by Carol Snow
He blinked at me. "Rose said you were moving here."
"What?" I shook my head. "I never said that! I'll be here for a little while--a few more weeks, maybe. But then I'm going home. I start school at the beginning of September."
"Oh," he said. "That's too bad." He sounded really disappointed. "But tonight? If you're not doing anything? A bunch of kids are going to have a bonfire out on the beach. Me and Leo and Delilah are going."
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"I'll have to check with my parents," I said, thankful to be able to use them as an excuse. "Urn, where's the bathroom?"
"Oh--right. It's over here." He led me across the little room, past a futon unfolded to create a bed (unmade), an old television on a fake-wood stand, and a cluttered bookshelf. There was a kitchenette only slightly less inadequate than the one at Home Suite Home. A small table and chairs, painted bright blue, sat under a tall window painted--what else?--purple.
Off the main room was one bedroom---or should I say, two almost bedrooms: a curtain ran along the center of the room. Each side had a single bed, the far one covered with a rumpled orange coverlet, the near with a crisp black one. The walls on the far, orange-bed side were yellow; on the black-bed side they were white and covered with colorful art. That side reminded me, in a weird way, of my room back home, which I'd decorated as a kind of mini photograph gallery.
"Bathroom's on Delilah's side," Duncan said, pointing to yet another little door on the white wall.
"But what happens when she's in here and someone has to use the bathroom?"
He shrugged as if it was obvious. "Then they walk through her room."
"But what about privacy?" I asked. He shook his head, confused.
I took a step into the bathroom. "I'll meet you downstairs."
"You want me to wait for you?" He looked eager. Too eager. "No, thanks. I can handle it."
***
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The blue jeans were too short, while the black jeans were so baggy, they wouldn't even stay up. The white shirt had a tear in the seam, and the black shirt was loose around the shoulders. I should have let the zebra girl have it.
I wished I had attacked the merchandise like Delilah, grabbing everything in my path, figuring out what worked later. Tears pricked my eyes. I swallowed a lump of anger. How could my parents do this to me?
I put on the too-short blue jeans and the purple shirt and stuffed everything else into my plastic grocery bag. In the living room, the spray of light-jewels from the disco ball stopped me. The light sprinkled the pale yellow wall and danced across the futon's rumbled white sheets. I pulled out my camera and took a few shots: close-ups of the ball, tiny squares of light on the bright blue table. I snapped a picture of the window because I'd never seen one painted purple, the sill a bright green.
When I got back downstairs, they had cleared a spot in the room and tacked a pale blue sheet to the wall like a canvas. Another blue sheet lay on the floor below it. Delilah fussed with the dressmaker's dummy, adjusting a frilly white dress that I couldn't imagine her wearing. A digital camera on a tripod faced the dummy. Was that what all of this junk was about--Delilah's art?
When he saw me, Duncan popped up from the couch. "You look nice."
"The pants are too short," I said. I've never been good at taking compliments, even when they were deserved. And I wasn't used to compliments from a boy. But most of all, I felt stupid in the pants, which ended just above my ankles.
Delilah looked up from straightening the dress. "They'll make
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good cutoffs. There are some scissors on the table over there."
Suddenly, I felt better. She was absolutely right. I needed shorts more than jeans anyway. If I hadn't been so miserable, I would have thought of cutoffs myself.
"The black ones are way too baggy," I said, retrieving the scissors. "And the black shirt doesn't fit, either."
"So we'll sell them," Delilah said with a shrug. She went behind the tripod and peered into the camera lens. When she released the shutter, a flash seared the room. She checked the shot and then strode over to strip the dummy.
"We'll what?" I said.
"Sell them." She pulled the dress off the dummy, folded it carefully, and put it on a pile of clothes. Then she took a red T-shirt-- my T-shirt--and spread it on the blue sheet on the ground. "We got any more Abercrombie in the same size?" she asked Leo.
"I'll check." He dug through a cardboard box till he found a cute yellow shirt.
Delilah laid the yellow shirt next to my red one, unscrewed the camera from the tripod, and snapped a picture.
"I'm confused," I admitted.
"We sell this stuff on eBay," Duncan told me, smiling. (Did he smile this much at everyone?)
"Brand names net the highest prices," Delilah said, folding up the Abercrombie shirts and adding them to the pile. "People are such sheep."
"Delilah hits the thrift store," Duncan said. "Leo and I do the yard sales."
"So you don't really collect Pokémon cards?" I asked. He laughed. "Is that what you thought?"
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I rolled my eyes. "Of course not."
"He's gaga for snow globes, though," Leo said.
"Shut up," Duncan said, turning red. "At least it's better than that crappy disco music you buy."
When Delilah finished photographing the clothes, she moved on to the mugs, shot glasses, and Pokémon cards. Meanwhile, I went back upstairs and turned my "new" jeans into "new" shorts. Then Delilah downloaded her shots onto the computer in the front of the shop. She frowned in concentration at the screen, picking just the right words for the ads.
At eleven o'clock, Leo unlocked the front door. "So, Dee, me and Duncan were thinking about skating down to the beach." He snuck one sneaker-clad foot to the outside pavement.
"Duncan and I." Delilah's head shot up. "It's your day to watch the store."
He licked his lips. "Yeah, but you're busy with the computer right now, plus this is a really good opportunity for you to work on your art...."
She frowned at him.
"I can't go to the beach, anyway," Duncan said. "My dad's boat is getting in now. I told him I'd meet him on the pier to clean fish." He looked at me. "You want to come with me? To ask him about that weird picture?"
"Sure." It's not like I had any other plans.
"Can I see it again?" Duncan asked.
I had a feeling he was just using that as an excuse to stand near me. For some reason that was okay.
I fished the camera out of its case and turned it on. The picture of Leo's disco ball came to life. "I just thought it might
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be a cool picture," I murmured, hurrying past it and the next shot, of the blue kitchen table sprinkled with light. I hoped they wouldn't think it was strange, me taking pictures of their apartment.
And then I got to the window shot: the purple trim, the green sill, the dirty panes. I screamed.
Delilah bolted away from her computer and across the floor. I thrust the camera at her as if it were something frightening and alive.
The photo was supposed to be a still-life shot: objects only, nothing animate. But looking through the panes, staring straight at me, was a man.
Delilah's already pale face grew even whiter. "That's our window."
"I liked the colors," I croaked, embarrassment pushing past my terror.
"There's no roof or ledge outside that window," she whispered. "Nothing to stand on."
"There was no one there," I said.
The man had sandy-colored hair. His eyes were wide with happy surprise, his hands pressed against the windowpane. He was much younger than the old woman on the beach, closer to Rose's age than my parents'.
"Give me the memory card," Delilah said, pointing to my camera. "Let's see what it looks like on the big screen. Maybe it's just a shadow or something."
I popped the card out of my camera, and she slipped it into the photo printer. I didn't even realize I was holding my breath
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until Delilah pushed a few buttons and the photo loomed on the screen. The man's face was unmistakable, his expression oddly sweet, like he was looking at a kitten bounding after a ball, not peering through a second-floor window.
Leo stopped sneaking out the front door and came to get a closer look. "Mom always said this place had good energy, but she never said it was haunted."
"Mom wouldn't know if it was haunted," Delilah said, irritation tingeing the fear in her voice. "Besides, doesn't this guy look vaguely familiar?"
Leo checked the screen. "No."
"He does," I said, shuddering. How could that be? I'd only been here a week.
"I wouldn't know if what was haunted?" Rose asked, coming through the front door. Today she wore a cutoff jean miniskirt and the same black halter top I'd seen on her the last time. Her auburn hair hung loose around her shoulders.
Delilah pointed at the photo printer's screen. "Madison took this picture a little while ago. She swears there was no one in the window."
I expected Rose to start spouting stuff about ghosts and energy and transformation. Instead, she squinted at the screen and said, "Are you sure?"
I nodded.
She bit her lip. "Because sometimes the light hits the window in a funny way, and you can't see what's on the other side."
"There was no one there," I said. "There's nothing to stand on," Delilah said. Rose turned away from the printer. "Maybe he had a ladder.
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The building next door is a bed-and-breakfast. Maybe it was a repairman."
"He wasn't there when I took the picture," I insisted. "Leo thinks it's a ghost," Duncan said.
"There's no such thing as ghosts," Delilah said. "Besides, I keep feeling like I've seen this guy before. Do you recognize him, Mom?"
"No." Rose glanced at the screen. "But it's not a ghost."
"How do you know?" Duncan asked. "That's not what ghosts look like."
Suddenly the room felt very, very cold. I hugged myself to keep from shivering.
Kimberley Cove, down from Sandyland Beach on the other side of the rock outcropping, was smaller than I expected, given that Duncan had told me it was the place where all the fishing boats moored. It was just a protected inlet with maybe thirty moorings, about half of which had boats attached. The pier that Duncan had mentioned was so small and weathered that most people would call it a dock. There was also a tiny unhygienic-looking clam shack and an even tinier building with a sign that said harbormaster . Still, it was a pretty spot. The blue water, calmer than the open ocean, glinted with sequins of light. Some morning, I'd come back with my camera.
"There's my dad." Duncan waved, and a figure in a bright blue polo shirt waved back. He looked too preppy to be Larry, but as we got closer, I recognized the friendly smile and the puppy-dog eyes, the stubble and the cross dangling from one ear. The shirt was just a uniform.
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Larry stood on the float at the end of the pier helping sunburned men in T-shirts unload their gear from an unsteady-looking white boat. Inside the boat was another man, tall with steel-colored hair, wearing a matching bright blue polo. The boat, called the Peggy, had six seats on the open back deck and a raised bridge with a steering wheel. The bridge was so high, I got queasy just looking at it.
"Your dad's boat is smaller than I expected," I said (smooth as always).
"It's not a commercial fishing boat; it's a charter. Tourists pay to go out. And it's not my dad's boat. Captain's this guy named Ray Clarke."
"You ever go up on the bridge?" I asked, looking up.
"Oh, yeah--it's awesome. Best way to spot the fish." He held up an arm and pointed to the tips of his fingers, indicating the bridge. "And when you hit a wave?" He moved his arm, his fingers swooping around like a crazy bird. "It's like being on a roller coaster or something, only better because you're not strapped in. Total head rush."
Down at the float, Duncan got to work cleaning fish. "If you want, we could go to the beach when I'm done," he said.
"Thanks." I tried not to look at the fish guts. "But I need to stop by the Internet cafe to check my e-mail, and then I told my parents that I'd do something with them this afternoon."
Okay, that was a lame excuse, even if my parents weren't at work. But for now, at least, I just wanted to hang with Duncan in a group setting--you know, with my very temporary summer friends.
When Larry had finished unloading all of the tourists' gear, I pulled out my camera.
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"Been working okay for you?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. "It's just...Did Duncan tell you about the old woman who showed up in one shot?"
"Yeah," he said. "Weird."
"Well, there's this other picture I took today, over at...the apartment." (What was I supposed to call it? Delilah's house? Rose's?)
When he saw the window picture, he drew a sharp breath. "I told Rose to keep the shades down. I changed all the window locks--half of 'em were broken--but most of the time she just leaves the windows wide open." He looked up from the screen. "Did anyone call the cops?"
I shook my head, "The thing is, the guy wasn't there when I took the picture. Leo thinks he's a ghost." (That was easier to say than "I think he's a ghost.")
Larry stared at me, expressionless.
"Is it possible for the camera to do that? Take pictures of ghosts?"
He continued to stare. I squirmed with embarrassment.
"I don't actually believe in ghosts," I said, trying to cover myself. "I'm just trying to figure out what's going on."
His face relaxed. "There's plenty of stuff I don't understand. And, yeah, okay, maybe some people really are, whatever--extra sensitive. And maybe they can feel things the rest of us can't. I'm working real hard on that keep-an-open-mind deal, but ghosts-- that's pushing it." I had a feeling he'd had this conversation with Rose once or twenty times.
"I'm with you," I said. "Totally." I didn't want to believe in ghosts. Ghosts scared me. Get out of the house.
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"I'm just looking for an explanation," I continued. "Something technical, you know? The thing is, I'm positive that guy wasn't there. Can you get a double exposure on a digital camera?"
"No."
"Maybe?"
"No. Like I told you, the camera captures the light, stores the energy, and then translates it into a number. You can Photoshop an image on your computer, but it's not going to change in the camera."
"I'm sure he wasn't there," I said.
"Soon as I get out of here, I'm going to check those locks," he said. "Did you print this out?" I shook my head.
"Maybe next time you're in the shop, then. I want to get a better look at this guy."
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11.
The Internet Cafe was packed . I had to hang out with my vanilla iced latte for almost an hour before I scored a computer. Whatever. It's not like I had anything better to do. I didn't want to go to the beach alone--and it would be really embarrassing if I ran into Duncan after saying I had plans with my parents. Photography was out because it would be hours before the sun fell low enough for any decent pictures--and besides, my camera was starting to give me the creeps.
"So I'll see you tonight," Duncan had said when I'd left him on the boat, up to his arms in fish guts. "At the bonfire."
"What time?" I asked, still not sure I wanted to go--and not sure my parents would let me.
"Nine o'clock?" he said. "I could come get you."
"No!" My parents would take one look at Duncan, with his crazy hair, his skater-boy clothes, and his earrings and--oh God. "My motel is kind of far." And this is not a date. "I'll just meet all of you in front of the shop."
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When a computer finally opened up in the cafe , I dashed over with my cup of sweet, watery ice, having long since finished the latte. I went to MySpace. My home page popped up, the picture of me with brown hair seeming like yet another photo of a ghost.
There were more weird comments like the ones I'd
seen before: r u moving???
I'd almost asked my parents about the phone bill that morning, but I'd chickened out, not sure I was ready to hear what they had to say. Even though my mom was so totally in love with the house, it kind of made sense that they'd sell. After all, it was a really nice place; it would bring in a lot of money. Still, I hated the idea of moving into something smaller, giving up my room and the swimming pool.
Is that why they hadn't told me what was going on--because they knew I'd be upset? Maybe they were afraid I'd make a scene, but I wouldn't: tough times call for tough measures and all that. Besides, I reserved my scenes for occasions when they might actually do me some good.
Oh, well. Maybe they'd make enough money this summer to cover all of their payments.
Lexie had left me two messages. From Thursday:
where r u? u need a new cell! it rained @ the lake so we came back early.
The one from Friday--yesterday--read:
omg, mad, wd you call or i.m. or something??? saw rolf last nt & all he eld talk about was u!!!!
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The thought of Rolf made my hands shake. I wrote:
i'm still stuck @ the beach, can't w8t 2 leave, what did rolf say???
Just as I hit "send," Lexie appeared online. Before I knew it, we were IMing.
LEX: OMG! she lives! where r u???? ppl are saying ur in the witness protection program. MAD: LOL. sorry, nothing so exciting--just sandyland.
LEX: when r u coming home?
MAD: not till aug, i think, where did u c rolf?
LEX: melissa's house, she had a few ppl over last nt. rolf is on the paper too, doing special events or sports or something random, anyway, he kept saying, where's madison? so I go, y do u care? ur w/ celia?
MAD: OMG!!!! but u knew they broke up.
LEX: i wanted 2 hear wot he wd say. he goes, celia was a mistake.
MAD: GET OUT!!!!!!
LEX: & he sd, i was kinda immature last yr & i didn't no wot i wanted, and then he goes AGAIN, where's madison? he's supposed 2 call me 2nt 2 talk about u.
At that, my Internet time ran out. I went to the counter to buy
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some more time, but the line was so long that by the time I logged on again, Lexie was long gone. She'd left me a message, though.