Invisible Ghosts

  Logan waved, and I slowed my bike.

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked.

  “Cleaning lady.” He made a face.

  “Still? I thought she was coming this morning.”

  “Nope. Afternoon. Let’s go somewhere,” he pleaded.

  I tried to think. Logan got irritable the farther we were from home, so it needed to be close. There was the strip mall on Main, but a ton of my classmates worked there. And I didn’t really want to watch Danny Efshani flex his muscles over the ice-cream scoop at Cold Stone.

  “Billz?” I suggested.

  “Always.” Logan grinned. “Lead the way.”

  Our dad used to take us there after Hebrew school for hot chocolate. It was just down the parkway, in the shopping center where I’d backed the Camry into a pole after freaking out over a man in a bloodstained coat, who had turned out to be a figment of my imagination.

  I wheeled my bike through the gate, wishing I’d brought my earbuds. They had a microphone attachment, and I usually wore them whenever Logan and I went out. That way it looked like I was on the phone, so we could talk without people staring.

  “Just ride your bike,” he said, exasperated at how slow I was going. “I’ll keep up.”

  “No way,” I protested. “You’ll do that weird floating thing and creep me out.”

  “What weird floating thing?” Logan frowned, like he didn’t know exactly what I was talking about. And then he collapsed backward in a mock swoon, lifting a hand to his brow. “Rose, dahhhhling. Draw me like one of your French girls.”

  I couldn’t help laughing, even if he was four feet off the ground.

  “See, you love it,” Logan said, encouraged. And then he hovered alongside me, creepy-dementor style, all the way down the canyon.

  When I pulled open the door to Billz, a beautiful wave of air-conditioning hit me full blast, followed by the deep, woodsy scent of ground coffee. I took in the faded tiki masks and grass skirts that covered the walls and the armoire that had been there forever, holding a stack of board games that were probably missing pieces. Some places never changed, and this coffee shop was one of them.

  “The Beach Boys? Really?” Logan complained, displeased with the music.

  It was a little bit tragic. But then, Billz wasn’t a hipster hangout like Bean & Bond or famous for their Instagram-worthy cups like Alfie’s. Most of the tables here were filled with after-school tutoring sessions or chatty moms in activewear.

  And then I heard a familiar peal of laughter. Sam’s crowd was gathered around the large table under the window. They were surrounded by board games and iced coffees, and they gave the impression of being regulars here, of all places, at this tacky coffee shop.

  “What are you waiting for?” Logan asked.

  “None of your business,” I hissed, trying not to move my lips.

  Coming here had been a stupid idea. Billz was so close by that I should have guessed my old friends would claim it. I stood in the doorway, debating whether or not I should just leave.

  “Come on, you can’t reserve all of the emeralds!” Claudia protested as Max picked up a chip from a game they were playing.

  “But watching you get angry over it is so satisfying,” he teased.

  Jamie glanced up and spotted me. I thought he might wave hello, but instead, his face drained of color, like I was the last person in the world he wanted to see. Like he’d only been friendly in art history because we were stuck next to each other and no one else was around.

  My cheeks went red. I couldn’t leave now, not without it being painfully obvious. So I mustered my nerve, walked over to the counter, and ordered the first thing I saw on the menu.

  Logan followed, trailing me to the barista station and moaning over how he wished he could eat a mint brownie, which Billz was known for.

  “I have a mint brownie for Jamie,” the barista called, pushing a plate across the counter. “Mint brownie for Jamie.”

  Jamie slid down in his seat, like he didn’t even want to get up and walk over. I wondered what his problem was. It wasn’t as though saying hi meant he’d have to invite me to join their table.

  The barista called his order again, sounding impatient. Jamie shuffled over. His shoulders were tense, and the smile plastered across his face was absurdly fake.

  “Oh, hey,” he said, trying to sound casual. “Sorry I ordered the last brownie.”

  “They brought more out.” I motioned toward the case, which featured an entire tray of brownies.

  “Right,” he said. “Huh.”

  He reached for his plate, and it clattered a little against the counter as his hands shook.

  “You should cut back on the caffeine,” I suggested.

  “So they tell me,” Jamie said, which wasn’t a response at all.

  Jamie’s eyes flickered to my right, where Logan was standing. And for an absurd moment, I wondered if it wasn’t caffeine jitters. If maybe Jamie felt Logan’s presence.

  It wouldn’t have been the first time something like that happened. Occasionally, dogs would freak out when they walked past our house. And my grandma always complained she was cold whenever Logan was in the room.

  Jamie and I were still standing there in humiliating silence. The Beach Boys blared, cheerful and wrong, like the soundtrack to someone else’s afternoon. My drink was grinding away in the blender, and I wished I’d ordered something less complicated.

  Logan cleared his throat impatiently.

  “Um, I think your friends are waiting,” I said, giving Jamie an out.

  Relief washed over his face.

  “Yeah. I should—yeah.” He didn’t even finish his sentence before retreating back to their table, with its spread of board games and drinks and phones.

  And then Nima caught me staring and waved. Nima, who was the head of our class spirit committee, and the nicest guy on the planet, and would have waved at anybody. It was just a hello. Nothing more.

  I waved back, and then I grabbed my drink and ran out of there before anyone else saw me and chose not to invite me over. Logan bobbed silently at my side, for once devoid of chatter. He wasn’t usually this quiet, and I wondered if he felt sorry for me.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Just thinking.”

  He went quiet again, and I wished he’d just say it. That my ice-blended latte hadn’t been the only frosty offering at Billz. That Jamie had been rude and awful and had all but asked me to leave. Except Logan didn’t say any of that. Instead, he faded away with a frown, leaving me to my misery and my empty afternoon.

  7

  MR. GARDNER MADE us play Zip Zap Zop in class on Wednesday. It’s one of those improv games where everyone stands in a circle making eye contact and sending each other weird noises. Gardner claimed it was team-building, but mostly it was embarrassing, because my classmates always sent the weird noises to their friends. And if you got skipped long enough, Gardner would intervene.

  “Pass to Rose,” he’d urge, insinuating that the next person better send over a pity-pass.

  Except that day, Sam and Claudia kept sending me zaps and zops. I didn’t know which was worse, getting a single pity-pass, or getting preemptive ones.

  The game stretched on for an eternity. Even Sam’s endless enthusiasm was flagging. Just when I thought we’d be yelling “zip!” and “zap!” at each other until the bell rang, Gardner finally put an end to it.

  “Scenes!” he called. “Everyone partner up.”

  We were still standing in a circle, all mixed up since Gardner had made us play the last few rounds exchanging places.

  Kate was on the other side of the room. I started to walk over, but Jamie stopped me.

  “Rose, what do you say?” he asked. “Partners?”

  I stared at him, shocked.

  He flashed me a grin, like yesterday at Billz had never happened. His smile should have been against dress code, since it was distracting in the worst possible way.

  I susp
ected he knew what effect it had, which was even worse. Because he had no business using that smile on me. Especially after the way he’d acted, like I should be embarrassed for even existing in his general vicinity when it wasn’t on the seating chart.

  I wished I could turn him down, but Sam and Claudia were right there, listening, and I didn’t want to cause a scene.

  “Fine,” I relented.

  I glanced over at Kate, who was standing alone. She shot me a look like I’d betrayed her by partnering with someone else.

  “All right,” Gardner said, passing around a stack of scripts. “Rehearse these for the rest of the period. I want to see character choices, blocking, and everyone off script. Performances are next class in the theater. Any questions?”

  Kate put up her hand. She looked utterly miserable as she announced that she didn’t have a partner.

  Gardner frowned at his roll sheet, trying to figure out who was missing. But he didn’t need to bother, because Nima raced in, wearing a neon-green student government T-shirt and holding a late pass. I’d seen the spirit wheel in the quad at lunch but had fled in the opposite direction before anyone could call me over to give it a spin.

  “Sorry, Mr. G.,” he panted, trying to catch his breath.

  “It’s fine. You’ll be with Kate,” Gardner said, giving him the handout.

  That was when I realized what had happened. Without Nima, Sam’s friends were an odd number. I hadn’t noticed while we were all darting around in that dumb improv game. But I was positive Jamie had.

  Which meant Jamie hadn’t chosen me as a partner. He’d picked me so he wasn’t left without one.

  And that was so much worse.

  I suddenly wished I’d had the guts to reject him after all. To make him announce in front of everyone that he was the one left partnerless, instead of Kate. I stood there seething over the injustice of it all while Gardner calmly answered questions. Abby Shah hadn’t been paying attention when Gardner said he wanted our scenes memorized. And then Seth Bostwick wanted to know if we could use props. And then Leo Swanson asked specifically about “peace-tied weapons,” which sent Max into a coughing fit.

  We all headed outside to practice, and Jamie grinned at me, still pretending he was excited about our forced partnership.

  “Shade or sun?” he asked.

  “I don’t care.”

  He picked a shaded patch of grass, under a tree. One of the most visible, central spots in the quad. I wished he hadn’t done that. But it was too late now to protest.

  I sat down, glaring at him.

  “Sorry,” Jamie said, looking contrite.

  “Good,” I snapped. “You should be. It isn’t the end of the world to be left out.”

  Jamie frowned at me, confused.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When we were picking partners,” I went on. “I always go with Kate.”

  “How was I supposed to know that?”

  Now he sounded annoyed. And with a horrible jolt, I realized he was right—there was no way he would have known about Kate. Not when all we’d done so far were monologues.

  From the way Sam and Claudia had passed to me during improv, I could see how he might have thought I was still part of their circle—at least as far as Gardner’s class was concerned.

  So maybe he had genuinely picked me as a partner, instead of as a life vest, but that didn’t explain why he’d been so awful at Billz. There was no excuse for the way he’d acted, and I couldn’t believe he thought I’d want to work with him after that.

  “Then what was the apology for?” I demanded.

  “Um. Well . . .” Jamie looked like he didn’t want to say. “The grass here is kind of wet.”

  I snorted incredulously.

  “The grass?” I said. “Really?”

  Jamie chewed his lip, like it had just dawned on him that asking me to be partners was a spectacularly bad idea. Like he’d been hoping I hadn’t noticed his rudeness yesterday and he’d get away with pretending it had never happened.

  “You have to pick one,” I insisted. “Either you’re this old friend who actually wants to work with me, or you’re a complete jerk who acts repulsed when I show up at the same coffee shop.”

  Jamie winced.

  “That wasn’t—” he tried to explain.

  “Repulsed,” I insisted. “So if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll spend the rest of the period doing precalc.”

  I unzipped my bag and took out my math book and folder. Thankfully, I’d remembered my earbuds. I put them in and made it clear that he better not interrupt me.

  When I glanced up, Jamie had taken out his own math homework. He didn’t even hesitate as he scrawled Greek letters across the page. Of course he was in calculus. Suddenly, I felt self-conscious of my own labored attempts at domain and range.

  I hated Jamie then, for the way everything came so easily to him. Here he was, so much better than me again, this time at doing homework. When the bell rang, I gathered everything into my bag and hurried off before he could inflict any further misery.

  I BIKED HOME from school that day fuming. It wasn’t fair. Before Jamie showed up, Sam’s crowd and I had moved through high school without much interaction, and it wasn’t awkward or weird. It was just the way things were.

  But not anymore. Now it was like the fence that divided our backyards had blown down, leaving us with a clear view of the other side and the embarrassing knowledge that we’d been standing ten feet away from each other the entire time.

  I felt my phone vibrate in my bag, but waited until I got home to check it. And when I did, I had a missed text from Kate:

  Tbh can’t believe you bailed on me to flirt with nude art boy. A heads up next time would be nice ☺

  I almost laughed when I read it. Because there was no way such a bitchy, underhanded text was from Kate, who couldn’t even stand up for herself over a stupid backpack. No, that message was pure Delia.

  Even the time stamp, ten minutes after class let out, made me certain of it. I could sense them on the other end of the conversation, waiting for my reply, their heads bent over the screen like the three fates.

  Delia had come up with the plan, of course. And Emmy had protested that it wasn’t nice, but had gone along with it anyway, like she always did. And Kate, so desperate for their approval, believing she’d actually get it if she just handed over her phone.

  They were just itching to remind me of where I fit into their group: Rose Asher, the ultimate doormat. But something in me refused to remain in place any longer.

  Before I could think better of it, I typed a space, let it sit there for a minute, and deleted it. I tried not to laugh over the thought of them eagerly watching Kate’s screen for my response, only to have my little reply bubble disappear.

  “What are you doing?” Logan asked, appearing over my shoulder.

  I jumped, and Logan laughed, pleased that he’d spooked me.

  “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I snapped. “And if you must know, I’m enacting a particularly subtle form of subterfuge. I call it ‘subtlefuge.’”

  I typed another space into the phone. I kept it going for a good five minutes, typing and deleting, typing and deleting, until I finally sent a response I knew would make them scream:

  k

  “I don’t get it,” Logan complained, leaning over my shoulder. “Why did it take you so long to write that?”

  “Exactly!” I said. “What did I type but decide not to send? They won’t be able to stop thinking about it. It’s a sub-text message.”

  I expected Logan to laugh, but he didn’t.

  “You should get new friends,” he said.

  “It’s junior year. You can’t just get new friends,” I tried to explain.

  The truth was, it was entirely my fault that I hung around with Delia. I’d waited too long to fix it, the way I always did, and had gotten stuck. I should have forced myself to run track, or do yearbook, or join any activity that came wit
h a built-in friend group. Except none of those things was me. It didn’t matter how many years had passed since I’d stared at the Annie cast sheet, realizing that just because you want something doesn’t mean you’ll get it. I still loved theater, and I couldn’t make myself walk away.

  I needed to take my mind off things, so I took out the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. Baking always calmed me. It was better to focus on doing something tangible instead of obsessing over things I couldn’t change.

  Sure enough, as I sifted together the flour, salt, and baking soda, I wasn’t brooding over my school day anymore. Instead, I was thinking: Is the butter soft enough, should I add another pinch of salt?

  Logan hovered, getting in the way as he offered unsolicited advice: more chocolate chips, extra vanilla. At least he couldn’t eat the dough when my back was turned.

  “Want to lick the spoon?” I asked innocently.

  Logan glared.

  “Want to hear my list of people who aren’t funny?” he said. “Rose Asher.”

  “How is one name a list?”

  “Fine,” he snapped. “Rose Asher, Rose Asher, Rose Asher. Now it’s a list.”

  I popped the cookies into the oven and glanced at the clock, making a mental note. I baked these so often that I had an internal alarm for when they were ready. Logan crouched down in front of the oven, watching the cookies bake, and I started tackling the mess I’d made of the kitchen.

  The doorbell rang while I was rinsing the last of the measuring cups. I frowned, because we weren’t expecting anybody. I hoped it wasn’t my friends, because I honestly didn’t think I could take them right now.

  I yanked open the door, and Jamie Aldridge trained his thousand-watt smile in my direction. He was wearing his glasses, and the satchel slung across his chest pulled his fitted T-shirt even tighter. He looked devastatingly bookish, and I was sure he’d done it on purpose, just to annoy me.

  “Seriously?” I muttered.