The Fortunes of Indigo Skye by Deb Caletti Read Free Book Online Page B

Stoned. Woke up with, like, a million mosquito bites."
    "Serves you right. I forgot about
sleepovers."
    "Did you ever put someone's pinky in a water
glass while they slept 'cause it was supposed to make them pee?"
    "Yeah. And Ouija boards. Oooh, ooh," I say,
making ghostly noises. I tickle Trevor, who grabs my wrists.
    "East, west, home is best," Trevor
says.
    "I think we're limited human beings," I
say.
    "I've got you," he says. "That's all I need.
With you, there's no limit."
    "How about I drive back?" I say.
    "Oh, In, you know I love you. But you only made
it to your eighteenth birthday because you didn't have a car."
    "I'm an excellent driver," I say.
    "You took out an entire line of traffic cones
in a construction zone last time I let you."
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    "Two cones. Three. Big deal."
    "Forget it, gorgeous."
    Trevor takes me home. Me, Bob Weaver, and Ron
the Buddha. My heart is still and satisfied. Wait, not still --that would
be a bad thing. Calm. Calm and satisfied. There's nothing else I desire right
then--not a sweatshirt to be warmer or a T-shirt to be cooler or a Coke or a
vacation or stereo speakers or one of those wacky sets of spoons from every
state of the union. What I am is happy. And maybe that's the closest definition
for the word we can get, a life equation: An absence of wanting equals
happiness.
    I had stuck the plate of Mom's pie in the
Budweiser box, so Ron is holding it in her lap. Mrs. Denholm next door pretends
to get her mail even though it is Sunday, peering my way and no doubt thrilled
that she's caught me in a shocking display of teen alcohol consumption. Trevor
heads home; he'd promised his mom he'd fix the wobbly day care swing before she
got sued.
    I don't see Bex anywhere and Severin is gone
too, but I hear Mom talking on the phone in the kitchen. Actually, she stands in
the back doorway, the screen door propped open with a toe. She has her eye on
the backyard as she speaks. "No, I don't want to do that," she says. "Too scary.
Then you got to pay it back at what, three hundred bucks a month?" Envelopes and
papers are spread all over the kitchen table. Mom hears me, turns, and gives a
puzzled look toward the box in my arms. I give her an I'll-explain-later shrug, set it on the floor, and put the pie in the fridge.
    "Quick, talk to Bomba," Mom says, and hands
over the phone. "That goddamned cat." I can see what she's looking at now.
Freud, meowing pitifully from a high tree branch. He's a sociopath toddler who's
just painted on the walls and is now trying
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    to hide his purposeful intent behind
innocence.
    "Goddamned cat," Chico says in his parrot
mini-clown voice. "Goddamned cat. Goddamned cat."
    "Hi, Bomba," I say.
    "Is everything okay?" Bomba says. She and Mom
both answer the phone this way, as if they're on permanent crisis-car-crash high
alert. Still, it's great to hear Bomba--even her worried voice is as cushy and
comfy as a beanbag chair.
    "Umm ..." I look outside. "Freud's in a tree,"
I say. "Oh God, Mom's standing on a lawn chair. Mom should never stand on
anything."
    "Maybe you better go help her." Bomba sounds
nervous.
    I watch. "She's waving a flip-flop at him. He's
not moving. No, wait. Here we go. Freud's found reverse. He's backing up. Okay.
He's down. She's ... Whoa, hang on. O-kay. She's down too. Incident
over."
    Bomba sighs. "So, how are ya? How's
Trevor?"
    "Everyone's great," I say. "Trevor's car just
turned three hundred thousand miles."
    "Man, I know how that feels. My body's just turned three hundred thousand miles."
    "Come on, you're a spring chicken," I say.
"Maybe you're a summer chicken, there in Arizona."
    "I'm a summer chicken bored out of my skull. Do
you know how annoying endless sunshine is? How's school?"
    "One and a half more months and I blow the
joint for good."
    "As long as you're not puffing any joints," she
says.
    "Bomba! God. You're not supposed to know about
that stuff."
    "Right. I forgot," she says. "The sixties