A Ghost in the Window

by Betty R. Wright

  Caleb shook his head. “Not knowing is the worst thing. If I knew for sure what happened, I’d know what to do about it. Maybe my mom can live here without knowing, but I can’t.”

  “You don’t mean you think he did it!” Meg was shocked.

  “I said he didn’t do it. Period.” He parked the truck in front of the house, and at once Steffi appeared on the porch, shouting a welcome.

  “Remember,” Caleb warned again. “Don’t talk about any of this to the family.”

  Steffi raced down the walk and scrambled into the truck. Meg started to slide out from under, but suddenly Caleb grabbed her wrist and held it. “Hey, tell me one thing,” he said. “What’s the real reason you didn’t want to go into the bait shop? I mean, nobody in her right mind would be afraid of a store because it was shaped like a fish, so why—”

  Meg pulled her arm away. She would either have to lie and pretend she’d been afraid of the make-believe fish, of she’d have to tell the truth about her dream. Either way, Caleb was sure to laugh at her.

  “Afraid of what?” Steffi demanded. “What are you afraid of, Meg? I’m not afraid of anything.”

  Meg’s eyes met Caleb’s. His bitter expression had faded as he waited for her answer. He wouldn’t believe the truth. She remembered how hard it had been to tell Bill and Rhoda about the real dreams—and they were her brother and her best friend!

  “I can’t tell you,” she said flatly and slid out of the cab. “Thanks for the ride, Caleb.” She half walked, half ran to the house, followed by noisy protests from Steffi and total silence from Steffi’s big brother.

  7

  Meg spent the next three days keeping out of Caleb’s way. She went swimming in the town pool three times, twice with Steffi and once by herself. She wrote long letters to Rhoda, to Bill, and to Grandma Korshak, and she toured the town hospital with Mrs. Larsen as her guide. It was a quiet, pleasant enough time, but rather lonely, until she remembered the library. The Trevor Library was small and smelled faintly dusty, but its librarian was a friendly lady who encouraged Meg to wander through the stacks looking for old book-friends and new ones.

  Weird! That’s what Rhoda would say, if she knew that Meg was trying to avoid Caleb instead of getting to know him better. But Meg wasn’t ready to talk to him again about her feelings at the bait shop. Caleb was moody and impatient—not at all like her brother, Bill. Even when he smiled, Meg sensed anger that bubbled and boiled just beneath the surface. She felt sorry for him, but she didn’t feel comfortable with him. He made her think of a quiet-looking volcano that could send up showers of hot lava when you least expected it.

  If she’d been able to spend more time with her father, maybe she wouldn’t have cared so much if Caleb laughed at her. She was a stranger among strangers in Trevor, and she needed her father. He ought to understand that. But right after breakfast he went to his room, and for the rest of the morning the old manual typewriter clicked and clattered behind the closed door. At ten-thirty he appeared in the kitchen for coffee, and Meg was there waiting for him. At noon he took a half hour to relax after lunch, and they went for a walk or a ride. Steffi always begged to go along, but if Mrs. Larsen was at home she forbade it.

  “Give Meg and her daddy some time alone together,” she’d say, and they’d leave quickly, trying not to look back at the disappointed little person watching from the front porch.

  Those brief times were the best part of Meg’s day. She and her father talked mostly about Mr. Korshak’s writing. Even though she continued to feel resentful, Meg began to understand why his work was so important to him.

  “When I finish a story,” he said one day, “I read it over, and maybe I think it’s pretty good, but I can’t be sure. What I am sure of is that I’ve done the best I can. For the first time in my life I’m using whatever abilities I have. That’s a great feeling.”

  He talked to Meg as if she were a grownup, and gradually her resentment faded: She was proud of what he was doing! Now, she thought, if only her mother were proud of him, too, they could forget the divorce and be together again. There was no good reason for her father to live in Trevor. He could write at home, if only her mother realized that he wasn’t just wasting his time. Maybe if he explained it to her the way he’d explained it to Meg.… She braced herself to suggest it, but somehow their time together always ran out before she could find the words.

  She looked forward to Saturday evening when Mr. Korshak wouldn’t have to go to the newspaper office. Perhaps the two of them would go out for a hamburger feast, the way the whole family used to in the old days. But when Saturday finally came, Mrs. Larsen had her day off, too. Delicious smells wafted from the big kitchen, and Meg was invited to help carry bowls and platters from the kitchen to the dining-room table.

  “Stuffed pork chops are my dad’s favorite thing,” she commented.

  Mrs. Larsen’s cheeks turned pink. “We all like them,” she said quickly. “Caleb would eat pork chops five times a week if I’d let him.”

  As much as she had hoped for a whole evening alone with her father, Meg had to admit that Saturday night dinner with the Larsens and their boarders was fun. Jeff Townsend, the traveling salesman, was back for the weekend, eager to tell about his adventures on the road. He was a young man, proud of his first job, and Meg thought it was nice the way Mrs. Larsen encouraged him to talk. She treated him like a second son. Old Mrs. Tate was practically a member of the family, too. Steffi called her Granny and chattered constantly unless reminded that she must give others a chance.

  Caleb just ate and listened. Watching him, Meg thought of Bill, at home alone, probably eating a TV dinner at the kitchen table and reading while he ate. She decided she’d write to her brother again that night. She wanted to tell him her thoughts about getting her father to come home. Maybe if she and Bill both talked to their mother …

  “If you want to go, say so,” Caleb said impatiently. “It’ll have to be dutch.” Meg realized suddenly that he’d been speaking to her.

  “Oh, Caleb!” Mrs. Larsen groaned. “What a way to ask for a date!”

  Caleb shrugged. “The Old Man and the Sea is a fishing story—it’s a classic movie, for pete’s sake—and I want to see it. Since Meg is so crazy about fish, I thought she’d like to go along.”

  “Meg’s crazy about fish?” Mr. Korshak looked puzzled. “I didn’t know that. You and I’ll have to go fishing while you’re here, Meggie. I did quite a bit of it while I was living out at Uncle Henry’s place.”

  Meg turned her back on Caleb, who was watching her with a suggestion of a grin. “I’d like that,” she told her father. She would do anything that would give them time together.

  “Well, what about it?” Caleb asked. “You want to see that big fish tonight?”

  “I have a letter to—”

  “Oh, Meg, don’t be a wet blanket.” Mr. Korshak spoke with unexpected sharpness. “Get out and have a little fun, for heaven’s sake.”

  They were all looking at her now, wondering why she’d turn down the movie with Caleb in favor of sitting at home. She wanted to say, He’s just looking for a chance to ask questions about what happened at the bait shop. But then Mrs. Larsen would want to know what did happen, and her father would want to know what kind of questions. She couldn’t discuss her real dreams with them, either.

  “You do what you want to do, Meg,” Mrs. Larsen said. “It is a fine film, though. I remember seeing it years ago.”

  “I’ll go with you, Caleb,” Steffi offered. “I love movies.”

  “No, you won’t,” Caleb retorted. “The last time I took you, you talked through the whole picture.”

  “I’d go myself,” Mrs. Tate said brightly. “If a handsome young man asked me, I’d say yes in a minute!”

  Meg was beaten and she knew it. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go. As long as it’s dutch.”

  They left right after the lemon meringue pie—another of her father’s favorite foods. Mrs. Larsen wouldn’t even let Meg help t
o clear the table. “Just run along and have fun,” she ordered. “There’s plenty of help for the asking around here.”

  The theater was on Lakeview Avenue. The ride downtown had been a silent one, and Meg welcomed the excitement of the tourist-filled main street. “It’s like two different towns,” she commented, and immediately regretted breaking the stillness.

  Caleb looked bored. “Don’t they have crowds in Milwaukee?”

  When they’d found a parking place and started down the street toward the theater, Meg put as much distance as possible between them. Occasionally she paused in front of a store window, pretending to see something of interest. Caleb made no attempt to stay close to her. It was not until they reached the theater ticket office that they came together again—just as Les Machen walked out of the lobby with three other boys.

  Meg’s stomach lurched. Don’t let him start again, she prayed. Without thinking, she moved between Caleb and his enemy. Maybe Caleb was sarcastic and difficult, but he had a reason for being the way he was. Les Machen was just mean. Meg could tell he enjoyed hurting people, and she despised him for it.

  The boys passed without speaking. When they were gone, Caleb grinned down at Meg, a friendly, open smile. “Regular tiger, aren’t you?” he commented. “You looked like you were ready to punch the guy.”

  “I was,” Meg said. She was trembling.

  All through the film—which was very good, even if it was about a fish—Meg kept recalling Caleb’s smile and what he had said. Could they be friends after all? He’d sounded as if he was pleased that she’d been ready to fight Les Machen; at least, he didn’t resent her wanting to help. Maybe he needed a friend to count on as much as she did.

  There was one way to find out. I’ll tell him about the fish dream, she decided. I’ll show him that I trust him. Having made up her mind, she settled back to enjoy the film, wishing Rhoda could see her now.

  “You mean you were scared to go into the bait shop because of a dream?” They were sitting in the Pixie Drive-In parking lot. Caleb took a long drink of his Coke and watched Meg over the rim of the cardboard cup.

  She nodded. It had been hard to say the words, and already she knew she’d made a mistake. “My grandma says the dreams are like secret windows. To look into the future. I guess you think that’s crazy.”

  Caleb leaned back. “You’ve got a good imagination, that’s all. Maybe because your dad is a writer. Maybe you’re going to be a writer, too—when you grow up.”

  When you grow up! Meg felt tigerish again, only this time it was Caleb she wanted to attack. Why had she thought they could be friends? He was laughing at her. He considered her a silly little kid who made up things.

  “It’s not my imagination, Caleb Larsen,” she snapped. “I really knew something scary was going to happen inside that fish. I knew it, and I don’t care whether you believe me or not. It’s happened to me lots of times before. I even have a dream book—”

  “A what?”

  “A dream book. When I have a real dream—that’s what I call them—I write it down just the way I remember it. Then I wait to see if it comes true.”

  Caleb finished his drink and pitched the cup into a nearby wastebasket. “Did you write down the dream about the big fish?”

  “Of course I did. Even though I didn’t see how that one could come true. I mean, I didn’t think there could be a fish that huge anywhere.” She glared at him defiantly. “But there was.”

  “Show me the book.”

  “No!” The only people who had seen the dream book were Bill and Rhoda. It had felt safe and right to share this unexplainable part of her life with them, but they were special. “You’ll just make fun of it.”

  “Well, then …” Caleb’s mocking smile returned. “Forget it,” he said. “So you had a bad dream—lots of people have ’em. No big deal.” He started the truck and reached for her milkshake container. “You through with that?”

  Meg nodded. “My dreams do come true sometimes,” she said angrily. “I really don’t care whether you believe me or not.”

  The drive home was as silent as the earlier one had been. “Thanks for taking me to the movie,” Meg said coldly, when they turned into the driveway. “I liked it.”

  “No big deal,” Caleb repeated. “You paid your own way.”

  “Well, thanks for the milkshake then.”

  She crossed the yard to the house, and when Caleb didn’t follow, she continued on inside by herself. A light was burning in the dining room, and she peeked in to see Mrs. Tate playing cards with Steffi. From out on the front porch came voices—her father and Mrs. Larsen, talking quietly in the dark.

  It occurred to Meg that they must have seen the truck turn into the driveway, but their conversation continued without a break. The murmuring voices made Meg feel shut out. After all, she’d just had her first date. Sort of. At least, it was the first evening she’d spent with a boy who wasn’t her brother. It would be nice if somebody asked if she’d had a good time—even though the answer would have to be no.

  “Three’s company,” the mocking whisper was right behind her, “in case you were thinking of going out on the porch.”

  Meg whirled to face Caleb. “Don’t be silly!” she retorted. “I can talk to my dad any time I want.”

  “Can you?” He sounded mocking. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Why do you think the old folks were so anxious to get us out of the house? They wanted to be alone.”

  For the second time that evening Meg longed to hit him. “That’s stupid!” she exclaimed, forgetting to keep her voice down. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of.”

  Caleb stepped around her and started up the stairs. “No, it’s not. That’s the straight stuff, dream girl,” he said calmly. “Mrs. Tate keeps Steffi busy with a deck of cards, and Caleb takes Meg to the movies. Don’t look so upset. I don’t mind baby-sitting once in a while.”

  8

  Meg lay very still, as if by not moving she might sink like a stone into sleep. But she was still wide awake when her father came upstairs, opened her door a crack, and then tiptoed away. Twenty minutes later she heard Mrs. Larsen climb the stairs and stop to look in at Steffi before going to her own room. The house settled into a darkness that was gentler and quieter than the city-dark at home.

  It was strange, Meg thought, how she could lie as still as a statue, and at the same time her thoughts could swarm and buzz like a hive of furious bees. She hated Caleb now—really hated him—and it wasn’t because he had called their date a baby-sitting job. She hated him for the terrible thing he’d said about their parents. It couldn’t be true. She wouldn’t believe it. Someday her father and mother were going to be together again. Surely her father hoped for that, too, even if he pretended to like living in Trevor.

  She considered getting up and tiptoeing into his room to remind him of all the wonderful times they’d had on Brookfield Avenue. Caleb was crazy if he thought her father would forget those days, just because someone made his favorite stuffed pork chops and lemon meringue pie every Saturday night. A thousand great dinners wouldn’t make a person forget his real family.

  She didn’t get up. Her body felt as if it were made of lead, and besides, she wasn’t sure she was ready to confront her father with what Caleb had hinted at. Maybe it would be better to call Bill and ask him what to do. She tried to imagine what her brother would say. Probably he’d tell her to calm down until she had some proof.

  If only she could go back to the way things had been before this evening! She felt as if the Meg who had ridden north on the bus was a very different person from the Meg lying here in the dark. All that other Meg had wanted from this summer was a chance to be Princess Running Deer and do pleasant, ordinary things with her best friend when they weren’t appearing in the play. It could have been a wonderful vacation. Now it was a horrible one. What was worse, it would continue to be horrible even after she returned to Milwaukee, because then she wouldn’t know what might be happening here
in Trevor.

  The thought of her mother, who didn’t know Mrs. Larsen existed, twisted Meg’s stomach in knots. If what Caleb suggested was true, her mother would be heartbroken, wouldn’t she? Meg realized she didn’t know how her mother would react. Mrs. Korshak had wanted the divorce, but surely she must think, at least once in a while, of how wonderful it would be if they were all together again.

  The grandfather’s clock in the downstairs hall struck twelve before Meg drifted, at last, into an uneasy sleep.

  The dream that followed wasn’t one of her real dreams, but she remembered it clearly when she awoke the next morning because it was so strange. Another dream about a big fish! She rubbed her aching head. For a girl who’d never caught a fish in her life—or wanted to—she was giving a lot of thought to the subject.

  She sat up, feeling grubby and wrinkled in the clothes she’d worn the night before. She hadn’t even undressed, hadn’t done anything but lie on her bed and hate Caleb. Now she took a quick shower and dressed in fresh jeans and a halter top. Glittering sunlight made her a little less uneasy. After all, Caleb liked to tease. Maybe he had decided to scare her last night because she’d refused to show him her dream book. Well, whatever his reason, she didn’t want to talk to him ever again. She wasn’t going to listen to any more of his stupid ideas about her father and his mother.

  He was waiting at the foot of the stairs. “Listen,” he whispered, “don’t get the wrong idea about what I said last night.”

  Meg bit her lip. She waited for him to move out of her way.

  “I mean, when I said that stuff about baby-sitting—nobody asked me to take you to the movie. I was just in a lousy mood when I said that.”

  Meg felt a rush of relief so overwhelming that she forgot her decision not to talk to him. “Then it wasn’t true!” she exclaimed. “What you said about my father and your mother wanting to be alone.”