Willa did not get her wish.
Instead, she got Sawyer Grant—just about the grossest rich white kid who might have ever lived. All those entitled rich kid clichés you see in movies and read about in books? That was Sawyer. Red sports car—check. In fact, every school day you could find his Corvette parked diagonally across two teacher spaces. Big house on the hill—check. In fact, she and Thel could see the back of the antebellum plantation house from their bedroom window. Stupid girls falling all over him—check.
When Sawyer first spotted them in the hallway of his school, he was literally walking down it with a blond cheerleader under each arm.
“Hold up, hold up,” he said with a mean laugh when he walked past her and Thel. “I know I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing.”
He’d pulled the cheerleaders to a stop right in front of them. Using their bodies like barricades, so Willa and Thel couldn’t easily move past them without splitting up. And the one thing they’d agreed not to ever do when they came to this all-white school? Split up. They might have different last names, but they were sisters through and through. No sister left behind. At least until Trevor’s accident. Then Thel up and ran away from Greenlee, Willa, and everything else that reminded her of their younger brother.
But back then, Thel had growled, “Get out our way.” Her heavily made up eyes slitting on the tiny cheerleaders like she was going to beat them down right there in the hallway if they didn’t step aside.
The unspoken threat felt like a real thing that could easily happen. Unlike Willa, Thel was built like a brick house. Curves for days everywhere but her chest, which she made up for with a collection of carefully curated push up bras. But even without the miracle bra, she probably weighed more than both the petite cheerleaders combined. And so the cheerleaders regarded Thel nervously, looking like they might give way.
But Sawyer kept them there. And like the show horses they were, they stayed put despite their obvious discomfort.
“I can’t believe you two are really here at my school,” he said with faux honor.
Thel just swatted. Like Sawyer was a bug getting in her considerably cool way. She’d ruled their last school with her combination of stunning looks, rich curves, perfectly winged eyeliner, and Teflon confidence. And for a second, Willa thought it might be the same here.
She’d stand up to Sawyer on their first day in this all-white high school, like you stand up to the biggest guy on your first day in prison. And everybody would know not to mess with them. The pretty blond fillies were already whinnying, “C’mon, Sawyer, let’s just go.” Tugging on his shirt.
“Relax girls, I want to give our two newest students a proper welcome,” he said. “How ya’ll liking my school so far?”
“I guess it’ll do,” answered Thel, bold as a fall blizzard. “Thinking I might join the cheerleading team. Show them how real cheerleaders do.”
The two fillies became even more nervous at that statement, shifting in their Keds, obviously not knowing what to do.
Sawyer kept on smiling. But the smile didn’t reach his eyes, which were the color of swamp mud, lazy and mean.
“You got a mouth on you, girl,” he told her. “I’m trying to decide whether your new nickname should be Mouth…” He let his gaze fall to her overly inflated chest. “Or Miracle Bra.”
His cold eyes flickered over to Willa then. Like a snake. “Already know I’m going to call this one Stork.”
Thel, who had a comeback for everything, didn’t seem to have one for this. Instead, she stared at him for a few hot seconds, before grabbing Willa by the arm and pulling her around Sawyer’s left cheerleader.
“C’mon,” she said to Willa, shoving the little blonde so hard, she nearly fell over. “Don’t mind that asshole.”
But he’d been too hard not to mind. He was mean to her and Thel, but for everyone else, Sawyer had his charms. Most of the guys at Greenlee either liked him or wanted to be like him. Most of the girls either hooked up with him or were jockeying for a spot on his wait list, once he was done with his current girl. Willa couldn’t understand the attraction, like at all. And even though Thel and her were the ones with the crazy mother, Willa had to wonder if every white girl at the school wasn’t a bit touched in the head.
Where she saw one hundred-percent asshole, the others saw some kind of football god. But then again, he wasn’t making their lives miserable.
His friends didn’t yell out, “Caw! Caw!” every time those other girls passed them in the hallway. Even though that wasn’t remotely what storks sounded like.
The whole school, including a few of the teachers, didn’t continue to call any of those other girls “Stork,” even after he graduated, just because that’s what Sawyer Grant decided she should be called.
So yeah, Willa supposed if she were one of those other girls and if there was a case of beer involved, maybe, just maybe Sawyer would have looked like some kind of catch to her. With his tousled hair, his All-American good looks, and his green eyes (which might not have put her in mind of swamp mud if she’d been one of those other girls).
But as for Willa, she did not get the attraction.
And she thanked the spirits she only had to put up with him for one year before he went off to the U.S. Naval Academy. Just like his older brother, Josh, and their father, and his father, and pretty much every Grant before him.
She’d been allowed to finish the rest of high school mostly in her attractive sister’s shadow—just like she wanted. Then she’d gone off to college on a well-deserved scholarship and had easily gotten into an osteopathic medical school in Alabama afterwards. Two years into her medical degree, she even managed to score a prestigious fellowship to work onsite at Landstuhl, a regional medical center located in Germany that served the U.S. Armed Forces.
For a whole year she’d shadow a physiatrist who specialized in working with amputees. And the fellowship started in June, which meant she wouldn’t have to go back to Greenlee for the summer.
On that happy note, Willa left the States behind without a second thought. And on the first day of her internship, she couldn’t have been more pleased as Delores, a grizzled physiatrist, showed her around the center.
“Most of the patients you’ll be working with directly will be on their last few appointments. They’ll be able to go through their routines on their own, so you’ll be able to help oversee their sessions. But that will only be for a few cases. Mostly, you’ll be shadowing me, watching and learning. When shadowing, I want you to think of yourself as a ghost…seen and rarely heard, taking in all the information you can. This fellowship is meant to give you osteopath kids some real life experience with amputees. And I guess it’s supposed to teach us traditional med school doctors something, too, but I’m not sure what.”
Delores, who’d gone to a traditional program at the University of Pittsburgh, looked her up and down and harrumphed. “I’m here to help you decide if you want to go the extra mile to become a physiatrist, and if you’d rather deal with cranky seniors than kids in their twenties who are trying to wrap their heads around being amputees for the rest of their lives.”
As a “kid” in her 20s, Willa hung on every word, fascinated and eager to get started, even if Dolores’s use of the word ghost sent a chill up her back. She hated that word—even when it was being used in a completely different context.
Shaking the chill off, she asked, “S-so why are we on this fl-floor?”
Then remembering the intensive speech clinic she’d done during her first year of med school, she took a deep breath, slowed down, and asked much more smoothly, “Do you usually pay visits to patients in the ICU?”
“No, but we just had a SEAL come in. Nasty crash on the front end of a rescue mission. Helicopter malfunction, and his leg got the worst of it. It took a while to extract him and he’s still in a coma. But I thought this might be a good chance for you to see one of our cases from the beginning because that leg’s definitely headed into surgery.”
Despite the grim nature of the SEAL’s prospects, a thrill shot through Willa at the thought of seeing an amputee case from start to finish. Exactly the kind of experience she’d hoped to have when she applied for this fellowship.
“This is an amazing opportunity. Thank you!” she told Delores. “Do you mind if I ask—?”
She cut herself off when she saw the man in a dark green jumpsuit standing at the end of the hallway.
Willa blinked, unable to reconcile what she was seeing. Who she was seeing. Because it looked just like…Sawyer Grant.
A few years older and a lot more clean-cut than he’d been while making her life miserable in high school. And a hell of a lot more perturbed. Even from a distance she could see how upset he was.
But it was him. Definitely him. No matter how far she got from Greenlee County, she would never forget that devilishly handsome and supremely annoying face, even with the military-grade haircut he currently sported. But what was he doing here?
Dread pooled in the bottom of Willa’s throat as she asked Delores, “Are patients allowed to have visitors in ICU?”
“Only immediate family members,” Delores answered.
Okay, so maybe that was it. Maybe Sawyer’s older brother, Josh, was in there. But wasn’t he in law school now? She vaguely recalled hearing something about how he’d completed his service and started law school when she was home in Greenlee last Christmas.
Okay then, she thought, maybe it was a cousin or something in ICU. Sawyer’s extended family had strong military ties and it wouldn’t surprise her if a few of his other relatives had ended up in service, too. That could explain it. It didn’t have to be the other thing…
Still, panic seized Willa’s entire body, threatening to lock it up. Don’t go there, she told herself. That’s not why he’s here. That’s not why he’s here.
Her inner voice spoke so calmly, so reasonably, she was almost set to believe what she was telling herself.
But then a group of nurses came off the elevator. And instead of throwing Sawyer flirty looks, as most women did, they passed right through him.
Like completely through him.
And that was when Willa knew. Knew like she always did. Sawyer wasn’t, to use her mother’s phrasing, “on our exact plane of existence.”
No wonder he looked so upset.
She watched him pat himself down, not quite freaking out. But not looking too doggone happy about his relatively new state of not exactly being either.
Look away! her inner-voice screamed at her.
First rule of I Can See Ghosts Club: don’t talk about the fact that you, like your crazy mother, can see ghosts. Second rule of I Can See Ghosts Club: if you don’t want to end up exactly like the aforementioned crazy mother, don’t ever let the ghosts know you can see them.
But Willa couldn’t look away. Any other time, yes. She’d seen ghosts freak out after getting passed through plenty of times. The osteopathic medical school she attended in Alabama was brand spanking new, but she’d gone to UVA for undergrad, a university founded before the civil war and therefore positively crawling with ghosts—not one of which had been aware she could see them during her four years of attendance.
But this was Sawyer Grant freaking out. Sawyer Grant! The prick who’d made her high school life hell. A boy, now a man, who she’d never seen look fazed much less completely lose his shit. She couldn’t help but stare.
And unfortunately, this decision would end up costing her dearly.
So glued was she to the sight of Sawyer coming undone, she didn’t look away until it was too late.
Like a homing beacon, he suddenly seemed to sense he had an audience. His eyes found hers. Only for a second, but it was one second too long.
Willa quickly looked away, but not before catching his hard squint.
“Any rules I should know about before we go in?” she asked Delores, making a big show of acting like she couldn’t see Sawyer standing near the door.
“Yeah, don’t be an idiot,” Delores answered. But then she shivered. “Is it cold down here? Or is it just me?”
It wasn’t just her. But unlike Delores, she was used to the chill ghosts cast when they got too close. And unlike Delores, she could hear Sawyer at her back, saying. “Wait, I know you. You’re Mouth’s sister, Stork.”
She hadn’t spoken to Thel in years at that point, not since she ran away from home after Trevor’s misfortune. But being referred to as her sister brought Virginia all the way back. To most people in Greenlee County, that was all she’d ever been. Either The Crazy Librarian’s daughter, or the plain and much less interesting sister of the only other black girl at Greenlee High.
Willa was grateful to Sawyer then, because him referring to her in this manner made it that much easier for her to ignore him.
“No, I’m not cold at all,” she answered Delores. Gaze straight ahead. Like she couldn’t hear or feel Sawyer’s ghost behind her.
“Hope I’m not coming down with something,” Delores grumbled. “Last thing I need on top of pulling mama duck duty with you.”
“Can you see me, Stork?” Sawyer demanded. “It looked like you could see me. If you can see me, talk to me. Please. Tell me what the hell’s going on here. I don’t understand.”
God, she was tempted to turn around. Just for the chance to watch Sawyer Grant beg her, Willa Harper.
But she wasn’t in high school anymore. She was a grown woman. One who knew better than to stop to chat with ghosts, or undecided spirits, or whatever the hell he was now.
“Probably just the air conditioning,” Willa said real deliberately to Delores, nodding at the nearest vent.
“Yeah, maybe.” But Delores cast an incredulous look at the vent. Like most people who could sense something there, but couldn’t see it, she was probably also being hit with a huge sensation of foreboding. The kind of horror movie stuff that was hard to ignore.
But proving what a consummate professional she was, Delores pushed through the doors anyway. And Willa followed, leaving Sawyer begging and pleading outside. Still believing nobody could see him.
She walked through the door, feeling like every high school nerd in every high school movie, when the cocky jock finally gets his comeuppance.
BUT THAT FEELING OF TRIUMPH hadn’t lasted long. And six years later, she found herself at the window of her childhood bedroom, standing with the sister she was once again sharing it with.
“Why did Sawyer Grant buy you a car?” Thel asked her now. “I thought he hated us.”
“I don’t know,” Willa lied. She loved her sister, but what happened six years ago with Sawyer Grant wasn’t a story she’d ever told. Or ever would tell. “Donny Lacer’s dad was trying to upcharge the hell out of me because of our credit situation. Guess he felt sorry for me.”
Thel frowned out the window, looking like she didn’t quite believe Willa, but didn’t want to dig for more info for fear Willa might ask her too many questions about the sudden disappearance of her spot in the SoCal Opera’s YAP program.
Stuff had happened to both of them during the years between Thel running away from home and them both returning here six years ago. They’d kill and/or die for each other—but tell their secrets?—no, that was still a bridge too far.
However, Willa’s secret had just moved back to town. And if she didn’t figure out how to get out of dodge soon, Sawyer Grant could end up ruining her life. Again.
4
Thel Okeanos was singing.
Her voice floated across the wide, open space between their properties, easily overcoming the babble of the river. Hearing her sing made him truly feel like he was home again, because this was how it used to be back in high school. Him occasionally drinking beer on his balcony and watching the stars above as her lovely voice filled up the dark night.
However, her singing wasn’t quite the same now. Thel had sung gospel standards back then. A pop song, on occasion, but only the ones that sounded like they could be interch
anged with a church song if you took out all the references to sex. The song now bridging the divide between her little house and his wasn’t even in English, he didn’t think. Italian maybe? He wasn’t into opera, but this song sounded an awful lot like it belonged in the final, slow motion climactic scene of a war movie.
But Thel’s voice was still enchanting. He reckoned most of the guys at Greenlee had harbored a crush on her back then. Because of that voice. Because of those sultry eyes. Also, because of those curves…
Her sister’s nickname had stuck fast, but no one but him had ever dared to call Thel “Mouth.” Mostly because she really did have a mouth on her, and she wielded it like a weapon, often slaying any girl or boy who’d even think of talking to her the wrong way with just a few words.
The older sister hadn’t been a thing like the younger. Thel didn’t stutter. Thel didn’t seem to be frightened of her own shadow. She was a whole hell of lot browner than anybody else at Greenlee High, but not nearly as dark as Stork.
Two different fathers, kids used to whisper. Though nobody knew for sure. According to the tales, her crazy mama had gone off to college in North Carolina, the pride and joy of her poor single father, but had come back less than a year later. Pregnant. Then she’d mysteriously gotten pregnant again just a few months after Thel was born. Irish twins, except they were black and nobody knew for certain who their fathers were. And anyone who dared ask The Crazy Librarian about it had gotten indecipherable answers in return.
But he’d heard something about Marian claiming Thel’s daddy had been the son of a siren, visiting her college on an exchange program from Greece. Nights like this, that tale was easy to believe.
His Everlasting Love: 50 Loving States, Virginia Page 2