Black Wave

by Devon Glenn

  But the reality of her situation eventually settled onto her chest like a big, uninvited cat. Even with a near-perfect GPA and no strikes against her, Emily would not be getting into college. Worse, she was going to have to stay at home with her parents.

  Emily dipped a bag of tea leaves into her mug, watching the clear liquid turn deep brown. The heater crackled and whooshed, blasting a facsimile of summer heat into the room. She was alone, as much as one could be in a hotel. A single beam of light shone from Emily’s desk lamp, illuminating the dust that swirled in the air before settling on the polished wood floor.

  In need of a distraction, Emily settled into the routine of checking updates on her tablet. Instagram held pictures of last week’s party, including a shot of Emily with her thong sticking out of her pants. Those pants should never have left my closet, she thought, but at the time, they were the only pair that matched her new top—and now this fashion mistake would circulate the internet until the end of time. The least she could do was hide it from her mother, who was always warning her not to be caught with a whale tale. She untagged herself from the picture and typed “WTF” underneath for her friend to see.

  Emily’s niece, Sadie, had posted highlights from her college campus tour. Sadie was the daughter of Emily’s older sister, Jenna, who was Burt’s daughter from a previous marriage, and Jenna’s husband, Brandon. Joan was only ten years older than Jenna and almost fifteen years younger than Burt. Emily had been only two years old when Sadie was born. The age spread made Sadie more like Emily’s sister and Jenna more like her third parent.

  Emily squinted at the picture of Sadie in one of the dorm rooms, stretching her arms wide from one wall to the other to show how small the space was. By Emily’s calculation, it was about the size of her dollhouse. Sadie was thinking the same thing. “The mahogany bedroom set would look great in here!” she wrote.

  Emily replied, “Where are all the doilies going to go?” She waited a few seconds for an update but saw nothing. Sadie would remain suspended in that room until she had time to write again.

  Emily groaned when Melody, an old friend from high school, sent her a link to join yet another social network: “Orbies: Putting a Face to an Orb.” Emily had seen apps like this before. Around the same time people were abandoning their television sets to watch one another on YouTube, the ghosts, she was told, had also migrated from attics and basements to the internet, where ghost hunters and other psychics were constantly trying to recruit Emily for some enthusiast group or another, each touting predictive analytics more powerful than psychic premonitions or asking her to listen to their EVP recordings on SoundCloud. Emily didn’t need tools to talk to spirits, but people who did not have her gifts were desperate for a way to prove that they had made contact with the Other Side—why not do it with an app? Unfortunately, none of the apps she tried so far had delivered what they promised.

  “This looks fake, Melody,” she typed.

  “It’s for my grandma.”

  A grandmother who was now dead, Emily realized. To assuage her guilt for asking about the app before the person behind it, Emily hit the download button and hastily clicked through the privacy statement and other legal jargon.

  Soon Emily was looking at a shrine to the departed, who had probably never used the internet in her life. There was a photo of the grandmother’s kind, wrinkled face posted along with a note about going to heaven to play bridge with the angels. Old-fashioned photos of a younger, sprightlier grandmother also filled an album that was marked with dates and memories that formed a patchwork timeline of a life poorly documented but apparently well lived.

  Emily swallowed more tea to suppress the lump that was forming in her throat. Fresh grief flowed from the words on the page into her fingertips, which grew warm with electricity.

  “We’ll miss you so much, Grandma!” wrote one of her grandchildren.

  From Melody: “I wonder what Grandma would write if she could use Orbies, too.”

  What’s the point of this app if she can’t? Emily wondered.

  Melody’s IM screen name, lit up in green, appeared in Emily’s inbox.

  “Hi, Emily,” Melody wrote.

  “Hi, sorry about your grandma.”

  There was a long pause while the “Melody is typing” ellipses appeared on Emily’s screen. Finally, the rest of her response popped up, along with a picture of Melody at her high school graduation. “You talk to ghosts, right?”

  “Yeah. All the time.”

  “Do you see that orb next to my head in the photo?”

  Emily looked at the glowing white orb that hovered near Melody’s graduation cap. “Is that your grandmother?”

  “I was hoping you could find out for me.”

  “I can channel her if you want.” Emily searched the icons on the app’s interface for some sort of online channeling tool. “Does this app have a Ouija board?”

  “I don’t think so,” Melody said.

  Then Emily would just have to make one. She stared down at her hands. Before her the letters on the keypad splayed out like a Ouija board, but she didn’t have a planchette. Concentrating, Emily placed her index finger on the touchscreen, spinning lazy circles with the pointer and pausing on different letters throughout the keypad. She instructed Melody to do the same.

  If two bodies could pass energy through a piece of plastic, why couldn’t they do the same thing with a touchscreen on a tablet or a phone?

  “Do you want to talk to Melody?” Emily said aloud to the empty room. Then she waited.

  Emily felt her hand shift from letter to letter, moving quickly and sharply between each one. “P-E-A-C-H-E-S,” she spelled.

  “She spelled out the word peaches,” Emily wrote to Melody. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “That’s her cat,” Melody replied. “I have her now; she’s sitting on my lap.”

  “G-O-O-D.”

  “Grandma, is Grandpa there, too?” Melody asked. Emily looked at the photo album, the cover of which featured an old photograph of Melody’s grandmother sitting on a park bench, her arms full of roses, and leaning into a man who had his hand on her knee.

  Melody’s grandmother spelled out “Y-E-S.” Emily relayed the info to Melody, and then pressed her grandmother for more.

  “Grandma, do you have a message for Melody?” Emily felt her finger glide past the keypad toward the top of the message box where the X button was.

  “She says to log out,” Emily wrote, hesitating slightly at the bluntness of the message. “Or goodbye.”

  “I guess she thinks I spend too much time online,” Melody wrote back.

  Emily saw that there were new updates in the queue at the top of her screen. When she refreshed the page she saw a new wall post.

  “Melody, get off the internet and help me make the casserole. We’re having all your cousins over after Grandma’s funeral tomorrow,” the post read. “I want to get it done before the viewing tonight.”

  Emily’s heart skipped a beat.

  “I gotta go,” Melody wrote to her. “Way too many parents on this app. But that was really cool. Thanks.”

  “OK,” Emily replied. “Sorry again for your loss.”

  Emily went back to her homepage, feeling somewhat awkward for having intruded on a private family moment but surprised by how open Melody was to hearing from her grandmother. She thought about all the contacts she had in her phone, each with his or her own network of friends that stretched out to infinity.

  Emily stared at the steaming mug in her hand, aware of the blood pulsing through her fingers with each heartbeat. She felt strangely triumphant in discovering that her internet reading had worked, and she wanted to try it again.

  As Emily resumed the task of filling out her profile, she was prompted to select her account type: Orb, Orbiter, or Medium. Orbs were ghosts, named for the glowing balls of light th
at appeared in photographs when the dead were caught on camera. Orbiters were the ghost hunters. Emily checked Medium from the list, and she set her location as Cape May, New Jersey. That’s enough for now, she thought as she clicked Save.

  She scrolled through the other memorial pages. She wasn’t exactly sure who she was looking for, but she had a sense that someone might be looking for her.

  One picture immediately caught her eye. His smile appeared like the first daffodils of spring. He had a dimple on his left cheek. He looked really familiar. A former guest, maybe? Was he an Orbiter? No, he was an Orb. Emily silently cursed the heavens for taking someone so hot. The least she could do was honor his memory with a “like” or two.

  Emily held her breath as she added herself to the memorial page group.

  And nearly lost her tea when a dialogue box popped up.

  Katherine27: I’m not dead, but thanks for joining. It’s me, Elerick. Do you remember me? There aren’t too many Elericks running around.

  Emily did remember meeting someone named Elerick years ago. She paused and waited for a “log off immediately and hide under your bed” message from the Other Side. None came.

  Emily: Did you use to work for my parents in Cape May?

  Katherine27: I did! Hold on; let me switch accounts.

  The sight of Elerick’s new avatar brought old memories back in waves. The month that Elerick came to work at her parents’ bed-and-breakfast, his parents had headed to New York City to help with the relief efforts after the terrorist attacks. Emily had never met the father, but her mom had described him, somewhat unkindly, as a dirty hippie who was easy on the eyes but hard on the carpet. Elerick’s mom was the exact opposite—she had sent her son to Cape May armed with a tidy basket of freshly baked cookies for Emily and Sadie. An alarm went off in Emily’s head.

  Emily: Why do you have a memorial page?

  Elerick: It’s not mine. My mom died. I’ve been trying to close out her social networks. Long story short, my aunt used my mom’s Facebook profile to set up a memorial for her on Orbies, only my mom had been using my face as her profile picture. Classic mom move. Hopefully I can switch out the picture before someone cremates me.

  Emily: I’m glad you’re not dead, but I am so sorry about your mom.

  Elerick: Yeah, it happened a year ago. I’m OK.

  His answer gave her pause. One year didn’t seem like a lot of time to feel OK about something like that.

  Elerick: That probably came across as callous. Let me try again: I miss my mom, but the kind of sympathy I get on the internet only makes me feel worse.

  Emily: What would make you feel better?

  Elerick: Letting people think I’m dead a little while longer—just so they can tell me how full of life I was without expecting me to respond to their messages.

  At least he had a sense of humor.

  Emily: When can I visit your grave?

  Elerick: That depends, Wise Woman of the Interwebs. How old are you now?

  Emily: Somewhere between buying cigarettes and running for president. You?

  Elerick: Same. I’ll vote for you if you’ll vote for me.

  Emily: Deal.

  Elerick had been in high school when Emily met him, so he’d have to be in his late twenties now. She’d never had a real conversation with someone that age. Maybe it was because she had grown up in a bed-and-breakfast, and at the time, most of the men who went to bed-and-breakfasts were old enough to be her grandparents. The age difference wouldn’t be as noticeable now that they were both over twenty-one, would it? There was only one way to find out.

  Emily: What are you up to now?

  Elerick: I just got back from a yearlong wellness cruise: yoga, meditation, juice cleanses, that kind of stuff. I was giving massages in the middle of the ocean.

  Emily: To the whales?

  Elerick: Yes. Humpbacks, of course. Terrible posture.

  Emily: Cute. Where did you go?

  Elerick: Everywhere. Dublin, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Tokyo, Mumbai, Sydney…I have cousins on six continents whom I had never met. We started talking online after my mom died, and I got this idea to travel around the world and see them all at once.

  Emily: I didn’t know your family was so international.

  Elerick: Where did you think we were from?

  It wasn’t a question she had thought to ask at the age of ten. Elerick had a golden-brown complexion, and his features pointed to a number of ethnicities but didn’t settle on any one.

  Emily: I thought you were from Hoboken.

  Elerick: Ha ha. That’s not what I meant. But yes. My people are from Hoboken. And their people are from everywhere but New Jersey.

  Emily: That’s where I want to go. Next time, pack me in your suitcase.

  Elerick: I thought you were in college.

  Emily: I am. Sort of.

  Elerick: I was restless as hell at your age.

  Emily: You’re in adult diapers now, right?

  Elerick: Absolutely. Just easier that way.

  Emily: Where are you off to next?

  Elerick: I’m coming to see you.

  Emily: What do you mean?

  Elerick: The ship terminal is in Delaware, across the bay from you. I came back to work for your family during the holidays. Maybe forever if it works out. I’m in one of the rooms right now. Didn’t your parents tell you?

  Emily stared at her screen. She knew her parents’ hotel had opened in November to catch the holiday visitors, but they hadn’t told her about Elerick, nor had anyone else—not even the spirits.

  Emily: No. When did you get here?

  Elerick: Like, a couple of hours ago. I thought that’s why you looked me up.

  Emily: No, just weird timing.

  Elerick: You haven’t changed a bit.

  Emily: You don’t know that.

  Elerick: You’re right. Where’s your profile picture? Let’s see it.

  Emily would have to upload a new avatar. She glanced at herself in the mirror, debating whether to leave her gray sweatpants on or to change into something better suited for men’s fantasies. Remembering the whale tale picture and the shame it had brought into her virtual life, she opted for the truth. Emily angled her tablet high above her head to look as thin as possible while dressed like a garbage bag. She hit the Save button before she could change her mind.

  There was a pause on the other end of the network while Elerick typed his response.

  Elerick: Holy crap, you grew up fast.

  Emily: Do I look that much different from the last time you saw me?

  Elerick. Well, you’re still surrounded by ghosts. Other than that, you look completely different.

  Emily looked more closely at the photograph on the screen. Her head was indeed surrounded by orbs. The ghosts had photobombed her, speckling the picture with tiny balls of light. Immediately, the app prompted her to tag the orbs as if they were living people. It must be broken, she thought.

  But she swiveled in her chair nonetheless. She saw nothing behind her but an empty room. Whoever these visitors were, they had already disappeared. “Quit reading over my shoulder,” she muttered. She had a bigger mystery to solve.

  Emily: Different? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

  Elerick: It’s a good thing. The best. What about me? Have I aged to perfection?

  Emily laughed. Even as a teenager, Elerick had seemed too handsome to be real. Now he had the faint outline of a beard and tiny crinkles around his eyes, and he looked even better.

  Emily: You’re the most perfect human being I’ve ever seen up close. If astronauts met aliens in space, they’d hold up a picture of you to show them what a human is supposed to look like underneath his space helmet.

  Elerick: What about my space suit?

  Emily: If we showed the aliens that, they�
�d for sure abduct you.

  Elerick: Are the ghosts still there?

  Emily: They left.

  Elerick: Good. I don’t want an audience when I ask you out for a drink.

  CHAPTER 20

  A six-pack of beer, a

  book, and an old video

  Emily put her tablet down and looked at the boxes of stuffed animals and other toys that she had unearthed during her move from her parents’ old bed-and-breakfast to the Black Wave. Though she had only moved a couple of blocks away, she felt like the movers had turned her entire life upside down and shaken it, burying her college textbooks and adult-size clothes under a pile of immaturity. The stuffed animals would all have to be put away or donated to charity. In the event that Elerick came to visit her in her room, there was no way she would want him to be reminded of the little girl she was before she sent his picture to space to educate extraterrestrials on the male form. Emily scrutinized every detail of her bedroom, from the artwork on the walls to the accessories on her desk. Were her pens too sparkly? Did her dollhouse look like a valuable antique or like a prop in a made-for-TV movie about a woman who lures men into her room and murders them?

  Right on cue, Emily heard a knock on her door. “It’s me,” Sadie said with her face pressed closely against the doorframe. “And I come bearing gifts, so hurry up.” The moment Emily slid the chain lock from her door, Sadie pushed her way in with a six-pack of beer, a book, and an old video.

  She looked at Emily’s animal menagerie. “Yeah, those are going to have to go,” she said. Sadie handed the video to Emily. “You can keep this. My dad finally digitized all the mystery videos in the attic. Can you hook your tablet up to the big screen?”