Anyway, my getting a move on with the dishes seemed to act as a signal that the meal was over, since everyone else got up and went out onto the deck to look at the new hot tub, which Andy was still showing proudly to every single person who walked through the front door, whether they asked to see it or not. It was while I was in the kitchen rinsing the plates before placing them in the dishwasher that Neil’s walking shadow and I ended up alone together. He stood near enough to me—gazing through the sliding glass doors at everybody out on the deck—that I was able to reach out with a sudsy hand and tug on his shirt without anybody noticing.
I startled him pretty badly. He swung around, his gaze furious and yet incredulous at the same time. Clearly, he hadn’t been aware that I could see him.
“Hey,” I whispered to him, while everybody else was chatting about chlorine and the flan Andy had made for dessert. “You and I should talk.”
The guy looked shocked.
“You—you can see me?” he stammered.
“Obviously,” I said.
He blinked, then glanced out the sliding glass doors. “But they—they can’t?”
“No,” I said.
“Why?” he asked. “I mean, why you and not…them?”
“Because I’m a mediator,” I explained.
He looked blank. “A what?”
“Hang on a sec,” I said, because I could see my mother suddenly coming toward the sliding glass doors from the deck.
“Brr,” she said, as she pulled the door shut behind her. “It gets cold out there when the sun starts to go down. How are you doing with those dishes, Susie? Do you need any help?”
“Nope,” I said, cheerfully. “It’s all good.”
“Are you sure? I thought it was Brad’s turn to clear the table.”
“I don’t mind,” I said with a smile I hoped she didn’t notice was completely forced.
It didn’t work.
“Susie, honey,” she said. “You aren’t upset, are you? Over what Brad was saying about this other boy being nominated for vice president in your place?”
“Uh,” I said, with a glance at Ghost Boy, who looked pretty annoyed at the interruption. I couldn’t really blame him. I guess it was kind of unprofessional of me to have a mother-daughter bonding session in the middle of a mediation. “No, not really, Mom. I’m fine with it, actually.”
I wasn’t lying, either. Not being in the student government this year was going to free up a lot of time for me. Time I had no idea what I was going to do with, of course, since it didn’t look as if I’d be spending any of it being lifted to any romantic heights by Jesse. Still, hope springs eternal.
My mom continued to hover in the doorway, looking concerned.
“Well, Susie, honey,” she said, “you’re going to have to replace it with some other extracurricular, you know. Colleges look for that sort of thing in their applicants. You’re less than two years away from graduation. You’ll be leaving us soon.”
Jeez! My mom didn’t even know about Jesse, and she was still doing all she could to keep the two of us apart, unaware that Jesse himself was taking care of that all on his own.
“Fine, Mom,” I said, eyeing Ghost Guy uncomfortably. I mean, I wasn’t exactly thrilled that he was privy to all this. “I’ll join the swim team. Will that make you happy? Having to drive me to five
A.M. practices every day?”
“That wasn’t even very convincing, Susie,” my mom said in a dry voice. “I know perfectly well you’d never join the swim team. You’re too obsessed with your hair and what all those pool chemicals might do to it.”
And then she drifted off into the living room, leaving Ghost Guy and me alone in the kitchen.
“All right,” I said quietly. “Where were we?”
The guy just shook his head. “I still can’t believe you can see me,” he said in a shocked voice. “I mean, you don’t know…you can’t know what it’s been like. It’s like everywhere I go, people just look through me.”
“Yes,” I said, tossing aside the dish towel I’d been using to dry my hands. “That’s because you’re dead. The question is, what made you that way?”
Ghost Guy seemed taken aback by my tone. I guess it was a little curt. But then, I wasn’t having the best day.
“Are you…” He eyed me sort of warily. “Who did you say you were again?”
“My name’s Suze,” I told him. “I’m a mediator.”
“A what?”
“Mediator,” I repeated. “It’s my job to help the dead pass on to the other side…their next life, or whatever. What’s your name, anyway?”
Ghost Boy blinked again. “Craig,” he said.
“Okay. Well, listen, Craig. Something’s screwy, because I highly doubt the cosmos intended for you to be hanging around my kitchen as part of your whole afterlife experience. You have got to move on.”
Craig knit his dark brows. “Move on where?”
“Well, that’s for you to find out when you get there,” I said. “Anyway, the big question isn’t where you’re going but why you haven’t gotten there already.”
“You mean…” Craig’s hazel eyes were wide. “You mean this isn’t…it?”
“Of course this isn’t it,” I said, a little amused. “You think after they die, everybody ends up at ninety-nine Pine Crest Drive?”
Craig hitched his broad shoulders. “No. I guess not. It’s just that…when I woke up, you know, I didn’t know where to go. Nobody could…you know. See me. I mean, I went out into the living room, and my mom was crying like she couldn’t stop. It was kind of spooky.”
He wasn’t kidding.
“That’s okay,” I said, more gently than before. “That’s how it happens, sometimes. It’s just not normal. Most people do go straight to the next…well, phase of their consciousness. You know, to their next life, or to eternal damnation if they screwed up during their last one. That kind of thing.” His eyes kind of widened at the words eternal damnation, but since I wasn’t even sure there was such a thing, I hurried on. “What we’ve got to figure out now is why you didn’t. Move on right away, I mean. Something is obviously holding you back. We need to—”
But at that point, the examination of the hot tub—Andy’s precious hot tub, which would, in less than a week from now, be filled with vomit and beer, if Brad’s party went on according to plan—ended, and everyone came back inside. I gestured for Craig to follow me, and started up the stairs, where, I felt, we could continue talking uninterrupted.
At least by the living. Jesse, on the other hand, was another story.
“Nombre de Dios,” he said, startled from the pages of Critical Theory Since Plato when I came banging back into my bedroom, Craig close at my heels. Spike, Jesse’s cat, arched his back before seeing it was only me—with another of my pesky ghost friends—and settled back up against Jesse.
“Sorry about that,” I said. Seeing Jesse’s gaze move past me and fasten onto the ghost boy, I made introductions: “Jesse, this is Craig. Craig, Jesse. You two should get along. Jesse’s dead, too.”
Craig, however, seemed to find the sight of Jesse—who, as usual, was dressed in what had been the height of fashion in the last year he’d been alive, 1850 or so, including knee-high black leather boots, somewhat tight-fitting black trousers, and a big billowy white shirt open at the collar—a bit much. So much, in fact, that Craig had to sit down heavily—or as heavily as someone without any real matter could sit, anyway—on the edge of my bed.
“Are you a pirate?” Craig asked Jesse.
Jesse, unlike me, did not find this very amusing. I guess I can’t really blame him.
“No,” he said tonelessly. “I’m not.”
“Craig,” I said, trying to keep a straight face, and failing despite the look Jesse shot me. “Really, you’ve got to think. There’s got to be a reason why you are still hanging around here instead of off where you’re supposed to be. What do you think that reason could be? What’s holding you back?”
> Craig finally dragged his gaze away from Jesse. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe the fact that I’m not supposed to be dead?”
“Okay,” I said, trying to be patient. Because the thing is, of course, everybody thinks this. That they died too young. I’ve had folks who croaked at age 104 complain to me about the injustice of it all.
But I try to be professional about the whole thing. I mean, mediation is, after all, my job. Not that I get paid for doing it or anything, unless you count, you know, karma-wise. I hope.
“I can certainly see why you might feel that way,” I went on. “Was it sudden? I mean, you weren’t sick or anything, were you?”
Craig looked indignant. “Sick? Are you kidding me? I can bench two forty, and I run five miles every single day. Not to mention, I was on the NoCal crew team. And I won the Pebble Beach Yacht Club’s catamaran race three years in a row.”
“Oh,” I said. No wonder the guy seemed to have such a wicked build beneath his Polo. “So your death was accidental, then, I take it?”
“Damn straight it was accidental,” Craig said, stabbing a finger into my mattress for emphasis. “That storm came out of nowhere. Flipped us right over before I had a chance to adjust the sail. Pinned me under.”
“So…” I said hesitantly. “You drowned?”
Craig shook his head…not in answer to my question but out of frustration.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” he said, staring unseeingly at his shoes…deck shoes, the kind guys like him—boaters—wear without socks. “It wasn’t supposed to have been me. I was on my high school swim team. I was first in the district one year in freestyle.”
I still didn’t get it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know it doesn’t seem fair. But things will get better, I promise.”
“Oh, really?” Craig looked up from his shoes, his hazel gaze seeming to pin me against the far wall. “How? How are things going to get better? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m dead.”
“She means things will get better for you when you’ve moved on,” Jesse said, coming to my rescue. He seemed to have gotten over the pirate remark.
“Oh, things will get better, will they?” Craig let out a bitter laugh. “Like they have for you? Looks like you’ve been waiting to move on for a while, buddy. What’s the holdup?”
Jesse didn’t say anything. There wasn’t really anything he could say. He didn’t, of course, know why he hadn’t yet passed from this world to the next. Neither did I. Whatever it was that was trapping Jesse in this time and place had a pretty solid hold on him, though: It had already kept him here for over a century and a half and showed every sign of hanging on—I selfishly hoped—for my lifetime anyway, if not all eternity.
And while Father Dom kept insisting that one of these days, Jesse was going to figure out what it was that was keeping him earthbound, and that I had better not get too attached to him since the day would come when I would never see him again, those well-meaning warnings had fallen on deaf ears. I was already attached. Big time.
And I wasn’t working too hard on extricating myself from that attachment either.
“Jesse’s situation is kind of unique,” I said to Craig in what I hoped was a reassuring tone—both for his sake as well as Jesse’s. “I’m sure yours is nowhere near as complicated.”
“Damn straight,” Craig said. “Because I’m not even supposed to be here.”
“Right,” I said. “And I’m going to do my best to get you moving on to that next life of yours….”
Craig frowned. It was the same frown he’d been wearing all through dinner, as he’d gazed at Jake’s friend Neil.
“No,” he said. “That’s not what I meant. I mean I’m not supposed to be here. As in, I’m not supposed to be dead.”
I nodded. I had heard this one before, countless times. No one wants to wake up and discover that he or she is no longer alive. No one.
“It’s hard,” I said. “I know it is. But eventually you’ll adjust to the idea, I promise. And things will be better once we figure out what exactly is holding you back—”
“You don’t get it,” Craig said, shaking his dark head. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. What’s holding me back is the fact that I’m not the one who’s supposed to be dead.”
I said hesitantly, “Well…that may be. But there’s nothing I can do about that.”
“What do you mean?” Craig rose to his feet and stood in my bedroom, looking furious. “What do you mean, there’s nothing you can do about that? What am I doing here, then? I thought you said you could help me. I thought you said you were the mediator.”
“I am,” I said with a hasty glance at Jesse, who looked as taken aback as I felt. “But I don’t dictate who lives or dies. That’s not up to me. It’s not part of my job.”
Craig, his expression turning to one of disgust, said, “Well, thanks for nothing, then,” and started stalking toward my bedroom door.
I wasn’t about to stop him. I mean, I didn’t really want anything more to do with him. He seemed like kind of a rude guy with a chip on his big swimmer’s shoulders. If he didn’t want my help, hey, not my problem.
It was Jesse who stopped him.
“You,” he said, in a voice that was deep enough—and commanding enough—to cause Craig to stop in his tracks. “Apologize to her.”
The guy in the doorway turned his head slowly to stare at Jesse.
“No freaking way,” was what he had the lack of foresight to say.
A second later, he wasn’t walking out—or even through—that door. No, he was pinned to it. Jesse was holding one of Craig’s arms at what looked to be a fairly painful angle behind his back, and he was leaning heavily against him.
“Apologize,” Jesse hissed, “to the young lady. She is trying to do you a kindness. You do not turn your back on someone who is trying to do you a kindness.”
Whoa. For a guy who seems to want nothing to do with me, Jesse sure can be testy sometimes about how other people treat me.
“I’m sorry,” Craig said in a voice that was muffled against the wood of the door. He sounded like he might be in pain. Just because you are dead, of course, does not mean you are immune to injury. Your soul remembers, even if your body is gone.
“That’s better,” Jesse said, releasing him.
Craig sagged against the door. Even though he was kind of a jerk and all, I felt sorry for the guy. I mean, he had had an even tougher day than I had, what with being dead and all.
“It’s just,” Craig said in a suffering tone as he reached up to rub the arm Jesse had nearly broken, “that it isn’t fair, you know? It wasn’t supposed to have been me. I was the one who should have lived. Not Neil.”
I looked at him with some surprise. “Oh? Neil was with you on the boat?”
“Catamaran,” Craig corrected me. “And yeah, of course he was.”
“He was your sailing partner?”
Craig sent me a look of disgust, then, with a nervous glance at Jesse, quickly modified it to one of polite disdain.
“Of course not,” he said. “Do you think we’d have tipped if Neil had had the slightest clue what he was doing? By rights, he’s the one who should be dead. I don’t know what Mom and Dad were thinking. Take Neil out on the cat with you. You never take Neil out on the cat with you. Well, I hope they’re happy now. I took Neil out on the cat with me. And look where it got me. I’m dead. And my stupid brother is the one who lived.”
chapter
six
Well, at least now I knew why Neil had been sort of quiet all through dinner: He’d just lost his only brother.
“The guy couldn’t swim to the other side of the pool,” Craig insisted, “without having an asthma attack. How could he have clung to the side of a catamaran for seven hours, in ten-foot swells, before being rescued? How?”
I was at a loss to explain it as well. Much as I was at a loss as to how I was going to explain to Craig that it was his belief that his brot
her should be dead that was keeping his soul earthbound.
“Maybe,” I suggested tentatively, “you got hit in the head.”
“So what if I did?” Craig glared at me, letting me know my guess was right on target. “Freaking Neil—who couldn’t do a chin-up to save his life—he managed to hold on. Me, the guy with all the swimming trophies? Yeah, I’m the one who drowned. There’s no justice in the world. And that’s why I’m here, and Neil’s downstairs eating freaking fajitas.”
Jesse looked solemn. “Is it your plan, then, to avenge your death by taking your brother’s life, as you feel yours was taken?”
I winced. I could tell by Craig’s expression that nothing of the kind had ever occurred to him. I was sorry Jesse had suggested it.
“No way, man,” Craig said. Then, looking as if he was having second thoughts, he added, “Could I even do that? I mean, kill someone? If I wanted to?”
“No,” I said, at the same time that Jesse said, “Yes, but you would be risking your immortal soul—”
Craig didn’t listen to me, of course. Only to Jesse.
“Cool,” he said, staring down at his own hands.
“No killing,” I said loudly. “There will be no fratricide. Not on my watch.”
Craig glanced up at me, looking surprised.
“I’m not gonna kill him,” he said.
I shook my head. “Then what?” I asked. “What’s holding you back? Was there…I don’t know. Something left unsaid between the two of you? Do you want me to say it to him for you? Whatever it is?”
Craig looked at me like I was nuts.
“Neil?” he echoed. “Are you kidding me? I’ve got nothing to say to Neil. The guy’s a tool. I mean, look at him, hanging around a guy like your brother.”
While I myself do not hold my stepbrothers in very high esteem—with the exception of David, of course—that didn’t mean I could sit idly by while someone maligned them to my face. At least, not Jake, who was, for the most part, fairly inoffensive.