by Nash Summers
“If you’re busy, we can wait. I didn’t expect you to drop everything.”
“Consider it dropped.” He opened the car door, took out a black T-shirt from the passenger seat, and pulled it over his head. “Let’s take my truck. I’ll blast the air-conditioning. It’s hotter than hell out here.”
The three of us climbed into Monroe’s old, beat-up pickup truck, with Coin in the back, and drove to our house. Silvi sat in the middle between us, turned around in her seat the whole time to look at Coin in the back of the truck. It wasn’t a far drive, but just like he’d promised, Monroe cranked the air-conditioning.
When Monroe sat behind the wheel of our small car, door wide-open, one of his long legs hanging outside, the damn thing still wouldn’t start. He tried it three times, listening to the sound the car made when he twisted the key in the ignition. Silvi and I watched him from the sidelines as he slid from the car and popped open the hood. He fiddled with some things for a few minutes before popping the hood back down.
“Well,” Monroe said, “I think I know what the problem is. Bad news is that it’ll take me a few days to fix it.”
Silvi looked down at the ground, frowning.
“But,” he continued, “I need to go into town for some parts. And I was thinking of going to the supermarket in town to get some other supplies, like pens and paper. Since my garage burned down, I’ve lost all of my invoicing junk. Could order more off Amazon, but there’s this real nice store in town that sells some supplies for small businesses. And, well, I really would consider it a favor if you two would accompany me there. For company.”
Silvi visibly brightened. She turned to me and grabbed my hand. “Can we, Levi?”
“We won’t be a bother?” I asked, unsure.
“Of course not. Gets kinda lonely sometimes, just me and Coin. We could really use the company. Besides, Coin’s taken a real liking to Silvi, and it would be cruel of me not to let them spend some time together this afternoon.”
Before long the three of us piled back into the cab of his truck, Coin in the back. As we bounded down the old country roads, windows rolled down, sunlight shining in, the sound of Silvi laughing as she waved to Coin through the window, I realized I hadn’t felt that content in a long, long time.
Since Silvi had wanted the window seat to look at everything we drove by, I sat in the middle next to Monroe. His hand brushed against the side of my leg each time he reached over to shift gears. I stared down at my hands in my lap, thinking of how warm the sun made my face.
Monroe said nothing during the drive there, just drove with his window open, his arm hanging out the side of the truck. A few times when I looked over at him, he looked back and smiled that easy smile. It made my heart flutter and my chest tighten.
We parked in a dirt parking lot on the edge of the town. Silvi wanted as much time walking around with Coin as possible. Silvi and Coin walked a few feet in front of us as we trailed down the sidewalk.
The city was littered with people, all out enjoying the heat and last few days of summer vacation. Where Malcome was old, with vintage shops and rustic architecture, the city was packed with hip new coffee shops, express sandwich bars, and fashion clothing stores that I could never afford one T-shirt from. It was a bustling place, alive, noisy, and crowded.
I liked the city, and so did Silvi, but in small doses. She’d said before that there were too many ghosts in crowded places. I had to agree with her on that. Too many people walked around in busy cities with their hearts on their sleeves. Everyone seemed too open, too wonder-eyed, too forgiving. We liked our small, dim corner of the world that had been kissed with bits of wonder and magic.
“Thank you,” I said, “for bringing us with you into town. You didn’t have to.”
“Of course I did,” Monroe replied. “Did you see the frown on that pretty little face of hers? What kind of monster would I be if I let that slide?”
“You’re not a monster, Monroe.” I wasn’t the least bit sure what I said was true, but in my heart I knew that I didn’t want him to feel like a monster. I wanted him to feel like there might still be a shred of good left inside him.
He glanced at me as we walked. “When you say my name like that, I might just believe you.”
I had nothing to say to that, so I kept silent. I tried to focus on the back of my little sister’s head of hair, on Coin’s shining fur, and not the shadow of a man walking beside me.
“People around town talk,” he said after a few minutes. “Not just about me. About you too.”
“I’d imagine so,” I replied. “Ain’t much else to do in a place as small as Malcome.”
“They say you wander around town talking to yourself. I’ve never seen you talk to yourself. Do you?”
I looked at him honestly, openly. “No.”
A crease formed between his eyebrows, but he said nothing. If nothing else, I knew Monroe to be a smart man. I knew he’d drop the subject, which was for the best. I wasn’t one of the young bleeding hearts who lived in the city, wanting nothing more than to talk about himself every chance. I wholeheartedly believed in keeping things to myself. There was strength in silence.
We reached the supermarket, and Monroe told Coin to wait outside. Silvi was delighted with the notion that Coin would stay put outside until we were finished shopping. She darted into the store and immediately trotted down the stationary aisle. I followed close behind her, Monroe by my side.
“What color of binder are you going to get?” Monroe asked Silvi as she stared up at the huge wall of supplies.
“Black,” Silvi replied without looking at him.
“Black? You don’t want some other color? Maybe pink or purple?”
She whipped her head around to give him a disgusted look. “No.”
“Silvi’s favorite color is black,” I informed him.
“That’s not true,” Silvi corrected me. “I also like gray.” She grabbed a small, black binder, along with a grayscale set of pencil crayons, a package of pencils, a roll of tape, three black felt markers, and a bundle of white, hole-punched paper. As she grabbed each of these things, she divided them up, handing them back and forth to me and Monroe.
“I can hold on to everything,” Monroe said.
“No,” Silvi replied. “Equality and balance are important.” She handed me a glue stick.
Monroe shot me a look. I gave him a small smile. “Ghosts like balance. Light and dark. Good and evil. Silvi learned a lot from them at a young age.”
He looked like he wanted to say something—anything—but had no words. So when Silvi trailed off toward the front till, we just followed behind her.
Before leaving, we went down the row to grab Silvi a new backpack. Monroe motioned to one with a picture of a Dalmatian on it. At least he was trying with the whole black-and-white thing. Silvi shook her head, grabbed a plain black bag, and told us that she would draw her own ghost on it with the white paint she had at home.
Once I’d paid for her supplies and we were back outside, Silvi happily reunited with Coin. We glanced around at all the other shops. A barber, a shoe store, a holistic goods shop.
Monroe seemed to notice my gaze catching on the holistic goods shop. “Want to stop in?”
“Would you mind?”
He looked at me for a long moment. “No.”
Coin waited outside the shop. Bells jingled on the door as we walked inside. The shop was even smaller than Annamae’s. The walls were huge, built-in bookshelves with spines showing in each and every color of the rainbow. One aisle down the center housed small packages and figurines all cluttered together. The scent of incense and herbs wafted through the air as I began to amble down the aisle.
Just as I picked up a small, sealed vial of ointment, a man turned around the corner. He was in his midfifties, with light gray hair, a kind smile, and a slight hunch. He wore a kimono-style shirt, along with white baggy pants that had a drawstring waist, and flip-flop sandals.
“Oh,” he said w
hen he spotted us. “Hello. Welcome.”
“Hello,” I replied, but already he wasn’t listening. His gaze caught right behind my shoulder. His once friendly expression turned grim, almost horrified-looking, as he stared directly at Monroe.
“Who are you?” the shopkeeper asked quietly.
Monroe, as if used to this reaction in people, said, “No one.”
“You and I both know that’s not true.”
“Listen.” I took a step closer to the almost-quivering man. “Is there a problem?”
Finally his eyes met mine once more. “Oh,” he said when he really looked at me. “Oh, you are… so lovely. Your aura, it’s beautiful. So radiant, but so reserved.” He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. “Then you must see it, sweet boy.”
Monroe took a step closer. I could feel him standing right behind me, his solid chest almost pressed up against my back.
“See what?” I asked.
His eyes quickly flickered up to Monroe, then back to me. “The devil at your back.”
“He’s just a man.” My voice rang hollow.
“Ah, I see now,” the man said, looking away. He kept trying to focus on us, but his eyes could no longer meet mine, as if he were trying to stare at the sun. “You see things, like I do. But differently. You know what he is, but you won’t admit it, especially not to yourself.
“His darkness is wrapping itself around you, sweet boy. You love it, though, don’t you? Oh, I can see it now in your aura. It’s so beautiful, so free, but it craves so badly to tangle with his darkness. It’s not your fault, lovely, you were born to love the darkness. I see that now.”
He kept nodding to himself as though he’d solved a puzzle that had plagued him over many sleepless nights.
“Stop.” I didn’t want him to say any more. The truth in it was painful to hear.
“I wish I could tell you how to save your soul, sweet boy,” he said, “but we both know it will be no use. You are trapped in his web.”
Monroe wrapped his fingers around my arm and pushed me to the side. He took a step toward the man and watched as the man shrank away. “He said stop,” Monroe snapped.
Looking like he was gathering all the courage his small body possessed, the man said, “If you care for this blond angel at all, you’ll leave to the other side of the world and fill your body with gasoline. Maybe then he will be safe from you.”
Without thinking, I grabbed Silvi’s hand, turned, and walked out of the small shop. I began walking down the street, not paying any attention to where I was going. After we’d only made a few steps, a large hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.
“Hey,” Monroe said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry for bringing you in there.”
He shrugged. “Happens all the time. Don’t know if it’s just people with… gifts like yours, but I don’t think so. Even regular people can tell there’s something wrong with me. People cross the street when I walk by. Mothers take their kids away from me. Men look at me like I slept with their wives.”
“That man was odd,” Silvi said, petting the top of Coin’s head. “I think he misses his friend.”
“What friend?” Monroe asked.
“The man. He has dark skin and black eyes. Not dark like Ward, though. He’s really thin. He looks about the same age and height as Levi. You couldn’t see him.”
“Why couldn’t I see him?” Monroe asked, frown in place.
“Because he’s a ghost. He hid on one of the shelves, high up. He was curled into a ball. I didn’t see him at first because he’s so dark. He didn’t really look at me, but he sure looked at you. He looked at you like he couldn’t even believe his eyes! He reached out and touched you. Didn’t you feel it?”
Monroe immediately straightened. He locked his jaw and blinked at Silvi.
I crouched down to look at my little sister and tugged on a strand of her hair. “Do you want to get ice cream, Silvi?”
“Yes!” she squealed, delighted.
“Ice cream?” I asked Monroe as I stood back up.
He nodded at me, but the spooked expression on his face remained. “Okay.”
“What flavor do you want?” I asked Silvi.
“Vanilla!”
I smiled. “Why vanilla?”
“Because it’s my second-favorite color.”
BY THE time we’d gone to the ice cream shop and the mechanic’s shop so that Monroe could order parts for our car, the sky was a gradient of carmine and tea rose. The evening had snuck up on us while we talked and ate ice cream, and Silvi ran around a playground with Coin.
Monroe carried all the bags of things we’d purchased, and I carried a sleeping Silvi back to Monroe’s truck. Coin climbed in the back and we slid into the front cab. I took off the thin sweater I’d been wearing over a loose T-shirt and used it to make a small pillow for Silvi, which I propped against the side of the car.
Even as we bounded down the gravel road and headed back into Malcome along a bumpy, uneven trail, Silvi remained asleep.
I leaned against the back of the seat, closed my eyes, enjoyed the gentle rumble of the truck engine, the sound of the wind whipping against the glass.
“You stood up for me today in that shop.” Monroe’s voice was low, rough.
“You are just a man, Monroe,” I replied. I kept my eyes shut. In that moment, sitting next to him, the warm glow of the sunset pressing against my eyelids, I didn’t trust my heart.
“You’re not. You’re something else, Levi. I ain’t sure what, but I know you’re something different.”
After a long, delayed silence, in a whisper, almost hoping he wouldn’t hear it, I said, “You might be too.”
Monroe moved his hand across the seat to where my hand rested. As gentle as the feel of a snowflake falling onto bare, warm skin, he brushed his thumb against my open palm.
I knew then it was too late for me. If Monroe Poirier was doomed, I was doomed too.
The barest, most intimate touch of his skin against mine was more electrifying than staring into a person’s soul, more exhilarating than talking to ghosts, more magical than dreaming of the future.
As we continued back home in silence, Monroe’s thumb softly drawing patterns into the palm of my hand, I hoped my soul would forgive me for giving my heart to the devil.
Chapter 10
“TABLE NINE is being a real pain today, Levi,” Saddie said. She flipped her long, blond hair over her shoulder.
Saddie almost never wore makeup, so I knew that was probably why table nine, a booth full of recent secondary school graduates, was giving her a hard time.
“Want me to take over?”
She sighed heavily. “No. It’s fine. They’ll probably tip well. They’re just being a pain in my ass.”
The night was growing late, and Saddie and I were both impatient to get home. She hadn’t said as much, but she kept looking at the clock and fussing with her hair in the bathroom mirror when she thought no one was looking.
I wanted to get home to ask Silvi how her first day back to school was. I’d seen her off to school in the morning, but was scheduled to work the night shift. Mama told me she’d probably be in bed before I even got home, but I knew Silvi would be up waiting for me to read her a ghost story before bed. She had a difficult time sleeping without one.
Hud had already left for the evening, so there was only Saddie and me left working. There were a few tables still eating and chatting, but the diner was surprisingly quiet.
Saddie flicked on the switch for the coffeemaker while I folded some clean dish towels and put them away in the cupboard behind the counter.
“Date tonight?” I asked her.
Her face turned beet red. “Not exactly.”
I stood up straight and faced her. “Not exactly?”
“Well.” She drew out the vowel as she stared up at the ceiling. She was obviously deciding if she wanted to tell me or not. Eventually, in a quiet voice, she said, “Do you remember that Mon
roe guy?”
The mention of his name caused my blood to chill, especially when Saddie was the one saying it.
“Yes,” I replied. “He’s fixing my car.”
“Well, we hooked up that one time.”
I turned, grabbed some dishcloths, and began folding them again. Praying my voice didn’t shake, I said, “Did you?”
“I know people say a lot of nasty things about him, but he’s really not all that bad. He can be sweet, even if he does seem lonely.”
I didn’t want to hear this. The words made my stomach clench. “So you’re seeing him tonight?” I asked because apparently I had little self-control.
“Maybe. We only hooked up once, and that was a while ago—that one time you caught me doing the walk of shame. We were both way too drunk that night. When he woke up the next morning and saw me there, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look so surprised. The next time I saw him, he told me it was a mistake.” She snorted. “I can’t give up that easily.”
“Oh.”
“Oddly enough, he did mention you, though. That one night we spent together. Chatted my head off at the bar.” Saddie gave me a funny look when I didn’t say anything. “Anyway, I’m planning to stop by his house after work, see if I can change his mind. He’s so handsome and odd. I mean, I don’t know the first thing about the man, besides what everyone else in town is saying. And most of that is probably bullshit.”
“Probably.”
“I know you think something is wrong with him. But unlike you, Mr. Goody-Goody, I find his roughness exciting.”
“Just because something’s wrong with him, doesn’t mean I don’t like him.”
Her expression deadpanned. “There can’t be anything between you two.”
“There isn’t,” I said hurriedly. “I guess I’ve just grown a bit… fonder of him than I thought I would.”
“Good. Maybe you can put a good word in for me.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Saddie.”