Ghostgirl: Lovesick

by Tonya Hurley

  As Petula pulled each piece forward—overcoats, cardigans, suit jackets, pants, shirts, ties, most still in the plastic from the dry cleaner’s—she realized that they hadn’t been forgotten at all. She could recall in greatest detail watching him walk slowly down the stairs wearing the cardigan on weekend mornings, the suit and tie as he rushed out the door to work each day, the pajamas he slipped into each night before reading her a bedtime story, the bathrobe he wore as she watched him shave with the old-fashioned brush and soap, and the powdery smell of his aftershave that filled the bathroom right afterward. As she pressed her nose to the collar, she wasn’t sure if it was the actual aroma or the memory of it that still lingered after all these years. It didn’t matter, she thought; she could smell it just the same.

  When she was younger, she could remember arguing with her mother about keeping his things. Petula would accuse her mother of hanging on to the past, to bad memories that would only keep her from moving on in her life. To Petula, her father’s leaving was like a death—maybe even worse because it was voluntary. It was something to be gotten over and forgotten. But now, she was overjoyed and comforted that they’d kept everything. And not just kept, but preserved, like some kind of a museum exhibit of their family’s past.

  Petula, however, was more into living memorials and decided, with some subconscious prompting from CoCo, that it was time to resurrect them. Enough time had passed that almost everything in the closet was back in style. She gently gathered the old suits from the wooden hangers and carried them to her room.

  “I know just the guy for them,” CoCo thought as she watched Petula add the garments to the pile.

  The scene was set. Wendy Anderson, Wendy Thomas, and their new best friend, Darcy, were parked and ready to catch the perpetrator. The Wendys brought Darcy along primarily for third-party verification. If any of this ever leaked, no one would believe them without her corroboration. They donned their undercover ’70s Bond Girl outfits, an inspired choice, and were now waiting for Petula to arrive.

  “She’s not the same,” Wendy Anderson said, justifying the snooping.

  “I think she’s slowly trying to replace us, phase us out,” Wendy Anderson blurted. “Well, maybe she’ll be the one phased out.”

  “You guys are so right,” Darcy spouted. “She’s probably down here auditioning dropouts for a new crew.”

  It was something both Wendys had been thinking, but never discussed openly, until now.

  “I can’t wait to see who our competition is,” Wendy Anderson said, but it was pretty clear from her expression that she didn’t mean it.

  “That’s loser talk,” Darcy chided as the Wendys remained on high alert, much like betrayed lovers waiting to witness the cheating firsthand. “You are The Wendys! You have no competition.”

  Both Wendys were so insecure about themselves and their friendship with Petula that they were always in a state of paranoia, and Petula liked it that way. She knew instinctively that both girls were strictly middle management, bereft almost entirely of leadership skills, so it was easy to keep them off-balance and constantly worrying about their place in her orbit. They supplied Petula with adulation and in return were allowed to sail along in her slipstream.

  Their roles had become so entrenched, their social status—even their futures—so entangled with hers, they felt they had not just a right, but also an obligation to get to the bottom of Petula’s aberrant behavior. She might be fine turning all do-goody from her coma, but they were the ones who would have to answer for it. And they found themselves unprepared. If somebody had to get knocked off the popularity pedestal, it was not going to be them.

  The Wendys were bolstered by Darcy’s pep talk and saw in her the motivational qualities that they were sorely missing. Darcy was ready to reign.

  Pam and Prue watched this tentative mating ritual between The Wendys and Darcy with great curiosity. Darcy had a familiar air about her, and not in a good way. Pam and Prue had developed a fondness, if not a respect, for Petula ever since the Virginia situation and didn’t appreciate some new queen wannabe trying to exploit her at a vulnerable time.

  “There she is!” Wendy Thomas yelled, as if she’d just discovered a rare, endangered species while on safari.

  Living and dead alike watched as Petula made her way down the dark alley and toward a group of homeless kids. This amazed The Wendys, as Petula would never walk toward a group of absolute strangers without some kind of advance fanfare prepared. Pam and Prue, however, could see that she was not alone. CoCo was guiding her.

  Petula plopped down the sea-green garbage bag she was toting and proceeded to size up each stranger with a tape measure. She sighed with relief when none of the haggard and undernourished girls measured bigger than a size two. Then, she reached into her bag again and again, like some kind of sartorial Santa, mixing and matching pieces of clothing into outfits for each slightly puzzled, but grateful, stranger.

  “It’s drive-by styling!” Wendy Anderson exclaimed, convulsing ever so slightly as she reached to the dashboard to steady herself. It was as if it was something she’d been suspecting, something she’d dreaded, even.

  “Looks like it to me,” Wendy Thomas said, dumbfounded.

  “She’s recruiting a Petula army,” Darcy added, a tinge of grudging admiration in her voice.

  “And we’ve been dishonorably discharged!” Wendy Anderson huffed.

  This confirmed their worst fears. Petula was making these people into what she wanted, just like she’d done with them at first. She imprinted her brand, gave them a look and something to be proud of. They knew the feeling. They could still remember their own drive-by stylings, Petula showing up at their homes freshman year, telling them what to wear, what to eat, and when to talk.

  For their basic training, Wendy Anderson remembered how Petula stripped them of their dignity, broke their spirits, and then built them back up again in her own image. It was like beauty boot camp. They did everything she said, and now look where it got them—staked out in a dark alley, watching their replacements being molded and sculpted by the master right before their false eyelashes.

  The Wendys were hurt and jealous all at once. Petula was putting her personal stamp on these hard-luck cases, a blessing they had earned. Almost as importantly, she was giving away stuff they wanted, mostly anyway.

  “She’s redefining streetwear as we know it,” Wendy Thomas hyperbolized, as if she were witnessing the birth of the universe.

  Petula took care, as CoCo had “suggested,” not just to dump the clothes off, but to really think its placement through. She was there for almost an hour, doing and redoing the looks until she got them just right. Until her subjects were totally unrecognizable. She transformed them from homeless casual to Dumpster Chic.

  “Nobody will ever believe this,” Wendy Anderson stammered.

  “That,” Darcy crowed, pulling out her digital camera, “is what night vision is for.”

  Darcy began snapping away with far more success than The Wendys had the night before, documenting the event like a crime scene photographer, reviewing the JPEGs in the viewfinder, and deleting shots she couldn’t “use,” whatever that meant.

  The bad vibe Pam and Prue had gotten from Darcy initially was turning seismic. She seemed to them to be absolutely giddy as she saved shot after shot.

  “Check that out?” Darcy said, focusing her lens on two teary-eyed but suddenly quite fashionable young girls locked in an embrace with Petula.

  “They’re touching her.”

  The Wendys gasped in unison at the whole skeevious affair.

  Petula was treating these charity cases as equals, which made them peers to The Wendys, as well. It was this involuntary downward mobility that was the last straw.

  “After all you guys have done for her,” Darcy said, her voice laced with pity.

  “Yeah, after all we’ve done for her,” Wendy Anderson repeated groggily, as if she was just emerging from a state of mourning.

 
“Yeah,” Wendy Thomas agreed, shaking off her malaise as well.

  “Time to make a change, girls,” Darcy offered, putting her arms around both of them, as they walked back to the car. “Petula already has.”

  Chapter

  11

  The Marble Index

  I saw it glitter as I grew

  and love did what I never knew

  I thought this place was heaven sent

  but now it’s just a monument

  —She & Him

  Past lives.

  There are many ways to be haunted, not all of them supernatural. From photo albums to love letters, the memory of bad choices, broken promises, lost loves, and shattered dreams can often linger far longer than the glow of satisfaction from our greatest accomplishments. Indeed, the most frightening ways to be haunted may be in the many ways we haunt ourselves.

  Scarlet manipulated her old key and wiggled it just so, prompting the heavy wooden door with lead glass to open slightly. She jammed her recently unretired boot in the door, gathered her bag and the rest of her stuff, and pushed herself inside.

  It was such a pain opening IdentiTea by herself on Saturdays, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She got to take advantage of the acoustics without anyone else around. During her shifts, she often did sets that became wildly popular, but she much preferred to play guitar to an empty house. In fact, before Damen went off to school, they would meet up and play together, the only two souls in the joint, but to them it felt like they were the only two in the world.

  She loved how dramatic the room was with its majestic chandeliers and large carved wood features. It was such a gorgeous open space with daylight filtering in through floor-to-ceiling lead windows, illuminating the canvas artwork, crushed velvet jewel-toned booths, wooden chairs, and intricate beamed cathedral ceiling that cast incredibly expressive shadows. The café was her place, a direct reflection of her style. It looked, she felt, the way the Dead Ed kids always saw it.

  People loved it too, and came to get turned on to different music, films, and clothing. However unintentional, Scarlet was becoming a big influence in school and outside, as kids from far away carpooled to spend their Friday nights wherever she went. She was like a local celebrity, in that respect, and definitely had her followers.

  Scarlet threw her bag on the counter and flicked the chandeliers on. One by one, they lit up, each with mixed jewel-toned crystals that reflected around the entire room. It made for the most amazing light show in town.

  Scarlet headed up to the stage and got her guitar out—she had been neglecting it as much as she’d been neglecting everything and everyone else in her life. Then, after putting her leather-studded strap around her neck, she started thinking about Damen. She was angry with him for sharing her song with the world, or at least with the radio station, but also flattered that he thought it was good enough to enter. It was a deliriously romantic thing to do, and it showed that he really did believe in her. The thing was, Scarlet liked to do things on her own terms.

  She plopped herself down on a carved wooden stool with a deep-red crushed-velvet cushion and started strumming. She hooked her iPod up to the PA system and scrolled through her playlist until she found the perfect six-string workout. She started into Agent Orange’s surf punk classic “Too Young to Die,” an old favorite that she’d been listening to a lot lately. As Scarlet shredded away with gleeful abandon, she could feel the tension begin to leave her body.

  She was all warmed up and wanting to run through something exciting, but she wasn’t feeling any of her own stuff. The freshest music she’d heard in a while was Eric’s, so she skipped to his demos, looking for some inspiration.

  She was tentative at first, but soon the adrenaline was coursing through her veins again as forcefully as the current that powered her amplifier. She twisted the volume up to ten so that she could hear herself playing over Eric’s song.

  As she was getting really into it, when the energy was about to reach fever pitch, she noticed a guitar solo that she hadn’t heard on the track before. She brushed it off, figuring she’d missed it on her first listen. Then, it happened again, only this time it sounded much more… live.

  Scarlet looked around and realized that she was the only one in that dark, open space and that if someone was actually there, it would be hard to escape. All the doors were so far to the front and the windows didn’t open. She jumped up, and just as she was about to run toward the door, a figure stepped out from behind the amp.

  Scarlet raised her guitar over her head and readied herself to defend her life.

  After her pit stop at Dead Ed, Charlotte felt compelled to continue her nostalgia tour at a place where she’d never been but, ironically, would never leave either: the cemetery.

  She headed directly for the unmarked section of the graveyard, it being the most likely location for her earthly remains. She needed to see it for herself, the finality of it, and she wanted to know if she had a real memorial—her name carved in limestone—or if she was just marked by a state-issued plate.

  She walked through the patch, which was mostly dirt with a few islands of weeds sprouting here and there, looking downward to read the index card–size nameplates in each gray metal stake. For most of the inhabitants in the cemetery, these were temporary place keepers, marking the gravesite until a headstone could be engraved and delivered.

  She walked row after row without spying a single name, just numbers, which kind of made sense, she thought. Anonymity was pretty much a prerequisite for burial in this section. She just didn’t realize there were so many—what was the diplomatic phrasing here?—of the “unclaimed.” The longer she perused the field the more disappointed she became, until the even more disappointing thought that she might not even be here at all crossed her mind.

  Maybe they just cremated me, Charlotte thought. Charlotte had all these horrible visions of being incinerated, then scooped out of an oven and flushed down the toilet, or even worse, being “spread out on the waters” and blowing back into the hairy nostrils of some grizzled old barge skipper. She quickly did the math on the water content in the human body, determining how much of her would burn off, how much convert to ash, and what percentage of that might be permanently lodged in the snotty sinus of some sea captain, playing patty-cake with all kinds of nasty rhinoviruses.

  She’d just about resigned herself when she arrived at the last row of placards. Once again, she was nowhere to be found. Having come to the conclusion that she wasn’t even important enough to be anonymous, she found herself at the fountain, which was shaded by the only tree in the section. A nice place to rest her soul. As she looked up slowly to eye the elaborate stone sculpture before her, she found herself face-to-face with… herself.

  “It’s me,” Charlotte whispered, for no particular reason. “I think.”

  She couldn’t be absolutely sure because the sculpted bust of her head was so idealized and perfect it bore little resemblance to the way she remembered herself, even considering her overhaul before senior year. It was breathtaking, she thought, even though she no longer had any breath left to give.

  She read her name over and over and ran her fingers along each deeply etched letter. The ring of still fragrant and blooming roses hung around her sculpted neck added a burst of life and beauty and was proof positive that she was not just remembered, she was missed.

  “Scarlet,” she said, knowing full well who would have made such a gorgeous, lush gesture.

  It reminded her that their relationship was something permanent, eternal. They had been so close, closer than friends, closer even than family. It was hard to know where one stopped and the other began.

  Charlotte lay down on the ground, in the same position her body was buried, and stared up at the glorious sculpted monument and the sky above. It looked even bigger when viewed from below, which was both good and bad. She felt around for her nose, trying to gauge whether it was really as big as it seemed from this angle. Apparently, it wasn’t ju
st old habits that die hard, it was body image issues, as well.

  That’s what’s so strange about all this, Charlotte began to think as she used her thumb and index finger to measure the distance between her face and the tip of her nose. No matter how much progress she thought she’d made, it was very fragile and frighteningly easy to reverse. Perhaps that was why she was so ambivalent about being sent back to Hawthorne. She felt human there, vulnerable to all her past weaknesses and grievances and much less in control of her heart, if not her soul.

  Charlotte felt the pressure of reality returning to challenge her emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually as the shadow cast by the sunset behind her monument fell over her. She did her best to fight it. If there was any place to seek peace of mind and of spirit, she thought, this was it.

  It was so peaceful to lie in her very own place of rest. To close her eyes and feel her life as a distant memory. To just “be” and reflect. No worries, no obligations. She was a spirit, a part of the earth and the sky, or at least she had been before she had to return to Hawthorne. But now, the compulsion to be present, to be seen again, if only by herself, was too powerful to ignore. She looked around and saw that no one was watching, at least no one currently breathing.

  Charlotte gazed up at the ring of roses and raised her invisible hand toward them, coaxing the velvety petals from the stems. They floated down, first one or two at a time and then a veritable cascade of garnet rained down on her, dusting her face and hair and legs like confectioner’s sugar on a gingerbread man. She raised each limb into the floral typhoon and watched the petals cling to them; whether by the force of her own ghostly will or electromagnetism made no difference to her.