as those gathered around started to move off. “You’re OK,” he said, more softly. “Let’s go have a smoke, just hang out for a few minutes…reefer madness, right? You’re fine now. No big deal, we’ll just hang out.”
Amanda managed to stop crying, though her voice was still catching, the fear and panic close. “No, I’m not high…listen, I saw…I’m…I mean, I am, but—”
“Relax,” Devon said. “Whatever it was, you’re fine. It’s all good. Oh, and Keith brought our smokes, they’re in the kitchen. Why don’t we go get them, get you an apple or something, and head out back?”
He grinned, lowering his voice slightly. “Come on, we can make plans for the big picnic. You know Justin Anders got tapped to sing the anthem this year? What a fuckin’ joke. We could show up with air horns, maybe, blast ’em when he hits the high note. What do you think?”
She’d seen him do this before, at Chris Lahey’s house last December, when Doug had taken acid and gotten all freaked-out about his uncle being dead. Doug’s uncle had been carjacked the year before in Seattle. Devon had been all Mr. Rogers smooth, as relaxing as a warm bath, and had talked Doug out of a hysterical fit and into a lengthy philosophical conversation about the sociological impact of the Butthole Surfers. Watching him do his routine now, trying to take care of her, gave her something to focus on. She took a deep breath, blew it out.
“I got high, OK, but it’s not like that,” she said. Other than a general brain fuzziness, she now felt quite sober. “Devon, I saw something…”
She looked into his eyes, his familiar, cool, gray eyes, determined to make him see how serious she was, how notcrazy. He was her closest friend; he had to see that much—
“Because if she’s freaking out, she should maybe go home,” Pam said, her voice a near whisper. “I mean, no offense, but if my parents even find out I had people over, I’m so totally fucked.”
Amanda pulled herself to her feet, put on a smile. It was a dismal one, she could tell, but it was the best she could do.
“I’m good,” she said. A flat-out lie, but she wasn’t about to get her ass thrown out, either. Whatever had happened to her, she knew that going home wasn’t an option. It was her mother’s night off; she’d be parked on the couch and looking to engage. “I’m sorry.”
The lame smile worked, somewhat. Pam’s frown faded, and the few others still standing close by started to wander away. The television was turned back on, the movie started up again.
“What happened, anyway?” Pam asked.
I had a vision, Amanda thought, and though nothing like that had ever happened to her—it was strictly for movies or TV or bad thriller novels—she thought it was true, and knew also that if she talked about it, she’d be branded a total psycho. Worse than already being the only real retro-goth in a metalhead high school. Port Isley was a small town, and word traveled fast.
So what? You and Devon’ll be out of here by the end of the summer, God willing, the second he turns eighteen. Fuck the townies.
So what was she knew better. And maybe she had fallen asleep, a little…
“I dozed off, is all,” she said. “Got high and then fell asleep, with that movie on…”
She nodded toward the screen, where some guy in makeup was lip-synching a Roy Orbison tune. She thought she sounded convincing, and Pam was nodding. Amanda relaxed a little further, forcing the thoughts of Lisa and Mr. Billings away, far away. Her excuse made sense, actually. It made a lot more sense than what had seemed so real only a few moments before—
Lisa Meyer stepped out from behind Pam, wearing a puzzled smile.
“Hey,” she said. “Someone said you were talking about me?”
Amanda stared at her, entirely dumbstruck, though a part of her mind was already filling it in for her.
Premonition, like ESP or something—
Her rational self shouted it down. It had seemed real; oh, totally real, but she must have fallen asleep and dreamed it. Must have, because psychics weren’t legit, everyone knew that, at least people who weren’t dumb as rocks. At best they talked themselves into believing they had some kind of special power, but mostly they were money-grubbing shitheels, psychics, palm readers, astrology, all that shit.