Chapter 3

Nick would be lying if he said he didn’t think about Cat for the rest of the day.

“Nick? Are you with us?” his calculus teacher asked.

“Huh?” He was there physically, but his mind was a chaos of images and visions, mainly of a boy carrying a large rifle looking too big for him to tote.

The calculus problems on the board looked foreign too. He blinked. “Sorry.” He dragged his mind back to the present, leaving the picture of the boy with the rifle behind. Was he imagining these things from the World History discussions and what he knew of WWII? After all, his grandfather had shared stories and books about the war, feeding Nick’s imagination.

And later still, Emily noticed his distraction. They sat on the bleachers before Nick went to football practice.

“Calling Nick. Earth to Nick,” she said, giving him a little punch on his arm. “I don’t have a lot of time today. We’ve got the homecoming planning committee meeting in”—she looked at her phone—“five minutes.” She rested her daisy-patterned sneakers on the seat in front of them and moved her knees slightly as they talked.

“Sorry,” he said. “Thinking about our World History project and working with Cat.”

“Who?”

“That new chick.”

“She couldn’t keep her eyes off you!” Emily said with a giggle.

“I got paired with her in World History this morning,” he said, running his fingertips over the ridges on the bleachers.

Emily frowned.

“She’s kind of weird.” Nick hoped that would alleviate his feeling of dread. “She said we used to know each other.”

“I told you!” She punched his arm lightly. “A girl knows that look. She had that look.”

He hadn’t seen “the look,” but obviously Emily had.

“How does she know you?” Emily demanded. A frown creased her normally smooth forehead.

“I have no idea why she said that, but it kind of bugs me.” An image raced through his head, a girl with a multicolored skirt, not Cat or Emily but someone else. He shook it away.

“Maybe just mistaken identity?” Emily asked, sneaking another peek at her phone.

He didn’t think so.

“She looked at you like she knew you. Is she an ex-girlfriend come back to haunt you?” Emily joked.

“Hell no! I don’t know that girl!” But those topaz eyes kept him spellbound.

She smiled. “I know!” She smacked his arm. “I was just teasing!”

He let out a long sigh.

Emily touched his sleeve and gave him a smile. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ve never seen her until this morning,” Nick said.

“She moved into my subdivision,” Emily said. “You know, that big house where Dr. Kawalski used to live?”

Nick knew the house.

“Do you think she’s pretty?”

“With all that black makeup?” he said, grimacing. “Hardly!”

Emily shrugged. “I saw Bryan trying to talk to her by the lockers.”

Bryan liked to hustle the new girls.

Emily continued, “There are all kinds of rumors floating around about her.”

“Like what? She escaped from the loony bin?” He gave a half-hearted chuckle to ease the tension he was feeling.

“Veronica lives next door to her and said she was some big-deal dancer, here to heal after an injury.”

Nick rubbed the back of his neck and moved his shoulders around. “Why would anyone move to Laketon to recover from a sports injury?” Laketon was a small farming community by Lake Michigan. The nearest big hospital was in Grand Rapids.

“I have no idea.” Emily sneaked another look at her phone. “Like I said, that’s what Veronica told me.” Emily took a final sip of her apple juice, making the straw gurgle in the box. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t have a choice.” He did a little one-shoulder shrug. “I have to work with her.”

She squeezed his arm. “I know.” She smiled and nudged him. “Hey! If anyone can handle it, you can.”

“Ha! That’s what Coach said.”

Emily squeezed the empty juice box. “I’ve got to run. Call me later?” They parted with a kiss and assurances of a call before Nick headed toward the locker room and Emily to her meeting.

The rest of the football team was already in the process of changing, banging lockers open and closed while shedding clothes for practice jerseys and shorts.

“Hey, Rev, how’s Goth girl?” Word got around fast in such a small school.

“Name’s Nick, not Rev.” He hated being called a minister because of his father. He saw Bryan putting a hand to his mouth, trying not to snicker. “Shut up, Bryan. You heard Coach assign partners.” Nick stripped off his shirt, reaching for his practice uniform.

“Hey, when did you get that?” Gary asked with a low whistle, pointing to Nick’s chest. Most of Nick’s scars were from his exploits with Gary.

Bryan turned back to his locker and began putting on his shoes.

“What?” Nick looked down to see where Gary was pointing.

“That scar.” Gary motioned toward his chest.

His scar was red and hurt for some reason. “Had it for as long as I can remember.” He touched the tender spot. “My folks said I fell out of a tree.” He must have done something to irritate it, but he couldn’t remember what.

“I don’t remember it,” Gary said.

“Before we moved to Laketon.”

Gary was Nick’s oldest friend. They had swimming lessons together and played make-believe war with tiny plastic army men.

“Does it hurt?” Gary asked.

“Not usually.”

“What’s your project on, Rev?” Bryan asked, stretching out “Rev.” “Figure it out with that weirdo?” Snickers from others behind open locker doors. “Weirdo or not, she’s a snack, right?” Bryan said, elbowing Nick’s ribs, and Nick shoved him away. “Right?” Bryan kept laughing.

“Quit,” Nick snapped irritably. “French internment camps,” he said and slammed his locker shut. “End of discussion.” More snickers came.

Coach Sullivan walked through the locker room, carrying his clipboard and looking pointedly at his watch.

They jogged outside to the football field. Nick forgot about the locker room conversation as he took to the running track; he needed to be in top physical shape for the Michigan scout. As he ran, finally hitting his stride, he thought about why Cat thought she knew him. He considered every scenario and came up with nothing. Finally, with shaking knees and sweat pouring into his eyes, he stopped and hunched over, catching his breath.

“Moderation, Nick! Moderation,” Coach called.

He nodded as he straightened, his breath coming in gasps. Usually, running the track didn’t have this effect on him.

“Save it for the scout,” Coach said with a smile.

“Yes, sir, Coach.” Once they started on the football plays for Friday’s game, he needed to concentrate and keep his eyes on the ball, but his vision became cloudy and unfocused, only coming out of the fog when the ball slammed into his chest and he dropped it. Damn. And again, his breath came in gasps.

“Concentrate on the plays!” Coach yelled. “Nick! I need you to be in the game.” He definitely wasn’t on his A game this afternoon.

“Yes, sir!” Most times Nick had the ability to focus only on the task at hand, which was beating the opposition. Today, it was all he could do to track the ball.

When practice finished, he showered, changed, and drove home expecting the Lions game to be on the TV. He pulled into their circular drive and studied their two-story farmhouse that was in need of paint. The upstairs windows looked half-lidded and sleepy at him. They had lived here since Nick was in elementary school.

He was starving. Good thing his parents always had something delicious to eat.

The aroma of pizza coming from the kitchen made him drop his backpack on the chair and head in that direction. He frowned. The television was strangely quiet. Only Minnie, their cat, meowed loudly for her nightly scratch. What was going on?

He stopped and rubbed Minnie between her ears. Minnie’s eyes reminded him of Cat’s. Maybe Cat had a pet cat at home? It was uncanny how some people started to resemble their pets.

He gave Minnie one more scratch before pushing through the swinging door that separated the living room and old-fashioned farm kitchen. He found his parents huddled together, talking at the scarred butcher-block table.

“What’s going on?” Nick asked, reaching for the breadsticks. “Are we going to watch the game?”

His father looked up at him and gave him a pained smile. “Your grandmother’s in the hospital again. We’ve been in Grand Rapids most of the afternoon.”

“Why didn’t you text me?” Nick asked, dropping the bread back into the box. “Is Grandma okay?”

“Grandma’s getting good care,” his mother said, placing the pizza and a bottle of Chianti on the table before taking a seat herself.

Nick’s father said grace. Nick waited a beat before piling four slices on his plate.

He frowned at his mother’s cell phone on the table. “In case the hospital calls?”

She nodded wearily.

“It’s serious?” Nick mumbled between bites.

“Heart palpitations,” his father said. “Possibly a stroke.”

Nick frowned and wiped the grease from his mouth. “That doesn’t sound good, Dad.”

“It isn’t. Grandma’s heart is out of whack, not beating normally,” his father explained. “They’re running tests. Maybe a pacemaker.”

“But she’s safe and being watched in the hospital,” his mother said, not really eating, just picking at the mushrooms and drinking her wine.

As a way of distracting his parents, Nick said, “You want to hear about the thing that happened at school?”

“Sure, tell us about your day,” his father said.

Nick frowned at his father’s detached blank stare but decided to tell them about Cat anyway. “We’re writing research papers in World History and were assigned partners.”

“That doesn’t sound all that unusual,” his father said, frowning at the pizza left in the box and his empty plate.

“My partner’s different.” An understatement. Cat was different and spooky.

“Gary?” his father asked, taking another slice of pizza.

Nick wished he was partnered with Gary. “No.” Nick shook his head. “Someone new. Catherine. She calls herself Cat.”

“That’s not so unusual,” his mother said.

“She said she was a cat once.”

“All children fantasize,” his mother said, moving smoothly into her social worker mode.

“We’re sixteen, not children anymore, Mom.”

The phone vibrated on the table; his mother looked at the number. “The hospital,” she whispered.

“Go on.” Nick’s father motioned.

She answered and was silent for a while, then finally eked out a “Thank you,” before adding, “We’ll be right there.”

“What’s wrong?” Nick asked.

“Grandma’s had another stroke.” She grabbed her purse. “We need to be there for her.”

His father pushed back his chair. “I’ll get the car. Nick? Do you want to come?”

Before he could respond, his mother said, “I think it’s better you stay here. Finish your homework. We might be quite late.”

“Your mom’s right. Watch the game without me,” his father said, taking his keys from the hook by the door.

“I’ll clean up,” Nick said. He’d tell his father about the Michigan scout and Cat when Grandma was better.

His mother gave him a tight smile. Cleanliness wasn’t one of his strong suits.

“Thank you, Nick.” She hugged him.

“Tell Grandma I love her.”