The Ghosts of Now

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  He pauses while I hold my breath. I can’t let him see that scarf. Finally he turns back to his notebook. “And going forty-five in a thirty-five zone,” he continues.

  “I wasn’t!”

  “I clocked it, young lady.”

  “That’s not true!” I guess I’m thinking slowly. I finally begin to get the message—back off, or there’ll be more harassment.

  “Sign,” he says again.

  I open my mouth to protest, but realize it won’t do any good. So far he hasn’t taken a good look at me. Maybe he’s been too embarrassed to do so. My best bet is to sign that ticket and clear out as steadily as I can manage.

  As soon as he’s back in his car, I drive away carefully, thankful that it’s over. My hands tremble on the steering wheel. This whole episode scared me more than I thought it would. As soon as I’m sure the policeman isn’t following me I head down the nearest alley and stop long enough to stuff the glasses and scarf into someone’s dumpster.

  I told Mom I’d be back soon, but I’ve got such an urgent need to see Jeremy that I head for the hospital. Maybe Dad will still be there. I’m sure that Jeremy knows when one of us is with him. I hope he does, because I’ve got more to talk to him about.

  I remember to look at the left taillight. The policeman wasn’t kidding. It’s not only broken. It looks as though it was smashed. There are a couple of small dents around the rim of the light. If I had backed into something I certainly would have known it. Maybe it was Mom. We both use this car. I’ll ask her when I see her.

  The hallways of the hospital rattle with dinner-tray carts, and a pungent, beefy odor from the tin-covered dishes overpowers even the pine-scented floors.

  Dad is sitting in the chair by Jeremy’s bed when I push open the door to Jeremy’s room. A folder is open on his lap, and papers are strewn on the blanket. He takes off his reading glasses and stares at me for a moment before he recognizes me.

  “Where are you?” I ask him. “Offshore Louisiana? Or ten thousand feet into Austin Chalk?” I pause. “Or here with Jeremy?”

  “Angie,” Dad says, “be flippant if you like, but I’ve got responsibilities. There’s work to be done.”

  “No matter what happens.” I finish the sentence for him.

  He sighs as though he’s trying to be patient. I guess he is. Gathering up his papers he manages to sneak a look at his watch. “It’s about time to have some dinner, isn’t it?”

  “Why don’t you and Mom go out?” I ask him. “I’d like to stay with Jeremy for a while. I can find something to eat when I get home.”

  “I guess we could do that.” He looks relieved. “You’re sure you wouldn’t want to go with us?”

  “You and Mom need some time together. And I’d like to be with Jeremy. Really. I would.” I look at my brother, who still sleeps peacefully under that array of bandages and tubes. I think of the way his hand seemed to move in mine. “Does he respond at all when you talk to him, Dad?”

  Dad looks startled. He stares at Jeremy, then back to me. “He’s unconscious, Angie.”

  I’d like to talk to Dad about Jeremy, but I don’t know how.

  He stands, stuffing papers into the folder. “Mrs. Clark went out for dinner. She ought to be back in about half an hour.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Clark?”

  “The woman who is sitting with Jeremy today.”

  We stare at each other as though we’re looking for loose pieces. “I’ll stay with Jeremy until she gets back,” I tell him. “Maybe longer. Don’t worry about me. Okay?”

  He plants a kiss in the direction of my forehead and is gone. The rattling carts are muffled by the heavy door as it swings shut. I sit on padded plastic that is still warm and reach for Jeremy’s hand. I wish I could talk to the woman in the newspaper story I saw, who read story books to her child when he was in a coma, and one day he woke up. Anything’s possible. I’ve got to believe that.

  “I went to the Andrews house,” I tell Jeremy. “I think someone was there, but Del came too: and whoever was in the house left by the front door when we came in through the kitchen.”

  There’s no response. I wait a few moments, then say, “Jeremy, is the Andrews house the one you wrote about? Is that where I’ll find ‘the ghosts of now’?”

  Is it my imagination, or does he take a quick breath, out of time with his steady, rhythmic breathing?

  “Jeremy, I am going to help you,” I tell him. “I’m going to help you get well again, because I’m going to find out what happened to you and why. Do you hear me?”

  Nothing.

  My voice is low, almost a whisper, as I look at my brother, at his bruised face, the bandages immobilizing his body. “I love you, Jeremy.” There are tears running down my face, warm salt trails sliding into the corners of my mouth. “Jeremy, I know I can get through to you! It’s going to be all right! You’ve got to get better!”

  I talk to him about discovering his poetry and how good it is. I go on about Mom unpacking his birdhouse and how great it looks in the mulberry tree, and I tell him about Del.

  Mrs. Clark stays away long enough to have a five-course meal and an after-dinner nap, but I don’t mind. I’m happy being with Jeremy, and I’m happy because I was right. Some of what I’m saying is reaching him. I feel it. And maybe some of what Jeremy wants me to know will reach me. So I don’t just talk. I wait and listen and hold Jeremy’s hand in mine.

  But I don’t pick up a message. Maybe I’m trying too hard. Every now and then the phrase “the ghosts of now” comes into my head, but at the moment it doesn’t make any sense.

  Mrs. Clark tiptoes into the room. It was good being with Jeremy, but I don’t want to talk to her. I do a fast good-bye.

  One thing about all that dust in the West Texas air: you choke on it, try to scrub it off, grit your teeth on it, and curse it, but it does make for spectacular sunsets. Gold and red have blasted the faded blue out of the western sky as I leave Jeremy in the placid care of Mrs. Clark. But by the time I get home the spectacular color has plopped out of sight and our unlit house is a solid blob in a darkening street.

  I go through the back way, flipping on lights as though they’re protection, uneasy at the silence in the house. Well, I told Dad to take Mom out to dinner, that I’d be okay. And I am. Nothing wrong. Is there?

  For some crazy reason I check every room in the house as though I expect to find a burglar hiding in the closet. Come on, Angie. Don’t let this get to you.

  I wind up my tour in the kitchen. Wasn’t there some pot roast left in a bowl in the refrigerator? If I slice it and some tomatoes and—

  My head is in the refrigerator when the phone rings. It’s like a shriek, and I jump. Maybe that’s what’s been wrong. Maybe I’ve been expecting this call. I close the refrigerator door and stare at the telephone on the kitchen wall while it rings again. Answer it. Answer now. Get it over with.

  A third time the bell jars the silence. I find myself next to it, reaching for the receiver, holding it to my ear. “Hello?”

  The whisper curls along my spine, sending out spasms of shivers. “Back off, Angie. You’re only making trouble for your brother.”

  “Are you threatening him?”

  “Be sensible, Angie. We have to protect ourselves.”

  “The watch?” I ask, and my laugh is as bitter as my hatred for this person on the phone. “If that’s what you mean, forget it. The watch is no longer in Jeremy’s desk.”

  But I’m talking to dead air. I’m not sure if the whisperer has even heard all that I said before he hung up.

  I put the receiver down, trying hard to remember the voice. Was it a girl’s voice? A boy’s? Was there anything about it I could pinpoint?

  No answer. No proof. Nothing. How can you tell who someone is when he whispers? But there was something a little different from the first time. A different voice? A different person? Maybe. The whisperer said “we.” So now I know I’m dealing with more than one person. If I just knew who or why or what th
ey were doing!

  Someone knows. My hand is still on the phone, and Debbie’s number is now in my memory, so I dial it. On the first ring Debbie answers.

  “Was it you who just called me?” I ask her. “Are you the whisperer?”

  “Don’t do this to me!” she shouts.

  “Threatening my brother isn’t going to help you, Debbie.”

  “Leave me alone!” she screeches and slams down the phone.

  It rings so quickly that I jump and pick up the receiver gingerly.

  “Angie,” Mom says. “I just wanted to check and make sure that you’re home and everything is all right.”

  “Sure, Mom.” I hope she can’t hear the wobble in my voice. “I was going to make a sandwich.”

  “Good,” she says. The sigh of relief behind her word draws it out in a hiss. “Greg and I had dinner, and we’re at the hospital now. We’ll be here only a few minutes. I just wanted to see Jeremy again.”

  “Tell him you love him, Mom,” I say. “Remember what I told you about how I think some of what we say reaches through. Tell him. It’s important.”

  There’s a pause. “I will,” Mom says.

  Suddenly I remember. “Oh, Mom, I almost forgot. Will you tell Dad that the left taillight is broken? I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t do it.”

  “Maybe a rock on the road. I broke a taillight like that once,” she says. “I’ll tell him.”

  “It looks like someone smashed it.”

  “Angie.” Her tone is patient. “Who would do a thing like that?” I don’t have an answer, so she adds, “Can we bring you anything?”

  “No thanks. I’ll find that leftover pot roast if I keep looking.”

  “It’s in a bowl under the loaf of egg twist bread.”

  I make my sandwich, eat it, push back the empty plate, and fold my arms on the table, resting my forehead against them. Because it dawns on me that the ghosts of now are not dead spirits—not yet. They are live, and they are more aware of me than I am of them. They have whispered their way into Jeremy’s life and mine, and they’re not through with us.

  I won’t give up until I find them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Some of the kids I’ve met stop me in the hallway before classes and tell me they’ve read the newspaper story about Jeremy’s accident, and they’re sorry. It makes Monday a little easier to take. But Capped Teeth, whose name I’ve found is Candy and who seems to be Debbie Hughes’s best friend, turns to glare at me when I slide into my desk before first-period class. Debbie’s seat is empty.

  With quick, pinprick glances she makes sure no one is aware of us and leans toward me. “You’re stupid,” she says in a low voice. “You don’t know how stupid you are.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “Except that I’m stupid? Where’s your buddy?”

  I nod toward Debbie’s desk, and Candy knows who I mean.

  She bares her teeth, her words a hiss. “Leave Debbie alone. You’re making her sick. I mean like really sick.”

  “I want her to tell the truth.”

  Her laugh is more of a snarl. “No, you don’t. You don’t know what the truth really is.”

  “Then tell me.”

  But another bell rings, and stragglers swarm into the room. Del is among them, and he stops in the aisle between Candy and me, unwittingly ending our conversation. He leans down, resting both hands on my desk, his face close to mine. “How’s Jeremy doing?”

  “The same,” I tell him. “Mom called the hospital early this morning, and they said there was no change. Mom’s probably there right now.”

  He takes one of my hands and squeezes it, then swings into his desk, working to get his long legs tucked in out of the aisles.

  Candy twists her head, flipping back her hair, and hands a thin, dark green notebook to Del. “Debbie asked me to give you this. She said you left it at her house last night.”

  Del doesn’t reach for it. He just shakes his head. “It’s not mine.”

  “Oh,” Candy says. “She thought it was.” She doesn’t look at me, and I’m glad she doesn’t, because I’m afraid my face must show what I’m feeling.

  Our teacher sweeps into the room and raps on her desk with a broken ruler, and the class is under way. It’s hard to concentrate. I keep reminding myself that Del can see anyone he likes. I have no claim on him. Just because he said— Never mind. Candy didn’t answer my question. I’ll ask her again after class.

  But after class Del leans over my shoulder. “I can’t read my own writing,” he says. “Was that assignment on page 108 or page 103?”

  I straighten him out, and when I look up Candy has gone. I’ll try to find her later. I don’t understand what she said about my not really wanting to find out the truth.

  I plod through the school day as best I can. It’s hard to push my mind into chemistry symbols and French verb translations when it wants to be with Jeremy. At lunch time in the cafeteria one of the girls who had talked to me about sandstorms and living in West Texas waves a fork at me.

  “Angie! C’mon over here and eat with us!” she says.

  So I carry my tray to their table and climb onto the bench across from them.

  “The yuck special again today,” the other one says as she fishes into a bowl of macaroni and cheese.

  I smile back. “Carol and Bobbie. Right?”

  “You got it,” Carol says. “It’s always so awful having to remember so many new names when you change schools.”

  Bobbie pokes a straw into a bottle of orange drink. “It’s gross for you having to be at school today. I know how I felt when my grandma was sick and in the hospital. I couldn’t even think straight, because I was worrying about whether she’d die while I was in school, and—”

  Carol jabs her in the ribs with an elbow. “Shut up, Bobbie. She doesn’t want to hear about your grandma.”

  “I just want to tell Angie I know how she feels.”

  “But not like that.” She quickly looks at me from the corners of her eyes. “I mean like somebody dying and all.”

  “But she didn’t! At least not then she didn’t.”

  “Bobbie!”

  I lean across the table toward them. “Don’t get unstrung. I understand what Bobbie’s saying. And Jeremy isn’t going to die. The doctor says his vital signs are good.”

  They both make enthusiastic noises and get back to their macaroni and cheese.

  “Have you ever heard of ghosts in the Andrews house?” I ask them.

  Bobbie drops her fork with a clatter on her tray. Her eyes are wide. “What’s the Andrews house?”

  Carol shakes her head and sighs. “Don’t talk about ghosts to Bobbie today. She stayed up late to watch that awful movie on cable—that thing with the ghosts who turned doorknobs into faces and stuff.”

  “It was a good movie,” Bobbie says. “I saw it three times the year it came out.” She picks up her fork and licks off some gummy cheese strands. “So what’s this about the Andrews place? Is that in Fairlie?”

  “It’s that old, run-down house at the end of Huckleberry Street. You know,” Carol says.

  “Oh, yeah,” Bobbie says. “Some of the kids tried to do some witch stuff there last Halloween.”

  “But the neighbors called the police and they ran them off,” Carol adds.

  “I heard there were lights in the house, that people think there are ghosts there.”

  “Really?” Bobbie’s eyes are as wide open as her mouth.

  “Don’t talk to her about ghosts!” Carol says. “She gets scared in the middle of the night, and then she calls me and wakes me up, and I can’t stand it! There aren’t any ghosts in the Andrews house, Bobbie! I mean it!”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I’ll change the subject.” I take a spoonful of yellow gelatin.

  I guess I must have made a face, because Carol says, “It doesn’t matter what color it is. All of it tastes the same. If you don’t want it,
I’ll eat it.”

  But I’m hungry, and I eat everything as fast as I can. It goes down better that way. Finally I swing my legs over the bench and pick up my tray. “I have to go to my locker and get my books for this afternoon,” I tell them. “Thanks for asking me to eat with you.”

  “Any time,” Carol says.

  “Yeah,” Bobbie says. “Like tomorrow. We mean it.”

  Carol tears an end off a piece of paper in her notebook, scribbles something on it, and holds it out to me. “Here’s our addresses and phone numbers. Mine’s at the top. Why don’t you come by after school today?”

  “I better go to the hospital after school,” I tell them. “But thanks a lot. That really helps. I’d love to come some other day. Okay?”

  “Sure,” Carol says.

  “And if you find out any more about ghosts—” Bobbie begins, but Carol slaps a hand over her friend’s mouth.

  I’m still smiling as I shove my tray of dirty dishes through the collection window, but someone pushes a little too close, a body tight against my side. I try to move away, but a voice in my ear says, “I have to talk to you.”

  I whirl to look directly into Boyd Thacker’s eyes.

  He says again, “I have to talk to you. C’mon outside on the front steps.”

  “Why not?” I follow him out of the cafeteria almost eagerly, as my excitement grows. I’m going to get some of the information I want. I know it!

  He doesn’t say a word as we thread through some clusters of people in the hallway. He flings one of the front doors wide and goes through. I manage to catch the door before it slams in my face, and push through to join him.

  Boyd stands at the side of the steps, next to a chipped pillar, and leans against it. He doesn’t look at me until I say, “Well? What’s on your mind?”

  “It’s hard to talk about,” Boyd says. His eyes are on the houses across the street as though they’re the most fascinating things in his life. “It’s terrible to tell a girl something about her brother that she really wouldn’t want to know.”

  “Boyd!” I move a little closer, grab his shoulder, and shake it. “Look at me when you’re talking to me!”