by Megan Crewe
Technically, it was the dead person who’d wasted my time, but I’d rather Tim thought I had everything under control.
“This is an old house,” I said. “It might not be her. Could be someone from ages ago.” I paused. “Turn on the light?”
Tim pushed the switch and looked at me expectantly. I looked back at him. Even in the yellowy light, his eyes were a cool gray-blue. The same as hers. I dropped my gaze and let my hair fall over my face.
“I’ll get going,” I said.
“Sure, of course.” Tim sounded nervous all of a sudden. Wondering what I’d seen inside his head, maybe. “You live far? I could drive you.”
“It’s just over on Earl Street,” I said. “I’ll walk.”
“Well . . . here.” He grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from the hall table and jotted something down. “My cell number. Just in case you think of anything, or—”
I nodded, and stuffed it into my pocket.
I expected a million questions as I laced up my boots, but he was silent, leaning against the stair railing. When he saw me out, he said, “Thank you,” instead of good-bye, in a voice like I’d donated him a lung. Didn’t ask whether I was coming back to try again, or if I thought next time we might find her. He must have been thinking it. I guess he was scared I’d say no if he pushed.
The thing was, even I wasn’t sure how I would answer when he did.
CHAPTER
7
Our next-door neighbors, the Guzmans, had this enormous gray van that as far as I could tell never left their driveway. It totally hid our house from anyone coming up on the west side. So it wasn’t until I trudged past it that I saw Paige out on our front lawn and stopped dead in surprise. She was drooped over the lazy-man’s garden Mom had thrown together on one of her brief visits home, skimming her hand through the tulips and daisies, so dim her hair and face blurred together.
I glanced up and down the street. Nothing moved except the sparrows swooping between the Stevensons’ red maple and Mr. Bradley’s oak. No one living hung out on Earl Street at two in the afternoon.
Paige flopped onto her back and lay there with her arms folded over her chest, three feet above the ground. If she was trying to freak me out with her corpse impression, she was doing a good job.
“Hey, Paige,” I said, scooting closer so I could talk quietly. “What’s going on?”
“Cassie?” Paige murmured. She didn’t bother to look over.
“No, the masked avenger.”
She didn’t smile, either.
With a loud sigh, she rolled onto her side. She looked at the locks of hair that fell across her arm and started twisting one of them between her fingers.
“Do you think Larry still remembers me?” she said.
Oh, no. It’d been so long since the last time she’d gone mopey about Larry, I’d thought she was over it.
“Sure he does,” I said, trying to sound so convincing that I wouldn’t have to elaborate. Larry would have forgotten his last name before he forgot Paige. Watching a rescue team haul your dead girlfriend’s body out of the bottom of a lake is one of those things that’ll stick with you. But I didn’t think that was quite the way Paige wanted to be remembered.
Paige murmured incoherently and threw herself down with her face buried in her arms. I crouched down on the grass beside her. “Hey, Paige, of course he remembers you. You remember all the guys you dated, right? And you and Larry went out for, like, a year.”
“Yeah,” Paige said. “But boys are different.”
“Not that different. Nobody forgets you, Paige.”
She peeked at me over her arm, her eyes huge and dark in her hazy face.
“What’s with you today?” I asked. “Why are you worrying about Larry?”
She hesitated. “I went to his house,” she said. “I just, y’know, wanted to see how he’s doing. And—”
“And?” I braced myself for the worst. Sometimes Paige didn’t know when to leave things alone. It’d been a nightmare when she’d caught him banging one of her former friends a month after the funeral. Thank God for her awful after-death memory, or she’d still be in hysterics over it.
“He’s gone!” Her voice quavered. “All his stuff . . . his whole room, it’s empty, his mom was in there repainting. I don’t know where he went.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, he’d be twenty-one now, wouldn’t he? He must have moved out, got an apartment somewhere. Maybe he’s going to college out of state. I’m sure he’s okay.”
Paige stared at me. “College,” she said. Which was where she’d have been, if she hadn’t . . .
“Never mind,” I said, too loud. A blackbird shuddered off the phone line overhead. “It’s no big deal. Let’s go inside. I’ll watch some TV with you.”
“No,” Paige whined. “No, no, no.” She squashed her face into her arms, her shoulders shaking. As far as I know, the dead can’t produce tears, but that didn’t stop Paige from going through the motions of crying. “I want Mom,” she said. “Where’s Mom?”
Where was Mom? Mom was jetting off around the world just to avoid thinking about Paige. I’d been the one here with Paige through every tragedy she’d wailed over for the last four years. Didn’t that count?
Even in that flash of anger, I knew it didn’t. Paige’s last night, four years ago, it’d been Mom fluttering around her, giggling with her and touching up her hair. I knew, because I’d heard them through the wall between Paige’s bedroom and the bathroom, where I’d been perched on the edge of the bathtub, ripping threads out of a hand towel. I’d gone and thrown myself onto my bed in the dark, and hated Paige for having everything, for not noticing what was happening to me at school, for not caring—hated her so much I’d wished she’d disappear and never come back.
Guilt swelled in my stomach. “She’ll be home soon,” I said. Not that Paige would get any comfort when Mom returned. What had she done, back then, when Paige was upset? I couldn’t replicate the hugs or the soothing voice. Even if Paige would have liked a root beer float, she couldn’t drink one now.
The breeze rose, wisping across my face, and I smelled Mom’s daisies and the rosebush next door. Flowers. That’d been one of their rituals: Mom and Paige strolling over to the flower shop, picking out the best bouquet, and splitting it between the dining room table and Paige’s desk. Nothing got Paige beaming like a vaseful of fresh flowers to bury her face in.
I shoved my hands into my pockets. A buck-fifty snack money. I’d spent most of the week’s allowance at the Salvation Army store buying these stupid boots.
Hell, it was spring. Any idiot could find flowers for free. A little surprise to cheer Paige up—I could manage that.
“Go inside,” I told her. “Hang out with Dad. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Paige drifted upright. “Dad’s gone to a lunch meeting with a client.”
“Well, hang out in there anyway. My radio’s on, isn’t it? Listen to some music. I’ll be back in half an hour, tops.”
“All right,” she said, her voice heavy with melancholy, and wafted toward the porch.
I jogged around the house to grab the old bike from the garage. As I came back up the driveway, Paige was just vanishing into the wall. I hopped on the bike and coasted onto the road, making it past five houses before I had to start pedaling. At the corner, I turned left onto Mabel Avenue. Six blocks up, the yard of Rockefeller PS, my old elementary school, bordered on a city park. The parks crew only bothered to mow the lawn every month or two, and most of the time they missed the edges.
As I braked outside the playground, the wheels squeaking, Melvin was making his usual rounds. He was a strange old guy with bushy eyebrows and a floppy mustache, so dim he’d have faded into the scenery if it weren’t for his brilliant yellow suit. He was the only dead person I’d met who was always wandering, sometimes in the school yard, sometimes outside the strip mall a few blocks over, sometimes on the street right past my house.
I called him Melvin in my head b
ecause he looked like a Melvin, but I had no clue what his real name was. The one time I’d tried to start up a conversation, he had poked at me with his cane and sputtered something about the “corruption of a decaying metropolis crumbling on the heads of the masses.” I’d pretty much left him to himself after that.
Now he swung his cane like a golf club as he walked past me, whacking it through the chain-link fence that surrounded the tennis courts to the left of the school yard. I nodded to him, and he narrowed his eyes. When he’d moved on, I leaned my bike against the fence and shuffled along the edge of the tennis courts. The grass there, shot through with sprigs of wild violets, clover, bluebells, and Queen Anne’s lace, brushed my calves. I kneeled and started picking.
After a few fumbles, I found a system: Pick with the right hand, hold with the left. I plucked a bunch of everything but the dandelions, which to Paige were more weeds than flowers. When I got to the end of the fence, my fingers were tacky with brownish-green sap. I went back to the playground and stopped by the wooden ramp of a slide to evaluate my bouquet. The colors and shapes jumbled together in a florist’s nightmare, but the bunch was big and bright. It smelled sweet when I lowered my nose to it. I held it out in front of me, eyeballed it, and decided it would do.
Behind me, up on the paved area just outside the school, shoes started slapping the pavement in time with the thudding of a basketball. The net swished. I sat down on the grass, setting the flowers in my lap. The trick would be getting them home on the bike without losing the petals on the way. I pulled at the hem of my shirt, trying to figure out if I could swaddle them in it without flashing random passersby. It’d work if I kept a hand on them. Leaning against the side of the ramp, I started to stand up.
A coy, ever-so-slightly nasal voice floated to me from across the distance. “Waiting for someone?” I hesitated, still half crouched. It was a voice I knew. The basketball hesitated, too.
“Hey there, gorgeous,” said another familiar voice. “I was wondering if you were ever going to get here.”
I sidled around and peered over the top of the ramp. Danielle and Paul were standing entwined on the pavement near the school entrance, her hair falling over his manly biceps. They were going at it so enthusiastically you could tell they were using their tongues even from where I sat. Good thing the little kids hadn’t gotten out yet—their innocent minds would have been scarred for life.
It’d been so long since I’d hung out at Danielle’s place, it hadn’t even occurred to me that she lived close to Rockefeller Elementary. Her house was half a block off Mabel; you could see the top of the school building from her parents’ bedroom window. We used to wander over after school, grab some cookies from the kitchen, and prance Barbies around her bedroom. Back when we were the innocent kids.
Danielle stepped away from Paul, smacking the ball out from under his arm. She laughed as he lunged after it.
“Foul play!” he called, scooping it up. “Free throw for the home team.” He leaned over for another game of tonsil hockey. I eyed the gravel and fought the urge to gag.
After a century or two, they pulled apart. “I had to hand in that late essay to Ms. Corning,” Danielle said, breathless. “I swear she was hiding from me. I went all over Frazer looking for her. So you coming over? My parents won’t be home until six.”
“Now, that’s an invitation I can’t refuse,” Paul replied. “You don’t need to pick up your brothers?”
“They’re going over to a friend’s place today,” she said. “It’s just us.”
“That’s the way I like it.” He tucked his free arm around her shoulders, and they meandered off the pavement and across the field.
I slumped against the pine boards of the ramp. Fat lot of good my words yesterday had done. Of course, Danielle thought I was dog dirt, so why should she care what I said? And Paul could be pretty slick, I guess. He’d probably convinced her I was making things up to get to her. I hadn’t given any details, any names. Pretty easy to imagine it all away. The last couple years she’d had no shortage of practice ignoring me.
“Bitch,” I muttered. The flowers rustled as I clenched my hands. She was supposed to be stewing over it. Going sour as she tried to figure out what he’d done. But no, nothing could stop Miss Danielle Perry from being sweet as cheap table syrup. To everyone but me.
I lowered my head, breathing in the scent that now smelled cloying. Was it going to do any good, anyway, if I forced her to face the facts? Would it really make up for everything she’d done?
No. Of course not. But that wasn’t the point. The point was, she needed to realize how it felt to be slapped in the face by someone you counted on. To have everyone think—no, know—she’d deserved it. If she got just one taste, in some small way, we’d be even.
I got up, my legs wobbly. I hadn’t lost yet. I still had the details and the names. I could get more. Norris and Bitzy were on the lookout, and I’d hardly gotten started with Tim. Maybe I’d have to tell him straight out what I wanted. He hadn’t seemed like he cared much about Paul. Hell, he might even approve. He’d already surprised me a couple times.
From inside the school, the bell dinged. Any second, the yard was going to be flooded with little kids. I hurried to my bike. Bundling the flowers inside my shirt, I cradled them with my arm. Then, steering one-handed, I took off for home.
CHAPTER
8
Paige beamed when I showed her the flowers and hovered all evening near the vase I set on my dresser. She even pecked me good night with an airy kiss on my cheek. But when I woke up the next morning to the shrill beeping of my alarm, she was off sniffling under the desk.
She puttered around my room as I dressed for school, skipping all her usual complaining about my choice of clothes, just twirling her hair and sighing. When I asked her what radio station she wanted, she just shrugged. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”
I poured a cup of fresh water into the vase. The flowers were already wilting.
By the time I headed out the door, I felt like the word inadequate was carved into my forehead. Finding Tim standing on our porch steps didn’t improve my mood.
“Hey,” he said, when I stopped on the doorstep and stared at him. He wavered, squinting up at me. His face was sallow everywhere but the smudges under his eyes.
“Hey,” I said back. Behind him, the Oldsmobile was parked on an angle in the driveway. One of the back tires had gouged the edge of the lawn.
Tim followed my gaze. “Oh. Sorry. I’m off my game today. Rotten headache.” He rubbed his forehead and made his painful smile at me. “I’ll be better with some coffee in me. I thought . . . uh, my dad’s heading off to work—not for a half hour or so, but I wanted to catch you before you got to school. So I’ll buy you breakfast and then we’ll try again?”
“Everything all right, Cassie?” Dad called from upstairs.
“Yeah, no problem.” I stepped down onto the porch and let the door swing shut. “How’d you find my house?” I asked Tim.
“Well, you told me you’re on Earl Street,” he said. “There aren’t that many McKennas in the phone book.”
For a guy who had claimed not to be a stalker, he sure knew the tricks of the trade.
“So, are we going?” Tim said, shifting from foot to foot.
“I’m supposed to be going to school,” I reminded him. “And I’m pretty sure you are, too.”
“You didn’t have a problem skipping yesterday.”
“Well, you should give a person a little warning before you show up wanting to drag them off somewhere. You make it seem like you snap your fingers and I’m supposed to jump.”
He swallowed audibly. “I . . . I didn’t mean, I just thought . . .”
“Never mind.” I wasn’t that annoyed at him. It was just another crack in a day that felt like it was falling apart before it’d even started.
So he wanted me to go back to his place, to find the woman who didn’t want to let me so much as see her. I remembered yesterday�
��s chase—the way she’d slipped away, fleeing from me—and my chest tightened.
My mouth started to form a no, but I caught myself in time. Don’t think about that. Think about Danielle. I did this for Tim, whether his mom ran from me or decided to talk, and I could ask for that one thing in return. That would be fair, wouldn’t it? That would make it worth it.
“If I keep helping you,” I said, “I need you to do something for me. All right?”
“Sure,” Tim said. “Whatever. I mean I said I would, just tell me whatever you want.”
This wasn’t the sort of discussion I wanted Dad to overhear. And Tim looked about ready to topple down the steps.
“How about you get yourself that coffee and we’ll talk about it when you’re conscious.”
He started to laugh and winced. “I like that plan.”
“All right.” I eyed the car. “Just so you know, I’m walking.”
“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea. I think I saw a coffee shop around the corner. It’s okay if I leave the car parked here?”
“Sure. It’ll help my dad track you down if you decide to kidnap me along the way.”
The only trouble with walking was Tim couldn’t take a step or two without wincing and holding his head. It should have taken two minutes, but with him it was ten. “Why don’t you take some painkillers or something?” I said as we finally reached the Café De Lite’s door.
“Already did,” Tim said. “Don’t worry. An espresso works miracles.”
I guess Mr. Drinks-Gin-at-Noon knew what he was talking about. We sat at a spindly-legged table on the concrete patio, me with a mochaccino and a blueberry muffin and him with his espresso, and his color improved by sips. When I made it to the bottom of my mug, he was already on his second and perky as could be.
“Okay,” he said. “I am one hundred percent awake now. So what was it you wanted?”