Joe greets us. “Hey, Nat! Hi, Gus! What’s up, Danny?”
“Danny’s apartment is haunted,” Gus tells Joe as he picks out his candy.
Joe laughs. “That’s crazy!”
“Thank you,” Nat says. “I’ve been telling them that for weeks.”
Joe tallies up what we owe while Gus takes it upon himself to relate all the weird things that have been going on. He only exaggerates a little.
“There wasn’t any moaning,” I object. “And I guess there might be another explanation.”
“Hey!” An old lady prods me with her cane. Clearly we’re taking too much time.
“Two quick picks and a five-box across, right, Margie?” Joe says, pulling the scratch-off tickets from a strip hanging from a rack behind him. He always knows everyone’s order.
She nods and carefully takes her money out of an old beat-up wallet. As she opens the wallet I see an old faded photo of a young girl in a plastic card holder. I wonder if it’s her daughter. Or maybe a granddaughter. It’s funny to think of this crabby old lady as a mom.
“What’re you looking at?” she snaps at me.
“Nothing,” I say, backing away.
“Nosy kids,” she mutters, and heads off to see if she’s won anything.
Joe turns back to us. “Or maybe you have a gwishin.”
“A what?” asks Gus.
“In Korea, we have gwishin. They’re like spirits of dead people who have unfinished business here on earth, and are cursed to haunt the place they died until they can complete whatever they need to do before moving on to the afterlife,” Joe explains.
Nat closes her eyes. “You don’t really believe that, do you, Joe?”
Joe laughs. “Nah, but they make movies about them all the time. Especially cheonyeo gwishin. Those are girls who die before they can be married. Sometimes they haunt a house and torment the family until they find them a suitable ghost boyfriend.”
“You’re making that up,” Gus says.
“Nope, ask my grandma. She says they had one in her village when she was a little girl. At least, they all believed they did.”
“Where would you find a ghost boyfriend anyway?” I ask.
“Maybe there’s an online ghost dating service,” Gus says, unwrapping a piece of bubble gum.
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Nat snaps.
Gus nods. “You’re right. I mean, they couldn’t even use an app, right? You can’t swipe right if you don’t have hands.”
Joe looks like he’s trying hard not to laugh. “Good point, Gus.”
Nat grabs a few pieces of candy and throws a quarter on the counter. “And anyway, this isn’t a Korean village, it’s Brooklyn Heights.”
Joe nods. “True that, Nat. I was just kidding with Danny. I don’t think you have a gwishin. From what I know, they’re not very shy about showing themselves.”
There’s a commotion at the door. A bunch of kids from one of the other schools in the neighborhood are coming in—they’re our age, but with way nicer shoes and backpacks. Joe greets them all by name of course, and they wave and go toward the back where the full-size candy bars and drinks are. A girl turns to her friend and asks if she can borrow five dollars.
As she turns back I see her sweatshirt says SAINT ANSELM in big letters.
I’ve got nothing against private school kids—I mean, it’s not their fault their parents have money to send them to “good schools”—but sometimes I am a little jealous. I bet they all have nice big bedrooms.
With windows.
Not one renovated closet dweller among them, I’m pretty sure.
As more kids pile into the narrow shop, this time older ones from the high school who are louder and more obnoxious, we wave goodbye to Joe and head to the park.
“Did you see the sneakers on that kid with the curly blond hair?” Nat asks. “I saw those online. They cost like two hundred bucks.”
Gus reaches up and grabs a red leaf off one of the trees lining the block. They’re turning color already.
“He probably has a whole closet of them,” I say.
“You don’t know that,” Nat says. But she looks kind of sad.
“We could go back and ask,” Gus suggests.
We all crack up.
It feels so normal. Everything is the same.
Joe’s the same. The private school kids are the same.
Our jokes are the same.
But I know when I go back home, it’s not going to feel the same. Something has changed there since Jake left. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just making this stuff up in my head.
But what if I’m not?
I open the door to our apartment and my nose is immediately assailed by the smell of bleach.
My heart sinks. If Mom is cleaning, it means we’re going to have another visitor. I knew there was someone scheduled, but it kind of snuck up on me.
“Sarah Delano Cabot and her daughter Alice,” my mom says breathlessly at dinner the night before they’re scheduled to arrive.
“Sarah Delano Cabot,” my father drawls, in his best approximation of a prep school student. “Delighted to meet you. Care for a gin and tonic? Where’s your husband, Chip? Oh, his actual name is Porter Delano Cabot the Third? I do apologize. How unforgivably rude of me.”
This is pretty much how my dad acts whenever anyone with what he considers an overly old-fashioned name is mentioned.
My mom reddens and then goes back to her salad. “Get it out of your system now.”
“I’ll be a good boy,” my father promises. “I just cannot for the life of me figure out why someone with a name like that would want to stay here instead of a nice hotel.”
“Don’t you remember Emily Stanton?” my mom asks. “The one who worked with me at the settlement house? She wore cardigans a lot.”
“Did I meet her?” Dad asks.
My mom makes a “don’t be an idiot of course you met her” noise and turns to me. “You did too. Remember the girl in the cardigan who came here to work on some cases when the pipes burst at the office? Like two years ago?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “Wait. Now I remember. Was she the one…in the…cardigan?”
My dad stifles a laugh as my mom throws her napkin at me. “You two think you’re so funny.”
“Okay, okay,” my dad says, surrendering. “So what about her?”
“I used to talk about her all the time,” my mom says. “She came from one of the oldest families in Brooklyn. They can trace their lineage back to the Revolution. There was so much money there.”
“Yes, and—” my dad says, making his “there is much too much detail in this story get to the point already” noise.
“The point is,” my mom says acidly, “that she was so funny about money. I guess you would say she was ‘thrifty.’ ”
“Wait, I do remember,” I say. “Wasn’t she the one who reused tea bags?”
My mom’s eyes brighten with victory. “Exactly. And she never wore makeup, and she always wore a cardigan that was so mended it must have belonged to her mother. Maybe Mrs. Cabot is like that. They don’t like to spend money.”
My dad studies the printout my mom has handed him. “What are the Delano Cabots doing in New York?”
“I’m not sure,” my mom says. “It was a last-minute booking.”
“So how old is this Alice?” I ask.
I can just see a little kid running around here. The last thing I need. And then she’ll become possessed and start throwing up pea soup like in that old move about an exorcism that’s on the classic movie channel every Halloween that Dad told me about but still doesn’t let me watch.
My dad checks the paper and his eyebrows raise. “Seventeen? Do they know they’re sharing a bed?”
My mom shrugs. “Of course. I made a point of telling them.”
My dad reads their address. “They’re from Deer Isle, Maine. Maybe they’re used to it. Maybe up there it gets so cold you have to bunk together.”
“Please don’t ask them,” my mom begs.
“Oh, I promise,” my dad says, none too convincingly.
The Cabots are supposed to arrive in the morning, and that night, I wait for something to happen. Anything. Flashing lights, moans, noises in the dark.
Nothing.
It’s like the room is holding its breath.
Like it knows someone new is coming.
* * *
Promptly at check-in (three o’clock) the doorbell rings, and we are graced with the formidable presence of Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot.
Her gray hair is parted in the middle and falls straight down to her shoulders, where it kind of curls at the ends. It’s like she hasn’t changed her hairstyle since college or something. Behind simple steel eyeglasses, she has what I hear my mom later describe to my dad under her breath as “China blue” eyes, and she’s wearing a windbreaker over a faded purple sweater.
“Come in, come in!” my mom trills as she greets them.
Mrs. Cabot reads from the paper in her hand. “You are Mrs. Kantrowitz?”
“Yes,” my mother says. “But please call me Maureen.”
My dad reaches out to shake her hand. “And I’m Marty.”
Mrs. Cabot regards his hand for a moment before briskly shaking it. “I am Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot. My daughter Alice is fetching our bags from the taxi.”
My mom compliments Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot (it will become an inside joke in my family to always refer to her with all three names) on her sweater.
“Did you order it from Bays’ End?” my mom asks.
Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot arches an eyebrow. I’m not kidding. Like for real. Like a character in a movie. And when she speaks she has a deep raspy voice. The words kind of drip out.
“A catalog?” She says it like it’s the most exotic thing in the world. “Why, no. I knit.”
Her daughter has brought up their luggage.
Unlike her mother, Alice has her hair in a long loose braid, and has an open, oval face. She has a DEER ISLE LACROSSE jacket on.
I notice that unlike Daan and Luuk, their suitcases are scuffed and appear to be handed down from generations, Cabot to Cabot. Or maybe Delano to Delano.
“Mother knits because there’s nothing else to do up in Maine,” she says.
Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot turns to her daughter and laughs. Okay, not a real laugh. One of those “ha ha you and I are going to have a talk later” laughs. I’m beginning to think that she’s scarier than the apartment ghost.
“I gave the man five dollars, Mother,” Alice adds, before introducing herself to us.
“Whatever for, dear?” Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot asks, jaw clenched. It’s hard to tell if it’s actually clenched more, because it’s kind of been clenched since she got here.
Alice rolls her eyes. “Mother, you didn’t tip him. He drove us all the way from Penn Station.”
“He was very rude,” Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot says, “and hard to understand.”
Alice gives me a look that says “this is what I deal with.” “You know, Mother, he can’t help the fact that he was born in another country.”
Another dry-as-dust laugh from Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot. “I remember coming to New York when I was your age. The cabbies were all American then. How times have changed.”
Alice bites her lip. It’s clear she wants to leave the room before her mom says anything else.
“I’ll show you to the bedroom,” I say, grabbing their bags.
“My hero,” Alice says, and follows me.
I decide I like Alice.
I don’t mean in that way. Just that she’s a cool person.
I leave Alice in the bedroom and return to the kitchen to find that my mother has made Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot a cup of tea.
My dad has his arms crossed and is leaning against the counter. I can tell from the expression on his face he’s doing everything he can to be polite to our guest.
“I guess you’re asked this a lot—” he begins.
Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot wearily raises a hand to cut him off. “I know. Yes, it is quite tiresome, but I totally understand your curiosity.”
All this is said through a clenched jaw. I swear she hasn’t unclenched since she got here. The words kind of ooze like syrup.
I remember that a lot of maple syrup comes from Maine.
Maybe there’s a connection? Could be, but Alice doesn’t talk like that.
Our guest goes on. “Yes, we are related to those Delanos. Franklin was a cousin of my grandfather.”
Alice joins us. She has a backpack thrown over one shoulder.
“Oh, Mother, you’re not boring them with family history again, are you?”
My mom’s eyes are shining. She’s absolutely captivated. I think at some level she would love to be able to say she was related to a famous president, instead of a pickle merchant who came here from Lithuania.
“It’s not boring at all!” my mom insists. “I love to hear about other people’s families. They’re always so much more interesting than ours!”
Alice plops down onto the couch. She takes out a catalog with a picture of what looks like earnest young people on the cover from her backpack and starts to skim through it.
I recognize it immediately. It’s a college catalog, meant to show why you should go to that school instead of any other. We had stacks of those lying around when Jake was applying. I looked at a few of them.
“Which one is that?” I ask.
“Barnard,” Alice says, flipping through the pages of kids walking around quads, staring at microscopes in labs, and performing in leotards.
“My brother applied to college last year,” I say. “If you can tell the difference between the catalogs, you’re a lot better than I am.”
Alice leans toward me. “Actually, I think they’re all the same. They just change the cover.”
See? She’s cool.
“Well, if that’s the case, darling, why are you dragging me around the entire East Coast?” asks Mrs. Sarah Delano Clench. I mean Cabot.
“The catalogs are all the same,” Alice explains, “but the schools aren’t. Where’s your brother going?”
“Cornell,” I say, trying not to make it sound like a big deal.
Alice closes the catalog and looks up at me. “Wow! That’s awesome!”
Cornell is hard to get into. I know that much.
“We’re still deciding where we want to go,” says her mother. She picks up a napkin and looks at it approvingly. “Cloth napkins. Very nice, Mrs. Kornberg.”
Now it’s my father’s turn to clench his jaw. “It’s Kantrowitz.”
“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Sarah Delano All Jewish Last Names Sound Alike Cabot says. “It’s just that we’ve been staying at so many places.”
“I’m so happy you found us,” Mom jumps in, changing the subject. “And on such short notice.”
Before her mother can answer, Alice pipes up from the couch. “We had this other place all reserved, but then Mother spotted yours, and it’s fifty dollars cheaper a night, so we’re going to share a bed.”
Mrs. Sarah Delano Cheapskate laughs. Well, I guess it’s a laugh. It sounds more like a bark. “Alice is being funny. Ha! Isn’t she a stitch? Yes, we did have somewhere else picked out, but your street looked so charming, we just had to stay here.”
It turns out they’re here to see Barnard and NYU. Alice seems really keen on coming to New York City to live.
“You should live in Brooklyn,” I say. “All the cool people do.”
Alice laughs. “Obviously. You li
ve here.”
“No, I mean—” I start.
“She’s teasing you, young man. My goodness, Allie. I believe you’ve made him blush.”
* * *
Alice and her jerk mother go to dinner with some of her mother’s “college chums” (I swear she actually used that phrase).
As soon as the door closes, my dad starts in. “I didn’t know they still made them like that anymore.”
“Well, I think she’s very classy,” my mom answers.
“She’s like a character from a movie,” I say.
My dad nods. “Exactly! I’m sure she’s going to have a ‘cocktail’ with her ‘college chums.’ ”
My mom makes sure not to make eye contact with me when she says, “Her daughter certainly seems nice. Doesn’t she, Danny?”
“Mom!” I protest. “She’s like five years older than me!”
Mom shakes her head. “I didn’t mean it that way. You are so sensitive.”
My dad clenches his jaw. “Yesss…,” he drawls. “You Hebrew people are so emotional.”
It sounds just like Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot. I burst out laughing, mostly because Mom is trying hard to be mad at Dad when I can tell she secretly agrees.
I figure I might as well try.
I clench my jaw and look down in my lap. “But, Mother. Paper towels? Honestly, where are the linen napkins?”
Dad gives me a high five and my mother throws a cloth napkin at me, hitting me in the face.
After dinner, I head to my room. I have homework for English and history and algebra. I am halfway through reading about the economic causes for the Revolutionary War when I hear noise outside. I guess the Cabots are back. There is a sharp rap on my door.
I get up and answer it. Mrs. Sarah Delano Cabot is standing there. Looking down her nose, of course.
“Good evening, Davis,” she tries.
“Danny,” I say.
“Yes, well,” she goes on, “I just wanted to see if it was all right if Alice and I use the bathroom for a little bit.”
The Ghost in Apartment 2R Page 9