Jinx Read online

  Some runners came tearing around the bend. Zach grabbed me by the arm and pulled me off the path, into some scrubby brush.

  “Jeez,” he said, looking after the runners, clearly annoyed. “What do they think this is, the Olympics?”

  I said, “Well…” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “We better join them, I guess, or the president will be disappointed in our lack of fitness.”

  Zach looked at his watch. I couldn’t tell if it was a Rolex, like everyone else’s at Chapman. But it looked pretty impressive.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I don’t actually believe the president cares about my level of fitness. Let’s get out of here.”

  I looked back at the path. “But if we don’t finish our run…”

  “Oh, we will,” Zach said, still grinning. “We’ll come huffing and puffing along right with the best of them. Only I know a shortcut….”

  I looked at the dirt trail, and then back at Zach. I have never in my life skipped a class. I mean, I’m a preacher’s daughter.

  But it kind of hit me then: Mom wasn’t exactly around.

  Fortunately the knot in my stomach—which had been growing and shrinking all day, depending on the circumstances—was apparently dormant just then…though whether because of Zach’s presence, or in spite of it, I had no idea.

  So I said, “Well, all right. If you promise we won’t get in trouble. I don’t want to get in trouble my first day.”

  He held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  I smiled. “You were never a Boy Scout. I bet they don’t even have Boy Scouts in New York.”

  He said, “Well, they probably do, but you’re right. I never was one.”

  Zach’s shortcut took us, instead of deeper into the wilds of the park, as I’d been afraid it might, onto a paved sidewalk which wasn’t exactly crowded with people, but which had enough ice cream vendors and tourists hanging around it to make me feel at ease. In fact, Zach strolled right up to one of the ice cream vendors, then turned to ask me, “What’ll it be?”

  I stooped to look at the photographs on the side of the cart. I didn’t recognize a lot of the cones. Even the ice cream in New York is different.

  “Gee,” I said, looking at a massive red, white, and blue ice pop. “What’s that one?”

  “Two Jumbo Jetstars,” Zach said to the vendor. To me, he said, “Otherwise known as Rockets. I can’t believe you’ve never had one before. What do they eat back in Iowa, anyway? Potato cones?”

  Offended on behalf of my state, I said indignantly, “That’s Idaho. And there’s lots of good ice cream in Iowa. Like cherry-dipped cones.”

  Zach shrugged. “Bet you guys don’t have gelato.”

  “We most certainly do.”

  “And I know what a cherry dip is. I also know it’s disgusting, and certainly nothing I’d ever brag about ingesting.” The vendor handed Zach two pops, and Zach passed him a five-dollar bill he pulled out from his gym sock. Which is when I realized I had no cash on me.

  “My treat,” Zach said, when I mentioned this. Then he presented my Jumbo Jetstar with a gallant flourish. “It’s the least I can do, considering you saved my life. If these were ancient times, I think I’d owe you eternal servitude, or something.”

  I felt myself turning as red as the top third of the ice pop I held. “I didn’t save your life,” I said.

  “Yeah?” Zach looked amused. “Suit yourself, then. How do you like your Rocket?”

  It tasted like every other ice pop I’d had in my life, but I said, to be polite, “It’s very good.”

  “Told you.”

  The ice pop was actually cooling me off a little. It was hot for April, and now that we’d left the shade of the trees, the sun beat down on us. The warm weather had brought out Rollerbladers, as well as ice cream vendors and nannies pushing baby strollers. I even saw a few people sunbathing.

  “So,” Zach said, as we strolled. “Your bruise looks better.”

  I put a hand to it self-consciously. He was only being nice, of course. The bruise, if anything, looked worse than ever. Zach had seen it the day before, when he and his parents had come over to the Gardiners’ to see how I was doing. To my complete and utter mortification, they’d brought with them two dozen pink roses which they’d presented to me with their thanks for what they perceived that I’d done for Zach.

  I had tried to be gracious, the way my mom would have wanted me to be. But it was hard. I mean, everyone—not just Tory—thought I’d done this huge, noble thing, thrusting myself in the path of this out-of-control bicyclist. When really, all I’d done was just been my typical luckless self. The whole time Zach and his parents had been there, I’d been unable to keep from wishing that a hole would open up in the Gardiners’ parquet floor and swallow me alive. Zach’s parents were both supersmart, his father an entertainment lawyer, his mother a tax lawyer, and they were certainly very nice people.

  But I would have infinitely preferred it if they’d stayed home. I’m hardly the world’s most sociable person, and I had felt extremely uncomfortable being the focus of so much attention.

  It was too bad, in fact, that it had been me, and not Tory, who’d been there when the bike messenger had nearly hit Zach. Had Tory, and not me, saved Zach, she would have enjoyed all the fuss, the roses, the concern. Instead, Tory had been forced to experience it all secondhand, leaning against the wall with one fishnetted knee propped up, a tiny, catlike smile on her lips, watching as I uncomfortably replied to Zach’s parents’ polite attempts at conversation.

  Zach, for his part, had sat on the white couch in the Gardiners’ den with a Coke cradled between his hands, contributing little, but smiling quite a lot. Later, Tory had pointed out that Zach had been staring the whole time at her knee, the one she’d propped up. Because, you know, he wants her so badly, or something.

  I had a little different impression—that Zach had been staring at me. Because every time I’d looked up, his gaze had seemed to meet mine.

  I didn’t mention this to Tory, however. And probably, I was wrong, and he had been looking at Tory’s knee.

  Still, everyone had had plenty of opportunity to look at my bruise, analyze its size and color, and estimate how long it would be before it went away. I had almost considered packing up and going back to Iowa (not really, of course).

  But it did make me miss my own family, who take my absurd brushes with fate (and things like bike messengers) in stride. Even reading and replying to several e-mails from my best friend, Stacy, from the laptop Uncle Ted had loaned me later that evening hadn’t helped.

  But then I remembered that being presented with two dozen roses by the parents of a boy I (might as well admit it) was crushing on—and whom I knew would never like me back because of his own crush on a very cute German au pair—was infinitely better than what was going on at home.

  Now, I looked down at my Jumbo Jetstar (wishing more than ever that, all those months ago, I had made a very different choice), and said, “Thanks.”

  “What I haven’t quite figured out yet,” Zach said, as we strolled past a pond in which people—even some grown men—were sailing little model boats, “is why everybody in your family calls you Jinx.”

  I sighed. “I would think it would be perfectly obvious, after what happened. I’m a bad luck magnet. In fact, since birth, wherever I am…well, things always seem to go screwy.” I told him about the supercell that struck the very moment I’d been born, and the people who’d had to be airlifted to the hospital the next county over, due to all the power going off.

  “The doctor who delivered me joked that they should name me Jinx, not Jean,” I went on. “And everyone thought that was real funny, so the name stuck. Unfortunately.”

  Zach shrugged. “Well, that’s not so bad. My dad has a client who was born with a lot of spit in her mouth, so everybody calls her Bubbles. That would be worse.”

  I said, “I guess so.”

  But I kind of doubt that Bubbles has gone th
rough the rest of her life with saliva bubbling out of her mouth, whereas my streak of bad luck had still not let up, not for sixteen years.

  Which reminded me of something I had meant to ask Zach, if I ever ran into him alone again.

  “About my cousin Tory,” I began tentatively. Because, of course, although I knew how Tory felt about him, I didn’t know how Zach felt about Tory. I remembered how surprised he’d looked when Robert had mentioned his crush on Petra…and Tory’s crush on him.

  “Yeeesss?” He stretched the word out so that it had multiple syllables.

  “Does she do…um, drugs…a lot? I mean, like, is there a problem? Or is it just a recreational thing? Not that I’m going to say anything to her parents,” I hastened to add. The other bad thing about being a preacher’s daughter is that everyone automatically assumes you’re a narc. “But if it’s serious—”

  “Tough being the preacher’s daughter,” Zach said, tossing a penny he’d found into the pond we were standing near. “Isn’t it?”

  Whoa. I flushed. It was like he’d read my mind.

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling my heartstrings twang again. Calm down, Jean. He’s in love with Petra, with whom you could never compete. Even if you wanted to. Which you don’t, because she’s your friend. “It is, sometimes.”

  “Thought as much. Don’t tell anyone—it’ll destroy my street cred—but Seventh Heaven was my favorite show when I was a kid.” He winked.

  I laughed. I liked how it appeared that when I was with him, the knot in my stomach seemed to go away. “It’s not actually like that,” I said. “At least, not that bad. I just…I’m worried about her, is all.”

  “Most of what your cousin Tory says and does,” Zach said, “she says and does to get attention. Your aunt and uncle are busy people, and Tory’s a bit of a drama queen, in case you didn’t notice. I think she feels like she has to go to extremes to get noticed. Like with this witch stuff.”

  The pain in my stomach returned, with a vengeance. Wow. So much for it going away when Zach was around.

  “Oh,” I said, my heartstrings banging—not twanging. And not in a good way. “You know about that?”

  “Are you kidding? I think Tory’s made sure the whole school knows. Her and that coven of hers. They actually brought a cauldron to school one time,” he went on, “to do their witchy little spells in the caf. Only they set off the smoke alarm. Principal Baldwin was pissed. Tory tried to make this big stink about how he was preventing her from practicing her religion. Like witchcraft is a religion.”

  “Actually,” I said, stung by his tone, “it can be. But you shouldn’t get what Tory and her friends are doing—playing at being witches—and real witchcraft mixed up. Real witches don’t cast spells to get attention, but because it gives them actual spiritual fulfillment. And witchcraft, if it’s done properly, is more about giving thanks—and showing appreciation—for nature than it is about trying to bend it to someone’s will or…or make things magically appear.”

  “Don’t tell me,” he said, sounding disapproving, “you’re one of them, too.”

  “I’m not,” I hastened to assure him. “But one of the side effects of being a preacher’s daughter is an interest in spiritual practices. All spiritual practices. I can tell you all about shamanism, too, if you want.”

  “Rain check on that,” Zach said. “I guess this means I’ll have to take your word for it on the spiritual thing. Still, I can’t help thinking your cousin isn’t into this witch stuff for any New Age, crunchy-granola reason, but because it’s the hot new thing in her social set.”

  “I think it goes a little deeper than that for Tory,” I said, thinking of how angry she’d gotten with me during our conversation about our ancestress, Branwen, my first night in New York. “But I’m relieved you don’t seem to think she has a problem. With drugs, I mean.”

  “Honestly, I think Tory’s too smart ever to get herself in over her head that way. I think a lot of what you saw in the gazebo the other day was just…well, showing off.”

  For him. He didn’t say so, but who else could Tory have been showing off for?

  The question was, did he know it?

  Thinking it might be best to change the subject, since the last thing I wanted to do was get accused by Tory of talking about her behind her back—and these things do have a way of getting back to people—I asked, “So where did you spend your year abroad?”

  Zach’s descriptions of the sights and sounds of Florence, Italy, took us all the way up to Fifth and Eighty-ninth, where Coach Winthrop, the P.E. instructor, was waiting with his stopwatch. We threw our ice pop sticks away—I had only managed to get down to the white part of my Rocket, and not even sampled the blue—and did a few stretches to limber up for our big finish. Then, crouching behind some bushes, we waited until a herd of royal-blue-shorts-wearing runners came our way, then came bursting out to join them…

  …and thundered toward Coach Winthrop and his stopwatch, panting as hard as if we’d just run ten miles, and not just a tiny fraction of one.

  “Excellent, Rosen,” the coach said, throwing a towel in Zach’s direction. “You cut a whole minute from your sophomore year’s time.”

  I couldn’t hold back a fit of giggles any longer, especially when Zach said somberly, slinging the towel around his neck, “Thanks, Coach. I’ve been training pretty hard.”

  Later, as we were filing back into school, Zach found me in the crowd of girls trying to get into the girls’ locker room to shower and change, and asked, “Hey, Jean, have you tried souvlaki yet?”

  “No.” I felt myself turning red, because, of course, the other girls turned to see who he was talking to.

  “Oh, man,” Zach said, grinning mysteriously. “Tomorrow, we try the souvlaki. Are you in for a treat.” Then without another word, he ducked into the boys’ locker room.

  Whoa. So Zach was planning on taking me for souvlaki tomorrow during class.

  Which was kind of like a date.

  Well, okay, maybe not, because he was probably only doing it to make up for that whole thing where I saved his life.

  But still.

  It wasn’t until I was freshly showered and headed for my next class in a dreamy daze that I remembered that Zach wasn’t exactly a free man. I mean, if the rumors were true, he was in love with Petra…

  …and my cousin was madly in love with him.

  Madly enough in love with him to make a doll of him, and stick it with pins.

  Which meant, if I did anything to displease her—such as go for souvlaki with the guy she liked—there was nothing to keep her from doing the same thing to me.

  And it wouldn’t be my thoughts she’d be piercing, I was pretty sure.

  And yet, remembering the way Zach’s green eyes had laughed into mine at the finish line in P.E. that day, I found I didn’t even care. I didn’t care that Tory loved him. And I didn’t care that he, in turn, loved Petra.

  That’s how far gone I already was.

  You would think, given my lifetime of experience, I’d have recognized the warning signs.

  But that just goes to show how really rotten my luck is, after all.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was as I was pouring Mouche’s used-up cat litter into a trash bag that I saw it.

  Chores. They were a big deal around the Gardiner household. Not because there were so many of them. It was because there were so few. Thanks to Petra, the au pair, and Marta, the housekeeper, and Jorge, the gardener, there wasn’t a whole lot left for us kids to do around the brownstone.

  But Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Ted believed as strongly as my parents did that children needed to learn responsibility, so a few days after my arrival—once my bruise had had a chance to die down—there’d been some discussion as to what my “chore” would be.

  “She can’t have my job,” Teddy had declared. We’d been eating the filet mignon Petra had promised to cook the night of my arrival…just a few nights late. “I’m in charge of emptying the dishwas
her when Marta’s not here, and feeding the koi. And I like my jobs.”

  “She can have my jobs,” Tory muttered. She had decided just that morning that she was a vegetarian, and had forced Petra to prepare her tofu instead of filet mignon. And it looked to me like she was regretting that decision, if the way she was gazing at my steak was any indication. “Loading the dishwasher, and the cat box. I don’t know why I have to clean the cat box every day.”

  Aunt Evelyn had looked at Tory darkly. “Because you’re the one who wanted a cat,” she pointed out. “You told us you’d take full responsibility for her.”

  Tory rolled her eyes. “That cat,” she said, “is the most ungrateful animal I’ve ever seen. She sleeps with Alice every night, even though I’m the one who feeds her and cleans her box.”

  Alice, who was eating her filet mignon hamburger-style, between two slices of white bread and smothered in ketchup, said indignantly, “Maybe if you didn’t scream at Mouche all the time for getting hair all over your black clothes, she’d want to sleep with you more.”

  Tory rolled her eyes again and said, “Just give Jinx cat box duty.”

  Aunt Evelyn didn’t approve of the new arrangement—of me taking over Tory’s job of monitoring Mouche’s litter box—but that’s what happened. I also volunteered to watch Teddy and Alice on the one afternoon when Petra’s class schedule did not allow her to get back to the city in time to do so, a chore formerly performed by Marta…I guess since no one had ever been able to get Tory to do it. Not even her own parents.

  But then, I didn’t exactly mind. I genuinely liked my younger cousins, because they reminded me of my own brothers and sisters, whom I was missing much more than I ever thought I would—thirteen-year-old aspiring model Courtney; ten-year-old baseball fanatic Jeremy; seven-year-old Sarabeth, obsessed with Bratz; and especially four-year-old Henry, the baby of the family.

  Having chores to perform, just like the ones I’d left behind, made me feel less lonely and more like I belonged to the Gardiner family, which, in turn, made me miss my own less.

  Still, when weekly allowance day rolled around, and Aunt Evelyn presented me with a brand-new fifty-dollar bill, I knew I wasn’t back in Iowa anymore.