Give Up The Ghost

by Megan Crewe

  “Could be once he talks to you he’ll feel better about it,” I suggested. “I can tell him he’s only got five minutes. You listen for that long, and then we’re all done, everyone goes back to their . . . lives.”

  “But . . . if he knows I’m here, it might be even harder for him to . . .”

  “Move on?” I wanted to tell her there was no way, now that Tim was set on it, he wasn’t letting go until he found her, but the hopelessness in her expression made me hesitate. There was only one thing I could say that might help. “If you want, I could tell him that I was wrong, that you’re not here.”

  Her hands twisted together. “No,” she said. “I never lied to him, and I don’t want to start. Couldn’t you just tell him I’m here? That I want him to start thinking about himself, instead of me?”

  “I don’t think that’s going to do it for him,” I said. “Seriously, if I could, I’d rather do it that way. But if you won’t listen to him yourself, I think he’s going to keep trying, and maybe that’ll end up worse.”

  We watched each other for a long moment, and then she dropped her gaze.

  “Okay,” she said, quietly. “We’ll try. Five minutes.”

  The front door creaked, and Tim stuck his head in. “Cass? What’s going on?”

  “I told you to wait,” I said, glancing at his mom. She gazed past me to the door. After a second, she nodded.

  “It’s been forever,” Tim was saying. “Have you even—”

  “All right, all right.” I sank down on the sofa. “Come in. She’s here.”

  Tim stalked into the middle of the room, the door banging shut behind him. He swiveled on his feet, peering into the shadows. His mom hovered beside him. The light within her flickered.

  “You’re not going to be able to see her,” I reminded him.

  “Right.” His mouth opened and closed and opened again.

  “Over there.” I tipped my head in her direction. “You should get going, whatever you wanted to say to her. We’ve got five minutes.”

  “Five minutes? Why?”

  “She almost didn’t stick around at all. She said you’re thinking about her too much. It’s bothering her.”

  “Thinking about her?” His forehead furrowed. “Mom?” he said. “Of course I’m thinking about you. Are you okay? I mean, it doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?”

  “No pain,” she murmured, smiling.

  “She says the pain’s gone,” I said.

  “Good.” He looked to me. “I’m sorry, it’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just . . . I need to know for sure that it’s her.”

  I shrugged and raised my eyebrows at his mom. She slipped forward, just close enough to graze his shoulder with her fingers. Her gaze never left his face. “Before I went to the hospital the last time, I gave him my wedding ring to hold on to, so I knew it’d be safe.”

  “She says you’ve got her wedding ring.”

  His eyes widened. “She . . . she’s really here.” He spun around, as if he might catch a glimpse of her if he moved fast enough. “Okay. Okay. The ring . . . did you want me to give it to Dad? He hasn’t asked about it, but I think he knows I have it.”

  “It’s yours now. Do what you think is best.”

  “You can keep it. Or whatever you figure’s best.” I checked my watch. His time was half up, but maybe his mom would go easy on him, give him a little extra.

  “Are you staying here?” Tim asked the shadows.

  Her smile broke, falling to one side. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s my decision.”

  “She doesn’t know. It doesn’t seem to be up to them,” I added. “As far as I can tell.”

  “Oh. I . . . Is there . . .” His voice faltered, and he stared at the floor. It occurred to me that he might have something to say that he didn’t want me to hear, something between just him and his mom. Well, I couldn’t help him there.

  “I should go,” his mom said.

  “Hey, there’s one more minute left,” I told her. And then to Tim, “If there’s anything else, you should say it fast.”

  “How can I . . . what should I do?” he blurted out, his voice so raw I glanced up from my watch. His face had gone pink and blotchy. “Everyone’s . . . it’s different now. People talk around me instead of to me, they act like it was nothing, like it was just an excuse to act sorry and make themselves feel good by pretending to care, like they don’t even notice how I’m feeling. And Dad—I can’t trust him. And Aunt Nancy’s gone home, of course. There’s no one. I don’t know what to do.”

  His mom reached out, touching his cheek. “Tell him . . . tell him I’ve forgiven his father, and he should try to as well. Tell him he should live life the way he wants to and stay close to people who care about him. There are people who care. And, please, he needs to look after himself. He’s hardly sleeping. I think he’s”—she shook her head. “I don’t like it.”

  She kissed her fingers and brushed them over his forehead. “I’m here. I’m all right. Take care of you now.” She drifted away into the wall.

  I repeated her words to Tim. He didn’t look up. After a minute of silence, I said, “She left. The room, I mean.”

  He sagged into the armchair in the corner, his shoulders slumping. I busied myself tugging at a thread in the sofa’s upholstery. A thin, mildewy odor was starting to seep out of the cushions. Tim cleared his throat, but nothing came out.

  We sat there in the dark, with the things he’d said, the things she’d said, things I’m sure he wished I hadn’t heard, until I thought it all would smother me.

  “I’ll go,” I said, standing up. “Should catch my P.M. classes.”

  Tim shifted to face me. The color had settled in his face and his eyes were clear, not teary. He pulled himself to his feet without much effort. But when he smiled, it looked like his face was going to crack across the middle and crumble away.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I mean, thanks doesn’t say half of it, but I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s just something I can do, that’s all.” I hugged myself, my arms crossing my chest. I couldn’t blame him if he was going to lose it for a bit, but I didn’t think either of us wanted me to be there to see it. There was nothing I could say that would make it all right. I couldn’t even comfort Paige about our mom, and I knew her better than anyone.

  “Something no one else can do,” he said, and laughed in a creaky sort of way. “So I guess I’ll pick you up at nine tomorrow?”

  Right. The party. I opened my mouth to protest, but something about the way he looked at me, that cracked smile, stopped those words from coming out.

  “Okay,” I said. “Nine it is.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  For Tim to be so flippant about cutting classes, I supposed the office was still going easy on him out of sympathy. Me, I missed four, and I got Mr. Gerry, the guidance counselor, breathing down my neck.

  Mr. Gerry and I had been pals since my first day at Frazer. Mom and Dad thought, what with my freak-out over Paige’s death and my miserable school performance thereafter, they ought to give the resident pseudoshrink a heads-up. So while everyone else was getting settled into first period, I had to sit on a saggy armchair and listen to this dorky little man tell me how my life was going to be. He had a face like an apple, all cheeks and a nub of a chin, with a mess of wiry curls on top. As he assured me that, if we worked together, my time at Frazer would be pleasant and productive, he smiled right across that apple face, trying to look like the most trustworthy guy in the universe.

  “Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” he’d said, clamping his too big hands together over his knees. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  He’d sure been “here” a lot. He’d hung around all through my freshman year, peeking into my classrooms and looking me over during lunch hour, fretting because I wasn’t making any friends he could see, and I was making a whole lot of enemies. I’d get into a scuffle ’c
ause I’d told someone off, and he’d call me into his office. “Why do you try so hard to alienate your peers?” he’d whined, practically wringing his giant hands.

  I don’t know, I kind of wanted to say. Why had they tried so hard to alienate me? At least I only went after the ones who deserved it. But that didn’t fit into Mr. Gerry’s version of the universe, where everyone got along and everyone was happy.

  After a while, of course, the kids had figured out it was safer to leave me alone than get in my face. And Norris had caught Mr. Gerry breaking school policy and a law or two in the teachers’ underground parking lot. We’d come to an understanding. He still fretted over my absent friendships, but I wasn’t getting into fights anymore, and I think he was starting to see that was as good as he was going to get.

  That Friday, the day after my talk with Tim’s mom, he must have been feeling especially dutiful. I’d slept in and had to hoof it to make it to school on time. It was five minutes before final bell, and the halls were packed. As the press of bodies dragged me past the guidance office, Mr. Gerry scampered out. With a couple of guys shouting about baseball rankings on my right and a bunch of girls gushing about some new romantic comedy on my left, I didn’t hear him calling my name until he grasped my shoulder.

  “Miss McKenna,” he said. “A word?”

  “What?” I squished myself around to face him. We were smack in the middle of the hall, holding up traffic.

  Mr. Gerry made a pained expression. “In my office?”

  “Class is about to start—”

  He huffed into his cheeks, making them even rounder. “You will get a late slip. And if you refuse to speak with me, I will be obliged to call your parents and speak to them.”

  “I never said I wasn’t coming,” I said. Geez, you’d think the guy would appreciate my effort to get to class on time.

  Mr. Gerry pushed back through the crowd, and I followed in his wake. The guidance secretary nodded at him as we squeezed out of the hall and into the reception room. Mr. Gerry opened his office door and waved me in.

  There was a chair set in front of his desk, the same saggy one I’d sat in almost three years ago. I leaned against the filing cabinet instead. Mr. Gerry eyed his comfy wing chair. Sitting down, he could go into his favorite poses: bending forward with his chin on his hands, leaning back with his arms spread wide. If he did sit, though, he’d end up half my height. He opted to prop himself awkwardly against the paper-strewn desk.

  “You’ve had several absences this week, Miss McKenna,” he said. “You missed your afternoon classes on Wednesday and your morning classes yesterday. The office has not received a phone call from your parents, and you have not presented a note.” Having laid out the facts, he paused to take a breath. “Could you tell me what’s going on? Have you run into some trouble? Maybe there’s something I could help you with.”

  I wondered if the office had already called Dad. If he’d been absorbed in his work, he might have mumbled some excuse without even listening. Or maybe Mr. Gerry had held them off, so he could get a chance to talk to me first. Concerned about his own skin.

  I just looked at him. He knew I ran into all sorts of trouble. I just usually attended classes in between. What did he expect me to say?

  “Cassandra,” he began.

  “Cass,” I said.

  “Cass.” He rubbed his nose and scratched at the back of his head. His curls jiggled. “Your grades are . . . passable. If you continue to miss classes, however, you may risk failing. You’re an intelligent girl. I’m sure you can see this is a difficult situation.”

  “All right,” I said. “I promise not to miss any more classes. Can I go?”

  He paused with his hand on his neck. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “If you’re experiencing any . . . difficulties that you’d like to talk about, as your guidance counselor, of course I’m always here if you need me.”

  As if he’d really want to hear anything I had to say. Yeah, he was doing his job. But I knew my grades, and I hadn’t been close to failing since that awkward period in ninth grade before I’d gotten my act sorted out.

  “Mr. Gerry,” I said, “I think I can handle this. I always have before, right? I don’t get on your case about the stuff you snort at lunchtime, so how about you let me deal with this by myself?”

  We looked at each other across the room for a good ten seconds. Then Mr. Gerry deflated onto his desk, his gaze skittering away. He reached up to rub his nose again, caught himself, and dropped his hand.

  “The school year is almost over,” he said. “Please try to keep your absences to a minimum.”

  “Not a problem, sir.”

  The bell rang as I stepped into the hall, but my firstperiod class was just upstairs. I hesitated for a second. Norris had been on Paul’s car duty all yesterday afternoon and this morning. I was dying to know if he’d seen anything, but now didn’t seem like the greatest time to tempt fate and Mr. Gerry’s patience.

  I plopped into my desk while Mrs. Waugh was taking attendance. Her eyes flickered toward me, but she said nothing.

  In the ten-minute gap between classes, I dashed around the corner to my locker. Norris was floating by the ceiling, pacing in a slow circle. With his chin tucked in and his jacket collar pulled high, he looked like an overgrown vulture. A couple of kids were clanging around at their lockers, halfway down the hall. A bunch more were pouring out of the nearest classroom. I slipped by them and opened my locker.

  “Hey, Norris.”

  He dropped down to my level, pushing his collar away from his face. A grin stretched his mouth from one end of his jaw to the other.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” he said, eyes shining.

  “What?” I said. “What happened?”

  “Right. Okay.” He coughed into his hand and cleared his throat, as if he was getting ready for a presidential address. “So, I found Paul’s car pretty quick yesterday. He parks it a block off Frazer Road. Nice set of wheels. Paul shows up with the girlfriend after school, lovey dovey, and they drive off. Not much going on. But this morning”—he rubbed his hands together—“I was cruising around the field ’cause you mentioned the track practice thing. And of course the team comes, runs around, Paul’s there jogging across the field to warm up, and this girl wanders over and leans against the fence.”

  “The girl,” I broke in, “was it Sharon? Kind of short and skinny, streaks in her hair, all different colors?”

  “Yeah, that was her! Paul sees her, and goes kind of red, looking like he’s afraid someone’ll notice. He waves her off, and she goes, and I thought that was it. But then a couple minutes later, Paul’s telling the coach he forgot a book in his car. So off he goes, and guess what—the girl’s waiting for him when he gets there.”

  “Wow,” I murmured. It had taken him, what, four days to pick up where he left off? Who knew how long they’d been messing around before this.

  And Danielle hadn’t had a clue. How could she not have seen?

  She really trusted him, I thought, my throat tightening. She really thought he was crazy about her.

  Just like I’d really thought we were friends. My jaw clenched, and I shook any sympathy I had away. The things she’d done, this was them coming back to haunt her. As it was only fair they should.

  “And then?” I asked, prompting Norris.

  “Right,” he said. “So they meet up at the car, and Paul’s telling her he can’t be gone too long ’cause he doesn’t want it to look suspicious, his girlfriend will get on his case, and Sharon says she can do something quick if he promises to see her that weekend. And, man, she was quick. I hardly blinked and down she went.” Norris flushed. “I gotta say, if there’s one thing I wish I hadn’t missed, it’s the things those girls can do.”

  “God,” I said, “what a jerk. What an idiot! When I’d just caught him . . . God.” Maybe he’d figured he was dead anyway, so he might as well make it worth it.

  “That’s not even the best part,” Norri
s said. “Get this. While she was at it, her purse fell on the floor of the car, and a lipstick went rolling out, right under the passenger seat. Neither of them was paying attention, of course. Then she grabbed her stuff and went off who knows where, and he hurried on back to track practice, and no one noticed. So the thing’s still there in the car.”

  My mouth dropped open, but I was so full of awe it took a couple of seconds to get the words out. “He screwed himself over. Totally.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “That’s . . . thanks, Norris. You’re the best. I wish I could stay to chat, but I’ve got to run to class. I’ll come by at lunch, all right?”

  “Excellent,” he said as I grabbed my history binder from the locker. “Hey, you know that party you said you’re going to tonight—who did you say was throwing it?”

  “Matti Turuno. You know him.”

  “Yeah.” Norris frowned. “I thought you’d want to know, he was ranting to his girlfriend about something to do with that Tim guy, sounded really pissed. I only caught a bit of it, but I think I heard your name, too.”

  “Well, keep an eye on it, I guess.” I closed my locker, my brain fizzing like pop that’d been shaken in the can. Of course. The party. I could topple Danielle and Paul like a couple of dominoes, and all their friends would be there to witness it. And I’d almost turned down the party invite. It was going to be a bash and a half.

  Let Matti rant all he wanted. Nothing short of the Apocalypse could stop me now.

  CHAPTER

  10

  When Paige first started going to parties, things were still all right between us. She’d drag me into her room, and I’d perch on the edge of her bed, chirping my approval of her hairstyle and dress choices on cue. Then I got old enough to want to borrow her clothes and makeup, and she decided I was too much of a nuisance. That didn’t stop me from spying on her, of course. I’d peer through the keyhole or the gap at the edge of the door, or listen to her grumbles and sighs with my ear pressed close to the wall, until Mom found me and shooed me away. Even when I was so angry I wanted to strangle her with her pantyhose, curiosity was stronger.