Ghost Girl in the Corner

by Daniel José Older

  “I am Coruscant,” Coruscant said.

  “We know,” Ms. Rollins muttered.

  “Barretto is my last name.”

  “From Paree,” Rafael and Tee said at the same time.

  Coruscant shot them an annoyed look. “Oui.”

  “And what do you like to write about, Coorohsant?” Jessica asked.

  He shrugged. “Eh, beautiful women, mostly.”

  “This is gonna be an amazing paper,” Ms. Rollins said.

  Jessica looked like she had to expend physical effort to ignore her. “So, a dating column, maybe? Fantastic.” She turned her wide gaze to Tee.

  “Huh? Oh,” Tee said. She stood, adjusted herself. “I’m, uh, Trejean, but folks call me Tee. I love writing, I write about everything, but I haven’t shown a whole lot to the world except here and there on my blog or whatever. I guess I mostly just keep a diary. My girlfriend’s a rapper, King Impervious, you mighta heard of her, she’s kind of a big deal. If you have a problem with me having a girlfriend, you can eat a whole bag of dicks. Oh, and I knew Manny. Not well, but I live in Bed-Stuy, so you know, he was always here, somewhere. Like the moon, kinda. Even when he wasn’t there, you knew he would show up in another day or two. But now he ain’t here and he ain’t gonna be here and it makes me sad as hell, to be honest. So I figured carrying on the Searchlight would be a way to honor him somehow.”

  Jessica looked truly moved. “Thank you, Trejean. Thank you for that beautiful tribute. Okay, so we’re going to leave you to it. Cover the neighborhood, write the stories that no one else writes, just try to keep a happy face on it, is all we ask, okay? So even if you’re writing about, let’s say, a relationship that didn’t go well, Coorohsant, you know, maybe end on an upbeat note like Hey, maybe you guys will get back together, you know?”

  Everyone just stared at her.

  “Or if you’re covering a serial killer, Mina — okay, bad example, never mind. If a crime happens, let’s say, and we’re writing about it, make sure to approach it from a sunny angle somehow, you know? Maybe there’s a bright side of it that someone hasn’t seen, but you can? Right? Because that’s what we’re trying to do here, make people happy. The neighborhood is changing a lot, right? So let’s figure out how that’s a positive thing and focus on that, alright? Alright. Ms. Rollins has your stipend checks, so she’s going to pass those out, and we’ll see you on the emails!” Jessica gave a quick, peppy wave and then retreated quickly up the stairs.

  Ms. Rollins looked as stunned as everyone else. “Uh … here’s your checks,” she said. “Good luck with that.” She dropped a stack of envelopes on the table next to Tee, raised her eyebrows, waved, and was out.

  The door closed. A few seconds passed.

  Mina said, “Well, I, for one, am shocked that the white lady doesn’t want us to write about any of the ills of gentrification.”

  “Yo!” Rafael yelled as everyone busted out laughing.

  Tee let the last giggles die down, then she snatched up the checks and passed them out. “Alright, listen. First of all: Ignore all that shit she just said.”

  “Menos mal,” Rafael sighed.

  “Thank you!” Mina yelped.

  Coruscant just shrugged.

  “Second of all” — she glared at Coruscant — “tu ne parles pas un mot de français, hm?”

  “Eh …” He sat back, hands up like he was being held up. “Ménage à trois —”

  Tee shook her head. “I knew it! Cut that accent out right now.”

  “Seriously,” Mina said. “If you’re French, I’m Jay-Z.”

  “Fine, fine, fine.” He dropped his hands and the accent. “My name really is Coruscant Barretto, though, I swear. And the second c and first t are silent.”

  Tee rolled her eyes. “How the … Why, bruh?”

  “My parents are high-functioning Star Wars nerds.”

  “No, man, why you gotta fake the funk with French?”

  “Oh, I mean … I dunno. I like messing with people?”

  “Alright, save it for the beat we assign you. Speaking of which, let’s do that. And look, I’m serious. No sunny happy shit, please; I will fire you with a quickness.”

  “But we already got paid,” Rafael pointed out.

  “I don’t care, man, I’ll get that money back and give it to someone real. Watch me.”

  “Damn.”

  “Alright, beats,” Tee said. “Mina — you want crime?”

  “Actually …” She squirmed in her chair and tugged at the scarf she had wrapped around her slender neck. “I was thinking — a lotta Staten Island folks, including my batshit grandma, were Brooklyn folks once upon a time. Then Great White Flight happened and they dipped, ended up on one of the islands — Staten or Long — and took their money and resources with ’em. Now they sitting there feelin’ bitter about the fact that Brooklyn ain’t theirs anymore and whining about how the bad black and brown folks took it over. Meanwhile, their young, hip counterparts are mounting an actual takeover and pricing out black and brown folks, ya know?”

  “Our girl just summarized thirty years of urban history in a half a ’graph,” Coruscant marveled.

  “So I wanna find a couple bitter white folks and sweeten ’em up so they unload all that nasty racist shit they carrying around. Then find some hipsters and see what’s what, feel me?”

  “Dope,” Tee said. “That’s your beat, then. You got it. Keep it focused, though. This ain’t a dissertation.”

  “No doubt.”

  “And no serial killers.”

  “Aw, man.”

  Tee sorted out the rest of the assignments pretty quickly: Coruscant would cover fashion, and Rafael whatever local sports were going on. “What you gonna write about?” Rafael asked.

  “Whatever I feel like,” Tee said. When Rafael scowled, she grinned. “I was thinking of interviewing some of the old guys that wander around aimlessly. Old Drasco —”

  Coruscant perked up. “With the cats?”

  “With the cats. And Uh-Oh Guy.”

  “Who’s that?” Rafael asked.

  “Uh-Oh Guy walks around all night holding a mirror up to his face and yelling Uh-oh!” Coruscant explained. “No one knows why.”

  “Exactly,” Tee said.

  “Good shit,” Coruscant said.

  Tee clapped her hands. “Alright, go get ’em, intrepid reporters. And remember: No sunshine happy-happy bullshit.”

  And then Tee was alone again.

  Alone and very much alive, and somehow even more so because, there in the corner, the dead girl swirled in her ethereal glow. Tee had managed to keep her eyes from sliding over to her every couple seconds while the meeting was happening. It took work, though. Now she let the silence settle in, then turned and faced the ghost girl head-on. She took a step toward her, then another.

  “What’s your name?” Tee’s own voice startled her in the stillness.

  The ghost girl just swirled and stared, swirled and stared.

  “What do you want?” Tee now stood just a few inches away from the girl’s shining nose. It was wide like Tee’s and had a ring through the septum.

  Yes-or-no questions, Tee thought. Fool.

  “Do you want something?”

  The ghost girl just swirled and stared, cool unblinking eyes, mouth slightly open.

  “Alright,” Tee said. Her heart seemed to climb into her throat as the idea formed inside her. “We gonna try something.” She glanced at Manny’s old Linotype machine. “You’re here for a reason. You showing yourself to me for a reason.”

  She was a shadowshaper, after all. Sierra had brought her and their friends into that sacred magic one night on the beach. So Tee had that power in her, even if she had no idea how to use it yet. Sierra had told them all: You raise one hand to the sky, and when the spirit enters, you touch a work of art, and the spirit will go through you and into the art and then inhabit it. In the form of art, the spirit becomes powerful, much more so than when it’s just a glowing shadow. But th
e newly inducted shadowshapers still hadn’t had a chance to hold that practice session Sierra kept talking about, and then everyone got busy and and and … Here she was, clueless and face-to-face with a dead girl in an empty basement.

  And even for all that, not terrified.

  Nervous, but not afraid.

  Tee took a breath, steadied herself, and walked over to the Linotype machine. It looked like the cockpit of some giant steampunk insect: metal gears and levers and a wide keyboard you sat in front of. This was where Manny would create the plates for each article that would then get pressed into the full paper. He said he loved the clackity-clack of each stroke, how words became rhythms on it, something alive and brave, that he couldn’t abide the hush of computer keyboards, not when he’d heard the secret, shameless Linotype rhythms of words.

  The machine wasn’t a work of art, not exactly, but what was the difference, really? Someone had made it, or many someones. Tee reached over and clicked it on; the Linotype churned to life. She glanced back at the ghost girl. She was maybe a little closer now. Yes. The corner she had been hovering in — lurking in, really — was darker; the girl had moved. Tee’s eyes went wide; her heart stammered a frantic pitter-patter. She held one hand over the keys, glanced over her shoulder just in time to catch the spirit flushing forward, arms stretched out.

  It took everything in Tee not to flinch and break into a run. She didn’t, though; she threw her other hand up, meeting the girl as she launched through the air. Then a smooth iciness flooded through Tee’s arm, her chest, her whole face, seemed to light up with a frosty fire. The feeling slid down her other arm and was gone, and Tee took two startled steps back as that gentle blue light pulsed from the Linotype.

  For a few seconds, Tee just stared at the machine. She’d done it. She’d shadowshaped. On her first damn try, no less. She let a slight smile spread across her face, and then a key thudded forward with a sharp ka-chunk!

  Tee jumped back, then remembered that that was exactly why she was trying this in the first place. She peered at the little window over to the side that revealed what letter each metal slug carried as it slid into place.

  H

  Ka-chunk!

  Tee already knew what the next three letters would be, but she looked anyway.

  Ka-chunk-chunk!

  E L P

  “I treat this / Like Imma beat this,” Izzy muttered. “Something mothasomething with the effing effing meat, sis.”

  The late setting sun cast a warm orange haze around Izzy’s long shadow. Bed-Stuy rippled with passing cars, folks on the stoop, old ladies selling syrupy ice out of pushcarts, blasting hip-hop, and random hipsters. Izzy scowled. They were all stupid and could all go to hell.

  “What’s up, ma,” some rando called from a stoop.

  “Eat shit, dad,” Izzy replied.

  “Whoa!”

  She kept walking, covering up the ensuing curseout with her headphones and the dazzling trippy beats of DJ Taza. “I treat this / Like Imma beat this.”

  A cluster of cop cars sat double- and triple-parked in front of the project house up ahead. Izzy crossed the street, narrowing her eyes at them. She had just enough time to get coffee and hop on the train to make it out to Summer Slam on time. Getting hassled by some dudebro from Long Island with a badge didn’t figure into her schedule. “Peace, piss. Treat, tryst. Heat, hiss.”

  What the hell was wrong with Tee?

  Truth was, she’d been acting strange for almost a month now. Strange like not quite there. Tee was usually the first one to go in for a kiss, the one vomiting up all the gooey lovey-dovey-type crap that normally would make Izzy roll her eyes and shake her head, but right about now? Some affection would be nice, dammit. Izzy couldn’t even remember the last time Tee had said “I love you.” And sure, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d said it either, but that wasn’t the point! You established a rhythm and so that’s how things worked.

  Izzy scowled as she yanked open the door to the coffee spot on Bedford. Why did people have to change? The whole great thing about Tee was what a rock she was. Izzy got to be the moody one, the mad one, the weird one. Whatever she needed to be.

  A cramp ripped through Izzy and she let out an audible growl before remembering she still had her headphones on. She cursed, pulling them down around her neck.

  “Uh, can I help you?”

  Izzy looked up.

  A scrawny white kid stared over the counter at her. He wore a black baseball cap with an X on it (ironically, Izzy presumed) and a puffy vest over a Metallica T-shirt. His hand drifted toward the open mouth of the tip jar as if the money might magically make its way into Izzy’s pocket.

  “Lemme get a iced chocolate mochaccino with extra chocolate and two shots of espresso. To go. Hold the straw.”

  “Iced?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do … you … want … it … iced?”

  Izzy just stared at him. “It’s July, bruh. Nobody got time for your shit.”

  His eyes widened, then narrowed, then he went about his business putting the drink together while Izzy stood there seething.

  “You know it’s extra for the chocolate and espresso shots, right?”

  Izzy blinked.

  “Just letting you know,” the barista said without looking up.

  “I’m going to own you one day, Teddy,” Izzy said quietly.

  “What’s that?”

  “Like, literally own you. Not the coffee shop. You.”

  “Did you just call me Teddy?”

  “And when you bore me, Imma eat you.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Give me my coffee, Ted.”

  “My name’s not —”

  Izzy slammed her palm on the counter so hard it upset a stack of organic ginger candies. Everyone in the place looked up.

  The barista flinched, then quickly spun around, finished the foamy concoction, and handed it to Izzy.

  “Three seventy-five,” he whispered.

  Izzy threw a five on the counter. “Keep the change, Theodore.” She pulled her headphones on, walked out feeling both smug and shitty, and took a sip of her drink as she descended into the train station.

  All the lush chocolate and bitter espresso swirled in with that gushy sweet whipped cream and made Izzy’s whole face tingle. She swiped her MetroCard and pushed through the turnstile as that flush of frosty joy swept through her chest, sent a sparkling chill cascading across her whole body. Perfection.

  “Imma beat this / I’m defeatless / a beat fest / heat crest / I’m the best / ace every test / can’t be stressed / I’m unpressed.” Two businessmen gaped at her as she passed and she threw a snarl in right as the beat turned around. “Undaunted / I flaunt it.” The tunnel lit up and then the train rolled around the corner into view and came grinding and squealing into the station. “You want it / It’s iconic / it don’t come and go, it’s chronic.”

  She stepped onto the train and the truth of the matter hammered down on her out of nowhere. Tee didn’t love her anymore. It was that simple. The lights seemed too bright and too dim at the same time. They seared her face, sent blobs of color dancing across the darkness of the tunnel out the window. It was freezing on the damn train; the AC must be on overdrive. Everything was wrong.

  Izzy sat at the far end of the car, put her back against the wall and her feet up on the seat next to her. “You ain’t heard this / I’m like perfect / Undiscovered but I deserve it.” She shook her head. “I deserve it.” Everyone was staring again, but it didn’t matter.

  Tee didn’t love her anymore.

  A few stops from Coney Island, Izzy snapped out of a lyric-filled daze. The mochaccino had melted into a gooey mess, but it was still delicious, if kinda watery now. She glanced out the window. The last time she’d been out this way was the night Sierra made them all shadowshapers. Lotta good that had done.

  “Imma treat this / like Imma beat this,” Izzy mumbled. She rubbed a hand across her face. Performing would bring her
back to life. Onstage, everything else fell away. And Tee would come, and see her kill it in front of a bigger audience than she’d ever faced before, and night would be falling over the ocean and all the lights would find her in the midst of a darkening world and the words would spray off her tongue like their own beam of light, and they’d find Tee and remind her of their love.

  And everything would be all the hell right.

  “Whatsa matta, man?” Izzy asked, strolling up to the area behind the stage. Road crews and stressed-out managers paced back and forth, lugging equipment and looking for late performers.

  Desmond Pocket shook his head, fists clenched at his hips. “Mi cyaan badda, Iz.” It was damn near a hundred degrees and the dude was still in his green blazer and wearing a damn tie.

  “That’s not helpful, D. What’s going on?”

  “Besides that yuh late as hell and I hadta play you in soundcheck and it wasn’t pretty, let mi tell yuh …”

  “Yikes, I can imagine.”

  “Is di wutless organiza dem and dem rassclaat last-minute changes.”

  Izzy raised her eyebrows. “Changes?”

  “It some church group cosponsoring and they imposed a strict no-swearing policy on all performances.”

  “What?”

  “Mi know, trus’ me. Mi try fi argue dem down with every lawyerly trick in the book but they won’t budge.”

  Onstage, some alt-emo-postpunk quartet called Slardibardfast whined about a girl that never loved them anyway. Inside Izzy, everything was slowly falling apart. “But …” she started.

  “Heyy, boo,” a tall girl in a bikini bottom and torn T-shirt called out as she strode past on long bronze legs. Izzy and Desmond both unleashed huge smiles and waved.

  “Jeezum Peez,” Desmond groaned when she was gone. “No sah! Do I not make it abundantly clear that I am gay?”

  Izzy scowled. “First of all: No, man, you do not.”

  Desmond kissed his teeth. “Chuh!”

  “Secondly: She was talking to me. And third: Yo! How Imma go up there and not swear?”

  “Mi no know!”

  “What I’m s’posta rhyme ‘Horcrux’ with, bruh?”