Page 13 of Fade (Wake 2)

Afraid to go back to Center Street again.

January 27, 2006

Janie’s mind is far away, inside the front cover of a green spiral notebook and dwelling on her nightmare. She walks down the school hallways in a daze, nearly bumping into Carrie between classes with Bashful and Doc.

“Hey, Janers, wanna hang out tonight?”

“Sure.” Janie thinks. “Um, I mean, I can’t. Sorry.”

Carrie gives her an odd look. “You okay? You’re not gonna keel over, are you?”

Janie shakes the cobwebs from her head and grins. “Sorry. No, I’m fine. I’ve just got my mind on other shit. Colleges and stuff. I’ve got a bunch of junk to fill out, the house is a mess, and I’m working on a nasty headache already today.”

“Okay,” Carrie says. “I just thought you might like the latest gossip.” She looks crestfallen. Of course, lately, Carrie only wants to hang out with Janie if Stu is playing poker. Janie doesn’t mind being called upon only when Carrie’s first choice is busy, though. She keeps busy enough without Carrie hanging around all the time.

“What about Melinda?”

“Thanks,” Carrie says sarcastically, “but you don’t need to set up a playdate for me. I can find my own things to do. I’ll catch you later.”

Janie blinks. “Whatever,” she says under her breath. And walks into Mr. Wang’s room. He’s watching her walk in as he pretends to look at a paper in his hands. She smiles automatically. When he doesn’t smile or look away, she winks.

That does it.

He flushes and sits down abruptly.

Third hour. Mr. Durbin’s class. Janie waits until after class to present the flyers for the March 4 party. She takes her time packing up her table. Soon she is the last one there. From the corner of her eye, she sees Mr. Durbin watching her.

She pulls the flyers out and hurries up to his desk, like she doesn’t want to be late for her next class. “Does this look all right?”

He takes them and gives an approving whistle. “Great,” he says. He turns to her and raises his eyebrows. “I like,” he says, staring at her now.

She leans forward on his desk, just slightly. “There’s more where that came from,” she says. “If you ever need any.”

He swallows. “I’ll have to take you up on that sometime.”

She smiles. “Gotta go.”

“Before you go,” Mr. Durbin says, “I’ve got the okay on the chem fair and a team of seven students, if you’re game. It’s February 20. We’ll leave Sunday the nineteenth at noon, set up our display, stay overnight, do the fair, and start home around six p.m. on Monday, so we only miss one day of class. Here’s the info and permission slip for your parents to sign. Cost is two hundred and twenty bucks, plus money for meals. You in?”

Janie grins. “I’m in.” She takes the slip of paper from Mr. Durbin and darts out the door before she’s late to her next class, glancing as she runs at the list of students who will be on the Fieldridge team. Janie’s the only one from her class who is going.

Excellent, she thinks.

Dopey, Dippy, and Dumbass are the same as always. Janie actually likes PE now, since Cabel got her into working out. Although she could do without Dumbass. She also adores her self-defense class she’s taking twice a week. Sometimes Cabel lets her practice on him.

Not really very often, though.

Not after she landed his ass on the floor.

PE is coed again, and Dumbass Coach Crater likes to use her as an example for why they no longer play guys versus girls with contact sports. It’s because she cracked Cabel’s ’nads in a basketball game last semester. On purpose.

Today, Dumbass makes them do the state-required strength tests, and Janie takes the class record for the girls in the flexed-arm hang. Dumbass notices her muscular arms and shoulders, and calls her Buffy as she’s hanging there. She rolls her eyes and wishes he’d stand right in front of her. If she ever sees him on a dark street, she’ll teach him to sing, she decides.

Study hall is quiet. Janie only gets sucked into one dream, and it’s a weak one. Not a nightmare. When she realizes it’s a sex fantasy between two fellow seniors who she really doesn’t want to see naked, she doesn’t stick around. She pulls herself out of it.

Smiles triumphantly.

Cabel’s watching her, and she gives him the thumbs up and flashes a smile. He grins back.

Janie finishes all her homework for the weekend, so she jots down a few notes about Durbin and Wang.

Correction: make that Happy and Doc.

And then she sits there. Staring into space.

Thinking about Miss Stubin and the green spiral notebook. Feeling a sense of . . . well . . . dread.

On the way home from school Janie makes a quick dash into the grocery store to pick up some things for her house, so her mother doesn’t starve to death, and a few personal items for the weekend. She packs an overnight bag. Toothbrush, shampoo, and the massage oil and candles that she got from Captain. She shoves it all in her backpack and heads over to Cabel’s, leaving her mother a note on where to find her if she needs anything.

They work out, shower, and then lounge side by side in the giant beanbag chair and talk about the day. But Janie’s having trouble keeping her mind on topic. She grows quiet, thinking about the green notebook and the assignment from Captain.

Cabel notices.

“Where are you?” he says after a while.

Janie startles. Smiles at Cabel. “I’m sorry, sweets—I’m here.” But she’s not really there. She’s going over the Durbin/Stubin dream in her head, now more convinced it was a nightmare and not really a visit from Miss Stubin.

Cabel sits up quietly. Watches her face. Clears his throat.

Janie sees him suddenly, the one guy she wants to be with—and is with for the whole weekend—hovering over her. She shakes the thoughts of creepy nightmare Durbin from her brain and tilts her head to the side, grinning. “Oops. I did it again.”

Cabel gives her a quizzical look. “I am totally not getting enough attention here.”

Janie thumbs his cheek. Pulls his face to hers and kisses him, her tongue darting across his teeth playfully until she coaxes him to play along.

A surge of something—love?—makes Janie’s skin tingle. But it scares her, too, when she thinks of her future, always with this dream curse hanging over her. She never thought she’d be with someone. Never imagined someone would sacrifice so much to deal with her strange problems. Wonders when Cabel will get tired of it all and give up on her.

Desperately she pushes that thought aside. Her lips are hot against his neck.

She tugs at his T-shirt and slips her quivering fingers under it, re-exploring Cabel’s nubbly skin. Touching the scars on his belly, his chest. She knows that Cabel feels the same way she does, sometimes—like no one would want to be with him because of his issues. Maybe the two of us really could last, Janie thinks. Misfits, united.

Cabel’s fingers trace a slow path from Janie’s shoulder to her hip as they kiss. Then he slips his shirt over his head and tosses it aside. Presses against her. “That’s a little better,” he whispers in her ear.

“Only a little?”

The winter dusk of late afternoon falls into the room. Janie reaches for her blouse and slowly unbuttons it. Lets it fall open.

Cabel pauses and stares, not sure what to do. He closes his eyes for a moment and swallows hard.

She reaches between her breasts and unhooks her bra.

And then she turns her face slowly toward him. “Cabel?” She looks into his eyes.

“Yes,” he whispers. He can barely get the word out.

“I want you to touch me,” she says, taking his hand and guiding it. “Okay?”

“Oh god.”

She pulls a newly purchased condom from her pocket.

Sets the package on the skin of her belly.

Reaches for his jeans.

Cabel, momentarily rendered speechless, helpless, and thoughtless

except for wanting her, sighs in shudders as he touches her skin, her breasts, her thighs, and then, as the light fades from the window, they are kissing as if their lives depend on their shared breath, and urgently making love for the first time, with their eyes and bodies, like it’s the only chance they’ll ever have.

In the evening, as they lie together in Cabel’s bed, she knows it’s time. Before she reads the green notebook, before what happens, happens, she needs to say what she feels. Because he is the only one who matters.

She practices in her mind.

Forms the words with her mouth.

Then tries them, softly, out loud.

“I love you, Cabe.”

He’s quiet, and she wonders if he’s sleeping.

But then he buries his face in her neck.

February 1, 2006

Janie spends the school week swapping sexual innuendos with Mr. Durbin, trading confusing glances with Mr. Wang, and bantering spiteful barbs with Coach Crater.

Cabel tracks down the whereabouts of last semester’s Chem. 2 class. He’s working madly behind the scenes, not saying much about it. Controlling his feelings about the creep being near the woman he loves. Knowing if he says what he’s really thinking, the tension grows between them.

“So,” he says carefully, “it’s you and six other students on this trip, plus Durbin. And who’s your female chaperone?”

Janie glances up from her chemistry book. “Mrs. Pancake.”

Cabel scribbles in his notebook.

“Four girls. You have a room together?”

“No, I thought I’d sleep in Durbin’s room,” Janie says.

“Har, har.” Cabel scowls at Janie, and then tosses her chemistry book aside and tackles her. He buries his fingers into her hair and kisses her. “You’re asking for trouble, Hannagan,” he growls.

“And you would be . . . ?” Janie asks. She giggles.

“Trouble.”

ON HER OWN

February 5, 2006, 5:15 a.m.

Janie, sprawled out on Cabel’s couch, finally finds Miss Stubin on Janie’s own terms.

She’s on the bench. Miss Stubin is there, next to her. It’s dusk. Perpetual rain.

“I’m going on an overnight trip with the teacher who we think is the sexual predator. Some of his former students are going too—they may be victims,” Janie says.

“What season is it?” Miss Stubin asks.

Janie looks at her, puzzled. “Winter. It’s February.”

“Wear a bulky coat to disguise the shaking in case you get sucked into a nightmare. Drape it over you. You’re taking a school van?”

“Yes.”

“Grab the backseat. And if you get sucked into a dream that’s unimportant to the case, pull out of it. Don’t waste your strength. You can pull out of them now, can’t you?”

“Most of the time—the regular dreams, anyway. Not always with nightmares.”

“Keep working at that. It’s very important.”

“I want to try pausing the dreams. Panning the scene. How did you do that?”

“It’s all about focus, just as you focus to pull out of dreams, Janie. Just as you focus to help people change their dreams. Stare hard at the subject and talk to them with your mind. Tell them to stop. Focus on panning first—that comes most easily. Then pausing the scene. Who knows, perhaps you’ll be able to zoom and rewind someday—that really comes in handy when solving crimes. And keep studying the meanings of dreams too. You’ve read books on the subject, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Your work will be easier the more you can interpret some of the strange aspects that naturally occur in dreams. This, too, will help you immensely. Study my notes, see how I’ve interpreted dreams over the years.”

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