Ghost in His Eyes

by Carrie Aarons

  And now I'm back. Dredging through the quicksand of emotions that hit me each time I see a landmark on the beach or in the woods.

  The tree under which I'd asked Blake to be my girlfriend.

  The old hammock Joel and I had set up and spent time swinging from.

  The abandoned house, high on the hill, that held so many memories it was hard to even look at.

  Most people thought that when the sun was highest in the sky, when it kissed the water in iridescent, sparkling rays … that was the best time to observe the horses.

  But my favorite part of the day had always been dusk, the hour before the sun fades over the trees.

  Being back on Carova is like a recurring dream I forgot I had. One of the ones you always wake up from, only to forget throughout the day. But when you fall back into sleep, the same fantasy world comes to life in your brain, reintroducing itself.

  A chestnut-colored mare walks by me, barely looking at where I stand just feet away. I’d forgotten too, how trusting these animals were. How unbothered by humans they were.

  I jot down a few notes in my black Moleskine, about her walking patterns, coat condition, the way she reacts to me. I think this is the horse Dad said had just given birth, and I can tell by her still semi-swollen abdomen.

  There don’t seem to be any other horses around for the moment, she must have left the foal somewhere, so I observe the foliage, the animal tracks. It feels good to be back in my element, documenting and taking stock before I get down to the nitty-gritty of business. Since the tours we put on, taking tourists out in open-air jeeps to observe the wild horses, are our moneymaker … we need to make them as exciting as possible. And to do that, we need to know the horses’ patterns. We need to know how they group themselves, where they hang out. What time they’re on the beach and which ones might be a problem around people.

  I’ve been out here for two hours, collecting samples and just watching, breathing in the air I haven’t been blessed to be surrounded by in quite some time. And until now, until the sun went down and the dark descended over the long sand roads, I have avoided looking up at that house.

  The one that is more familiar to me than my own childhood home. The yellow three-story with the wrap-around decks, the ones that Joel and I used to race around. The planks that Blake used to lay on, her back sticking to the deck in the summer heat, as she looked up into the heavens of stars overhead.

  A light came from the big bay window on the second floor, and I knew she was in there. Over the years, I’d tried to quietly keep tabs on her, make sure she was okay. I never asked my parents anything overtly obvious about her, but I made it my business to know where she was, if she’d left. From all I knew, she’d gone to college for two years and then came back, staying in this house even through the second most tragic event in her life.

  How easy it would be to throw a rock at her bedroom window, the one I’d climbed in all of those moons ago. Who knew if that was still even her room? Maybe she’d moved to the master on the third floor. Maybe she had a man who stayed there with her.

  The thought burned me, a simmering mixture of rage and guilt roiling in my gut. I had no claim to her, no right to even dream something like that.

  Putting my pen and notebook in my back pocket, I start to walk towards the Jeep I’d driven out here.

  Until … a figure appears in the window. The last rays of the sun dance over the glass, but from down here in the shadows, I can make out her face watching the sunset. The way her eyes still go wide at the last twinkle of the day, her hands spreading over the pane like she’s trying to grab it and hold on. Does the night haunt her like it does me?

  And just like that, she’s gone, walking away from the window as the dark swallows me. My fingertips tingle at the memory of holding her on that deck, down on the beach … so many sunsets we’d spent together.

  But that was a lifetime ago. A lifetime that was dead and gone, taken on the darkest of nights with one wrong turn.

  7

  Blake

  In this day and age, any job could be done online. Hell, you didn't even need a degree to do a lot of them.

  But my father's one wish for me, after everything he'd been through, was to see me go to college. So I'd obliged. Not that it turned out any differently than any other thing I ever set out to do. Crashed and burn, tragedy heaped upon tragedy. If anyone ever truly examined my life, it could probably rival those books about series of unfortunate events.

  I’d finished my degree though, a double major in accounting and graphic design. I know, the two things were so completely opposite that it was weird I excelled at them simultaneously. My dad used to say that the left and right side of my brain were twins, they couldn’t even tell each other apart. The thought makes me instantly sad.

  It’s amazing what you can do with such different sets of skills though. By designing my own website and doing some social media marketing with killer graphics, I’ve accumulated over thirty different clients that I keep books for. The numbers calm me; they’re easy and always work out to what they’re supposed to be. No fancy stuff, no guessing, just formulas.

  And there is the creative side of me. Some of my clients, including a nail salon, an Outer Banks tour company, an author who resides in Carova … they’ve spread the word about my graphic work. And over the last couple of years, my design business has grown to include dozens of clients. It’s the passionate side of my business, the fun part of my day where I get to imagine and create.

  I set my own deadlines and work efficiently as my own boss. I’m professional, have a daily planner the size of my kitchen wall, and get joy from both sides of my business. It’s nice to be able to work from home, to run on the beach in the morning and have Rhett curl up at my feet during the day.

  It’s especially nice because I don’t have to see anyone face to face. Sure, every once in a while a client will want a meeting, and I grudgingly comply. But mostly I can instant message or email anyone I need to talk to, and I have a business line that gets turned off from calls at six p.m. every day.

  I’ve carved a life for myself, an island that I’m very happy to keep myself on.

  The latest book cover I’m working on sits on Photoshop on my MacBook in front of me; a thriller about a man who may or may not have killed his wife. The day is cloudy and rainy, and all I feel like doing is curling up on the couch with tea and a comfy throw blanket wrapped around my shoulders. But I have to get this done; it’s the last thing on my plate for the day. Do I go edgy and dark, or suspenseful and thought-provoking? What I’ve learned from working with authors is that the cover means everything. It’s the first thing that potential customers see, the thing that pulls them in.

  So I guess, books really are judged by their covers.

  Thunder booms from outside, and my attention moves to somewhere outside the window.

  Stevie Nicks sings right to my soul, and I find that I can’t keep focused on my work. It doesn’t happen often, but there are the days when I find all of my attention zapped. When I’m staring off into space for minutes at a time and don’t even realize it until the phone rings.

  The radio drowns out as I realize that my house phone is ringing, not my business line, and isn’t that just weird. Walking to get the cordless, I see a familiar number flash across it.

  Hitting the talk button, I put the phone to my ear with a small smile. “Hi.”

  “Oh good, you’re not passed out from loneliness or flooded out. This is my weekly call to you so you can actually talk to a human being.” Aunt Carolyn’s singsongy voice echoed into my ear.

  She was the one person left in my life who could make me smile just by the sound of her voice. She understood why I’d trapped myself out here, and why it was a lost cause trying to convince me to live a life like every other twenty-seven year old woman.

  “Hey, I talk to people. Maybe not over the phone so much, but I instant message all day long. My fingers are very social beings.” Rhett followed me as I m
ade my way over and lay on the couch.

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. Where is your cellphone by the way? I had a minor freak out when I called six times and you didn’t pick up.”

  I looked around, seeing if I could spot it. “I don’t know, might be in a bag somewhere. I forgot the last time I charged it.”

  My cellphone was always missing or off, I couldn’t be bothered with it. I only had a Facebook page for my business, and wasn’t friends with anyone I’d known in high school.

  “You’re unlike any other human I know on this planet. Okay, so tell me everything that’s been going on.”

  For some reason, I always want to talk to Aunt Carolyn. My dad’s only sister, she lives in Texas with her husband and two daughters. They’re adorable, and come to visit every year for about a week. And then it takes me two months to recover in silence from their bubbly chatter.

  Aunt Carolyn’s the only one I have now, and has been like a mother to me for the duration of my life. Before she met Justin, she’d lived in North Carolina so close to us that I’d get to see her about twice a week. She was the only female figure I’d ever had, since my mom had taken off the minute she’d given birth.

  I tell her about the minutiae of my life, the new jobs I’ve taken on and the foal that’s been futzing around the neighborhood. She talks about the girls first few weeks of school, and how happy she is to be back at work full time. Of course she throws in a good gossipy story or two about the community moms.

  And even though it’s been at the forefront of my mind for days, I can’t bring myself to tell her about Carson. I don’t want to hear her advice right now, in fact, I don’t want to talk about it at all.

  Giving it a voice will only drive the dagger in deeper, peel away the scab that has so thinly grown over the chunk missing out of my heart. So I don’t say a thing, just let the hurt fester; let those deep midnight black eyes burn a hole in the front of my brain.

  “Hey, maybe you can come out to Texas for Thanksgiving?” Aunt Carolyn’s voice has a hopeful note in it.

  She asks all the time, and all the time I make excuses. Of why I can’t go, why I have to work or someone needs help housesitting or something equally as trivial. The truth is, I can’t leave this place. Can’t bring myself to get on a plane, or go out in public. I’ve done this to myself, making my isolation a disease.

  “Yeah, maybe I will.” We both know I won’t. That I can’t.

  That’s the thing about being alone. Do it for too long and it becomes comfortable. Loneliness becomes your partner; you dedicate all of your time and energy to it. You build your life around it, secluding yourself so much that when it comes time to venture out again, panic seizes your chest. An elephant of anxiety sits on your lungs and heart, squeezing them until you retreat into your self-built paradise of seclusion, where you feel safe.

  After saying good-bye and that she loves me more than chocolate, she always says that, we hang up.

  And I go back to my isolation, elated and filled with sorrow at the same time.

  8

  Carson

  “Dude! So good to see you.” Anthony grabs me up, slapping my back in a man hug that leaves me choking for air.

  Alice, his yellow lab and also the office mascot, bumps into my legs as her tail goes a mile a minute. “Good to see you too, man. Happy to be back. Hey everyone.”

  I wave to the room, with its twenty employees sitting in various positions or noshing on the bagels I just put down on a communal table. The place has surely grown since my great-grandfather started it. He’d built the company with only three employees: himself and another tour guide who would load up a dozen people in a Jeep and take them out to see the horses, and a receptionist who helped with bookings. Over the years, my grandfather and father have expanded to allow eight full-time tour guides, a marketing team, a social media coordinator, three sales members, three receptionists and an office manager.

  “Still haven’t found a razor I see.” Diane, the North Carolina Wild Horse Association’s longest tenured employee, besides my father of course, winks at me.

  Her salt and pepper hair is the same as I always remember it, but her spunk for life and passion for this job, even in the twenty-seven years I’ve known her, has never waned.

  "I actually happen to like this look on me. Makes me more manly. More capable to oversee this unruly lot." I stretched my arms wide and pointed to the employees in the room.

  She rolls her eyes. "I'll still swat your head with my newspaper and tell your father. Don't forget that."

  Thing was, she really did scare the crap out of me.

  "Are you coming in here to be some new overlord?" A voice from the back pipes up, and I smile, seeing our lone IT and social media wizard.

  Melissa has been with the association for three years, and she's my dad's favorite person, not to mention employee. She always has fresh ideas, is positive in the workplace, and definitely isn't bad on the eyes either.

  Blake's face pops into my head, the way she stared so desperately out at the setting sun. As if it was the one cure to her loneliness. And I knew she was lonely. Because I felt the same empty, hollow rattling in every crevice of my body as well.

  “Listen, y’all … I’m not here to take anyone’s place, or to pull rank. I’ve been quietly helping with the business for a long time, learning from my father. I know you all know exactly how to excel at your jobs, and that you put that to practice. I’m an animal psychologist for God’s sake, not a businessman. I’ll be here, to help, to give advice, but this is your company too. Some of you have been here longer than I have. So please, it’s business as usual.”

  “You’re damn right I’ve been here longer than you. Wiped your damn diapers, boy.” Diane plugs her nose like I stink.

  The whole office cracks up, and I may or may not be blushing.

  Melissa passes me on the way to the printer and pats my back. “Sounds good, boss. In that case, how about you see some of the business? I’m going out to a meeting this afternoon in town, and wanted you to tag along.”

  “Of course, I’m going to get up to date with all of you this week about what you’re working on. Where is lunch?”

  “The Crab House, of course. Come on, I’ll get you some soup.”

  Last time I’d been home, Melissa had offered to take me to lunch since she had been relatively new to the company. I’d been going to the Crab House, an Outer Banks institution, for years … but had never gotten the crab bisque for some reason. Well … it was a religious experience and she was there to witness it. Funny, I think Dad had been trying to secretly set me up with her. Sure, she was pretty … but I hadn’t been able to think about a woman in that way in a long time.

  Ten years to be exact.

  “Awesome, I’m in. But only if you’re buying.” I flirt a little, because my personality leans toward it and because I want to keep a friendly environment in the office.

  She laughs, her auburn curls bouncing with every facial expression. “Well, technically it’s a business lunch. And since you’re the boss man now, it’s on you!”

  An hour later, I’m sitting across from Melissa at the best local spot. Even in the off-season, it’s packed, simply because the locals know how good the food is. They even put up with it in the summer, when the line for a table is around the block.

  We order drinks, a water for her and a beer for me, because why not? I’m back in the Banks, and I feel both elated and confused about it.

  “So who is this meeting with?” I pop a piece of calamari in my mouth, savoring the freshest seafood I’ve had in months. A Tom Petty song plays softly in the background, and I’m transported to the easier times of summer.

  Boston is no joke when it comes to good cuisine, but there is just nothing like the seafood joints in my hometown.

  “A new graphic designer, she’s local. I’ve only spoken to her through her email form on her website, and I want to feel her out before I tell her exactly what the job is. Sometimes people
are weird if you tell them you work with the association, like it’s double the amount of pressure. I mean, I get it. The horses are legend around here and everyone wants to protect them while also promoting our area.”

  She talks with her hands, an adopted behavior from her Tri-state area upbringing.

  “Got it, I agree with you. Going into meetings blind, with no expectations, sometimes helps both parties. Do you have any of her work?”

  Melissa pulls out her iPhone and scrolls through some apps before opening a folder. “Here, she’s done work for a lot of different companies, both here and throughout the U.S.”

  I take the phone, scrolling through the images. This girl is good, whoever she is. The graphics pop and draw you in, and I find myself really wanting to stop by the local ice cream store or the clothing shop around the block. Her designs include the perfect amount of salesmanship, but are subtle and … beautiful. I’m suddenly anxious to meet her.

  “These are great. You really know how to find good talent, huh?” Melissa had tripled our social media following since she came on board.

  “That’s why you pay me the big bucks.” She snorts, because we both know she could make double the salary somewhere else. But our company is run like a family, because we are one, and you can’t beat the relaxed atmosphere and weather down here.

  Some days, I question why I ever left. And then the storm cloud that is never far from my head moves back in, making me all too aware of why I fled.

  Five minutes pass as we wait, talking interspersed with noshing on some appetizers.

  “And here are your other guests, Miss.” The waiter shows up beside me, and I turn my head to see the graphic’s whiz Melissa has schedule this meeting with.

  But the only person moving to sit down at our table is Blake.

  Her clean, apple scent hits my nose, transporting me back to a blanket on the beach when we were sixteen. My body is stock still, like if I move even a hair on my head, she’ll bolt like a skittish animal.