Darkest Hour

  But on Jesse, of course, it looked great.

  Well, what wouldn’t?

  The letters were almost better than the painting, though, in a way. That’s because they were all addressed to Maria de Silva…and signed by someone named Hector.

  I pored over them, and I can’t say that at the time I felt a lick of guilt about it, either. They were much more interesting than Maria’s letters—although, like hers, not the least romantic. No, Jesse just wrote—very wittily, I might add—about the goings-on at his family’s ranch and the funny things his sisters did. (It turns out he had five of them. Sisters, I mean. All younger, ranging in age, the year Jesse died, from sixteen to six. But had he ever mentioned this to me before? Oh, please.) There was also some stuff about local politics and how hard it was to keep good ranch hands on the job what with the gold rush on and all of them hurrying off to stake claims.

  The thing was, the way Jesse wrote, you could practically hear him saying all this stuff. It was all very friendly and chatty and nice. Much better than Maria’s braggy letters.

  And nothing was spelled wrong, either.

  As I read through Jesse’s letters, Dr. Clive rattled on about how now that he had Maria’s letters to Hector, he was going to add them to this exhibit he was planning for the fall tourist season, an exhibit on the whole de Silva clan and their importance to the growth of Salinas County over the years.

  “If only,” he said wistfully, “there were any of them left alive. De Silvas, I mean. It would be lovely to have them as guest speakers.”

  This got my attention. “There have to be some left,” I said. “Didn’t Maria and that Diego guy have like thirty-seven kids or something?”

  Clive Clemmings looked stern. As a historian—and especially a Ph.D.—he did not seem to appreciate exaggeration of any kind.

  “They had eleven children,” he corrected me. “And they are not, strictly, de Silvas, but Diegos. The de Silva family unfortunately ran very strongly to daughters. I’m afraid Hector de Silva was the last male in the line. And of course we’ll never know if he sired any male offspring. If he did, it certainly wasn’t in northern California.”

  “Of course he didn’t,” I said, perhaps more defensively than I ought to have. But I was peeved. Aside from the obvious sexism of the whole last-male-in-the-line thing, I took issue with the guy’s assumption that Jesse might have been off procreating somewhere when, in fact, he had been foully murdered. “He was killed right in my own house!”

  Clive Clemmings looked at me with raised eyebrows. It was only then that I realized what I had said.

  “Hector de Silva,” Dr. Clive said, sounding a lot like Sister Ernestine when we grew restless during the begats in Religion class, “disappeared shortly before his wedding to his cousin Maria and was never heard from again.”

  I couldn’t very well sit there and go, Yeah, but his ghost lives in my bedroom, and he told me…

  Instead, I said, “I thought the, um, perception was that Maria had her boyfriend, that Diego dude, kill Hector so she didn’t have to marry him.”

  Clive Clemmings looked annoyed. “That is only a theory put forward by my grandfather, Colonel Harold Clemmings, who wrote—”

  “My Monterey,” I finished for him. “Yeah, that’s what I meant. That guy’s your grandfather?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Clive said, but he didn’t look too happy about it. “He passed away a good many years ago. And I can’t say that I agree with his theory, Miss, er, Ackerman.” I had donated Maria’s letters in my stepfather’s name, so Dr. Clive, sexist thing that he was, assumed that that was my name, too. “Nor can I say that his book sold at all well. My grandfather was extremely interested in the history of his community, but he was not an educated man, like me. He did not possess even a B.A., let alone a Ph.D. It has always been my belief—not to mention that of most local historians, with the sole exception of my grandfather—that young Mr. de Silva developed what is commonly referred to as ‘cold feet’”—Dr. Clive made little quotation marks in the air with his fingers—“a few days before the wedding and, unable to face his family’s embarrassment over his jilting the young woman in such a manner, went off in search of a claim of his own, perhaps near San Francisco….”

  It’s amazing, but for a moment I actually envisioned sinking those tweezy things Clive Clemmings had made me use to turn the pages of Jesse’s letters straight into his eyes. If I could have got them past the lenses of those goobery glasses, that is.

  Instead, I pulled myself together and said, with all the dignity I could muster while sitting there in a pair of khaki shorts with pleats down the front, “And do you really believe, in your heart of hearts, Clive, that the person who wrote these letters would do something like that? Go away without a word to his family? To his little sisters, whom he clearly loved, and about whom he wrote so affectionately? Do you really think that the reason these letters turned up in my backyard is because he buried them there? Or do you find it beyond the realm of possibility that the reason they turned up there is because he’s buried there somewhere, and if my stepfather digs deep enough, he just might find him?”

  My voice had risen shrilly. I supposed I was getting a little hysterical over the whole thing. So sue me.

  “Will that make you see that your grandfather was a hundred percent right?” I shrieked. “When my stepfather finds Hector de Silva’s rotting corpse?”

  Clive Clemmings looked more astonished than ever before. “My dear Miss Ackerman!” he cried.

  I think he said this because he’d realized, at the exact same moment as I had, that I was crying.

  Which was actually pretty strange, because I am not a crier. I mean, yeah, sure, I cry when I bang my head on one of the kitchen cabinet doors or see one of those drippy Kodak commercials or whatever. But I don’t, you know, go around weeping at the drop of a hat.

  But there I was, sitting in the office of Dr. Clive Clemmings, Ph.D., bawling my eyes out. Good going, Suze. Real professional. Way to show Jack how to mediate.

  “Well,” I said in a shaky voice as I stripped off my latex gloves and stood up, “allow me to assure you, Clive, that you are very, very wrong. Jesse—I mean Hector—would never do something like that. That might be what she wants you to believe”—I nodded toward the painting above our heads, the sight of which I was now beginning to hate with a sort of passion—“but it isn’t the truth. Jesse—I mean, Hector—isn’t…wasn’t like that. If he’d gotten ‘cold feet’ like you say”—I made the same stupid quotation marks in the air—“then he’d have called the whole thing off. And, yeah, his family might have been embarrassed, but they’d have forgiven him, because they clearly loved him as much as he loved them, and—”

  But then I couldn’t talk anymore, because I was crying so hard. It was maddening. I couldn’t believe it. Crying. Crying in front of this clown.

  So instead I turned around and stormed out of the room.

  Not very dignified, I guess, considering that the last thing Dr. Clive Clemmings, Ph.D., saw of me was my butt, which must have looked enormous in those stupid shorts.

  But I got the point across.

  I think.

  Of course, in the end, it turned out not to matter. But at the time, I had no way of knowing that.

  And neither, unfortunately, did poor Dr. Clive Clemmings, Ph.D.

  chapter

  five

  God, I hate crying. It’s so humiliating. And I swear I hardly ever do it.

  I guess, though, that the stress of being assaulted in the dead of night by the knife-wielding ex-girlfriend of the guy I love, finally got to me. I pretty much didn’t stop crying until Jack, in desperation, bought me a Yoo-hoo from Jimmy’s Quick Mart on our way down to the beach.

  That and a Butterfinger bar soon had me feeling like myself again, and it wasn’t long before Jack and I were frolicking in the waves, making fun of the tourists, and placing penny bets on which surfer would be knocked off his board first. We had such a good time that i
t wasn’t until the sun started setting that I realized I had to get Jack back to the hotel.

  Not that anybody had missed us, we discovered when we got there. As I dropped Jack off at his family’s suite, his mother popped her head in from the terrace, where she and Dr. Rick were enjoying cocktails, and said, “Oh, it’s you, is it, Jack? Hurry and change for dinner, will you? We’re meeting the Robertsons. Thank you, Susan, and see you in the morning.”

  I waved and left, relieved that I’d managed to avoid Paul. After my unexpectedly traumatic afternoon, I did not think I could handle a confrontation with Mr. Tennis Whites.

  But my relief turned out to be precipitous. As I was sitting in the front seat of the Land Rover, waiting for Sleepy to tear himself away from Caitlin, who seemed to have something terribly urgent to discuss with him just as we were leaving, someone tapped on my rolled-up window. I looked around, and there was Paul, wearing a tie, of all things, and a dark blue sports jacket.

  I pushed the button that rolled the window down.

  “Um,” I said. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he said. He was smiling pleasantly. The last of the day’s sunlight picked up the gold high-lights in his brown curls. He really was, I had to admit, good-looking. Kelly Prescott would have eaten him up with a spoon. “I suppose you already have plans for tonight,” he said.

  I didn’t, of course, but I replied quickly, “Yes.”

  “I figured.” His smile was still pleasant. “What about tomorrow night?”

  Look, I know I’m a freak, all right? You don’t have to tell me. There I was, and this totally hot, totally nice guy was asking me out, and all I could think about was a guy who, let’s face it, is dead. All right? Jesse is dead. It’s stupid—stupid, stupid, stupid—of me to turn down a date with a live guy when the only other guy I have in my life is dead.

  But that’s exactly what I did. I went, “Gee, sorry, Paul. I have plans tomorrow night, too.”

  I didn’t even care if it sounded like I was lying. That’s how screwed up I am. I just could not drum up the slightest bit of interest.

  But I guess that was a pretty big mistake. I guess Mr. Paul Slater isn’t used to girls turning down his invitations to dinner, or whatever. Because he went, no longer smiling pleasantly—or at all, actually: “Well, that’s too bad. It’s especially too bad considering the fact that now I guess I’m going to have to tell your supervisor about how you took my little brother off hotel property today without my parents’ permission.”

  I just stared at him through the open window. I couldn’t even figure out what he was talking about, at first. Then I remembered the shuttle bus, and the historical society, and the beach.

  I almost burst out laughing. Seriously. I mean, if Paul Slater thought my getting in trouble for taking a kid off hotel property without his parents’ permission was the worst thing that could happen to me—that had even happened to me today—he was way, way off base. For crying out loud, a woman who’d been been dead for nearly a hundred years had held a knife to my throat in my own bedroom, not twenty-four hours earlier. Did he really think I was going to care if Caitlin issued me a reprimand?

  “Go ahead,” I said. “And when you tell her, be sure to mention that for the first time in his life, your brother actually had a good time.”

  I hit the button to roll up the window—I mean, really, what was this guy’s damage?—but Paul stuck his hand through it and rested his fingers on the glass. I let go of the button. I mean, I just wanted him to go away, not get maimed for life.

  “Yeah,” Paul said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Jack tells me that you told him he’s a medium.”

  “Mediator,” I corrected him before I could stop myself. And so much for Jack keeping the whole thing a secret, like I’d advised him to. When was this kid going to learn that going around telling people he can talk to ghosts wasn’t going to endear him to anyone?

  “Whatever,” Paul said. “I guess you must think making fun of someone who has a mental disorder is pretty amusing.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t. It was like something out of a TV show. Not on the WB, though, or even Fox. It was totally PAX.

  “I do not think your brother has a mental disorder,” I said.

  “Oh, don’t you?” Paul looked all knowing. “He tells you he sees dead people, and you think he’s playing with a full deck?”

  I shook my head. “Jack might be able to see dead people, Paul. You don’t know. I mean, you can’t prove he can’t see dead people.”

  Oh, brilliant argument, Suze. Where the hell was Sleepy? Come on, already. Get me out of here.

  “Suze,” Paul said, looking at me all searchingly. “Please. Dead people? You really believe that? You really believe my brother can see—can speak to—the dead?”

  “I’ve heard of weirder things,” I said. I glanced over at Sleepy. Caitlin was smiling up at him and shaking her blond Jennifer Aniston mane all over the place. Oh my God, enough with the flirting already. Just ask him out and get it over with so I can go…

  “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t be encouraging him,” Paul said. “It’s about the worst thing you can do, according to his doctors.”

  “Yeah?” I was getting kind of pissed off now. I mean, what did Paul Slater know about anything, anyway? Just because his father’s a brain surgeon or whatever who can afford a week at the Pebble Beach Hotel and Golf Resort doesn’t make him right all the time. “Well, Jack seems fine to me. You might even learn a thing or two from him, Paul. At least he has an open mind.”

  Paul just shook his head in disbelief. “What are you saying, Suze? That you believe in ghosts?”

  Finally, finally, Sleepy said good-bye to Caitlin and turned back toward the car.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I do. What about you, Paul?”

  Paul just blinked at me. “What about me?”

  “Do you believe?”

  His curled upper lip was all the reply I needed. Not caring if I severed his hand, I hit the window button. Paul pulled his fingers out just in time. I guess he thought I wasn’t the finger-severing type.

  Was he ever wrong.

  Why are boys so difficult? I mean, really. When they aren’t drinking directly out of the carton or leaving the toilet seat up, they are getting all offended because you won’t go out with them and threatening to rat you out to your supervisor. Hasn’t it occurred to any of them that this is not the way to our hearts?

  And the problem is, they are just going to keep on doing it, as long as stupid girls like Kelly Prescott keep agreeing to go out with them anyway, in spite of their defects.

  I sulked all the way home. Even Sleepy noticed.

  “What’s with you?” he wanted to know.

  “That stupid Paul Slater’s mad because I won’t go out with him,” I said, even though I generally make it a policy not to share my personal problems with any of my stepbrothers except, occasionally, Doc, and then only because his IQ is so much higher than mine. “He says he’s going to tell Caitlin I took his little brother off hotel property without his parents’ permission, which I did, but only to take him to the beach.” And to the Carmel Historical Society. But I didn’t mention that.

  Sleepy went, “No kidding? That’s pretty low. Well, don’t worry about it. I’ll smooth things over with Caitlin for you, if you want.”

  I was shocked. I had only mentioned it because I was feeling so down in the dumps. I hadn’t actually expected Sleepy to help, or anything.

  “Really? You really will?”

  “Sure,” Sleepy said with a shrug. “I’m seeing her tonight after I get off from delivering.” Sleepy lifeguards by day and delivers pizzas by night. Originally he was saving up for a Camaro. Now he is saving up to get his own apartment, since there are no dorms at the community college he’ll be attending, and Andy says he isn’t going to pay for Sleepy to have his own place unless he pulls his grades up.

  I couldn’t believe it. I said, “Thanks,” in a stunned way.

/>   “What’s wrong with that Slater guy, anyway?” Sleepy wanted to know. “I thought he’d be just your type. You know, smart and all.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with him,” I grumbled, fiddling with my seat belt. “I just…I sort of like someone else.”

  Sleepy lifted up his eyebrows behind his Ray-Bans. “Oh? Anyone I know?”

  I said shortly, “No.”

  “I don’t know, Suze,” he said. “Try me. Between the pizza gig and school, I know most everybody.”

  “You definitely,” I said, “do not know this guy.”

  Sleepy frowned. “Why? Is he some kind of gangbanger?”

  I rolled my eyes. Sleepy has been convinced since almost the day we first met that I am in a gang. Seriously. As if gang members wear Stila. I am so sure.

  “Does he live in the Valley?” Sleepy wanted to know. “Suze, I’m telling you right now, if I find out you’re going out with a gangbanger from the Valley—”

  “God!” I yelled. “Would you stop? He isn’t a gangbanger, and neither am I! And he doesn’t live in the Valley. You don’t know him, okay? Just forget we had this conversation.”

  See? See what I mean? See why things will never, ever work out between me and Jesse? Because I can’t pull him out and go, Here he is, this is the guy I like, and he isn’t a gangbanger, and he doesn’t live in the Valley.

  I have just got to learn to keep my mouth shut, same as Jack.

  When we got home, we were informed that dinner wasn’t ready yet. That was because Andy was waist-deep in the hole he and Dopey had made in the backyard. I went out and looked at it for a while, chewing on my thumbnail. It was very creepy, looking into that hole. Almost as creepy as the prospect of going to bed in a few hours, knowing that Maria was probably going to show up again.

  And that, seeing as how I hadn’t done a single thing she’d asked, this time she’d probably cut up a lot more than just my gums.