The Mark Read online

  “You know what I found the other day?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Mickey Mouse poker chips.”

  “You did not.”

  “I did. I was looking for a picture of the fourth-grade baseball team for some project the cheerleaders are doing and it was there, in that box.”

  Jack’s uncle Ray had taught us to play poker when we were eight. Before Jack and his mom moved to their new townhouse, they’d lived three blocks from me and Nan. After school, Ray would come over, done with his mail route by two, and we’d play. Penny ante, two-penny raises. For Christmas that year, he gave us each our own chips. Jack got Mickey, I got Minnie.

  I smiled. “I’d forgotten all about those. I wonder what happened to my set. I’m sure I kept it.”

  Uncle Ray died just after my tenth birthday. The first funeral I’d ever gone to. Jack had cried and that scared me.

  “He was a good man,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t know about that.” Jack smiled. “But he was a lot of fun.” We crossed the street, both of us slowing as we turned onto my block. “So, you’re staying in the apartment?” he asked. “Just you?”

  “Where else would I go?”

  “Right, I know, but isn’t it … lonely?”

  We had stopped at the concrete path that led into my building. I looked up and saw the yellow curtains of Nan’s bedroom, still and dark. I kept that door firmly closed. Not ready to go there yet. I remembered early last spring, coming home on a bitterly cold day to find the apartment filled with daffodils, the same hue, but five shades brighter than Nan’s curtains. She’d needed some sunshine, she said.

  “Yeah,” I answered Jack. “It is.”

  It had been a nice walk and I didn’t want to end it like this. I started for the door, but he knew I was crying and stopped me, pulling me close, his sweatshirt warm and smelling faintly of sweat and aftershave. It felt so nice to have someone, maybe him especially, care that way: not protective like Tasha or commiserating like Agnes, but just caring. It broke open my sadness, tears wetting the navy cotton of his shirt.

  He stroked my hair, waiting. Not trying to placate so he could leave. Just soothing, letting me be the one to pull away.

  “I gotta go,” I whispered, using the heel of my hand to wipe away tears.

  Jack nodded. “If you need anything, Cass, you can come to me.” His voice was low and earnest. “I mean it.”

  “Thanks, Jack,” I said, because I knew he did.

  Slowly I walked the long flight of stairs to the apartment. I thought about watching Jack from the window, wondered if he lingered outside for a minute or two, maybe thinking about coming up. Ringing the buzzer three times quick and once long and then bounding up the stairs, his legs taking the flight in four or five steps like he used to. I would have liked to see him, not a gangly kid anymore, someone much more grown-up, walking from my home to his, that link still between us. But watching him would have meant going into Nan’s room.

  chapter 6

  “Are we next?”

  I nodded, pulling the cord to let the bus driver know we wanted off.

  “You know where his office is?” Tasha asked as we stood. We were holding the poles, but still stumbled like little kids when the bus lurched forward.

  “No, but I’ve got the address. It won’t be hard to find.”

  We were on our way to see Nan’s lawyer, Mr. Koumaras. Tasha wasn’t going in with me, but had offered to come along and wait out front. “I’ll check out the business dudes,” she’d said, winking as if they’d actually be worth checking out. “We’ll hit Serendipity and The Brown Bean when you’re done.”

  I agreed, hoping I’d be in the mood for shopping and coffee. I hadn’t been on any of my other recent trips downtown. Having Tash along would probably help, but going through Nan’s will—which is what I was here for—probably wouldn’t.

  Mr. Koumaras had called the day after Nan died, when I’d just come back from the hospital, my head feeling as puffy as my eyes looked. I’d registered snatches of the conversation, only remembering to show up at his office today because he left a message reminding me.

  “So, tell me the rest,” Tasha said as we started down Cedar Street. “What’d you talk about?”

  “Oh, you know, nothing really. Colleges, the play-offs. You were right, scouts are coming to watch.”

  “Toldja,” she said, smiling. Tasha made it her business to fill me in on all gossip about Jack, not that I’d ever asked her to or encouraged it. She had a thing about him and me. It had started about a month after she came to Ashville in eighth grade. We were at my locker and he’d stopped to ask me something. Tasha was smirking when he walked away.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “You belong together,” she said.

  “What? Who?” I looked around.

  “Don’t play innocent, Cassie,” she said, still smiling. “You and that guy Jack.”

  “What are you talking about, Tash? You’re crazy. He has a girlfriend.” He and Val had started going out that summer. So I’d heard.

  She shrugged. “He may have a girlfriend, but he also has a crush on you.”

  “Come on,” I said, careful to hide my eyes. I hadn’t known Tasha very long back then, but had already figured out that she was good at reading people. Too good. “We’re just friends. I’ve known him forever—we used to hang out when we were kids.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “But don’t tell me you don’t think he’s hot. Or that you don’t have maybe the teeny-tiniest little crush on him too.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Of course, she’d ignored me and persisted in bringing him up randomly and not-so-subtly raising her eyebrows or winking at me when he passed. It was more funny than annoying—because Tash is a goof—and had become a running joke. Naturally, I’d told her about him walking me home the day before.

  “So, that’s it?” she asked as we crossed the street, almost getting run over by a pack of skaters.

  “What else did you expect?”

  “I don’t know, did he try to kiss you or anything?”

  “Tasha! You’re ridiculous.” I ticked off my fingers as I listed: “He has a girlfriend, he and I are just friends, we’d been talking about Nan …”

  “Ah, you didn’t tell me that part.”

  “Yeah …” I didn’t want to get into what had happened. I’d replayed it all afternoon, alone in the apartment. That moment with Jack—being so close to him—hadn’t really felt like a joke. It felt special, intimate, and too fragile to share. “Anyway,” I said, keeping my tone light and glancing again at the address in my hand. “It was nothing. But I knew you’d want to file it away in your bizarro Cassie and Jack collection.”

  “You betcha,” Tasha said, grinning. “Mark my words, Cassie …”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I waved dismissively, squinting up at the faded numbers on the building, the small happiness of the conversation deflating. “I think this is it.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” she asked.

  I shook my head, though I really wasn’t sure at all. “That’s okay. Hopefully I won’t be long.”

  Tasha dropped her bag and sat on the lowest step while I ascended, my stomach in knots.

  I must have looked shell-shocked when I came out an hour later.

  “You’ll never believe …” Tasha said, stopping when she looked up at me. “Cassie? What’s wrong?”

  I’d expected my meeting with Mr. Koumaras to be like the court dramas Nan had liked. A dry recitation of heretofores and aforementioneds. It had started out like that—sound mind and body, on this date of blah, blah, blah, a listing of assets. I was her sole beneficiary.

  “Quite a nice sum she’s left you,” Mr. Koumaras commented, meeting my eyes for a reaction. “Four hundred eighty-two thousand dollars.”

  Almost half a million dollars. I’d long suspected Nan had money socked away, though I would never have guessed such a ridiculous a
mount. Someday I’d probably be excited about it. Right now, I was just glad it was enough that I didn’t have to think about it.

  And then he’d dropped the bombshell: the guardianship.

  “The what?” Tasha said as we sat on the steps out front.

  “I know,” I said, my head down, fighting tears. “That’s what I said.”

  It was temporary, Mr. Koumaras explained. Ninety days mandated by the will. The inheritance would be held until it was completed.

  “I don’t even care about the money,” I told Tasha, still trying to sort it all out. “But without it, I don’t have anything to live on. He was talking about bills and mortgage and insurance.” I shook my head. “I hadn’t really thought about that kind of stuff.”

  “Maybe that’s why Nan did it.”

  “Yeah, I guess, but …”

  “What?”

  I was angry that Nan hadn’t told me, but maybe it did make sense to have some help. “Okay,” I’d said to Mr. Koumaras. “Let me talk to my friend Tasha. I bet her parents would do it. Or maybe Agnes …”

  He held up a hand. “Nan already designated a guardian.”

  “Oh. Well, which is it?” Why hadn’t Tasha’s parents said anything when I’d been over for dinner? Or Agnes the gazillion times she’d sat weeping on the sofa?

  “Neither.” He looked at his papers. “Nan designated Andrea Soto.”

  “Who?”

  He turned to another page and read, “Andrea Soto, Fifty-four Weston Avenue, apartment twelve, Bering, Kansas. Ms. Soto is the only sister of Daniel Renfield, Cassie’s father. She is Cassie’s only living relative.”

  My dead father’s sister. Who I’d never met. That’s when the tears started, stinging and hot at the corners of my eyes.

  “I don’t know her,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I didn’t even know my father had a sister. Nan can’t have meant for me to … what? Go live with her?” At that, I started crying for real, the idea of leaving my home to live with a total stranger just too much. “This lady is not going to take care of some girl she doesn’t know from a hole in the wall. Nan never talked about this … this Andrea Soto. She probably has no idea I even exist.”

  “Oh, no, she knows,” he said softly, shuffling more papers and trying to ignore my tears. “She knows and has agreed to take you in.” He’d tapped the page, then placed it neatly at the edge of the desk, facing me.

  “Oh my God,” Tasha gasped as we sat on the steps outside the lawyer’s awful mousehole of an office. “How soon do you have to go?”

  “Next week,” I said. “He said I could wait until school was out or whatever, but if I do, I’ll miss the beginning of next year here. I’d have to start in Kansas.” I wiped my eyes. “I figured I should just get it over with.”

  Mr. Koumaras had assured me there were no other strings and that I’d probably be granted emancipated minor status without much trouble, what with the inheritance. Turning seventeen soon after would help, but wasn’t a requirement. We’d only have to prove I was able to take care of myself. “It’s not so bad, is it, Cassandra?” he’d said.

  Yeah, it’s great, I thought. Nan is gone, I see almost-dead people, and I have to leave my home and friends to live with an aunt I never knew about for the summer. In Kansas of all places. Terrific. “No, not so bad, I guess,” is what I’d said out loud, trying to smile, but failing miserably.

  “But what about finals?” Tasha asked, looking shell-shocked now too.

  “He’ll take care of it. Call Principal McCarthy.”

  “But … why, Cassie?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why would Nan do it? Send you out there?”

  “Who knows?” I shrugged tiredly. “But I don’t have much choice, so it doesn’t really matter.”

  “But you’re going to miss the play-offs and Matt Glassman’s party and—”

  “Yeah, I know. Don’t remind me.”

  “I’m sorry, Cassie.”

  “Me too.” I took a deep breath, trying to think positive thoughts about the next three months. Nan had often said you can live with anything as long as it’s temporary. I hoped she was right.

  chapter 7

  The girl next to me picked up a magazine, then a minute later put it down. Her pale forehead was glistening. She looked at her watch and sighed, the exhale of a person barely able to catch her breath.

  “What time are we supposed to land?” she finally asked.

  “Two twenty,” I said.

  She nodded curtly, gripping her armrests as the plane jostled.

  “Are you scared of flying?” Dumb question, I thought. Is the sky blue?

  She glanced at me and nodded briefly, her color blanching at another bump.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” I told her with total confidence. “The plane will land safely.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she muttered.

  In fact it was. A small comfort of the mark—the only one I’d found so far. “Really. It’s going to be okay.”

  She looked at me hard, but I noticed her grip on the chair loosen, a slight flush of the knuckles. She smiled weakly. “You’re very convincing.”

  I smiled back and returned to my book, but I was too anxious to read. Had been most of the flight.

  Tasha and I had closed up the apartment the day before with promises from Agnes and her nephew to keep an eye on it while I was away.

  “God, I can’t believe you’ll be gone the whole summer,” Tasha’d said as we sat on the stoop out front. “What am I going to do without you? Who will be my coffee bud? Or go swimsuit shopping with me? You’re the only one I can trust!”

  “Yeah. It stinks,” I’d said.

  And it did. But after I’d gotten over the initial shock, I realized how hard the past weeks in Ashville had really been. I missed Nan so much. Reminders of her tugged at me endlessly, places we’d gone or talked about, things we’d done together.

  It wasn’t just that, though. It was the mark. I couldn’t handle seeing it on someone else I knew. What if it were Juan at the newsstand or Agnes or Tasha or Jack Petroski? If I stayed, someday it could be. It was bad enough knowing it was someone’s time, but I wasn’t ready to face the added burden of knowing their history and dreams, the family they’d be leaving behind to feel the way I felt now.

  I’d started to think it wouldn’t be so bad to be with strangers for a little while.

  “And what about play-offs, Cassie?” Tasha threw up her arms melodramatically. “You’re going to miss your man’s starring role!”

  “You are such a nerd,” I’d told her, smiling, though I’d had to force it a little, which was truly stupid because it wasn’t like, if I’d stayed in Ashville, I’d be likely to see Jack much anyway. Or that it would amount to anything more than “Hi, howya doin’, how’s your summer?”

  I hadn’t gotten to say good-bye to him. I’d tried, but every time I saw him the past week, he’d been with Val or his teammates and I felt weird calling him away to tell him I was leaving.

  I’d almost caught him two days ago as he’d run past me down the school steps. I called his name, amazed to see him finally alone.

  He turned, giving me a big smile. “Hey, Cass! We’re taking off for the first game. Wish me luck!”

  “Good luck,” I said, his back already turned as he jogged toward the waiting bus.

  I decided I wasn’t going to mope about Jack, who probably wouldn’t even realize I was gone, much less care. And, though I knew I’d miss Tasha, I’d started to feel a tickle of excitement at the thought of a few months in Bering. A fresh start.

  Now that the day was here, though, mostly I just felt sick to my stomach.

  Andrea Soto was meeting me at the airport. “I’m average height, dark hair. I’ll be carrying a big orange bag,” she’d said in our brief phone conversation. “My work tote. It goes with me everywhere, probably the best thing to pick me out with.”

  I hadn’t been sure what to expect when Mr. Koumaras
told me she’d be calling. Would it be a teary reunion? Condolences about Nan? Would she talk about her brother, my father?

  It turned out to be none of these, purely logistical: where we would meet, her phone number, address. Just the facts, ma’am. That was fine, I thought, after we’d hung up. The rest of that stuff would be better in person anyway.

  At a patch of turbulence, my seatmate inhaled sharply and practically threw her magazine to the floor. “Stupid, I know,” she said through clenched teeth. “Fear isn’t always rational.”

  I liked that.

  When the bumping and bouncing stopped, she turned to me. “Sorry to be such a nutcase.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “I’m Petra,” she said. “I’d offer to shake, but my hands are sweaty.”

  I smiled. She had black hair, dyed and clipped in a sharp bob around an elfin face. She wore heavy eyeliner, heavier boots, and was reading something with lots of technical-looking charts that I couldn’t decipher without being snoopy. She reminded me of Tasha somehow, though they looked nothing alike. “Interesting name,” I said.

  “Thanks.” She waited before prompting, “And you are …?”

  “Sorry. Cassandra. People call me Cassie, Cass, take your pick.” I had known it was my turn, but held back. I don’t know why, really. What could be the harm in telling her my name? Except that it meant I knew someone, someone knew me. Connection. One thing I was hoping to leave behind.

  “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” Petra said, smirking.

  “That’s right.” I was surprised. Despite the goth look, she was sharp. Not many people knew the history behind my name.

  “You live in Wichita?” she asked.

  “No. I’ll be staying there for a few months. Not Wichita exactly,” I corrected, “but a town called Bering.”

  She nodded. “I’ve been there. Nice place. I live in Ridgevale.” Seeing my blank look, she added, “It’s about midway between Wichita and Bering.” She waited for a reaction, but having never been west of Pittsburgh, I had none. “Do you have family there?”

  “Uh-huh. My aunt.” It felt weird to say it, even though I’d been tossing it around in my head since Mr. Koumaras had told me about her.