Deep Fried and Pickled (Book One - The Rachael O'Brien Chronicles) Read Free Page A

Mass patrons and we never even owned a Ouija Board.
    Lying on my bed, I heard voices in the hallway. Someone from campus security named Tuke introduced himself to Francine. My mind was busy digesting the words Dad had spoken and I didn’t have an ounce of extra capacity to delve into the vandalism.
    Quietly, I shut my door and pondered my mom. Why did she leave? Did I miss the signs? Obviously. Mom and Dad didn’t seem unhappy. Freakin’ Psychic? The only thing psychic about my mom was her ability to read my moods. But that was Mom 101 stuff. She’d started meditating. I thought that was just a stress relief thing. Except for the van, bible-burst moment, I couldn’t even remember them fighting. Was that it? They didn’t care enough to fight.
    My mind drifted back to last week. I never dreamed the day she and Dad moved me into the dorm would be the last time I’d see her. The hug she gave me in the van, how it lingered. The gift. I’d completely forgotten to open it. I ran to my closet and dug around for the present. I untied the bow and peeled off the silver paper. It was a journal. A pen rested against the binding. I slid it out and tipped it upside down, gold moons and silver stars bobbed in a sea of glitter. My back crept down a wall as I sank to the floor. Mindlessly I flipped through blank pages. The second to last had a note in Mom’s handwriting. “Be true to yourself.”
    What did that mean? How long had she been planning to go? I had lots of questions, but no answers. I wished I’d said how much I was going to miss her and all the nice things she did for me. Clean sheet Mondays, homemade mac ‘n’ cheese, buying me the ninety-dollar Gloria Vanderbilt jeans on the condition I didn’t tell Dad. I loved those jeans but would’ve traded them for Mom in a heartbeat. It was too late. She’d left, and I didn’t know how to get her back.
     
     
    LEANING AGAINST MY OPEN DOOR, I batted my eyelids as fast as hummingbird wings to keep the stinging tears from forming. Francine held her arms crossed as she watched a man from the campus police take Polaroid photos of her door. The red stitched name embroidered on his shirt read, Tuke Walson . Tuke looked older than a graduate student but younger than my dad. He wore the kind of uniform that you see on security guards, dental assistants and electricians. His was navy blue and snug. “Looks like Dan has left his mark. How long you been datin’ this boy?”
    “Ah, Tuke,” Macy said. “Dan’s not a guy. It’s a racial abbreviation.”
    Tuke stiffened and processed the letters like a crossword.
    Exasperated, Francine asked, “You southern?”
    “Born and raised,” he said, and the meaning registered. A tsk slid off his tongue as he shook his head. He touched the paint with a finger. Still wet, it smeared. “Any you ladies hear noises last night?”
    Macy, Katie Lee, and I shook our heads.
    Tuke walked the halls of the dorm, checked the staircases, and questioned everyone on our hall about last night. Time ticked still as the morning drama unfolded. Francine’s door distracted Katie Lee and Macy from noticing the turmoil I kept to myself. Like Francine, I’d had a morning jolt, but unlike her, I knew the face of the person who’d rejected me, whereas her nemesis hid behind a can of spray paint.
    A replacement door arrived late morning, and Tuke left after he installed it. Macy, Katie Lee, and Francine had classes, but I stayed behind. Keeping the blinds shut, I buried my head in my pillow. Maybe the news about Mom was wrong. There could have been an emergency, a miscommunication. Maybe she was being blackmailed.
    The phone rang again, and I wondered if my mother had received a cosmic signal to call me with an explanation or just to tell me, she was okay.
    “O’Brien,” Katie Lee said. “Get over here. We saved you a spot.”
    My head hovered in a sticky emotional-web. “Where are you?”
    “The nastyteria, waiting for you.”
     
     
    I TRUDGED ACROSS