HEAR Page 13

  “Like you were getting a migraine?”

  I blink at him. “ Yeah, do you get them too?”

  Dan nods. “They’re the worst.”

  “I get them sometimes too,” Mara says. She finally releases me from her grip with a last karate chop to the shoulders. I wince, and I hope once the pain of the massage wears off I’ll feel more relaxed, if only because I’ve been freed from her claws.

  “I get them before bad stuff happens,” Dan clarifies.

  “ You want me to give you a reading, Dan?” Mara asks. “We can see if the cards show any of the danger you’re feeling.”

  Before Dan can answer, Alex enters.

  “Everyone have fun last night?” he asks. His voice is slightly hoarse. From the blissful smile on his face and the way he sprawls on his stool, it certainly looks like he did.

  Brian follows close behind with a plastic bag from the local card store. He closes the door behind him. “Our supplies for today,” he announces with a forced smile. He shakes the bag playfully, but the gesture is wooden. It’s as if he’s working off a script, going through the motions because he’s too anxious to do otherwise.

  “What’s in the bag, Professor?” Dan asks.

  Brian pulls out what looks like a set of flash cards, along with multiple decks of playing cards.

  Alex turns to Pankaj. “ You in the market for another watch? Because this might be your lucky day.”

  “We have some card sharks among us?” Brian asks.

  “Depends what your definition of ‘shark’ is,” Pankaj and I say simultaneously.

  Brian and Alex laugh. Dan and Mara narrow their eyes.

  I sneak a glance at Pankaj.

  “Jinx,” he says, staring right back at me.

  Brian peels the protective plastic covering off the large flash cards. “These are Zener cards. Each is printed with one of five symbols: a star, circle, square, cross, or wavy lines.” He puts them down and then picks up a deck of the regular cards, standard Bicycles. “These you’re probably more familiar with.”

  “Some of us maybe too familiar.” Alex tilts his head toward Pankaj then winks. “Desai, you and I need to chat later,” he whispers.

  “It should be clear now that you all have slightly different skill sets,” Brian continues. “At this point we don’t know why, other than simple biology—we all express variation. What we’re looking to uncover and work on today are your deficiencies. If, say, you don’t speak a particular language, the best way to become fluent is to converse with a native speaker. In the last experiment, Kass was able to shatter a glass by herself. But perhaps with a teammate, you might be able to send it flying across the room.”

  “At someone?” Mara asks coolly.

  “Sorry, sorry . . . Bad example,” Brian says, waving his hands. “The theory is, if two of you train together, you’ll reinforce each other through limbic resonance. You’ll work in harmony to achieve even greater things. So with these cards, our ultimate goal is not merely to see which one comes next but to influence which card comes next.” He pauses. “Think of it as an electric current. Who knows how a light works?”

  I put up my hand. “ You flip a switch, and then there’s light?”

  “My niece the comedian.” Brian walks over to the whiteboard. He sketches a battery and a lightbulb, then two wires connecting them. “The flow of electricity is called a current, yes? To harness that electricity, both wires are needed to complete the circuit from battery to bulb.” He retraces the connecting wires then adds hash marks to the top of the lightbulb to indicate it’s now lit. “My hypothesis is that if two people with ESP work together, they’ll form a circuit, and the metaphoric lightbulb”—he taps his pen against the bulb—“will turn on.”

  Over the next twenty minutes, we each take twenty-five turns trying to guess which Zener card Brian will draw. I get twelve right, thirteen wrong.

  I cringe. “Looks like my guessing skills are worse than average.”

  Dan shakes his head. “Statistically, guessing averages would come to five right answers out of twenty-five, or twenty percent,” he says. “ Your average was closer to fifty percent.”

  “ Yes,” Brian agrees. “Onwards.”

  Mara and Dan each get nine. Annoyingly, Pankaj ties my score of twelve, but surprisingly, Alex gets only five right. Then again, considering how much (i.e., how little) sleep he got last night, maybe that should have been predictable.

  “On to part two,” Brian says. “Alex, you’ll work with me. Mara and Dan, I want you to work together today. Kass, you team up with Pankaj.”

  I can feel Mara’s eyes on me. I know she’s thinking I engineered this. Not my idea! I scream to her in my head.

  Yeah, right, I hear her say. I warned you.

  Her voice comes through so clearly in my ear that it feels like she’s directly behind me again. I whirl to face her, but she’s across the room, glaring at me icily.

  Did you just say something to me, like, telepathically? If so, name your favorite animal.

  I wait for a few seconds. I try to anticipate Mara’s response. I assume she’ll say something ridiculous, like cockatoo or praying mantis. But I hear nothing beyond the sound of my own voice in my head.

  Pankaj motions me to a table by the window. “I’ll go first,” he says. It’s our first real moment alone today, and I wonder if he is going to mention anything about last night. “Don’t screw me up, Legacy. I’m pretty good with the cards, so if my percentages go down thanks to your ‘help,’ I’ll be pissed.”

  His smile tells me nothing. I hold the cards out. If this is the way he wants to play it, fine. “It hadn’t occurred to me to mess with you, but now . . . You ready, Rocket?” I shake my wrist to readjust the placement of my new watch.

  We’ve been going back and forth with the cards for a while when Alex wanders over to us. I glance at him, puzzled, and then suddenly realize Uncle Brian is gone. I’ve been so focused on Pankaj I didn’t even register that Brian had left.

  “Professor Black said he needed to make a call,” Alex says. “Something about his ‘very important board meeting.’ Then he just cut out of here.”

  I’m still not sure if the funding issue and the lab’s potential closure is a secret. But it seemed strongly implied that I was not to discuss it. On the other hand, considering the nature of the group, it’s likely one or all of them know anyway. It’s also possible at least someone here knows how things will ultimately turn out.

  “Pinberg’s death still has him pretty shaken up, huh?” Pankaj asks me quietly.

  I shrug. “I guess so. That and . . .” I bite my lip.

  “And what?” Mara and Dan demand in unison.

  I shake my head.

  “Hey, stop giving Kass here the third degree,” Alex says with another one of his winks. He winks so often it’s beginning to strike me as less charming than gimmicky. He turns to Pankaj. “So, kid, about last night. Big score for you, huh?”

  I feel my cheeks going red, dismayed that Alex saw us making out. But then it dawns on me that Alex is referring not to any perceived hookup but to the watch Pankaj won in the poker game.

  “As Kass has learned,” Pankaj replies, “I’m good at cards.”

  “Erika was mighty impressed that you got the vintage Rolex off Pat,” Alex says. “I heard he got a little, um . . . agitated when you won.”

  “Agitated?” Pankaj snorts. “He wanted to break my legs.”

  “Come on,” Alex protests, “he’s a Henley student, not a barbarian. He would have broken one leg at most!”

  “Fair point.” Pankaj laughs. “But hey, at least I impressed your new girlfriend.”

  “ You actually did,” Alex says seriously. “In fact, she suggested you come to the high-stakes game at the Century Club tonight. What do you say?”

  Pankaj rolls his eyes at Alex. “
Much as I’d love to dip into their bank accounts, there’s only one problem: I can’t afford the buy-in for a high-stakes game. You see, I’m what’s classically called ‘poor.’ You’ll explain to Erika the concept of ‘poor,’ right?” He makes exaggerated air quotes, his amber eyes gleaming.

  In the tense silence, an idea comes to me.

  An idea about how to right a wrong.

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Pankaj says without so much as a glance in my direction, “it looks like Legacy has a plan?”

  “I do,” I reply. “Alex, how high stakes are we talking?”

  He shrugs. “These guys have bank. They’re trust-fund kids. Serious money.”

  “Good. That’s what I thought.” I turn back to Pankaj. “ You’re in the game. I’m going to stake you.”

  That finally wrenches his attention from Alex. “What did you just say?”

  “ You heard me. On two conditions: One, we are going to practice every spare minute before the game to make sure you’re in top form. And two, you can keep twenty-five percent of the winnings, but the other seventy-five will go to the lab.”

  “ You mean put the money toward saving it?” Dan asks.

  “ You really think he can win all the money Professor Black needs?” Mara asks, making it clear we’re all in on this “secret.”

  “Why not?” Alex asks rhetorically. “Our boy here’s got game, and besides, the ‘poor’ always just seem to try a little harder, don’t they?” There’s an edge in Alex’s voice, one that’s perhaps unintentionally revealing. Alex hasn’t said anything about his own home life, but that doesn’t mean his family couldn’t be just as disadvantaged or screwed up as Pankaj’s.

  Pankaj hears it too, and his expression softens. He nods. “If we surprise the professor with the money by using our talents, seems like it’s an even bigger win.”

  I nod, liking the plan even more. Uncle Brian might not be willing to take money from my father, but if it’s from me, a fair trade for all he’s doing for me this summer, maybe he’ll accept. “So it’s a deal.” I put out my hand to shake Pankaj’s. “Consider yourself staked, Rocket.”

  Alex pokes his index finger into Pankaj’s chest. “Looks like someone has a sugar mama.”

  “Let’s think of me more as his boss.”

  Pankaj purses his lips as if considering his options, but I know he’s already made up his mind. “This idea of yours is crazy, Kass. You know that, right?” I nod. “Good,” he continues. “Because this is the kind of crazy I can get behind. Especially since it helps me live by my guru’s mantra: ‘you can’t win unless you play.’”

  “Who’s your guru?” I ask.

  “The announcer for the Pennsylvania Lottery.”

  Alex’s smile widens. “So I’ll tell Erika you’re in, Pankaj?”

  “The rocket’s all in,” he replies, finally taking my hand and shaking it, a smirk playing across his lips. “Thanks, boss.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The vision was blurry.

  But both Pankaj and I saw something.

  Here we are: the five of us in a lazy circle, cards laid out. For the last hour, we’ve been huddled together on this narrow dock outside the Henley boathouse as the sun falls behind Sinclair Lake. Now time has stopped. The entire universe has shrunk to just Pankaj and me. I can tell from his searching eyes that neither one of us caught more than the premonition’s nebulous wake: someone in our group is supposed to die. And it could be either one of us.

  What was bothering me so much until mere seconds ago—whether or not Pankaj was cheating and, more important, whether or not he was being obvious enough about it to get caught—no longer matters. Unless cheating tonight somehow leads to his death? Needing more information, I feel something wriggling in that reptilian part of my brain. It’s ironic: the longer I’m at Henley, the harder I’m finding it is to restrain myself. There’s something about being in this place that’s making impulse control impossible.

  “ You know, Mara, I’m so curious about all the stuff you do with tarot cards.” I try to sound off-the-cuff casual, but the words come out awkward, in a high register. “Can you get really specific information about things?”

  She stares back at me for a moment, maybe studying me, questioning my motives.

  “Ask Pankaj,” she replies, turning away. “He thought tarot was total crap when I gave him his reading.”

  “Wait, come on. You have to give me a break,” he says in an apologetic tone. “Where I’m from, there are psychics on every corner. You can find them between every check-cashing place and liquor store, and they all promise to help people find the path to riches. But all they do is take your money and spout BS. I would know because my sister ran that kind of racket for a while. And she’s a straight-up con artist.”

  “Harsh,” Dan says.

  Pankaj laughs bitterly. “That’s actually one of the nicer things I can say about Nisha. Anyway, I assumed if Professor Black had recruited someone with my background into his program, everyone else here would know how to work a scam too.” Pankaj turns to me. “But Mara wasn’t looking for any money.” He pauses. “Besides, she nailed a lot of the details.” He hits the last word with an odd emphasis.

  Mara sets her jaw, but says nothing.

  I won’t allow myself to become distracted by whatever’s going on between them. “So . . . how? How do you do it and get all the details?” I ask.

  “It’s quantum mechanics and particle physics,” she snaps, as if that’s an obvious answer when it comes to tarot card reading. “I don’t do anything.”

  “Come on, that’s not exactly true,” Pankaj says.

  “Well, yes, it’s up to the person reading the cards to interpret the events, but quantum forces drive what cards appear. So it’s possible to draw the same cards in front of two readers and get two radically different accounts of your life. One could be all right, the other all wrong.”

  “Then how do you know what to believe?” I press.

  Alex laughs. He’s stretched out on the dock, sunbathing with his eyes closed, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. “That’s the question, isn’t it?” he says. “How do you ever know what to believe?”

  This whole carefree genius playboy shtick of his is infuriating to me at the moment. “Well, I believe that if Pankaj doesn’t win big tonight, we’re screwed. But my uncle, who’ll lose his lab, is screwed most of all.”

  Alex doesn’t respond. Dan stares at me, as if trying to compute what’s going on in my head. Mara just turns away, gazing out on the lake, watching the sun ripple off the water. But when Pankaj’s eyes home in on mine, I hear his voice in my mind again, as clearly as I heard him moments ago . . . as clearly as I heard Mara in the lab this morning.

  I think I know what Mara was trying to say, he tells me silently. ESP is like a mirror. And as the reflection is filtered through your perception, it warps, making it hard to tell what’s real from what we simply believe we’re seeing.

  I know we’re both thinking about the vision we just shared. One member of our group won’t survive the summer. And of the four who do, three will join together. But neither of us has any clue as to the membership of that group or purpose of those selected.

  Standing at the opulent marble arched door of the Century Club, I notice that both Alex and Pankaj seem tense. Hard to blame them.

  In a final moment of pregame styling, Alex runs his fingers through his hair. He’s especially well coiffed tonight and wears a blue blazer with a pastel tie that’s pulled rakishly loose around the neck. He’s also spent a lot of time applying cologne; the scent of a spice garden wafts from him as powerfully as the smell of fries in a McDonald’s parking lot. Though he’s trying hard to convey his usual unstudied, casual, cool vibe, what’s most apparent is that he’s trying really hard. His desire to be liked by Erika is achingly clear. It’s sort of sweet.


  Pankaj has also dressed up (at Alex’s insistence), and the borrowed blazer makes him fidget, even though it fits him perfectly and accentuates his broad shoulders. I also know he’s annoyed at Alex for making Dan and Mara feel unwelcome tonight. Earlier, Alex said only Pankaj and I could come to the game, and he gave the universal lame excuse to explain their exclusion: “It’s not my decision.” He said space was limited and I was only allowed to come because I was fronting the money. But it wasn’t hard to guess the real reason Alex didn’t want Dan and Mara here. He was worried they might embarrass him—Dan with his social ineptitude and Mara with her unpredictability.

  Alex takes a deep breath. The door knocker is a bronze lion head; he grasps the ring in its mouth and bangs it against the back plate.

  A few excruciating moments later, Erika opens the door. “Well, hello,” she greets us in that refined English accent. She smiles at Alex. “My, we’re fancy, aren’t we?”

  I somehow expected her to be dressed in a ball gown or in clothes from the recent Ralph Lauren collection. But her untucked button-down is slightly frayed at the edges and distinctly unfussy. I glance at Pankaj, who frowns. He didn’t need to dress up at all. I frown too, but with envy. Erika is one of those lucky girls who looks great whatever she wears. Whenever I “dress to impress,” I wind up looking like a demented sorority girl, somehow always managing to mess up some stupid but crucial detail. Tonight, for instance, I’m in a dress that features a small guppy pattern. I cinched it at the waist with a belt whose clasp, I’ve only now realized, looks like a whale tail. I’m like a walking seafood platter. I’d previously worn this ensemble to my Columbia interview. In retrospect, Columbia was probably glad that they had an excuse to revoke my acceptance.

  “Just on time. Come in,” she says.

  “Uh . . . hi. Great, thanks.” Alex leans in for a glancing kiss on the cheek. But Erika turns too quickly, and he is left hanging midair.

  “Follow me,” she calls over her shoulder.