Rogue Touch Read online

  Evil. Just like Aunt Carrie always said. I was evil.

  There was only one way to find out for sure if it was me who’d done this to Cody. So I snuck out of the hospital and took the bus to downtown, then ran the four miles back to our farm in my flip-flops. By the time I got home, the sun had started to set. I could see the lights on in the kitchen and Aunt Carrie moving around getting supper ready. I went around to the barn, then climbed up into the loft where Stormy the one-eyed calico lay purring and nursing her newborn kittens.

  Kneeling in the straw, I peered down at them. Eleven little babies. Maybe a less experienced mama would have been in danger of losing a few, but Stormy’s children and grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren roamed all over Caldecott County. I had no doubt she could handle nursing every last one of these kittens. Still, I chose the teensiest one. I picked it up by the scruff of its neck, out of the pile of its brothers and sisters and the warmth of its mama. The kitten was black. It squirmed in my grip, but nothing happened to it, nothing at all. It just opened its little mouth and mewled.

  For a second I felt a rush of joy. It wasn’t me! I hadn’t hurt Cody. It was just a coincidence that he fell after we kissed. Then I realized that the kitten’s fur protected it from skin-to-skin contact. We weren’t touching, not really. So I took a deep breath and brought the kitten to my face. Its little eyes were squinched up tight, and I knew it couldn’t hear anything either. Still, I whispered, “I’m sorry, little kitty. I sure hope I’m wrong.” And I pressed my nose against its wet little black kitten nose.

  It didn’t take near as long as it did with Cody. The kitten was so tiny. A few seconds passed and the squirming turned into convulsing. I set it down on the straw. But it was too late. The kitten lay there, still and tiny and stone-cold dead.

  I felt a shudder go through me, then tried to blink, but my eyes were sealed shut. I was blind as a bat, or a newborn kitten. Oh, it was the very least punishment my wicked, wicked self deserved. Sorrow and exhaustion took over. I covered up the kitten with straw then crawled into the corner of the loft and curled up under the slanted eaves.

  When I woke up, it was morning and my eyes opened just fine. Light poured in through the cracks in the barn. Maybe if I’d woken up in my own bed I could’ve pretended for a minute that it had all been a dream. Not now, though, with hay in my hair and Stormy marching all around in a fury, pawing at her poor little dead kitten. I picked my way around the two of them and climbed down the ladder. Aunt Carrie’s car wasn’t there—likely she’d gone looking for me. Hopefully I’d have enough time to gather what I could.

  I put on jeans and a turtleneck and a pair of woolen mittens. I packed all the clothes that would fit into my old green duffel bag, and pulled the map off my wall. I took every penny of the waitressing money I’d stashed beneath the loose board under my bed. Then I went into the bathroom to collect my toothbrush.

  Now, a kitten that’s not lived two full days doesn’t have a whole lot of memories to absorb, and it pretty much has no abilities. But when I looked up from the sink into the mirror, I could hardly believe what I saw. My eyes had turned from their lifelong brown to bright green. Layers of jade, brilliant and sparkling, not like any eyes I’d ever seen in a human head. They glared back at me in a way that would’ve looked like an accusation, if they hadn’t been so damn scared.

  In the Eudora Welty Library, I stared at the computer screen with those same green eyes. I wondered if Cody dreamed about me while he lay there in that coma, and if I looked like my old self in those dreams or like the new one. I wondered if his dreams started off happy and ended with fear and misery. At the top right corner of my craigslist page sat the Google search bar. I typed in “Do coma patients dream?” and sat there awhile reading articles, different fancy ways of saying Nobody knows.

  I logged off and pushed back my chair. As I stood, who should I see but the mystery man formerly known as El Creepo—James, sitting at the end of the row of computers, staring at the screen like he’d never seen anything more interesting in all his life. For a second all I wanted to do was call out his name. James! It’s me, Anna Marie. Remember me? Instead I ducked around the chairs where people waited and crept into the stacks. I could watch James unseen by peering through the top of a row of audio books.

  Had it seriously been just last night that I’d handed him those food stamps? I could hardly figure how he’d managed to change so much in just over twelve hours. He must have found some very nutritious bargains over at Kroger because he looked like he’d just had a couple weeks at a spa. His complexion had gone from super-pale to a nice rosy color. He looked like he’d put on a good ten pounds—all muscle. Of course I could only see his profile. I tried not to wish he’d look my way, so I could see if there’d been any change at all to those bright blue eyes. My heart melted a little just imagining that, and I pulled my jacket sleeve up the tiniest bit so I could give myself a good, hard pinch. The way I found myself feeling about James, as I peered over those fat CD cases? It was just as good as wishing him dead.

  James was bundled up like it was November in Nova Scotia. He’d left his long leather coat at home but had on blue jeans and a big white wool fisherman’s sweater. I could see the collar of a red-and-black checked flannel shirt poking out. Sure the library was air-conditioned. Even I felt nearly comfortable in my crazy getup. But if I had a choice? You bet I’d be wearing a filmy summer dress or shorts.

  Once I wrote a paper on the subject of hope for my favorite high school English teacher, Miss Eloise Fitzsimmons. I wrote on how even though my parents had disappeared when I was so little, and I could hardly remember Mama and Daddy one whit, some days I still expected the two of them to come waltzing right into my bedroom and carry me away with them. Miss Eloise particularly appreciated my quoting Mr. Alexander Pope to underscore my point: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”

  To show you hope sprang eternal in me, here’s what I thought about James: Maybe he has the same affliction as me. Maybe that’s why he’s all covered up head to toe. If it could happen to me, it could happen to someone else. Right?

  As soon as this idea quit forming in my head, James turned toward me, just like I’d wished he would, and just like I’d been terrified of. I ducked down a little lower, but not quite so low that I couldn’t see what I longed to, those blue blue blue blue eyes, staring my way. He had his hair pulled back in a ponytail. And although he couldn’t possibly have seen me, something inside me fluttered when his mouth tugged into a small, perplexed kind of smile.

  Even though he was looking straight at me, I felt confident that he couldn’t see more than the top of my head, if that much. So I took a moment to squash hope way down deep where it wouldn’t be tempted to rise up again. On top of everything else I felt disloyal to Cody, whose little ring I still wore, the boy who slept forever on account of kissing me. So I stayed bent over and slunk out of the stacks, out into the bright, hot daylight of North State Street.

  Even though I had to make what money and food stamps I had stretch a piece, I sorely needed some kind of treat, so I bought a pint of ice cream on the way home. Before I ate it, I peeled off my clothing—sticky with sweat—and stood under a cool shower. When I got out, I could hardly bear to put on a single stitch. If I’d had more than that flimsy curtain in the window I would have stayed stark naked, but I settled for a pair of panties and a tank top. I put my biggest fan, the square one, into the window, and then sat down right in front of it with the ice cream. For the first time all day I felt clean and cool. I took a second and looked at the map of the U.S. that I’d taped on the wall above my bed, the same one I’d had in my room back in Caldecott County. Maybe if I got another job, one day soon I’d have enough money to buy a ticket on one of those long-distance buses.

  I dug my spoon into the ice cream then looked out through the window. And just who do you think I saw standing there on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, staring straight up at my building? James. What in hell? That’s what
I should have thought. And I should have felt creeped out, or angry. But instead? Christmas morning! Happiness and excitement exploded in my chest. For a split second I felt like a girl my age ought to feel, giddy and weak in the knees at the sight of a handsome man.

  I put my ice cream on the card table. My hair fell crazy and loose around my shoulders. I wasn’t wearing gloves, or leather, or long sleeves—hell, I wasn’t even wearing a bra. And more than anything in the world, I wanted James to see me like this. A regular girl in skimpy clothes. So I knocked on the window.

  He looked straight up at me, through the glass. Even from this distance I could see something like appreciation rearranging his features. He smiled. And not only did I smile, too, but I waved, like a goddamn teenager without a care in the world, or a thought in her head.

  “You changed,” James said, as he walked in my door.

  He looked as disappointed as he sounded. While he was on his way up, I’d thrown on my full regalia, including two pairs of tea gloves. At the Jackson stores, they were already displaying clothing for the fall, and the other day in a window I’d seen a sweater that had fingerless gloves attached to the sleeves. That would take care of that dangerous space between my wrist and forearm, but when I went in the store, the price tag said eighty-five dollars, and I didn’t even have half of that to my name.

  Luckily James didn’t try to shake my hand, or touch me at all. He walked right by me and plopped himself down on my bed. It seemed awful personal for someone I’d just met on the street. I sat myself down in the wicker chair and tried to look like this happened every day, a handsome and somewhat peculiar stranger showing up on my doorstep and sitting down on my bed. Thank goodness I’d made it up this morning.

  James clasped his hands in his lap and looked around the room. It had only been a matter of hours since I spied on him at the library, but he looked even better—kind of rosy and robust, with a fair bit of stubble across his jaw. I was struck by a powerful wish to be back in my previous and very skimpy outfit. I pictured myself getting up from the wicker chair and crossing the room to sit in his lap. My mind flooded with the notion of all the skin-on-skin this would entail, and though my mouth was still open, I found myself unable to speak.

  James didn’t say anything, but he shivered a little, which made me think that maybe he could read my mind. After all, he’d known my name without me telling him, hadn’t he? Surprisingly, this didn’t embarrass me a bit. I kind of hoped he could read my mind, because then the two of us would be doing together in my head what we could never do in real life.

  James said, “Do you mind turning off that machine?”

  I looked around the room, trying to think what machine he could mean. Other than the toaster and microwave and coffeemaker, I didn’t have a whole lot of electronics.

  “That,” James said, pointing to my window fan. “It’s a little cold in here.”

  “Cold!” I said. “Cold like a blast furnace. Are you crazy?”

  Soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized they were the first things I’d said to him since he’d come in. I might not have had the fanciest upbringing you ever heard of, but I was not so without manners that I couldn’t feel like a bad hostess. So I reached over and switched off the big fan. James looked over at the other two, the little oscillating fans, and I stood up and turned those off, too, wondering where on Planet Earth he came from that he didn’t know to call them “fans.”

  James nodded like it was better now. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s a lot warmer where I come from.”

  Warmer than Mississippi in August? I tried to imagine where that might be. I knew there were places in the world that were plenty hot—like Southeast Asia, and Africa. But on my way home from the library the temperature clock at First Bank of Jackson had read ninety-six degrees. Even in, say, Ho Chi Minh City, I didn’t think ninety-six degrees would be considered cold.

  “Huh” was all I could think to say.

  James smiled and said, “I just wanted to come by and say thanks. I hadn’t eaten in a few days, and I really couldn’t think straight. But with those certificates you gave me, I was able to recharge, and that helped me start figuring things out.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a great big wad of cash. I near about fell off my chair.

  “Here,” James said. He peeled the wad in half and held a fistful of twenties out to me. “I thought you could use this. Money, right? Better than what you gave me?”

  All I could do was sit there and stare at the money. I couldn’t even worry about his hand, hovering so close to me. “What did you do?” I said. “Rob a bank?”

  James pulled the money back toward himself. He looked a little confused, and almost like he’d got his feelings hurt. But the last thing I needed was some fugitive bank robber in my apartment.

  He said, “But, you need this. Don’t you?”

  This was about all I could take. I stood up and put my hands on my hips. “Need it?” I said. “Why the hell would I be working the late shift at a bakery if I didn’t need it? Why would I be at the goddamn welfare office? Oh no, I don’t need it. That’s why I’m living here in the lap of luxury, in this lovely over-cooled high-rise apartment!”

  “Oh,” James said. He put the bills back in the original wad and shoved it all into his pocket. “I’m sorry, Anna Marie,” he said. “I guess things aren’t as clear to me as I thought.”

  James stood up. Like I said before, I am a tall girl—five-foot-eight in my bare feet. But James was a whole lot taller, taller even than Cody. I felt very confused, and a tiny bit frightened, and at the same time I couldn’t help imagining how far on my tiptoes I’d have to stand to reach his lips, which looked very soft and full. And kind. Loud as my instincts might be yammering various contradictions at me, that was the word that came through the loudest, even louder than sexy or handsome or crazy. Kind.

  It had been a good long while since any kindness had come my way.

  James took a step toward me. I came to my senses and stepped back, nearly falling over my chair. I kicked it out of the way and moved around it, which brought my back right up against the wall.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m not sure what’s going on here. I don’t know why you’re cold when it’s closing in on a hundred degrees. I don’t know why you’ve suddenly got more money than Donald Trump when just last night you were grateful for a few food stamps. And I don’t know why you’re here. But you have to leave. Right now.”

  “But Anna Marie,” he said. His voice cracked a little, like this was the saddest thing anyone had ever said to him. “I thought you’d be happy to see me. I’m very happy to see you.”

  He took another step toward me. I held up my hand, hoping that whatever hot place he came from, this was still the universal symbol for halt.

  “You just have to go,” I said. “That’s all.”

  James sighed. “OK. If that’s really what you want.”

  He paused for a little minute, like he was waiting for me to admit I didn’t want that at all. Then he turned and let himself out. His back leaving my apartment was about the most pitiful thing I ever saw, and for the next hour or so it was almost like I had touched him, I felt so flooded with a sadness that shouldn’t have belonged to me.

  That night, my apartment had never seemed dingier or more lonesome. Maybe it was because James had been there. But for the first time since I’d run away, I found myself longing for my room back home. Sure Aunt Carrie could be awful mean, and she never was shy about telling me everything I did wrong. But she provided a roof over my head. I had my memories of her younger, softer days. And she always kept the refrigerator full, with eggs from the henhouse, and milk from her own cows—thick, unpasteurized milk, the store-bought stuff never would taste right to me. It wasn’t much to be nostalgic for, but right at this moment—with thirty dollars and a few food stamps to my name—it sure did seem like something to remember fondly.

  Just then my eyes fell on the ring of keys I’d thrown on the card tab
le. I could see the two keys I’d been too sentimental to throw out, the one to Aunt Carrie’s old blue pickup truck, and the one to the front door of her farmhouse. But what I also saw was the biggest key on the chain, the key to the Sunshine Bakery, which in all our various other dealings, Wendy Lee had forgotten to take back. I squinted across the room at the microwave. It was 8:30. The bakery had been closed for more than three hours. It would be more than four hours before Mr. Clean showed up to start in on the morning baking.

  In other words, plenty of time for me to mosey on over there and fix myself a snack.

  I walked past the store with the sweater in the window, but there was no time for window-shopping. As if to prove my point, I tripped a little over an apple-sized rock someone must have kicked into the middle of the sidewalk.

  At the bakery my key turned easily. Good thing for me Wendy Lee hadn’t changed the locks. Now I just had to hope she hadn’t changed the alarm code, but when I pushed the door open, the panel sat there dark and silent. Despite this seeming like good luck, it was a bit unsettling, since Wendy Lee usually was a tiger about setting that alarm. I guess today she’d had other things on her mind.

  No time to reminisce. I unfolded my bag and went straight to collecting what I needed. First stop was the big walk-in refrigerator. I took a bunch of eggs and a couple blocks of butter. Then I heaped in all different kinds of berries. Funny that here in the city berries seemed like such a luxury. This time of year at home, we lived on berries because there were so many growing wild to be had for free. By now the strawberries would be gone, but pretty much every hill would be covered in the blueberries that cost nothing but stains on your fingers.

  Pretty quick I realized that I should’ve brought two bags. This one was nearly full, and I still had to get to the pantry to stock up on flour and chocolate and whatnot. Then I remembered Wendy Lee must keep her bags for the store somewhere down here. I tried to think where they might be as I headed out of the walk-in.