Smoke and Mirrors. Lesley Choyce
some weird thing to me, aren’t you?”
“No. Not that weird. I just made you notice.”
“I’m thinking that I’m having some kind of mental episode. I’ve been reading a lot of books about metaphysical stuff. And I’ve been feeling stressed about a lot. My folks. This freaking school. My freaking life.”
“That’s why I’m here,” she said. “Maybe I can help.”
CHAPTER TWO
I am the product of two very ambitious parents. My father sells corporate bonds and my mother sells real estate. It seems there is no end to these two commodities. The hustling of houses and bonds goes on into the evenings and weekends by this man and his wife who more or less abandoned me, their son, many years ago. Abandoned is perhaps a harsh word, since I have a roof over my head, a refrigerator full of food, and most of the comforts desired by a young man of sixteen going on seventeen.
Despite the fact we all live in the same house, I think I’ve grieved over the loss of my parents for six or seven years now. I am an only child, and it’s a good thing that my folks did not decide to bring another child into the world to be ignored by them.
I tried getting adolescent revenge on my parents in several ways — poor grades, petty crimes, and household vandalism — but no matter how desperately I tried to bomb test after test, I’d end up with a C or C+. I could steal things from stores — CDs, gum, shoelaces, and running shoes even — and not get caught. I broke things around the house on purpose and they would be replaced without question.
Now my parents are hardly ever around to get mad at me. And they feel some guilt over not being around, so they buy me things. “If you have a problem, throw money at it until it goes away.” My father said this about car trouble and problems with the furnace and the flying ant infestation. And I’m sure he applied the same solution to me. More money could always be made selling bonds to greedy investors on manicured putting greens.
My mother’s favourite word in the English language is closing. “I’m closing on the Ferguson house today,” she’d say in early morning glee at the breakfast table. “I bet I’ll be closing on that condo by the end of the week.” And so forth.
Ozzie Coleman had been my good friend since the third grade. In those days we were making evil-smelling concoctions we called fart bombs. I forget exactly what the famous combination was, but it was deep science to us, very serious business: filling plastic bags with our mix, leaving them in unlikely places where they would eventually be stepped on or ripped when a drawer opened, or sometimes just throwing them into crowds of unaware victims. No harm was done except for the stench, but the results were most gratifying.
Of course we went on to bigger and better adventures, and Ozzie was such a good friend that I never really cultivated any other friends.
Right after my accident Ozzie moved. His father moved him and his family because of some kind of corporate restructuring, I think. And I was left high and dry. We wrote letters to each other and talked on the phone, but it wasn’t the same.
I became a loner after that. I had few social skills, and my parents tried to find a way to throw money at that problem, too. They couldn’t buy me those skills, although they tried (and failed miserably) by enrolling me in kung fu classes, gymnastic programs, and even golf lessons. I told them I really wanted to learn to surf, but they laughed and said the ocean was two hours away. They weren’t going to spend their Saturdays driving me to the beach. Besides, I might drown. It looked dangerous.
I trained myself at self-hypnosis by reading a book on the subject, and that helped some. I read about astral projection, and I found that pretty entertaining. And I began accumulating a great library of books (some stolen, some bought) on anything metaphysical.
I cut out clippings from newspapers and magazines about anything relating to the paranormal or anything that seemed inexplicable to the experts — survivors of freak accidents, weird weather phenomena, and UFO sightings, of course.
I wouldn’t have called myself a happy camper by anyone’s standards. But I was coping. Every once in a while I did something pretty weird, like walking around on the roof of our three-storey house with my eyes closed, or sitting outside on a full moon night waiting to be abducted by aliens I had tried to contact through mental telepathy. Otherwise, I traipsed through life one day at a time like all the other androids at my school.
Until everything changed that day when she appeared in my history class.
I was certain that she was real, but I had known for a long time that there is, for me at least, a pretty thin line between what is real and what is imagined. I am a believer in fuzzy lines of distinction of all sorts. What is alive and what is dead, for example. What is sentient and what is not. What is important and what isn’t.
I realized that others my age didn’t give a rat’s ass about these trifles but were more intent on hockey, drugs, booze, or the interest of the opposite sex. Of this array of concerns, I admit that I had a strong lusting instinct when it came to certain female classmates, but I was inept in those necessary social skills. This may help explain why Andrea appeared to me.
We left the classroom together, and I decided to hold off on making any quick judgments. This was a skill learned in the scientific heyday of Ozzie and me — young researchers using pure scientific hypotheses in our attempts to create ever more noxious smells from household chemicals and cooking supplies.
Andrea carried herself gracefully, far more gracefully than most girls at Stockton High. I was afraid to touch her, and she kept teasing me about that.
“You think I’ll disappear.”
“You might.”
“You think I’m not real?”
“I’m holding off on making that call.”
We were in the hallway, and there were other students around. “Who are you talking to?” Kylie Evans asked when she saw me having what appeared to be a conversation with a fire extinguisher. What she would have heard me say then was, “You might,” followed by “I’m holding off on making that call,” two bits of conversation that may or may not make sense coming from a boy talking to safety equipment.
I wanted to say more to Andrea but decided to wait for privacy. I moved on down the hall oblivious to the usual rattle and chant of students changing classes. I was further oblivious as to where I was headed. Which classroom? What subject? What to do about Andrea? Suddenly there was a tug on my arm.
“You’re going the wrong way,” she said. “English is upstairs.”
The hallway was thinning. I held my hand over my mouth when I spoke in hopes that no one would notice. “I could feel that. When you touched me.”
“I seem to be corporeal in some respects.”
“Seem to be what?”
“You felt my hand on your arm.”
“I did.”
The hallway was now empty. A very bright light was coming in through the glass doors at the end of the hall. It suddenly seemed like we were in a tunnel. I didn’t like those implications at all.
“Oh crap.”
“You keep saying that.”
“This time I really mean it. I’m not ...?”
Andrea tugged at my arm again. Her smile was different this time — softer, sadder. “No, you’re not. You are here in high school. You really are.
“I’ve always had a hard time distinguishing between death and school. In fact, it’s one of my fears — that I’ll die and wake up wherever you go to and I’ll still be in school. Still listening to Mr. Holman drone on about the Sumerians.”
“When the Sumerians died, they expected to need all their belongings in the next world.” Andrea seemed inexplicably