“Look,” Cat said, chomping on something crunchy, probably Cheetos. “We know Brooks. He’ll apologize. I give him until Monday, first period. In the meantime, I have some good news.”
“Tell me,” Eureka said, though she would rather have pulled the covers over her head until doomsday, or college.
“Rodney wants to meet you.”
“Who’s Rodney?” she groaned.
“My classicist fling, remember? He wants to see your book. I suggested Neptune’s. I know you’re over Neptune’s, but where else is there to go?”
Eureka thought about Brooks wanting to go with her when she got the book translated. That was before he’d exploded like a levee in a flood.
“Please don’t sit around feeling guilty about Brooks.” Cat could be surprisingly telepathic. “Put on something cute. Rodney might bring a friend. I’ll see you at Tune’s in half an hour.”
Neptune’s was a café in a strip mall on the second story, above Ruthie’s Dry Cleaners and a video game store that was slowly going out of business. Eureka put on sneakers and her raincoat. She jogged the mile and a half in the rain to avoid asking Dad or Rhoda if she could borrow one of their cars.
Up the wooden staircase, through the tinted glass door, you knew you would find at least two dozen Evangelinos sprawled out over laptops and doorstop-sized textbooks. The decor was candy apple red and worn, like an aging bachelor’s pad. A sinkhole aroma hung like a cloud over its slanted pool table and its flipperless Creature from the Black Lagoon pinball machine. Neptune’s served food no one ate twice, beer to college kids, and enough coffee, soda, and atmosphere to keep the high school kids hanging out all night.
Eureka used to be a regular. Last year she’d even won the pool tournament—beginner’s luck. But she hadn’t been back since the accident. It made no sense that a ridiculous place like Neptune’s still existed and Diana had been swept away.
Eureka didn’t notice she was dripping wet until she walked in and heavy eyes fell on her. She wrung out her ponytail. She spotted Cat’s braids and moved toward the corner table where they always used to sit. The Wurlitzer was playing “Hurdy Gurdy Man” by Donovan as NASCARs circled on TV. Neptune’s was the same, but Eureka had changed so much it might as well have been McDonald’s—or Gallatoire’s in New Orleans.
She passed a table of arduously identical cheerleaders, waved to her friend Luke from Earth Science, who seemed to be under the impression that Neptune’s was a good place for a date, and smiled wanly at a table of freshman cross-country girls brave enough to be there. She heard somebody mutter, “Didn’t think she was allowed out of the ward,” but Eureka was here for business, not to care what some kid thought about her.
Cat wore a cropped purple sweater, ripped jeans, and the lighter-than-average makeup meant to impress college men. Her latest victim sat beside her on the torn red vinyl bench. He had long blond dreads and an angular profile as he slung back a swig of Jax beer. He smelled like maple syrup—the fake, sugary kind Dad didn’t use. His hand was on Cat’s knee.
“Hey.” Eureka slid into the opposite bench. “Rodney?”
He was only a few years older, but he looked so college with his nose ring and faded UL sweatshirt, it made Eureka feel like a little kid. He had blond eyelashes and sunken cheeks, nostrils like different-sized kidney beans.
He smiled. “Let’s see that crazy book.”
Eureka pulled the book from her backpack. She wiped the table with a napkin before she slid it to Rodney, whose mouth stretched into an intrigued, academic frown.
Cat leaned over, her chin on Rodney’s shoulder as he turned the pages. “We stared at the thing forever trying to make sense of it. Maybe it’s from outer space.”
“Inner space is more like it,” Rodney said.
Eureka watched him, the way he looked up at Cat and chuckled, the way he seemed to enjoy her every wacky remark. Eureka didn’t think Rodney was particularly attractive, so she was surprised by the twinge of jealousy that snuck into her chest.
His flirtation with Cat made what had just passed between her and Brooks feel like a Tower of Babel–scale mis-communication. She looked up at the cars circling the track on TV and imagined she was driving one of them, but instead of her car being covered in advertisements, it was covered in the inscrutable language of the book Rodney was pretending to read across the table.
She should never have kissed Brooks. It was a huge mistake. They knew each other too well to try to know each other any better. And they’d already broken up once before. If Eureka was ever going to get involved with someone romantically—which, since the accident, she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy—it should be someone who didn’t know anything about her, someone who came into the relationship ignorant of her complexities and flaws. She shouldn’t be with a critic ready to pull away from their first kiss and list everything about her that was wrong. She knew better than anyone that the list was endless.
She missed Brooks.
But Cat was right. He’d been a jerk. He should apologize. Eureka checked her phone discreetly. He hadn’t texted.
“What do you think?” Cat asked. “Should we do it?”
Eureka’s left ear rang. What had she missed?
“Sorry, I …” She turned her good ear toward the conversation.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Rodney said. “You think I’m sending you to some New Age nut job. But I know classical and vulgar Latin, three dialects of early Greek, and a bit of Aramaic. And this writing”—he tapped a page of dense text—“isn’t like anything I’ve seen.”
“Isn’t he a genius?” Cat squeaked.
Eureka hurried to catch up. “So you think we should take the book to …?”
“She’s a little eccentric, a self-taught expert in dead languages,” Rodney said. “Makes her living telling fortunes. Just ask her to look at the text. And don’t let her rip you off. She’ll respect you more. Whatever she asks for, offer half and settle for a quarter less than her original price.”
“I’ll bring my calculator,” Eureka said.
Rodney reached across Cat, pulled a napkin from the dispenser and scribbled:
Madame Yuki Blavatsky, 321 Greer Circle
.
“Thanks. We’ll go check her out.” Eureka slid the book back in her bag and zipped it up. She motioned to Cat, who unpeeled herself from Rodney and mouthed, Now?
Eureka rose from the booth. “Let’s go make a deal.”
13
MADAME BLAVATSKY
Madame Blavatsky’s storefront was in the older part of town, not far from St. John’s. Eureka had passed the neon-green hand in the window ten thousand times. Cat parked in the potholed parking lot and they stood in the rain before the nondescript glass-panel door, rapping the antique brass knocker shaped like a lion’s head.
After a few minutes, the door swung open, sending a clatter of bells ringing from the inside handle. A stout woman with wild, frizzy hair stood in the entry, arms akimbo. From behind her came a red glow that obscured her face in shadows.
“Here for a reading?”
Her voice was rough and raspy. Eureka nodded as she pulled Cat into the dark foyer. It looked like a dentist’s waiting room after hours. A single red-bulbed lamp lit two folding chairs and a nearly empty magazine rack.
“I do palms, cards, and leaves,” Madame Blavatsky said, “but you must pay separately for the tea.” She looked about seventy-five, with painted red lips, a constellation of moles on her chin, and thick, muscular arms.
“Thank you, but we have a special request,” Eureka said.
Madame Blavatsky eyed the heavy book tucked under Eureka’s arm. “Requests are not special. Presents are special. A vacation—that would be special.” The old woman sighed. “Step into my atelier.”