by E. C. Bell
“And you are?” Officer Tyler’s eyes narrowed even more, until he looked like he was squinting into the sun.
“James Lavall,” James said. “Marie’s boss.”
Tyler looked at James, and then at me. I shook free and took a small step away. Tyler smiled wryly.
“Did you come into town with Marie?” he asked James.
“No. I got in last night.”
“Ah,” Tyler said.
“Quit talking to him.” That was me, finally thawed enough to speak.
“I might want to have a conversation with you later,” Tyler said to James. “Don’t leave town.”
“All right,” James said. “I’ll be here.”
“Thanks for letting us know about Arnie,” Mom said, and hoisted herself out of her chair. She tottered over to Tyler, took him by the arm, and led him away from James and me. “I’ll make sure James stays for a day or two, all right?”
“All right,” Officer Tyler said compliantly, as he let Mom lead him around the corner of the trailer and out of sight. But being compliant wasn’t ever part of Officer Tyler’s repertoire, and I knew he’d return.
Worse than that, I was afraid that Arnie would still be in town. Knew he would still be in town.
This was going to be worse than my fourteenth birthday party. I could tell.
Arnie:
Rosalie Hates Mess
I CAME TO staring at cop boots stomping all over Rosalie’s bedroom. Before I really remembered the bloody mess on her bed, I was kind of embarrassed that they had caught me there. Too many roses and unicorns and shit for my taste. We’d always gone to my place—up over the Rat’s Ass Bar and Grill—before. Why hadn’t we gone there this time?
Then I remembered.
Rosalie’s apartment was the only place in Fort McMurray where I could’ve stayed. That was the promise I’d made when Rosalie sprung me from Remand in Edmonton. That I’d stay with her, so she could make sure I didn’t do anything wrong before my trial.
I lost it for a while—wouldn’t anybody?—when they ran the fucking trolley used to haul bodies through me on the way to the bed. Right fucking through me, man. Like I wasn’t even there.
“Fuck you!” I screamed, and jumped up, ready to fight. “Fuck you all!”
I knew everybody in the room. That was what happened when you lived in a small city and had your fair share of run-ins with the cops. You got to know everybody.
Randy Wilson and Albert Reynolds were the ones watching the paramedics haul my body out of the room. Jason Kelly and Reena Wilson (no relation to Randy, even though they looked enough alike to be brother and sister) were the cops snapping pictures and picking up bits of shit and bagging it as evidence. I shuddered when I realized most of the bits were mine. Everybody was quiet, just going about their business, as if it didn’t matter at all that it was me lying on that bed. Dead.
Not just dead. Head-smashed-in dead. Beaten-to-a-pulp dead.
“Looks like he pissed somebody off,” Randy said.
“Does that surprise anyone here?” That was Reena, still snapping photos for all she was worth. Randy snorted laughter.
“Only that it didn’t happen earlier.”
Then they all laughed.
“Fuck you!” I yelled, and took a useless swing at Randy, just because he was closest. My fist went through him like he wasn’t there. Like I wasn’t there.
I probably would’ve wasted a bunch more time punching nothing in that rose- and unicorn-covered room, but Rosalie picked that moment to come home from work.
“Let me in! This is my house. Let me in, right now!” I could hear her yelling from the front door of her apartment, and she sounded pissed. That wasn’t usual for her. Usually she sounded . . . mealy-mouthed and subservient.
“Jesus,” Jason said. “Why is she here? Somebody go give Mike some help. We’re not half done yet.”
“You go,” Reena said.
“No. You. You’re the woman, for Christ’s sake. You got, whatcha call it? Empathy. Go calm her down.”
“Screw you,” Reena said. “I’m not done.”
“Neither am I. Jesus, Reena, it’s your turn.”
Reena sighed, like it was a big fucking deal to walk into the next room and calm Rosalie down. “Don’t you move anything until I return,” she said. “I still have half the room to do.”
“Right.” Jason sounded like he was already caught up in the great big world of forensic evidence, and Reena gave his back the finger as she walked out of the room.
MIKE SMITH HAD Rosalie more or less blocked at the front door, but she was getting up a real head of steam and looked like she was going to bulldoze over him to get inside.
Reena walked up, all business, her latex-gloved hands held out in a “stop right fucking now” way.
“Rosalie,” she said. “It’s bad. You can’t go in until we’re done.”
“Where is he?” Rosalie asked. “What did he do?”
I guessed she was talking about me, and felt a thin ugly spurt of anger. Why did everybody always think it was me who had done something wrong?
“I didn’t do anything,” I muttered. She didn’t respond, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. And it fed the anger, too.
“Weren’t you contacted?” Reena asked.
“Somebody showed up. At my work. I can’t remember his name. I don’t know him.” She snivelled, like she was going to cry. “He told me that one of my neighbours had phoned in a noise complaint, but when they got here, there was a problem and so I couldn’t go home. Then he talked to my boss Harley and even Reggie. The guy who sits next to me on the line. To make sure I’d been at work all night.” Rosalie shook her head. “I’m not a cheater. I wouldn’t not go to work. You know?”
Reena nodded, looking like she wished she was anywhere but at the front door of that apartment.
“This is my home, Reena,” Rosalie said. “If something happened here, I need to know. Let me in.”
Reena sighed, heavily. “Sorry, Rosalie. There’s been a fatality. You can’t come in.”
“But—what?” Rosalie’s face took on that blank look that comes with shock. “A what?”
She turned to Mike. “What’s she talking about, Mike?”
“Arnie bought it,” Mike said. “Sorry, Rose.”
Rosalie blinked three or four times, quick-like. “Arnie’s dead?” she finally asked, her voice flat and soft. “He can’t be.”
“He is,” Reena said.
“But I just brought him home.” Rosalie grubbed through her pockets and pulled out a tissue. Pressed it to her eyes, like the hallway light was burning them.
“Guess you should have taken the night off,” I said, meanly. Like it was her fault I was dead. The anger jumped another notch, and I wished I could grab her by the arm (the throat) and shake some sense into her. She should’ve stayed with me. My first night home, and she went to work.
I leaned forward and put my face so close to hers I could see the golden glints in her mild, brown cow eyes. “You should have taken the night off,” I said. “This is your fault.”
Like she could’ve stopped whoever beat my head in. But—
If she’d stayed home, I wouldn’t have gone out. Wouldn’t have gotten pissed. Wouldn’t have gotten into a fight and gotten my head caved in.
None of this would have happened if she’d just stayed home.
As her fucking cow eyes blinked and blinked and then rolled up in her head so all I could see were the whites, I knew what had happened to me was her fault. As her legs folded under her and she crumpled to the floor, and Mike stupidly sucked wind and watched it happen, I tried to figure out how I could make her pay.
Bitch had to pay. That was just the way it was.
Marie:
So, How Do I Feel?
AFTER MOM MARCHED Officer Tyler out of sight, James and I were alone in the backyard of her trailer. James stared at me and I felt my anger—seemed to have a never-ending supply of that—snap to
the forefront again.
“What?” I asked.
“What what?”
“You want to say something,” I said. “I can tell. Out with it.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
My guts felt hot, like they were about to revolt, and I wished I hadn’t guzzled all that iced tea. I wished I could talk openly to him about Arnie and everything else. Wished my mother had kept her mouth shut. Wished that I could teleport myself away from that small patch of red neck backyard and to somewhere—anywhere—else.
“Just talk to me,” he said.
“I can’t,” I muttered. All the weight of my history came crashing down around me, and for a second it actually sounded like breaking glass. He reached out to touch me, but I flinched away.
“I’m tired,” I whispered. “I gotta lay down.”
I stumbled through the sunburnt crab grass to the front of the trailer and up the paint spattered steps to the door. Threw myself inside.
“You ready to talk about Mom now?” Rhonda said from her spot in the minuscule kitchen. “It’s getting impossible—”
“Not now.” I turned away from her. Down the teeny hallway to the door of the equally teeny bedroom that used to be mine. Threw open the door and saw all my stuff was gone. Everything. Stuffed animals—including my personal favourite, a huge dog dressed in shorts and tee shirt, which I’d unimaginatively called Big Puppy—and posters from the walls. Dresser and desk. Even the bed was gone.
Not that I thought Mom would’ve kept the room exactly the way I left it, but I’d imagined that she would have at least kept my bed.
I sure could’ve used that bed. I wanted to have a good cry and a good sleep, in that order. Wasn’t going to happen though, because there was only a straight-backed chair tucked under the table that held Mom’s sewing machine.
I pulled out the chair and flopped down onto it. It was uncomfortable, but at least I was off my feet.
What was I going to do?
Arnie was dead and James knew about my biggest, deepest secret. Neither of these situations would work out the way I wanted. Arnie would find me and continue haunting me for the rest of my life. That was a given. And James?
James would tell me that me being able to see ghosts was just fine by him. A-okay. Until the day it wasn’t. Then, he’d leave and break my heart.
Just ask my mom. Heck. Ask my frigging dad.
Arnie:
Stuck in Rosalie’s Apartment
THE COPS FINALLY finished CSIing Rosalie’s apartment, and left. Rosalie didn’t return and I couldn’t blame her. It was depressing, especially in her bedroom. But I stayed, basically because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.
No, that’s not quite right. I stayed because I felt compelled to, or some shit. I didn’t feel like I had the energy to go anywhere but that little apartment that always smelled too much like cabbage—not that I could smell the cabbage, or anything else, now—and so I hung around.
The stupid headache was back, and that was a real kick to the nads. I didn’t think pain would carry over to the next life, know what I mean? But there it was, whining and carrying on like nobody’s business until I wanted to scream. Even tried it once or twice, but it didn’t help. Nothing seemed to help.
So, I took to staring out the big patio door in the tiny living room that led out to a balcony. I saw that Rosalie had left it open, just a crack.
She was a fresh air freak. She always left all the windows open, even, sometimes, in the winter, which cost her a fair bit when the pipes froze two winters before. I gave her what-for for that, but it didn’t seem to take. She was stupid, that way.
Whatever. The patio door was open, but I didn’t want to go out on the balcony. I just wanted to stare out the window, at nothing. So I did.
I almost felt like I was slowly setting in cement. Like I couldn’t move. Sort of like when I tried to get out of Rosalie’s bed. This time, though, I didn’t care.
Marie:
Pulling Myself Together
MOM WANDERED INTO my old room while I was still trying to pull myself together.
“You look terrible, girl,” she said as she scooted me out of the way and dropped into the chair. “Can I do anything?”
“Can you do anything?” I felt the semi-hysterical laughter ooze up and leak out from, it felt, nearly every pore. I managed to tamp it down until it disappeared. “What more can you do, Mom? You already told James my biggest secret—”
“He showed up at my door,” Mom said, her voice tight. “And he wanted confirmation.” She glared at me. “Now he can decide whether or not he wants to be with you—”
“We just work together,” I said, my own voice tight. “I told you that.”
“Whatever,” she said dismissively. “He needed to know the truth, and since you wouldn’t tell him, I did.”
The guilt trickled in, ice-cold. With it came fear. “This will change everything.”
“Probably.” She clucked her tongue impatiently. “But you have bigger issues to deal with right now. I think you should prepare for Arnie’s arrival.”
Jesus.
“Won’t he—move on all on his own?” Like there was a chance of that, knowing him, and given my luck. But I had to ask.
“I don’t think so. I’m willing to bet that his death was violent. He’ll have some questions, I’m sure.”
I shuddered. “He won’t show up here, will he?”
I’d never, ever brought Arnie to my mother’s house when I was going out with him. Not once.
I always told myself that it was because I was embarrassed to have him meet my family, but that wasn’t the whole truth. In my heart, I knew that he wasn’t a good guy, and I didn’t want my family telling me I’d made yet another mistake in my life.
But now that he was dead, all bets were off.
Usually when people were killed, their spirits were tied quite nicely to their place of death. That’s the way it generally happened in Edmonton, anyhow. But here—here a lot of them showed up at my mother’s house. All on their own.
“He might.”
Oh come on, Mom, tell me a lie that I can live with.
“You know how it works,” she continued. “He could find his way here, looking for answers.”
“Oh.”
“Or looking for you.”
That thought slid more ice down my spine, and I shuddered. “He doesn’t know I’m here,” I whispered.
“This is a small town,” she said. “Word gets around. Even to the dead.”
I looked around frantically, as though he’d suddenly show up, right beside me. “I should leave,” I said. “Get outta here . . .”
“Oh, calm down,” Mom said. “He won’t show up for a while. You just got here. At the very least you need to eat, and rest. Besides, you know you’ll be safe enough.”
“But what if he attaches to me?”
Mom frowned. “What?”
“Attaches to me. The way Farley did. He went everywhere I did. Stayed with me, right up to the moment he moved on.” My throat was so tight, my voice sounded like a squeak.
Mom shook her head. “You let a ghost do that to you? I thought I taught you better than that, girl.”
“But—but ghosts stick to you all the time,” I said. I felt my anger wind through the fear. “We lived with them. Here. All the time. Are you telling me you could have made them go, if you wanted?”
“Of course,” she said. “Didn’t I teach you that?”
“No,” I said. “You didn’t.”
“I’m sure I tried,” Mom said. “You weren’t always willing to take in the lessons, now were you?”
That bit of truth stuck in my throat so that I couldn’t speak. So, I nodded, silently.
“If you’re willing to learn, I can teach you,” she said.
“All right.” My voice sounded tiny and washed out. “Tell me what I need to know. Right now.”
“No,” Mom said. “It’s almost time for lunch. I sugges
t you go help Rhonda.”
I glanced at her, saw the flint in her eyes, and knew it was better for all concerned if I just did as she “suggested.” Besides, I was exhausted. My lesson could wait.
“Sure,” I said. “But let me wash up first.”
“All right,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll all feel better after lunch.”
I hoped so, but I didn’t think better was in my wheelhouse. I was afraid it wouldn’t be for some time.
IN THE BATHROOM, I turned on the water and splashed my face. Then I rinsed my mouth, looked for and found some mouthwash, and rinsed again. Better. At least that gave me the illusion of freshness. I patted my face dry and ran Mom’s brush through my hair. I was actually starting to feel human, and thought that maybe I could get through lunch. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and then jumped when someone rapped on the door.
“Occupied!”
“I know.” It was James, and I felt my heart pound, hard. I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.
“I’ll be out in a second.”
“Let me in, Marie.”
I took one last look at my hair and reluctantly clicked the lock.
He opened the door and stepped into the bathroom with me. Relocked the door and took me by the shoulders. Before I could react, he pulled me into his arms and hugged me, hard.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I tried to pull free, but he wouldn’t let me go.
“Of course I’m all right,” I said into his shoulder. “I’m fine. You can let me go.”
His hug loosened, but only a bit. I looked into his eyes and saw the concern there. Wanted to step back into his embrace and do a little hugging of my own when I saw that, even though that nasty bit of my brain that questions everything good wondered if the concern was real. I really needed a hug.
“What’s this about?” I asked.
“Stillwell,” he whispered into my ear, and I shivered.
“I’m fine.” I could hear the tremor in my voice, and felt my heartbeat pick up appreciably.