Taste Read online

  When the bell rang at the end of the last lesson, my history teacher reminded us that our homework project was due on Friday. We were to write a letter to someone in history to warn them of an event. We could write to a known historical figure, or make someone up. The idea was that, in doing so, we would learn more about the event and describe it in detail via the written word.

  “What’s the point if we can’t change history?” someone in my class had asked.

  “The history is the point,” the teacher had replied. “It’s not about changing the past, but acknowledging it, in order to learn from it and move forward.”

  If only I could write to Dad in the past and warn him not to go to work that day. But I couldn’t. And if the point wasn’t to change history, then maybe all it would do was help me move forward. By openly acknowledging it.

  I realized then that was what Serena was doing, in her own way, with the flow chart. She was documenting all the known details, hoping for greater clarity, or at least acceptance, to be able to move forward to either a resolution or closure.

  And then I decided that if my teacher could make us write a letter to someone in history who was never going to receive it, then I could also write a letter to my dad. That would be my motivation to do the homework. Once it was complete, I’d write to him. Maybe somehow he’d see it or sense the words, and would try to help us understand more about what happened.

  I walked out among the other students, my head in the clouds, when Dad’s coffee infiltrated my senses. I swear I could not only taste it, but smell it, too. A teacher walked past with mug, steam rising from it.

  Oh. Disappointment made my shoulders sink.

  I kept walking to my locker, and I tasted it again, but this time ignored it. A lot of teachers needed their afternoon pick-me-up. But it persisted, and when I retrieved my things and turned around, Savannah was coming toward me, her eyes scrunched up. “Quick,” she said.

  We found our other sisters and decided we needed to connect now, if possible, rather than try to get home quickly. We pushed open the door to one of the female bathrooms. Four or five girls were chatting and laughing. One was braiding the other one’s hair. Great. We walked to the other bathroom. It had an influx of people too.

  “The boys room, let’s go.” Savvy cocked her head to the left.

  “What? No,” said Serena, crossing her arms.

  “Hang on.” She texted something into her phone, then a moment later Riley appeared. “Babe, can you be our lookout? We need somewhere private to, um…”

  “Oh. Cool. Yep.” He discreetly helped usher us into the boys’ bathroom after checking that it was vacant, then stood outside the door to wait for us.

  As we held out our hands, I heard someone outside. Riley said, “You don’t want to go in there, man.” He made a noise like there was a bad smell, and Savvy giggled, then covered her mouth.

  We had to do this fast.

  I waited for the senses to come to me. I could taste coffee again, but also ink. Not that I’d ever tasted ink before, but I knew it was ink. And then roses. Beautiful, soft, floaty, red roses, tingling on my taste buds.

  My mom’s name was Rose. Did it have something to do with her?

  Our eyes snapped open, and we released our grip on each other’s hands.

  I told my sisters what I’d tasted.

  Sasha said she’d smelled roses, and ink.

  Serena had heard quiet sobbing. A male voice.

  Talia’s hand was moving around in front of her, like she was writing something in the air.

  And Savvy stood tall, her hands on her hips. “I saw Dad’s letter. I saw him writing it. His hands and everything. I saw the words appear on the paper. Like I was there with him in that moment. No, like I was him in that moment.”

  “Do you think he just wanted us to have, like, a moment with him. All of us, not just you seeing him?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “The weird thing is, after the letter was written, all the words started jumbling up on the paper. Like moving around. It was freaky. But then they just didn’t make sense.”

  Serena sighed. “It’s symbolic of the situation. We have his letter, but we don’t have anything else. Nothing else makes sense.”

  “Maybe,” she said. She opened her phone and the image of the letter she had stored there. We all peered at it.

  “It is what it is. There’s nothing else to it. He wanted to write to Mom, tell her how much he loved her, and us, and hint that he knew his life was in danger. Without putting us in danger, maybe.”

  “Do you think that’s it?” Serena asked. “Do you think he’s not telling us because telling us might put us in danger somehow?”

  We were silent while we processed this.

  Dad would first and foremost protect his family, even if it meant his death went unsolved, even if his killer or killers never got the justice they deserved.

  He was not only a little ashamed of getting caught up with bad people, and wanted us to be ready to know the truth, if we ever were ready, but he wanted to keep us safe, too.

  Safe was good. But it wasn’t justice. It wasn’t closure.

  And I needed both.

  • • •

  On a cold Friday night later that week, I sat in the warmth of Leo’s car as he pulled up outside my house after work.

  “Thanks again for giving me all these lifts home. I really appreciate it.”

  “It’s no problem.” His hand rested on the steering wheel, the other on the gearstick. “Wild night ahead?” he asked.

  “What, now? Um, nope.” I chuckled.

  “Me neither.” He relaxed his grip on the wheel. “I’ll probably just shower and chill with some music for a while before sleep.”

  “Sounds good. Do you have a relaxation playlist?”

  He smiled. “How did you know?”

  “Just a feeling.”

  Feelings. There were lots of feelings. They simmered and bubbled and twinkled and danced between us. At least, I felt them. I didn’t know if he did. But there was something in the air, and I was almost certain it wasn’t just a one-way thing.

  “I think I’ll do some writing,” I said before I’d had a chance to acknowledge my thoughts.

  “Writing? Like poetry? Or are you a budding novelist?”

  “No, just a letter.”

  He gave a slow nod. “A letter, hmmm. No one writes letters anymore, do they?”

  “I do, apparently. Or I will, at least.”

  “To a secret admirer?” Was that a glint in his eye or a reflection from the streetlamp?

  My face warmed. “Actually, to my dad. I know it sounds crazy, but I got this idea after we had to write a letter to someone in the past for history. So I thought, if doing that can help me understand an historical event, then maybe writing to my dad can help me understand his historical event a bit better.” I shrugged.

  Leo regarded me with understanding eyes. “Huh. I think that’s a really good idea actually.”

  “Better than doing nothing, huh?”

  “Always better to do something.” We looked at each other for a moment.

  I love those moments of synchronicity, when someone says something, and it relates to something someone else said or something you’ve been thinking about. It’s like a little nudge in the right direction from the universe. A little sign, saying, “You’re on the right track.”

  Life was short—to hell with it.

  I wanted to kiss him.

  Now.

  I didn’t care that it was probably way too soon. What if I died tomorrow? What if Leo did? I hated to think it, but did we really know what would happen from one day to the next?

  Screw it.

  I drew a breath, and leaned forward at the same time Leo dropped his hands from the wheel and gearstick.

  “Maybe I should do the same for my dad,” he blurted.

  I stopped. The tingling kiss hovered on the edge of my lips, desperate to be born.

  “I mean, it might help
me understand more about why he did what he did. You know he took his own life, right?” he asked.

  Oh man. I couldn’t go ahead and kiss him now. “Um, yes.” It came out more as a heavy breath than a voice, like my desire had morphed into hot air to avoid spontaneously combusting. “I’m so sorry.”

  I leaned back a little, but not so much that it would look like I had leaned forward in the first place.

  “It would be good to know what had been going through his mind. To get a better idea of why he thought things were so bad he couldn’t get help.” Leo’s eyes shone in the moonlight as it entered the car in angular shapes, casting shadows. A perfect example of how, where there was light, there was also darkness. He sniffed.

  I placed my hand on his arm, and then glanced down. I wanted to tell him that he had it wrong. That his father didn’t take his own life. That he’d wanted to live and look after his boys. “The most important thing is that he loved you both. Sometimes things happen that don’t make sense to us, but make sense to someone else.”

  I didn’t know if I was making sense, but my heart was trying to merge with my brain to find words that could offer some comfort and reassurance.

  He leaned toward me and hugged me. A friendly, thank you sort of hug. I could have kissed him then, but it didn’t seem appropriate. It didn’t matter. His embrace filled me with something else, something nice, and soft, and warm. We were becoming friends. We were opening up and talking, like good friends did. I had to take it a bit slower. Show him I was there for him, really there for him, like he was there for me. If there was ever a chance at something more, I wanted it to have a good foundation of friendship.

  But threatening to take away my newfound sense of companionship was the uncomfortable sensation of knowing something he didn’t. And knowing that the closer we got to each other, the harder it would be to keep that secret. The secret that could either change his whole world and bring us closer, or take away the very thing I’d been wanting since the moment we first moved in, and I saw him coming home late one night.

  Light. Shadow. Everything had its opposite. The negative to the positive.

  Would revealing the secret bring us closer to the light or the darkness? There was no way to tell. But I hoped that by getting to know him more, letting him see that he could trust me and that I was a relatively normal person despite my supernatural ability, the light would win.

  Chapter 12

  Dear Tamara,

  Here is everything you need to know…

  Love Dad.

  I woke with a start, my heart beating fast. I hadn’t realized I had fallen asleep. It was just past four o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday, a week after I’d written the letter to Dad asking him to show us the way to the truth, and I had to get to work soon.

  I groaned. The dream had ended just when I’d been about to read the letter. What did it say? Did it say anything, or was it just a silly dream playing tricks on me?

  Not fair.

  To make myself feel better, I opened my phone and scrolled back in my Facebook messages with Leo, to find the one he’d sent the day after we’d had that chat in the car.

  Dear Tamara,

  I am writing you this letter to ask you how your letter writing went.

  Yours sincerely,

  Leo.

  It had made me smile, both because of the way he’d written it to sound like a formal letter, and because he’d thought to check up on me after what I’d told him I planned to do.

  I scrolled back down, smiling at the many exchanges that had occurred in the past week. Some were only emoticons, and funny little pictures to indicate his mood or my mood or what we were doing at the time.

  I couldn’t wait for each break at school to check my messages for any new ones.

  Our second baking session had gone well, and although I could have kissed him then, too, I didn’t. But we hugged again. Maybe that’s all we would ever have—a hugging sort of friendship. And maybe that was okay. He had loved my butterfly sponge cake, and helped me come up with a better design for the multi-colored frosting to pipe onto the butterfly’s wings.

  “One more recipe to go,” he’d said, “And then I’ll decide your fate.” He’d put on a weird robotic voice, which made me laugh.

  But we didn’t have a mentoring session organized for tomorrow, because he had to work. I would have to wait another week to try my mixed berry cream log roll out on him.

  But tonight would probably be busy at the restaurant, and it would give me a buzz, being in the foodie atmosphere, chatting to the staff, and smelling (and hopefully tasting) the delicious food… Heaven.

  When I got there, Emilia, Lachlan, and Lucy were already there.

  “We’re fully booked tonight, guys,” said Sam. “We’ll need you to be as efficient as possible, keep smiling, and pay attention to detail. There’s a book club here for the first time, and if they like it, they might come back monthly. So let’s do this!” He clapped his hands. “Oh, and before we get busy, Leo will hand you some information about a charity fundraiser we’re hosting here for an international medical aid organization. Less than a month away, on the first of April. And no, it’s not an April Fools’ joke.” He winked, and Leo handed out some flyers. “We already have some reservations booked, but please extend the invitation to your families. We’d like to have the place fully booked.”

  Cool. I wondered if Mom could afford to bring my sisters along for a night out. I would ask. I put the flyers away in my bag, then got myself all rubber-gloved up and ready for business. Leo caught my gaze and gave me a thumbs-up. I gave him one back, except I had these giant pink rubber thumbs that looked completely ridiculous, and he grinned widely.

  Emilia went out of the kitchen and then came back in again, looking more serious than usual. “Anything wrong?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing much,” she replied, blowing a puff of air between her lips, a strand of her hair flying upward.

  “I’m thinking there is something much.”

  “Ah. Girls. We know each other’s signs too well, don’t we?” She leaned closer. “I just checked the guest list for the charity dinner event, and I know one of the people coming.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded. “My ex. Michael. Just wonderful.”

  I screwed up my nose. “Awkward huh? It ended badly?”

  “As badly as a relationship ever could.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Damn bastard cheated on me.”

  “Oh crap. Sorry. That’s awful,” I said. “Do you think you could get out of working that night?”

  “For a charity event? Seriously doubt it. Sam will need us all.” She scratched her arm and glanced toward the chefs, busy in conversation. “Then again, I’m sure he wouldn’t want any of the guests to feel uncomfortable.”

  “Your ex doesn’t know you work here?”

  “Don’t think so.” She shook her head. “Too busy working his way up the ranks in medical school and up the skirts of women who drool over him.”

  I screwed up my nose again.

  “Although…” she said, scratching her cheek. Her eyes went distant for a moment, then she flicked her hand.

  “What is it?”

  “Probably nothing,” she replied. “But what if he does know that I work here? What if he’s coming here on purpose?”

  “Why would he do that? Do you think he wants you back?”

  “Doubt it. Last I heard, hes permanently attached to some model.” She crossed her arms. “But he likes to show off. Maybe he wants to rub it in.”

  “Sounds like a lovely guy.” I smirked.

  Emilia stood still, nibbling the corner of her lip like she hadn’t finished the conversation but didn’t know what to say next. She leaned closer to me. “Have you ever had that feeling that someone is watching you?”

  I mentally recalled the scary experience of knowing we had an arsonist in our midst, but not knowing who it was. Not to mention the ghosts that occasionally visited. “Sort of, but—
”

  “There was this car,” she blurted. “I saw it last week on my street after I left home for work, and then again when I got here, like it had followed me. The windows were dark, so I couldn’t see in, and then late a couple of nights ago I heard the neighbor’s dog barking, and through my window I saw headlights go up and down the street a couple of times, pausing outside my place. Then a screech of tires.”

  “Just some teenagers looking for things to do?”

  “Nah, they’re noisier.”

  “Are you saying you think it’s your ex?”

  She shifted from one foot to the other. “He was always the possessive type. He liked to know where I was at all times. And a couple of weeks ago he said something on his Facebook page about reminiscing about the past. And that sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. And that you need to take control of your destiny, or some crap like that.”

  “Hmm,” I mused. “Maybe he does want you back.”

  She shook her head. “I think he just wants to convince me that I would take him back—which I wouldn’t—and then give himself the satisfaction of rejecting me so that he’s not the one being rejected. Control freak.”

  “Ask Sam if you can have the night off. Tell him your concerns.”

  Emilia turned to walk over to him, then turned back. “You know what? No. I’m not going to let Michael stop me from working and earning a living. The jerk can suck it up and have me as his awesome waitress. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me upset.” She put her hands on her hips.

  I had to admire her kickass confidence. I didn’t know if I could do it.

  I held up my pink, rubber-gloved hand. “You go girl.”

  She high-fived it. “But I will need to go out and drink something at some point. Wanna come? Oh whoops, I forgot you’re under age! My bad.” She whacked her forehead.