Unhappy Medium by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel Page A

with curtains. I could tell from the strains of music coming from inside
     that it was the location of Jac’s symposium. I quickly banished thoughts of my best friend from my mind.
    I found the reading room at the very end of the hall. It was exactly as I’d pictured it — a kind of plush, Victorian library
     with lots of massive armchairs and couches and a really good fire going in the hearth. I could see there was a good seat very
     close to the fire, and I happily made my way over to it. When I was almost there, I glanced in the direction of a sound, and
     saw two people sitting snugly on a love seat by the window.
    The girl was blond and smiley and wore a pink sweater set. A living Barbie doll.
    The boy was Colin.
    I immediately looked away. I didn’t want them to think I’d seen them. But if I turned around now and walked back past them
     to leave the room, I would call attention to myself. Instead, I claimed the comfy seat near the fire, and curled myself in
     it so that I was facing in the other direction.
    Colin and definitely-not-Jac. Cleo the clarinet player perhaps?
    Jac was going to be devastated.
    Jac had seemed so sure that the two of them were becoming an item. Was I supposed to tell her about this? It would be useless
     at this point — Jac would probably assume I’d made the whole thing up to get back at her.
    Don’t think about it right now,
I told myself.
You can’t change it, and you can’t make it better for Jac. It is what it is. Put it out of your mind, and read.
    Obedient to the voice in my head, I opened my book and read the first sentence four or five times, without really absorbing
     it. I was giving it a sixth try when I sensed someone was approaching me. This was insane. Would Dream Boy actually come over
     with his Barbie, knowing I was Jac’s friend?
    “Hey. Sorry to interrupt. Say the word and I’m gone.”
    I looked up to see Ted standing over me, looking sheepish and appearing especially Cro-Magnonish in the firelight.
    “Oh,” I exclaimed. “I mean, no. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
    Ted looked anxious.
    “So I should go then. That’s cool, Kat. I understand, seriously.”
    “That’s not what I meant,” I said, more quickly than I intended to. “I mean, it’s fine, Ted. You don’t have to go.”
    He looked hugely relieved. There was a little footstool next to the fireplace, and he pulled it over and sat down next to
     me.
    “Did you get the book I left you?”
    “Yeah, I did. That was really nice of you — you didn’t have to do that. But it was really interesting.”
    “Did you see the stuff about Madame Serena?” he asked.
    “Uh-huh.”
    Ted paused, looking uncomfortable.
    “Like I said in the note,” he began, then his voice faltered.
    “Ted, it’s fine.”
    “What I really wanted was to apologize to you in person,” Ted said.
    His look was so earnest I couldn’t help smiling.
    “I think you just did,” I said.
    “I’m not like that,” he said. “I mean, what I said about mediums. I was just blabbering. I was trying to be … convivial.”
    “Convivial?” I asked.
    “It’s something they teach us here — when we work the Mountain House, we’re not just learning the ropes of running the business,
     we’re supposed to be learning people skills.”
    Ah. Ted might want to consider taking some extra classes.
    “We’re supposed to get along with everybody. And sometimes that means hiding who we are to be more of a generic Joe Blow who
     agrees with everything you say kind of a guy. And for some reason I thought the generic Joe Blow response to the Spiritualists
     was to laugh at them. I just assumed. It was obviously the worst thing to do. And ironically, that’s totally not how I was
     raised.”
    “It’s okay,” I said. “I have … my family is … oh, it’s complicated. I just have reason to know that people involved
     with paranormal stuff, whoever they are — researchers or mediums or healers or whatever — that they