The Guidance

chapter Nine

In study hall the next day, I meet up with Celia, Becca, and Jason.

Oh yeah, the boyfriend. I have so neglected him. He is soooo damn gorgeous, sitting there in a blue button-down that matches his eyes and a pair of black cargo pants. After this Courtney brouhaha is over, he and I are going to need some serious alone time. Together. No ghost huntress team. No EMF detectors. No anybody. Just us.

"So what did you get?" Celia asks me, bringing my mind back to said brouhaha. She reaches her hands forward like a child grabbing at a new toy.

"I think you should maybe pursue a career in the FBI instead of in parapsychology," I suggest and then give the phone numbers to her. She flips open her laptop and boots it up.

"I was right. The Bluetooth is the key to Courtney's abilities," I say.

"I'm on it," Celia says.

Across the table, Becca cracks her knuckles and frowns. "Why don't you just have me and Dragon let the air out of her tires?"

"Classy, Asiaf," Celia says. "Real classy."

Sitting back, Becca snickers. "I'm into class. It's a brand-new thing for me."

We all laugh until the study hall monitor shushes us.

While Celia's hacking a nearby Internet connection, I fan some textbooks out in front of me, but I can feel Jason's stare on my face. I glance over, and he seems worried.

I thread my fingers through his. He puts his other hand on top of our joined ones and rubs softly. He's so warm and caring ... I just want to put him in my pocket and take him home. (Oh man, these Southern sayings are already rubbing off on me!)

"Is Taylor okay?" I whisper while still holding on to him. He rests my hand on his upper thigh—hello!—and lets out a pent-up sigh.

"No, she's embarrassed like nobody's business and is rip-shit mad at Courtney. So am I."

"Did you tell her that, about your mom ... you know, being in therapy?"

"No!" he says, too loudly.

Celia puts her index finger to her lips. Becca could care less as she listens to her MP3 player with the headphones on.

"Why didn't you tell me about things at home? I knew some of it, but not all of it."

He laughs, his blue eyes sparkling to life. "Right. 'Hey, Kendall, will you be my girlfriend even though my mom's a nutjob and my dad split and my home life is totally fu—"

"Jason! Don't say that! Like I've got this perfect life? Ghost Girl?"

He rolls those beautiful eyes. "That is not your nickname."

"In some circles of RHS, it is," I say sadly. "This isn't about me right now. Is your mom okay?"

His shoulders lift and then fall. "I reckon. I mean, she just sort of lost it one day and totally shut down. Dad couldn't get her to talk to him, and Taylor and I just stayed out of the way. Next thing you knew, Dad left, and Mom was making sure her insurance would cover some pretty serious psychotropic drugs. She's bipolar and was even suicidal for a while."

"Is she okay now?"

"The medicine's working," Jason says.

And here I've been worried about what my mother might put me on when Mrs. Tillson's getting along fine with her chemical dependence.

"What gets me," he says, "is how the hell did Courtney know? Mom's been so paranoid about what people in town would think. That's why she's been going to Atlanta to the doctor. And she's been filling her prescriptions up there instead of at the drugstores here in Radisson." He lifts his free hand to run it through his blond hair. "I've tried so hard to protect her."

"You can't, Jason. She's the parent. You can only take care of yourself."

His hand moves over mine, rubbing softly. "And Taylor. And you."

I shake my hair. "You don't have to take care of me."

"Yeah, I do," he says with a half smile and his head cocked to one side. "You're my girlfriend."

I smile too and I swear I feel a blush spread from head to toe. "I like being that."

"Me too." Then he leans over and kisses me fast, before anyone can comment or tell him not to do it.

"I've got it!" Celia sounds out.

"Shhh!" comes from behind us.

I slant down onto the table. "Spill it!"

Celia places her black hair behind her ears and takes out a pen. "Okay, well, you know that Bluetooth is this wireless protocol that utilizes short-range communications technology to facilitate data transfers over short distances from fixed and/or mobile devices, like a BlackBerry or a—"

Becca interrupts. "Jesus, Nichols!Who gives a shit! Get to the point. When can I kick Courtney's ass up around her nose?"

I hold my hand up."'Be comforted:/Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge,/To cure this deadly grief.'"

"Huh?" Becca asks.

Celia reaches over and high-fives me. "Good one, Moorehead! Ahh ... Macbeth, act four, scene three."

I nod proudly.

"Y'all are weird," Becca says with a smirk. "What's the bottom line, Nichols?"

"Courtney's a big phony."

Jason harrumphs. "You just figured this out now?"

"I knew it!" I did. There's no way she became psychic overnight.

Celia explains. "The calls during the lunch hour when she was putting on her little stage show were from Farah Lewis, Courtney's father's office, and Mina herself."

"Right. I assumed Mina's reading was a gag to get things started," I say. "Why the call from her father's office?"

Jason responds. "Her dad owns Radisson Mortgage Brokers, which is probably where Mrs. Flynn has all of her paperwork. That's how Courtney knew about her mortgage problems."

"That explains it," Becca chimes in. "And the stuff about your mom?"

Celia turns her computer around to show the home page of the Radisson chapter of the Daughters of the American Confederacy. In the front row is Jason and Taylor's mom, and she's sitting next to Georgia Moutzourogeorgos, Mina's mother. "Mina must have heard something that your mother shared in confidence. It all makes sense now." She pauses for a moment. "Actually, if we hadn't reacted on such an emotional level straightaway to all of this—Taylor particularly—we might have been able to use our own female intuition to put the puzzle pieces together and see that Courtney's a fake psychic. This is a desperate plea for help, I think."

"Bullshit," Becca spews. "It's a desperate plea for attention."

An idea hits me. "I think I have a way to show her up."

"How?" Celia asks.

"We plant some information," I say. "Then we'll call her on it. In public."

"Works for me," Jason says. "I'll sell tickets for it."

Celia gives me a thumbs-up. "The only way that could be more brilliant is if I had thought it up."

I turn to Becca. "You in?"

She shrugs. "I suppose so. I still say me and Dragon let the air out of her tires."

I crack up laughing and don't care who hushes me. "Maybe as a last resort."





While Jason is at track practice, he lets me borrow the Jeep (thank God it's an automatic!) to run errands for my mom and to take Becca home after school.

I pull into the driveway of the plain one-story brick house and shut off the ignition. Turning to the Goth girl next to me, I say, "I really appreciate that you stood up for me. And Taylor too."

Becca twirls her diamond stud nose ring. "Courtney's always been a selfish cow, even when we were little. You shouldn't take it personally."

"But I am taking it personally because, well ... it's directed at me!"

"You're just different and new to town and people have taken to you. She can't deal."

"Neither can I," I mumble.

"My dad always says Illegitimi non carborundum."

I lay my head on the steering wheel. "Oh God, not you too! How many languages do I have to take to keep up with you, Taylor, and Celia?"

Becca smiles. A beautiful vibrant one, I notice, with straight teeth. The teeth of a former beauty queen and a current Goth princess. "It means 'Don't let the bastards grind you down.' And in this case, Courtney Langdon would be said bastard."

I nod vigorously.

Becca slides out of the Jeep and reaches for her black satchel. "Hey, you wanna come in for a soda?"

I glance at my watch. "I've got to get the Jeep back to Jason after my errands, but maybe for a sec?"

I follow Becca through the carport and up three stairs into her kitchen. It's a modest design. Clean and white with Formica countertops; I can't tell if they're a modern-day nod to the past or if they're the real thing. A small table sits off in the right corner, next to a window overlooking a backyard grown tall with wildflowers, grass, and weeds. An in-ground swimming pool is covered with a royal blue tarp thatched with leaves that have fallen from the nearby pecan tree.

"Take a load off." She drops her stuff in front of the counter, where the telephone is mounted on the wall. "Let's see what we've got."

I take a seat in one of the ladder-back chairs and suddenly get this overwhelming sense of sadness rushing through me, like white-water rapids. My breathing falters and I want to cry rivers of tears for the loss I'm feeling around me. This chair belonged to someone dear. My heart hurts like someone is pounding me in the chest. Nothing in my life has felt like this. Well, maybe when I lost Grandma Ethel. What can this be?

Becca tosses a silver can my way. "All we've got is Fresca. Is that cool?"

"Yeah, sure," I manage to eke out.

"I gotta pee, BRB."

Laughing, I say, "I thought being classy was going to be your new thing."

"That wore off." Then she disappears through the den and down a hallway to the left.

I don't know much about Rebecca "Becca" Asiaf other than what I've learned from Celia and Taylor. Most of the info doesn't ring true with the DJ Goth girl I see every day at school. According to my friends, Becca was a regular in local beauty pageants—until last year. Now she sticks to herself when she's not around us, or she hangs with the tough kids like Brent Dragisich and his other crotch-rocket-riding buddies. Ghost hunting for her seems more like a pastime than the calling it is for Celia and me.

I pop the top on the Fresca and take a long sip. It's citrusy and cold, but the ache in my heart is still there. There's a lot of place memory or residual energy here. Not necessarily a spirit present, but a residue of someone's soul and how he or she affected others while here. However, I can feel one memory vividly, as if I lived it myself: It's an old woman with a gray bun at the back of her head. She's shelling peas at the table, right where I'm sitting. I stand up and move around the kitchen, still picking up the strong vibe. My left ear starts to ring like I've been underwater too long. I'm drawn to a closed door next to the television—which looks neither cable ready nor HD capable—and am aware of pure energy radiating from behind here. I know it's closed for a reason, yet I reach forward to twist the knob and then venture in to pinpoint the source of my emotions.

The door creaks open into a dark, musty formal living room with heavy gold drapes pulled closed to keep any light out. I fight the urge to sneeze at the dust gathered up; my tongue tickles the roof of my mouth to prevent it. I gasp as I look around the room. It's one trophy case after another, each shelf filled with crowns, banners, scepters, and awards—some that are nearly five feet tall. Also on the shelves are dust-covered pictures showing a much younger Becca wearing beautiful pageant dresses and posing, singing, or twirling a baton. As a child, she was really gorgeous, even model-like, with her flowing chestnut hair. Her face, skin as porcelain as a fine China doll's, shows happiness, poise, and grace. Class is obviously her "old" thing.

I walk over to one framed photo in particular: it's of the woman I saw in my mind. I pick it up in my hand, and memories—someone else's—rush through me. There's an older lady dressed in her Sunday best standing next to Becca, who's around age thirteen and wearing her Peanut Festival Queen crown. The woman's smile is so bright that her eyes are crinkled shut. Becca has never looked happier.

I have no words to amply describe the sorrow I feel near me. Misery fills my chest in an anvil of pain, heavy and burdensome. Doubts swirl overhead, and I don't know where they're stemming from. A baton lies abandoned in the corner of the room, as does a set of twirling knives and a tattered pair of ballet shoes.

What could have caused this immense grief that flows through this house like it's circulated by an HVAC unit? How did this amazingly gorgeous girl end up dyeing her hair black, piercing her lip and nose—and God knows what else—and turning into a social loner who hangs out with me, Ghost Girl?

Another wave of anguish splashes over me, causing me to grip the closest bookshelf for support.

"Oh, Becca..."

Then I hear, "What the hell do you think you're doing in here?"