Ghost of Summer

by Sally Berneathy

  ***

  Jeff picked up two pieces of luggage and headed downstairs with them. It was Sunday afternoon, and their visit was over.

  Luke picked up the remaining bag and started after him.

  "Luke, could you come here for just a minute?" his mother, sitting on the bed, asked.

  Luke set the luggage down and crossed the room.

  She patted the bed beside her. "Sit."

  Luke sighed. He really wasn't in the mood for a mother-son talk.

  But he sat.

  "I'm so glad you've accepted Jeff as my husband."

  "I'm happy for you and him both, Mom. Really. You have a husband and I have a friend. It worked out pretty good."

  "I love him in a different way than I loved your father, you know, which doesn't diminish either love. They're different, and each came in its own time."

  "I understand." But he didn't understand why she felt it necessary to tell him something they'd already discussed.

  "I fell in love with your father the first time I went out with him. We were married a couple of years, though, before we became best friends. It was nice to do it the reverse way with Jeff. I don't think you can truly love someone unless you are best friends."

  Now they were getting to the heart of the matter. "Mom, if you don't mind, I'm twenty-nine years old. I think I can take care of my own love life."

  "It doesn't appear to me that you're doing such a good job of it. I watched you all those years with Cindy, and I know how you felt about her. You're wrong when you think it was going from friendship to love that ruined it for you two. Neither the friendship nor the love was deep enough. It wasn't the kind that lasts forever, the kind that makes a marriage, the kind you have with Katie."

  "Mom, Katie's engaged to that Spencer guy." Who drives a silver Mercedes and has every blond hair in place and a smarmy smile on his face.

  "No, she's not. She broke it off with him."

  "How do you know that?"

  His mother frowned and looked momentarily confused. "I'm not sure how I know, but I do know. Someone told me. Sheriff, I imagine."

  He rose indignantly and took a step backward. "You talked about this with Sheriff? Damn it, Mom, I'm not a little kid anymore! You can't go around discussing my life with other people!"

  "Calm down, Luke. Jerome and I weren't discussing your problems with Katie. We haven't had a chance. But I'm sure he must have been the one to tell me about Katie. I don't know who else it could have been."

  Luke picked up the bag again. "I'd better get this downstairs. I'm sure Jeff's waiting with the trunk open."

  He left before she could protest again.

  When the suitcases were stowed in the trunk of their car, Jeff slammed the lid and turned to Luke. "Can we talk for just a minute?"

  "Sure." He didn't really want to, but he could do one more session of reassuring Jeff that things were copacetic between them.

  He followed Jeff to the shade of an elm tree in the front yard. Jeff leaned against the tree, folded his arms and assumed his professorial expression. "It took me a long time to convince your mother to marry me."

  Luke smiled. "I'm glad you were persistent. I can't say that I'm ever going to think of you as my stepfather, but it's nice to have a friend in the family."

  Jeff nodded. "Yes, I am your friend. That's why I need to tell you that it took me a while to convince your mother to marry me."

  "You said that already."

  "Then you didn't listen very good the first time." Jeff straightened. "You're a bright boy, Luke. You never really had to struggle for anything you wanted. You received good grades without trying. You got a job with the Houston Police the first time you applied. This position in Briar Creek opened up for you when you needed it. You even got married the first time without any real effort. You just sort of moved from one stage to another by unspoken agreement. It's time you worked for what you want, Luke."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Jeff drew in a deep breath. His features took on the expression he got when some student was being particularly dense about an important point he'd just made. "I'm talking about Katie. If you love her as much as I think you do, you must go after her. You lost her a lot of years ago by ignoring her. Don't do the same thing this time."

  "She left me! She went back to Dallas to be with that Spencer."

  "She and Spencer aren't getting married."

  Was Luke the only one in the county who hadn't heard this bit of news? "Who told you that?"

  Jeff stopped and frowned. "To be honest, I don't know. Maybe your mother. I'm sure someone did, I just can't quite remember who. Anyway, I'm sure you need to go after her. She's frightened because she spent so many years building up her defenses after losing you and her mother, and now you've broken through those defenses and she's running scared. You have to go to her and reassure her."

  It was Luke's turn to frown. "How do you know all that? You sound more like a psych teacher than history."

  Jeff looked slightly confused again. "I do, don't I? I'm not sure how I know that, but I'm positive it's accurate."

  "Have you talked to Katie?"

  "No, of course not. Your mother and I have discussed the issue, however."

  Luke still wasn't sure where either of them had come up with all that business about Katie, but he did understand where they were coming from. His mother was still trying to take care of him, and now she had Jeff in on the program.

  He clapped a hand on Jeff's shoulder. "I'll handle it. You and Mom have a good trip back to Houston and come up again any time you get a chance. You're always welcome here."

  They walked back to the house to find that Sheriff had arrived and was standing with Luke's mother on the porch.

  Everyone hugged and shook hands, and finally Jeff and his mother were gone.

  "Sure was good to see Francine again," Sheriff said.

  "Yes, it was," Luke agreed.

  "I like that Jeff. Nice fellow."

  "Yes, he is."

  Luke waited tensely for Sheriff to say something about Katie, hoping the older man wouldn't subject him to another discussion about Katie and him.

  "Guess I'll mosey on home. See you in the morning." Sheriff stepped off the porch.

  Sheriff was leaving without bringing up Katie? Suddenly Luke realized that wasn't what he wanted after all.

  "Did you tell my mother that Katie wasn't going to marry Spencer?"

  Sheriff stopped and turned back. "Nope, don't believe I did. But it's true. She's not. She'll be back in town next weekend. Reckon you can talk to her about it yourself then."

  Luke watched Sheriff, whistling happily, mosey down the walk toward his house.

  Jeff and his mother wanted him to storm the fortress of Katie's condo while Sheriff seemed totally unconcerned.

  Luke went back inside and sat down by the phone. He could call her, but he had no idea what he'd say to her. He'd already told her he loved her, and she'd run away.

  But he was going to take Jeff's advice. He wasn't going to let her go this time.

  Katie had been partially right about one thing. He couldn't recapture the past.

  But she wasn't completely right. He couldn't recapture the past because it wasn't gone. It was still there, still all around him, an influence on everything he said and did, on all his actions. It blended with the present and gave it poignancy and richness.

  His father had given him values along with his childhood memories and dark hair and a Roman nose. None of those things would ever go away.

  The past he'd been so anxious to recapture was integrally tied to Katie. Without her in his present, he had neither past nor future.

  ***

  Sunday evening Katie sat on her third-floor balcony enjoying her view of the creek.

  Well, to be perfectly honest, she wasn't enjoying it all that much.

  Running to Dallas to hide hadn't worked this time. Luke was everywhere she turned.

  His scent was in the elevator. He was
on this balcony, firing up the grill, standing beside the tree, looking down at the creek. He was in her condo, sitting at the table and on the sofa...kissing her on the sofa.

  Her bedroom, which should have been free of his memories, wasn't. He'd invaded her dreams last night.

  How had she allowed this to happen? She'd spent years getting her life in order, and now in one week Luke had sent everything crashing to the ground.

  Okay, it was a good thing that she'd decided not to marry Spencer. But letting down her barriers and opening herself up to Luke again wasn't so good. How could she have done something so reckless?

  And while she was on the subject of reckless, making love with no protection certainly fell in that category for more than one reason. Her emotions as well as her body had been unprotected.

  Again the fear of the possibility of trying to be a mother washed over her filling her with a nameless terror.

  She couldn't think about that now...wouldn't think about it. In a couple of weeks, if she had cause to worry...well, she didn't really know how she could cope with it, but there was no point in worrying now when it might be needless.

  Thank goodness she would be back at work tomorrow. She could go in early and stay late, throw herself into her work and purge her mind of Luke and all her problems.

  She'd done it when she was a child. She could certainly do it as an adult.

  ***

  Things were going reasonably well, she thought Monday afternoon. Even a morning meeting with Spencer had been uneventful. The two of them had conducted business as if there had never been anything personal between them.

  Actually, there hadn't been.

  But shortly before four o'clock her assistant came into her office with a special delivery package.

  "Thanks," Kate said. "Just put it on my desk. I'll get to it in a minute."

  Kate finished what she was doing, then saved her work on her computer and turned to check out the rectangular, brown paper wrapped package.

  It was from Luke.

  She bit her lip. Damn! She hated the way her heartbeat increased, and her hopes rose when she saw the return address.

  This was just the way her heartbeat had increased and her hopes had risen a hundred times all those years ago whenever the mailman had stopped to deliver a letter to their house or when the phone had rung and she'd gone racing in to answer it.

  She picked up the package, swiveled in her chair and tossed it into her trash can without even opening it. She didn't want to know what was inside. She wasn't going to think about that part of her life again.

  She went back to work on her computer.

  The window behind her desk gradually darkened, and the cleaning woman came in while Kate continued to work.

  "Can I get your trash?" the woman asked.

  "Sure." Kate handed her the can...but then hesitated and, against her better judgment, took out the package.

  She was curious. That's all.

  When the woman was gone, she finally opened it and found a journal.

  Her first thought was that it somehow related to one of the stories Jeff had told them about Briar Creek's history, maybe an old journal kept by one of those early residents.

  But this book looked like it was brand new.

  She opened it to the first page.

  Two torn movie stubs lay between the pages. Luke had written a date in June, two years after he'd moved away. Katie and I went to the movies, but I don't remember what we saw. We sat in the balcony and I held her hand and suddenly she wasn't that little kid with the messy hair anymore. She's growing up and so am I.

  What on earth? Nothing like that had happened! Luke had been in Houston two years by that time, not back in Briar Creek going to the movies with her.

  What was he doing, trying to rewrite history?

  She thumbed through the rest of the book, but the pages were blank. Toward the end, several appeared to have been torn out.

  Irritated with Luke for sending something so inane and irritated with herself because it touched something deep inside that she didn't want touched, she shoved the journal in a desk drawer and started to leave for home.

  On second thought, she'd better take it with her. If somebody found it, they'd think she was nuts.

  ***

  The next day's delivery was a larger package.

  By that time, Kate couldn't help being intrigued. Her assistant had barely closed the door behind her when Kate ripped it open to find a high school letter jacket and one of the pages torn from the journal. The date was in October, four years after he'd left town.

  I made the winning touchdown tonight but only because I could hear Katie cheering so hard. Later under the bleachers, I gave her my letter jacket and kissed her. It was like stepping out of an airplane onto a cloud.

  Kate stood in her office staring at the stupid letter jacket with a stupid smile on her face and stupid tears in her eyes.

  Damn him! He wasn't going to do this to her! He'd gone away and left her and she'd dealt with that. He wasn't going to bring up the past, try to rewrite history and make her get all emotional about it.

  She picked up the phone and dialed the number for the sheriff's office. She'd put a stop to this right now.

  But she got a computer voice telling her all circuits were busy and her call could not go through.

  Just as well. She didn't want to talk to Luke.

  She could send an email since the sheriff's office had that capability now.

  She pulled up her email program and typed: "Luke—This is stupid. Stop it. I'll leave your journal and your letter jacket at Papa's this weekend, and Papa can bring them to you on Monday." Then she hit the send button. So much for his nonsense.

  The next day, Wednesday, her message was returned to her by the ubiquitous Daemon mailer...server unknown. Of course the server was known! What was going on?

  Another call to Papa's office got the same computer voice telling her the circuits were busy. They must be having telephone problems in Briar Creek.

  That afternoon a smaller package yielded a class ring on a gold chain and another page from the journal. The date was in May, five years after he'd moved away.

  I asked Katie to go steady, and she said yes. I am the happiest man in the world!

  She picked up the phone to call again and got the computer message again.

  She put down the phone and slipped the chain around her neck before she realized what she was doing.

  Angrily, she yanked it over her head, tangling the chain in her hair.

  Rather the way Luke was continuing to tangle himself in her life.

  Finally she got the thing off, though not without the loss of a few red hairs that remained permanently snared in the chain.

  She'd take it along with the jacket and the journal to her father this weekend.

  Thursday brought a wrist corsage and a date two weeks after the last one.

  Took Katie to the senior prom and told her how much I love her and how I don't want things to end when we go off to college.

  Damn it, what was this obsession of his with the past? He had to understand that events couldn't be changed. The past couldn't be retrieved or rewritten. The present might not be what someone wished it was, but no one had a choice. Everyone had to live in the now, make it as pleasant as possible, find compensations for what got lost in the past.

  She'd done a good job of that.

  Until now.

  Friday's delivery brought a diamond ring.

  No, she told herself. It wasn't a real diamond.

  But she suspected it was.

  The message had the current date and the words I asked Katie to marry me. I'm waiting for her answer.

  She crumpled the paper and resolutely tossed it into the wastebasket.

  This really had to stop.

  She'd go to Briar Creek tonight, leave right after work, and tell Luke as soon as she got there.

  But just before five o'clock, Kate's computer flashed an error message i
ndicating her system had crashed.

  In a panic, she worked for an hour to find the problem...which abruptly resolved itself for no apparent reason. She was relieved to find the original error message had been in error and that everything on her system was intact.

  She finally left her office, exhausted, only to find she had no better success getting through the computer-controlled traffic lights out of Dallas than she had getting through the phone lines to Briar Creek. For some reason, all week the computers she normally considered her best friends had become her enemies.