Painted Blind Part 20

While I drank the herbal tea, Dad packed himself a lunch of wrap sandwiches, fruit and Oreos. Then he grabbed his keys and kissed the top of my head. "See you tonight, kiddo."

I locked the door and climbed the stairs. After the tea and a real breakfast, I fell asleep and didn't dream. By the time I pulled myself out of bed again, I barely had time to throw on some old jeans, brush my teeth and dash out the door to first period. The day dragged, and I was preoccupied by the sad task awaiting me after the final bell.

Katherine Schofield answered the door wearing a cashmere sweater with khakis. She had made great effort to cover the circles of fatigue under her eyes, but grief had marked her.

"Psyche?" She looked around in momentary confusion then offered, "Come in?"

I went with her into the living room, where Savannah's photo hung on the wall next to her brother's. If Savannah had been alive, I wouldn't have given the picture a second glance. It had always hung there. Each year it changed when the new school photos came out. Savannah took her senior pictures in the summer when her hair was streaked with sunlight and her skin glowed. I hadn't taken mine at all, unless you counted advertis.e.m.e.nts, which I didn't. Her brother's picture would eventually be replaced by a wedding photo and his future family, but Savannah would remain forever seventeen and smiling on the Schofield's wall.

Katherine stood next to me and studied the photo, too.

"It's a really good picture of her," I said.

"She wanted a different one, but this was my favorite." She didn't ask why I was there.

"I think I may have left... I think I..." I could not lie to a woman whose face held so much pain.

"Go ahead," she said. "I haven't touched anything." She went around the corner to the kitchen.

I walked down the hallway, half expecting Savannah to be sitting on her bed waiting for me as she had been the last Sat.u.r.day in May, the beginning of Memorial Day weekend and also the first day of our summer break. The weather wasn't overly warm then. I was still wearing full length jeans and a long-sleeved T-s.h.i.+rt, but Savannah had broken her summer wardrobe out of hiding and was sitting on her bed in a yellow boat-neck top and fitted ivory capris. She was hunched over a photo alb.u.m. I knocked lightly on the doorjamb and went in.

Savannah had looked up and said, "Remember last summer when I was dating Aiden?"

I merely nodded. It had been a whirlwind beginning and a bitter end. By August two things were painfully obvious-Aiden wors.h.i.+pped Savannah, and she was bored with him. I remembered how he bought her a dolphin toe ring and made her candy grams.

"I went swimming with Travis last night," she said. They had been dating exclusively for four weeks. I figured Travis was slated to be this year's summer fling and nothing more, but Savannah's expression changed. "It was amazing watching Travis swim. He goes under, and I swear, I thought he'd drowned he was gone so long. The whole time I'm treading water trying to see him. Then he swam under my feet and tugged on my toes." Savannah hugged her knees. Her gaze found a place on the far wall and saw nothing but Travis in the last rays of sunlight. She broke from her memory and looked up at me. "For some reason, it made me think of Aiden. He tried so hard, but it never did anything for me. But swimming alone with Travis at dusk-it was romantic." I should have known right then she would be different when I came back, but I could not have imagined it would end here with me turning the k.n.o.b on her empty room.

The room was a wreck. Savannah wasn't a tidy person, and when her mom said she hadn't touched anything, she meant it. Clothes were strewn all over the floor. Savannah's make-up compact lay open on her vanity. Scattered across her dresser were textbooks and spiral notebooks. I opened one and found English notes written in Savannah's loopy handwriting. She had that stylish script that looked like it had been written in a rush. I traced her signature with my finger, the overlarge S through the four b.u.mps of the double N's to the tall H with the broken-off tail. It was strange what you missed about people.

I made a neat stack out of the books, picked up all the dirty clothes and dumped them into the hamper by the door. Cleaning Savannah's room was a familiar job. Her parents always insisted her room be clean before she went to movies or basketball games on weekends, so I had spent more than a few Friday afternoons helping comb through her messes. Talented in so many other ways, Savannah simply did not understand the art of organizing.

On the shelf above the desk was a line of framed photographs. The photo of the two of us in a "Best Friends" frame was lying face down. Maybe she'd had trouble looking at it while she planned her betrayal. It didn't matter now, so I righted the frame and saw myself smiling back with my arm draped around Savannah's shoulders. At the center of the shelf were a dustless rectangle and a gaping hole, where a frame had recently been removed. I checked the garbage and found a framed snapshot of Travis sitting on the lifeguard's seat holding his hand out to the camera in the "I love you" sign. I hesitated, then placed it back on the shelf.

Beside the garbage can I found Savannah's backpack and the magazine I came to collect. The ad was still inside. In fact, she dog-eared the page.

I took Savannah's books and the magazine to the kitchen, where I found Katherine staring at a grocery list like she'd lost the ability to read.

"I could return these to the school if you want."

She nodded. "That would be fine."

"Would you mind if I kept this, too?" I showed her the cover of the magazine.

Her puzzled expression told me she didn't have a clue what was inside. "Sure. Take it."

One ad down, one million three hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine to go.

Chapter 17.

News of the contest spread faster than a forest fire. The school secretary gave me nasty looks every time she had to call me down to the office to pick up a stack of magazines. I purposely left my car unlocked at school, and most afternoons I found magazines littering the back seat.

After school Rory and I met at the warehouse. "So, where's your demiG.o.d today?" he asked as he unlocked the door.

"I don't know." Aeas left my house last night and didn't come back this morning. I didn't know how he got around town, but somehow he managed.

Usually there were envelopes stuffed in the mailbox and stacked on the loading dock, but today there was nothing. We had nearly six hundred, well short of the million we needed.

My mind chimed, "I told you so." Six hundred fans. That was all I could muster. Why had I believed we could get a million magazines?

I carried the ones in from my car. We pulled out the cards and dropped them into a circular kiddy pool Rory said was large enough to hold a million cards. Then we put the magazines in stacks of a hundred so they were easy to count. Today most of the back seat was covered in magazines. Our collection climbed to a whopping six hundred eighty-six. I felt like bas.h.i.+ng my head against the cement floor.

"The video had seven hundred thousand views last night," Rory a.s.sured me. "Mail takes a few days."

"Yeah, sure," I mumbled.

"It's too soon to give up." Both Rory and I jumped at the sound of Aeas's voice. When he unveiled he was standing only an arm's reach away. He could have been there a minute or an hour for all I knew.

A fist pounded on the loading dock door. Rory stepped outside to see what the commotion was. A moment later he returned. "Mail's late today." He removed the metal pins holding the door in place, then pulled hard on the handle. The rusty metal creaked and didn't budge. "Help me out here."

Aeas took hold of the handle, too. At first the old door screeched an inch at a time, then the rust on the wheels broke loose, and it rolled up its track until it was fully open. The sunlight and the smell of diesel exhaust hit me at the same time. Parked outside was a semi truck with a US Postal Service marking on the trailer. The blue-uniformed driver opened the back of the trailer. Inside the trailer were white mail bags piled to the ceiling. "All of this is yours," the driver said. He tossed me a bag, and the weight of it nearly knocked me over.

We emptied the magazines onto the floor of the warehouse. By the time the trailer was empty, the pile was twenty feet wide and four feet tall in the center.

"Um, Rory," I said. "We may need help sorting and counting."

He scratched his head. "This is just the beginning." He immediately started making phone calls.

Aeas and I pulled out cards and counted magazines into stacks. We'd barely sorted a quarter of the heap when we heard another knock. This time it was the regular door, not the loading dock. I moved to answer it, but Aeas moved faster. He nudged me out of sight before opening the door.

"Is this where we drop off entries for the contest?" The voice was familiar, but I couldn't place it.

"It is," Aeas replied.

"Here you go." He handed Aeas a box eighteen inches square and six feet long. Then he offered him a stack of index cards. "And here's my hundred cards."

Aeas thanked him and shut the door. "Our first billboard." He handed the cards to me. On every one was the contact information for Hunter McDowell.

A week before the contest deadline, we were two hundred seventy-five thousand magazines short, but we had fifteen billboards, and the kiddy pool was over half full. The counted magazines stood on pallets and filled half the warehouse. Along one wall were the billboards, which had been delivered in boxes that contained thick paper strips rolled together. If you unrolled them and laid them out on the floor, it gave you the whole billboard. On Main Street the Birth of Venus was replaced by a Budweiser. If nothing else came of Aphrodite's tasks, at least my dad would never have to see that billboard again.

Somehow Rory convinced two dozen Dragonslayers to help us, and they had taken over sorting, counting and stacking the magazines. They also turned the warehouse into a hangout. Two tattered couches and some plastic chairs sat in a corner next to a s.p.a.ce heater. Someone paid the c.o.ke truck to deliver soda pop to the warehouse. It showed up every Friday. On the open floor between the couches and the loading docks, some guys set up a launch ramp and grinding rail. Between mail deliveries, they skated and even convinced Aeas to try it.

"I feel sort of helpless," I said as the Dragonslayers moved through the day's mail. "They're so organized, like an ant hill."

Rory chuckled. "We ants live to serve the queen."

I punched him in the arm. "Seriously, is there something I can do?"

"Pizza. It's crunch time. Rally the troops."

"Okay, I'll be back in an hour with all the pizza my car can hold. Oh, and Rory, will you let me know how many eighteen wheelers it's going to take to deliver all of this? I told the trucking company I'd call tomorrow to reserve them. When Theron calls, I want to have everything ready to roll."

"We'll be ready," Rory said confidently.

We were still way short of the total number, but whatever we had, we would deliver to Aphrodite on time. I called two pizza parlors and ordered ten pizzas at each, I grabbed my keys and pulled on my coat. "Anyone seen Aaron?"

Rory, who was carrying a stack of magazines to the sorting table, grunted, but the girl at his shoulder smiled. "He disappeared a couple of hours ago. Said he had errands to run."

Her comment was funnier than she knew. Aeas kept his power to veil a secret. The volunteers believed he was just like the rest of us, only drop-dead gorgeous, unbelievably coordinated on a skateboard and downright mature for a fifteen-year-old. Several girls were openly smitten with Aeas, who went by Aaron among mortals. Most likely he was still around, but he'd stepped around a corner and hidden himself.

"Well, I'm going to pick up dinner, so everyone be hungry when I get back."

There was a general murmur of approval as I hopped off the loading dock and turned the corner to the parking lot. No one but me saw the pa.s.senger door open and close on its own.

As soon as I started the engine, Aeas appeared beside me. "You were looking for me?"

"I didn't want to haul all this pizza to the car myself."

His nod was slight and habitual. Servitude was ingrained in him.

I took great pains not to take advantage of him. He wasn't my servant. "If you ride shotgun, you get the first piece."

His voice seldom showed any hint of emotion. "That's a fair deal."

One step into the pizza parlor and my stomach was rumbling like a freight train. Had I eaten at all today? I couldn't remember. Until now nothing smelled good, but I knew I'd be lucky to down one slice of pizza before my body rebelled. Aeas was right about the effects of the dust. I couldn't eat or sleep normally. Against my will I was wasting away.

With ten pizzas stowed in the back seat and the aroma making me salivate, we drove to the other shop, which had our order ready. I paid, and as I carried half the boxes to the car, my cell phone beeped the receipt of a text message.

"What's on top in your stack?" I asked.

Aeas lifted the lid. "Looks like pepperoni and olives. What about yours?"

"Sausage and mushrooms."

"I'll take one of those," he said as we stowed the boxes on top of the others.

I took one for myself, too. Sitting in the driver's seat, I checked the text. The number was local, but unfamiliar. The message was a series of numbers. "What is this?" I showed the text to Aeas.

"Coordinates? Possibly your delivery point."

In reply I messaged: Theron? Call to confirm delivery point.

I pressed send and started the ignition. I really didn't want to hear his voice again. Just as we pulled into the warehouse parking lot, the phone rang. It was the same number. Slowly, I brought the phone to my ear.

"How's your hand?"

It felt like a cold hand gripped my spine. Theron was the most evil person I'd ever encountered, and his beauty only made him worse.

"I got the coordinates. Is there a street address, or would you like me to dump three million magazines on the roof?"

He chuckled. "The loading docks are on the south end. How will you be delivering?"

I had no idea where the location was, so I wouldn't commit to anything. It was an island for all I knew. "I'll get back to you. You'll be at this number?"

"I will." I heard the smile in his voice. "If every ad is not accounted for, I will personally let you know."

Aeas s.n.a.t.c.hed the phone from my hand and disconnected the call. "The less you talk to him, the better," he said. "You must not let him threaten you." He tossed the phone into my lap and unloaded the pizza boxes.

I lagged behind toting the few boxes Aeas left in the car. I went straight to Rory, handed him the boxes and said, "Grab your laptop. We have the delivery point, and I need you to Google it."

A brush of excitement ran through his eyes. "When?"

"The text came while we were in the car."

He handed off all but one box then steered me toward an empty table away from the volunteers. There we powered up the laptop and typed in the coordinates. The delivery point was on the coast in New Jersey. When we brought up the satellite photos, we were able to pinpoint one warehouse in a long row near the docks.

"So, we deliver by truck?" I asked.

"Sure, if we have time," Rory said.

Aeas appeared at my shoulder munching another slice of pizza. "However you deliver, it has to be done swiftly and securely. This is Theron we're dealing with. He may sabotage the delivery."

"You should go with the s.h.i.+pment," I told him. "You can see Theron and his men when they're veiled. Plus, Rory and I have parents and school to deal with."

Aeas nodded. "Tell the trucking company we'll provide our own drivers."

"Will they do that?"

"They should," Aeas replied. "And I have people I can count on."

Over the next hour we finalized the trucking route and the s.h.i.+pment date. Aeas disappeared to arrange drivers.

I turned to Rory. Helplessness made me fidgety again. "So, between now and then, all we can do is wait and hope another three hundred thousand magazines show up."

"I'll send another email to the fan sites. Then, yeah, all we can do is wait."

Two days before the contest deadline, we were still two-hundred forty thousand magazines short, and Theron had not called again. The fleet of trucks was lined up outside the warehouse, all loaded and locked except the last two, which needed to be filled if I was to complete the task.

When the day's mail arrived, Rory's team jumped up ready to attack, but it was obvious there wasn't enough. The mail truck delivered ten bags, not even half a truckload.

Aeas appeared beside me. "Are you okay?" He had been sitting there for half an hour, but only now unveiled. He was strange that way. Maybe it was more habit than anything.

"Fine." I gnawed one fingernail down to the quick. I wasn't okay. I was spiraling into depression and dread. Theron said he would personally let me know if I'd failed. I knew what that meant.