“Cindy’s coming to dinner.”
“What? Why?”
“I ran into her at the grocery store, and she saw the taco ingredients in my cart, and she mentioned that Mexican is her favorite. So I invited her over.”
“Who’s Cindy?” Daniella says, looking interested. “Is she your dad’s girlfriend?”
“Dad, she’s not your girlfriend,” I say. It’s more for Daniella’s benefit than anything else, but it’s also good to remind my dad of this fact any chance I get. Then I glare at Daniella while my dad’s back is turned. When she sees Cindy, she’ll figure out the ridiculousness of even asking if Cindy is my dad’s girlfriend. No one who meets Cindy Pollack would ever think that.
“I know that, Kendall,” my dad says, pulling three plates down from the cabinet over the dishwasher. “But she is my friend, and I expect you to be nice to her while she’s here.”
“Of course I’ll be nice to her,” I grumble.
“Wow,” Daniella says. “I guess you don’t like this Cindy person too much. She’s the one who told on you for being at the mall, right? What a jerk.”
She’s right. I don’t like Cindy too much. Even though, I guess, technically, she didn’t tell on me for being at the mall. I mean, according to my dad, she thought it was cute.
The thing about Cindy is that even though she’s not my dad’s girlfriend, she wants to be. Which is not okay. And not because I don’t want my dad to have a girlfriend. It’s just that I don’t want him to have Cindy as a girlfriend. She’s loud and opinionated, and every time she sees me, she says something like, “Ohmigod, Kendall, your hair looks so hip!”
She’s trying to be nice, because she thinks we should be BFF. It’s totally fake, of course—she just wants to get in good with me so that she can get closer to my dad. I mean, making a comment about my hair? Cindy knows nothing about hair. Hers is horrible, this bleach blond mess that she styles up so high, it looks like some kind of beehive with bangs.
Of course, my dad thinks I don’t like Cindy because I don’t want her dating him, and he thinks it has to do with my mom leaving when I was a baby. Which it so doesn’t. I mean, of course I don’t like the fact that my mom left when I was so young. But I do want my dad to be happy, and if that means dating, I’m totally fine with it. I just don’t think he’d be happy with Cindy, and honestly, I don’t think he does either, because if he did, he’d be dating her.
When the doorbell rings a couple of minutes later, I get really busy playing around with my phone, texting Ellie back.
“Kendall,” my dad says, “can you go and answer the door, please?”
“Fine,” I grumble, sighing like it’s a big imposition, and then shuffling my feet all the way to the front door.
“Hello!” Cindy says when I open the door. She’s wearing a low-cut black sweater and holding a store-bought cherry pie. “How are you, Kendall? I love your shirt. It’s so retro hippy.”
“Thanks.” I look down at the shirt I’m wearing, a brand-new aqua T-shirt with a rainbow across the front. I had some cool rainbow beads that I wanted to put in my hair, and I thought it would be awesome if I had a shirt to match. But this shirt is definitely not retro.
Cindy follows me to the kitchen, and I suffer through dinner, not even able to enjoy my tacos as Cindy prattles on about things that are really boring, like tax rates and some new dining room table she’s planning on buying.
“Can I be excused?” I ask finally as Cindy wraps up some really long story about a problem she’s having with the guy she hired to renovate her kitchen.
“No,” my dad says. “We haven’t even had dessert yet.”
“I’m full,” I say, draining the last of my milk.
“I hope you’re not mad that I called your dad when I saw you at the mall yesterday, Kendall,” Cindy says. “I didn’t know you were on a secret date.” She looks at me and winks, like we’re two old friends.
“It’s fine,” I lie. “I’m not mad.” I grab a plain taco shell off the plate on the table, break off a bite, and pop it into my mouth, hoping she’ll see that my mouth’s full and so I can’t talk. And what does she mean, “a secret date”? It wasn’t a secret date. It was just some friends getting together to study.
“Wow,” Daniella says. She’s standing behind Cindy’s chair, peering into her hair. “How does she get her hair to stay up so straight like that?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“You don’t know what?” my dad says.
“Nothing.” I put my fork down. “Dad, please can I be excused? I have a lot of homework to do, and I don’t really feel like dessert.” I pat my stomach. “I’m full.”
My dad hesitates, but then finally says, “Okay.”
Cindy looks happy, like she can’t wait to be alone with my dad. But I don’t even care, because I’m too excited to be out of there, and even more excited to finally be able to call Ellie and get the deets on what Brandon told Kyle.
“I knew you were going to call,” Ellie says when she picks up. “You are, like, the most impatient person ever.”
“That’s so not true,” I say, leaning back onto my bed and settling in for a nice long gossip session. My bed is perfect for long phone calls with Ellie. I have, like, three million throw pillows in all different colors, and they’re soooo cozy.
“So tell me,” I say.
“What’s it worth?” Ellie asks.
“Ellie!”
“Okay, okay,” she says. I can hear her stirring something in the background. Probably macaroni and cheese. Ellie’s a vegetarian, and so she eats a lot of pasta. It’s the only thing she really knows how to cook, and her mom refuses to make anything special for her. That’s because Ellie has five brothers and sisters, and also because she has a reputation for abandoning her big ideas. But she’s been a vegetarian for six whole months, which is pretty good. “So I was talking to Kyle.”
“And?”
“And so I said, ‘That was crazy, wasn’t it, how Kendall’s dad just showed up at the mall?’”
“Ellie!” I yell, burying my face into a pillow. “You didn’t!”
Daniella, who’s doing splits and stretches on my floor, rolls her eyes, like she can’t believe whatever drama I have going on is even worth getting upset about. Which is annoying, but also kind of justified, since her drama of having to find out what’s going on with Jen so she can move on to wherever it is she’s supposed to go is def more serious than the crush I have on Brandon. Still. You’d think she’d be a little more supportive. Especially since I’m the only one who’s going to be able to help her.
“I had to,” Ellie says. “How else could I get it out in the open?”
“It didn’t have to go out in the open!”
“Then how was I supposed to find out what Brandon thought about it?”
“I don’t know,” I say, chewing on my lip. “But there had to be a better way.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “Because Brandon obviously didn’t care. He was freaked out at first, but it’s okay now.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he told Kyle something.”
“What did he tell Kyle?”
“He told him that he was going to ask you to hang out tomorrow!”
She shrieks, and I shriek, and Daniella almost falls off the bottom rail of my bed, which she’s walking on like a balance beam. I guess Jen was right—Daniella definitely needs some more work when it comes to the balance beam. Or maybe she just needs to work on her concentration. I mean, if a little shriek is going to get her so distracted that she falls off, she probably needs better focus.
“What should I wear?” I’m at my closet, flipping through everything, and there’s nothing. Not one thing that is even close to being Brandon-asking-me-to-hang-out appropriate. I check the clock, wondering if it’s too late to make an emergency trip to the mall.
“Your jean skirt?” Ellie asks.
“No.”
“Ooh, how abou
t that really pretty pearl-pink top with the layers of fabric?”
“Too fancy.”
“How about your gray hoodie with the gold butterfly?”
“Not special enough.”
“This is a total emergency,” Ellie says. “We need to take inventory of your closet immediately.”
We spend the rest of the night on the phone, putting together the perfect outfit for tomorrow, when Brandon maybe asks me out on my very first date ever. We decide on an emerald-green top with a boatneck, a white skirt, and Ellie’s gold ballet flats. I’ll do my hair in a messy bun and slide gold sparkly chopsticks through the top.
By the time we’re done picking out makeup colors (soft pink lip gloss and a creamy silver eye shadow that isn’t too dramatic, since my dad will totally flip if he sees me leaving the house in too much makeup), I finish up my homework and then climb into bed.
And as I’m drifting off to sleep, all I can think about is Brandon Dunham.
• • •
Scrape. Scratch. Scrape. Scratch.
Something that sounds like a piece of furniture being moved across the room wakes me up. I look at my alarm clock. Two thirty a.m. Ugh.
“Daniella,” I moan, “you better not be practicing any kind of gymnastics moves on my furniture. You’re going to wake my dad up.” For some reason ghosts start to solidify more after midnight. That’s why people are always claiming that ghosts come out at night. It’s not that the ghosts only come out then, it’s just that they become more visible. And it explains how some ghosts can move things when it gets late. They’re stronger and have more physical presence at night.
Scrape. Scratch. Scrape.
“Daniella!” I say, and pull my pillow over my head. “I’m serious! If you get caught by a human, I won’t be able to help you. You’ll have to live in limbo forever.” This is a lie, but I’m hoping she won’t know that and will go to sleep. Not that ghosts need sleep. But couldn’t she just read a book or something? I guess not, since her fingers would probably just slip through the pages. Maybe she should go spy on her old boyfriend whatshisname, the one she saw at the mall with another girl. That would serve him right, getting haunted, ha-ha-ha-ha.
Scrape. Scratch. It’s louder now, and coming from my bookshelf.
I turn over and throw one of my pillows in that direction, even though I know it’s not going to do anything. “Daniella!” I say, trying to keep my voice quiet so that I don’t wake my dad. “Stop it!”
But to my surprise the shadowy figure in the corner is not Daniella. It’s a woman, about forty years old or so, and she’s looking through my bookshelf, scraping my books back and forth as she goes. Wow. She must be a really strong ghost. Two thirty in the morning or not, the fact that she can move books is impressive. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ghost that could do that.
I swallow. Usually I’m not scared when I see ghosts, because they’ve just always been there. But something about this one is a little . . . intense. The way she’s moving those books is kind of creepy. Like I said, I’ve never seen a ghost do that before. She must have some serious unfinished business, to have all that energy. And she’s not even looking at the books. She’s looking at me.
“Go away,” I say, and put my head under my pillow again. I try to keep my voice even so she won’t be able to tell how freaked out I am. “I’m already busy, so, um, you should find someone else to help you.” It’s not even a lie. The last thing I need is another ghost bothering me. I have my hands full with crazy Daniella. Not to mention that I’m supposed to be getting my beauty sleep so that I can be ready to get asked out on my very first date ever tomorrow. I close my eyes tight and try to calm my heart, which is suddenly beating really fast.
But the ghost doesn’t go away. She floats over to my bed. She’s actually very fashionable, wearing skinny jeans and a tunic in a dark gray swirly pattern. Her hair is swept back off her face, and she’s wearing tons of long necklaces.
“You,” she says, and points her index finger at me. “You need to be on the green paper.” She sounds very . . . sinister, and my heart catches in my throat.
“Hi,” I say. “Um, I’m really sorry, but I’m already in the middle of solving one mystery. So I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to ask someone else for help.” I have my covers pulled all the way up to my chin, and I cross my fingers under the blanket, hoping she’ll go away.
“ADD YOURSELF TO THE GREEN PAPER,” she says, her voice getting all screechy.
“I’m sorry,” I say firmly. “But I don’t know what that means.”
“You,” she says again. “Kendall. You must be on the green paper.” My heart is beating so fast, it feels like it’s going to come out of my chest, and my mouth goes dry. How does she know my name? I wonder if I should scream for my dad. But what would I tell him? That a ghost is freaking me out? But maybe if he came into my room she’d go away.
I sit up and get ready to scream, but before I can, the ghost disappears. I collapse back against the pillows. But I’m so keyed up that I can’t go back to sleep. I lie awake for a long time, and the only way I’m finally able to fall asleep is by keeping the light on all night.
Chapter
6
When I wake up the next morning, I decide to do my best to put what happened last night right out of my head. I have enough going on, thank you very much, without worrying about some creepy ghost.
Still, it’s easier said than done. I keep thinking about the ghost while I get dressed for school, about how she was so insistent that I add myself to the green paper. I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before.
Whatever, I think as I do my hair for school. Ghosts are always saying things that don’t make sense. Most of the time they’re completely out of their minds. I mean, look at Daniella. She can’t remember anything about her life, and she’s always talking about things that are slightly nonsensical.
Besides, I look way too cute to be worried about ghosts. The outfit Ellie and I picked out last night looks fab, and my hair is cooperating perfectly. By the time I’m done getting ready, I’m starting to feel a little more calm, and I bound downstairs. I say good morning to my dad, then pour myself a huge bowl of cereal. I’m going to need my energy if I’m going to get through the excitement of the day.
“You look nice,” my dad says.
“Thanks.”
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with that boy I saw you at the mall with, would it?”
“No,” I lie. Talk about awkward. How am I supposed to tell my dad that I like Brandon? Or that I like any boys at all? Ohmigod. I just realized something. How am I going to tell my dad that I’m going out on a date if Brandon does ask me? I mean, my dad has never really said I couldn’t date, but maybe that’s because he assumes that I already know I can’t. But since he never said I couldn’t . . . Wow, this is confusing. And humiliating. Oh, well. I’m not going to miss hanging out with Brandon just because of a potentially awkward conversation with my dad. I take a deep breath and decide to just go for it.
“So, Dad,” I say, trying to sound all nonchalant. “If my outfit did, you know, hypothetically, have something to do with the boy you saw me with the other day, how would you feel about that?” This is something I’ve learned works with my dad. If I ask him how he feels about something, it’s different than asking him for permission. It opens up a dialogue instead of setting him up as the authority figure. It’s actually a very mature thing to do.
“Well,” my dad says. He’s cracking eggs into a bowl so that he can make his morning omelette. My dad has a western omelette every morning. He’s supposed to only have egg whites, but sometimes he lets a little bit of yolk slip in. “I suppose I would want to know exactly what’s going on with you and this boy.”
Don’t we all, I think. “Weeelll, what if he was maybe going to ask me to hang out?” I ask. “Could I hang out with him?” “Hang out” sounds way less intimidating than “date.” Even though, of course, that’
s what it would be. Wouldn’t it? Is it possible Brandon’s just going to ask me to hang out because he wants to be friends? That would be horrible, and so I push it out of my mind, right into some mental “ignore” folder, like where I decided to put that woman ghost from last night.
“Like a date?” my dad asks. He’s frowning suspiciously into the frying pan.
“Or maybe, like, a group thing, or a study session or something.”
My dad hesitates. And then, finally, he says, “I guess that would be okay.”
Daniella appears beside me and rolls her eyes. “God, your dad is, like, sooo overprotective. I was going out on dates all the time when I was thirteen.” She thinks about it. “Of course, I was getting asked out constantly, so it made sense.” Ugh.
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, deciding to ignore Daniella’s comment. Today is going to be great, I tell myself. Then I grab my bag and head out the door to catch the bus, Daniella trailing along behind me.
• • •
Okay. I really need to calm down. I mean, there’s no reason to get all riled up just because Brandon might ask me to hang out. I don’t even know if it’s going to happen for sure. Kyle is definitely not the best source of information. He probably forgets things, or messes things up all the time. Especially important things like who his best friend is going to ask to hang out.
Still. I can’t help getting butterflies in my stomach about it, and all morning I keep my eyes peeled for Brandon. When I pass him in the hall after third period, he says, “Hi,” and I feel my insides melt. But he doesn’t ask me to hang out. Maybe he’s waiting until later, when we have more time to talk?
By the time math rolls around, I am officially freaking out. I stopped off at the bathroom to reapply my lip gloss and reposition the chopsticks in my hair. Even so, I’m so wound up and jumpy that I’m one of the first people in the classroom.
“Well, Ms. Williams,” Mr. Jacobi says. “You’re here early.”
“Yup,” I say, holding up my notebook. “Here and ready to learn!”
Girl Meets Ghost Page 5