
and all that good stuff. Besides, you'll learn more
on a boat than they can ever teach you in a classroom.

I wondered if I would always miss her like this—if the ache in my chest would be there forever. And then I realized that I didn't hurt like I did back in those first months after she disappeared, back when every breath felt like inhaling broken glass. I didn't think about her as much as I used to.