by Amy Sparling
Great. Now I'm talking to myself. "I'm not going to hurt you," I say, almost pleading. When again, nothing happens, I bolt out of bed and stand under the chandelier, my hands gripped tight. "Look. Just show yourself," I say through clenched teeth. "Scare me. Jump out and grab me, I don't care." I look up and try to picture a dead body hanging from a rope. "I need to talk to Brendan. I need him. Please."
Somewhere far away, a car brakes so quickly that its tires screech for several seconds. I jump as the sound of metal crashing into metal rings through the air. I look out the window, down five floors below at the road. A black minivan, crunched in the middle from a red sports car. The drivers get out and flail their arms in the air, shouting to each other. My breath makes a foggy spot on the glass door as I watch the scene unfold. No one is hurt. I wonder if that's the sound Brendan heard the night he died.
When I break away from the window, the room is different. At first, I'm not sure how, but everything looks hazy. I walk around the suite, my shoes making squeaking noises on the marble floor. A crystal dangles back and forth, hanging from the pull chain on a lamp next to me. The lamp is off.
I pull it and the light beams on, making the room feel normal again. "Did you do that?" I ask, panic rising in my voice. "Did you turn off the light? Do it again." My breaths come ragged as I watch the lamp waiting, hoping, for it to turn off.
"Turn it off!" I yell, staring at the crystal so hard that everything else in the room goes fuzzy. "Show me that you're here. Tell me where Brendan is. I need to know that he isn't mad at me."
There is a click, and another light goes off. I spin around in the direction of the click, expecting to see another dangling pull chain, a ghost, anything but what I actually see.
Chapter 33
"Why would Brendan be mad at you?" Raine's hand hovers over the light switch by the door.
"Why are you here?" I ask, venom in my voice. I'm so full of anger, my cheeks don't have time to turn red. He's caught me in an intimate moment, an embarrassing moment. Now Raine knows all of my secrets.
"Anna told me you stayed up here." He shifts on his feet. "I didn't want you to have another breakdown." He looks around the room, his face solemn. "Alone."
"I'm fine." I stomp back to the window. I cross my arms. I can see his reflection through the glass, but I focus hard on looking beyond him at the ocean.
"You're not fine." His reflection walks toward me, stopping when he's close enough for me to see the real him. "Taylor, look." He swipes his bangs across his forehead, revealing his brown eyes. "You don't have to like me. It's fine."
"What does that have to do with anything?" I mumble, looking back outside. He touches my cheek and makes me look at him. "Why else would Brendan be mad at you?"
"Tons of reasons." I jerk away from his hand. "Not everything is about you."
"Okay," he steps back, quickly masking the look of hurt on his face. "Well you tell me what's wrong?"
I shake my head. I stare out at the ocean for several minutes with Raine standing next to me. Silences aren't awkward with Raine, probably from all the quiet time we've spent together looking for ghosts. Nothing spooky happens while we stand here, staring at the ocean like a couple of zombies.
"Why are you still here?" I ask. "Don't you have autographs to sign, and girls to take photos with?"
He sighs. "Don't be a jerk." He's being friendly but it rubs me the wrong way. He barges in on me and berates me with questions about my personal life and yet I'm the jerk? Right. I storm over to the bed and grab my keys off the nightstand.
"Taylor." Raine's shoulders fall as he watches me walk into the hallway. There's no one around but I whisper it anyway. "It is about you, Raine." I grasp my keys so hard my knuckles turn white. "Maybe I believe now. Maybe I've actually seen a ghost lately. And that's a lot of shit for my mind to handle right now, and I don't need you clouding up my thoughts even more."
He takes a step toward me and I hold out my hand, stopping him. "Just don't say anything, okay? Just for once, don't have the answers. Leave me alone right now. I need to think."
"Leave you alone?" He looks so freaking crushed, that for a second I feel like running back in the room and grabbing him in a bear hug. But I don't because I'm full of anger that stems from embarrassment, and it's mixed with a million other emotions all at once. Truth is, this is totally about Raine. Because I like him. And I liked Brendan. But Brendan isn't here and Raine is and for some reason I can't accept that.
"And by the way," I say, lifting my arms up in surrender. "I do like you, okay? I do. So--" I swallow. “So, there.”
Chapter 34
Three hundred and fourteen dollars sits beside me on my drive home. I can't help but look over at it at every red light. Three hundred dollars. Guilt stabs at me, as I look at the stack of twenty dollar bills. Mom can't know about this or she'll want me to hand it over.
In the apartment parking lot, I look for a place to hide the money, knowing it's safer in the Ford than in the apartment. The Ford has an alarm, and the apartment has my mom's snoopy hands. Without even thinking, I launch across the truck and pull on the glove box handle. It doesn't open.
Like a tidal wave, I'm thrown back into the memory of Brendan yelling at me. Whatever he was hiding in there, I guess I'll never know. Defeated, I slide half the money under my driver's seat and put the rest in my pocket. Mom can know about half, I decide. Half is probably more than I'd make at her stupid strip club anyhow.
A crazy idea comes to me while I'm showering. It hits me with a rush of excitement at first, making everything seem perfect and wonderful. The hot water washes over my back as I figure out how to set the plan into motion.
I can save enough money to move out on my own.
The museum can pay the bills I owe to Mom, but most of the money I make from ghost tours can go into savings. Then when I turn eighteen, I can move out. I rinse shampoo from my hair and smile with my eyes closed tight. This could totally work.
Only, Raine would have to keep letting me be his assistant. Mom would have to never know that I'm only telling her about half of my money. And I would have to be cruel enough to leave Mom to fend for herself.
I can be cruel.
Right?
An empty towel rack faces me as I step out of the shower. Mom forgot to do laundry again. Shivering and soaking wet, I peak out of the bathroom to make sure I'm still alone, then I dash to the laundry hamper. I dry off with the shirt I wore to work today and wrap a dirty towel around my hair. The microwave clock illuminates the kitchen with green numbers that tell me it's almost midnight.
I have work in eight hours, laundry to do, moving out plans to make and sleep to get. At least two of the three are achievable tonight. I bring a notebook and three garbage bags of dirty clothes with me to the Laundromat.
Moving Out Plan
-Turn eighteen. (December 3rd)
-Save money for apartment deposit: $400
-Save money for furniture/necessary living items: $500
-Find the best apartment for the best price. (Not in the ghetto.) : $600?
-Move out without telling Mom
-Move out….tell Mom….Nicely
The living room light is on when I get home from the Laundromat. It's around one in the morning, and Mom shouldn't be home for another hour. Leaving the laundry in the back of the Ford, I tip toe across the grass to the window. Why would anyone want to break in to our apartment? We have nothing of value.
With trembling hands, I peer into the window through the crack in the curtains. Mom is sitting on the floor with her back against the couch, her hands holding her face. I can hear the sobbing from where I'm standing.
"Mom?" I say, bursting through the door. My keys fall to the floor as I rush to her and drop to my knees. "Mom what's wrong?" I grab her knee and gently shake it. She lifts her head, choking back tears. Her mascara is streaked down her cheeks and across her face. Her eyes are swollen and puffy. "Mom?" I say, searching her eyes for answers. Mom only cries
when she's drunk. Right now all I can smell is her dollar-store perfume.
She looks at me as if seeing me for the first time. She actually stops crying for a moment, before her face flashes me a disgusted look. "I got fired," she says, glaring at me as if I'm the one who fired her.
"Why?"
"Doesn't matter why." Her voice slurs into another fit of sobs. "I'm too damn old and ugly. Nobody wants an old hag working for them."
"Mom, you are not a hag." I sit back on my knees, and brush my hand over her hair. It's crunchy from hairspray.
Mom puts her forehead on her knees and cries some more. Time for some damage control. "Don't cry," I say with a cheerful tone. "You will find another job easy, I just know you will." Mom keeps crying. I talk with more enthusiasm. "You have a great personality and you're really good with kids. Maybe you can find a job with kids. I'll talk to Margret because she knows everyone around here and we'll find you a job. It'll be fine."
Mom sits up and wipes her eyes with the back of her hands. "Will she do that for me?"
"Of course. Margret is really nice." Mom considers this. She grabs a blanket off the couch, my blanket, and wipes her whole face with it, drying up the tears. "It would be nice to work a real job. Something that doesn't make me feel like a whore."
"Yes," I say. "We will find a real job for you."
"What are we gonna do for money until then?"
"We'll be okay," I say, not knowing for sure that we will. "I have some cash."
"How much? Rent is due in three days."
I pull out the hundred and fifty dollars in my back pocket and drop it on the coffee table. "Here's one-fifty." She blinks back tears and stares at the crumpled bills. "Is that all you have?"
The paper in my back pocket burns a hole in my heart. The plan for my future, the plan to better my life and leave Mom behind. I take a deep breath, considering the weight of my decision. Mom's hopeful eyes bore into me like a starving stray dog. "No," I say, letting my shoulders fall. "I have more in the truck."
Chapter 35
"Can I ask you something?" Raine says, hopping out of the back of the truck in once swift motion. His shoes hit the sand with a swoosh. He's the only person I know who wears skateboard shoes on the beach.
"You just did." I throw my leg over the side of the truck bed, step on the tire and gracefully climb down.
"Why do you call your truck, the truck?"
"Huh?"
"It's your truck, right? I mean you own it. So why don't you say my truck?"
"Oh," I say, running my finger along the shiny paint on the tailgate. "I didn't realize I said that."
"It's weird," he says, looking at me from under his bangs. I think about the question. Do I really say that? "It hasn't always been my truck," I say, thinking aloud. "It was given to me. So I guess I say that because it doesn't really feel like my property."
"Who gave it to you?" It's an innocent enough question. I mean, he asked it with his hands in his pockets, all friendly and unimposing-like. But I can't possibly answer it for him.
"That's a story for another day." I shuffle around the stuff in my beach back. He raises one eyebrow. "Or possibly never," I add. He kicks at the sand, looking all dejected because I won't tell him what he wants to know. It's a look he's had a lot more since the night at the hotel. I press the lock button on my keys and the truck honks. "Let's go find Pax and Anna."
My ten dollar clearance rack bikini is too tight around my neck and itches like crazy. I scratch at it under the oversized T-shirt I wear as a cover. Anna has a sheer sundress thing over hers. She looks cute. I look…well, I look like Taylor Gray. The girl who wore high waters to school almost every day in third grade because they were the only pants I had besides a pair of leggings with a hole in the knees. So of course I'm wearing a cheap swim suit and a big dumb T-shirt advertising to donate blood.
Raine and Pax are playing football with some guys they know from school. Anna wants to work on her tan today, and I'm joining her despite having no desire to become a beach bunny. She says she read about how the sun's rays have healing powers and all the vitamin D is good for your complexion. I think her sudden desire to hang out on the beach may or may not have had something to do with the fact that Pax is here.
"Why are there so many people here?" I ask as we trudge through the sand. My feet sink several inches with each step. "Because it's summer and it's a beautiful day, duh." Anna pulls her sunglasses down and looks around us. "This is a pretty good spot, we can stay here." We dump our stuff on the sand. I stretch out my new beach towel – also from the clearance rack – and sit on it. Anna rips off her swimsuit cover.
"I've never been to the beach," I say, causing Anna to give me one of her looks.
"You're kidding?"
I shake my head. If I don't take off my shirt, I might as well be wearing a sign that says I'm too self-conscious to be seen half-naked in public. That's almost worse than actually being seen half-naked in public. I pull off my shirt.
Anna lies back on her towel and rests her arms under her head. "That explains why you're so pale, I guess."
I lie on my towel and squint at the clouds above. "You know, the people in Sterling can be summed up in a few words. Tan and Ghost-obsessed."
Anna laughs. "Oh come on it's not that bad. I moved here when I was five and I've always loved it. I love the beach and I love the history. It's beautiful here."
"Yeah, yeah," I say, crunching my shirt into a ball to cover my eyes from the sun. I hear the guys yelling at each other as they run past us. Anna lets out a low whistle. "The guys are hot too."
"That, I won't deny," I say. "So what's the story with Pax?"
"His mom and my mom are friends," she says, rolling over to her stomach. I roll over too. "We flirt a lot but he never actually does anything, ya know? It's annoying."
"Why don't you make a move first?"
"Oh ha. Wow, you're funny."
"Is he going to be here long?"
"What do you mean?"
"He's not American, right? I mean, he has that accent and all."
"No, he's here for good." She rests her chin in her hands and stares out at the ocean. "He was born in England, and he had really bad allergies as a baby. The doctors said he would have a horrible life if he stayed in England. So his family moved to America where he doesn't have allergies anymore."
"No shit? That's amazing."
She smiles. "I know. It's like we were meant to meet each other."
"Do you truly believe that?"
"Yep."
"Like how you truly believe in ghosts?"
"Yep."
I don't know why I'm even asking it, I mean—I SAW A GHOST—with my own freaking eyes. But I need validation. I need to know that I'm not just psycho. "How can you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Just believe blindly in things."
"The Pax thing could just be a coincidence, I guess. But my ghost beliefs aren't blind."
Intrigued, I say, "Do explain."
"Sure, but can we get a snow cone first?" The traveling snow cone kiosk guy walks toward us. He knows Anna's order before she asks for it: a blueberry pina colada. "And what would you like?" he asks me. I shrug. "Surprise me."
"Hey Donnie?" I ask, reading his nametag. He grunts in a reply. "Do you believe in ghosts?"
His eyes, glossy from whatever form of intoxication he prefers, meet mine. "Of course. You'd be stupid not to." He hands me my snow cone. It's red, white and blue.
"So what's your story?" I ask her when we're back on our towels, soaking up rays.
"I haven't seen anything especially ghostly," she says. She takes a bite out of her snow cone. "But I used to hear my mom and dad talk all the time, when they thought I was asleep. I could hear right through the walls, and I would lie awake in bed and listen to them."
"Well?" I say, trying to prod her along because her stories are always mostly rambling and very little meat.
"My dad is haunted by this white shadowy thin
g. He wakes up in the middle of the night and sees it sitting on the corner of their bed. He calls my mom's name a lot until she wakes up, and it always wakes me up too. It's like he's so desperate when he's calling her name. And as soon as I hear her ask what's wrong, my dad is always like, 'It happened again. I saw it.' and Mom tells him to go back to sleep because he's probably imagining it."
"But how do you know he's not just imagining it?"
She takes another bite of her snow cone. Blue juice runs down her lip and she wipes it off with the corner of her towel. "Because my dad is not like that. He's really brave and he's never scared of anything. But he's scared of that."
"Still seems unbelievable to me," I say. "No offense, or anything," I add when I see the look on her face. "I'm just hard to convince."
"I have an idea," she says, her lips now blue. "Why don't you start asking everyone you meet to tell you their ghost stories. You cannot possibly think everyone on Earth is a hack. Eventually you will believe."
"Maybe," I say. I wonder if I'll ever tell her about Mrs. Graves.
No. Definitely not.
Chapter 36
Work is agonizingly slow the next day. All I can think about are Raine's pretty eyes and that stupid mischievous smile he wears so well. On a busy day, this wouldn't affect me but on today, a Wednesday, and a rainy day at that, no one decides to visit the old railroad museum and I'm left with only my thoughts and Margret all day. Margret brings her knitting to work for days like this. I watch her stitch and pull and stitch and pull and wrap and twist yarn for hours. For an old lady hobby, it requires a lot of hard work.