Give Up The Ghost

  As if his friends had ever been great people. He’d just decided not to see what they were like until it was him getting the cold shoulder.

  “Hey,” I said, “you’re the one who keeps hanging out with them. And since we’re on the subject, Matti’s creeping me out. Maybe you could tell him next time you talk to him that I’m not trying to steal your soul or something.”

  “Yeah,” Tim said. “He was getting on my case at the party. I’ll say something to him. I mean, hell, why shouldn’t I talk to you? You’re the only one who actually says what you’re thinking, not just what you figure won’t be too uncomfortable. No one else has asked me anything about her, or what happened—not just how I’m doing and here’s some pretend sympathy and now let’s change the subject.” He smiled. “I appreciate that, you know.”

  The car, suddenly, felt way too small. “I, uh, you’re welcome, I guess,” I mumbled. “Well, we’re here—”

  “Wait.” He reached around to the back seat, where his backpack sagged on the floor, and dug through one of the pockets. “You’re going to think this is really dumb,” he said, “I know. But the committee’s just about given up on selling the rest so they gave freebies to everyone on the student council, and, I mean, everyone else I know already has one, and, well—here.”

  He handed me a rectangle of printed cardstock. I looked down at it and almost bit my tongue.

  The paper was lightly textured, with slanted black lettering on a creamy background. The Sixty-fourth Annual Frazer Prom. Just like Paige’s, except hers had been the sixtieth. I guess they got the prom tickets printed at the same place every year.

  Tim was hovering somewhere at the edges of my vision. I couldn’t quite bring myself to raise my eyes.

  “You want me to go to prom,” I said, trying to make it seem like a laugh. It sounded more like I was choking on something.

  “I just—I had the extra tickets—I mean, why not, right? You don’t have to go. I don’t even know for sure that I’m going. But, if I do . . . it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for there to be someone else there who isn’t a total jerk, right?”

  What do you know, I wanted to ask him, about who’s a jerk and who’s not? Something had tightened up inside of me. It didn’t feel right—he shouldn’t be giving me things like this, saying things like that—I shouldn’t be taking. I didn’t have the right. What had I done, except what he’d badgered me into doing, because I thought I could get something for myself out of it? Maybe his old friends weren’t so great, but I wasn’t his friend either. I didn’t even know how to be. I hardly knew how to be friends with people who’d been dead for decades.

  “Well, thanks,” I said. “For . . . this, and the ride. I should go in.”

  “Are you okay?” He peered at me, his eyes rounding in concern.

  “I’m fine.” My hand slipped on the door handle. I grasped it and pushed. The door popped open and I teetered out into the dewy air. I’d been tired when I left Matti’s. Now I was exhausted.

  “Have a nice drive,” I said, and shut the door. The middle step creaked as I scrambled up to the porch, feeling for my keys in my pocket. The Oldsmobile was silent. I jerked the house key in the lock and burst into the hall, shoving the door shut behind me. My heart thudding, I leaned back against it. After a moment, I heard the squeak of tires on asphalt and the rumble of the engine fading away.

  Upstairs, I realized I still had the prom ticket clutched in my hand. I dropped it into a desk drawer and shoved it out of sight. Peeling off my clothes in the dark, I groped along the bed for my pajamas. The whole house was quiet, a vacuum left by Paige’s absence. My brain started filling in its own noise: Matti’s threats, Danielle’s laugh, Tim’s last words. Are you okay? My eyes started to burn. I burrowed into the bed and hugged my pillow. When I was asleep, it’d be gone, all of it.

  The air overhead shivered. A glow fell across my face. “Cassie?” Paige’s voice called out.

  “What?” I murmured into the pillow, hoping she’d mistake it for a snore and leave me alone, this once.

  “Where’ve you been?” she asked, dipping over me. The glow on my eyelids shone brighter. “I started feeling icky at the airport so I came home, and you weren’t here, and then Dad went to bed, and everything was dark. . . . I went out looking for you. I was worried.”

  I flipped onto my back and opened my eyes. Paige shimmered over the foot of the bed, her ghostly knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She stared at me, unblinking.

  “I went out,” I said. All my words, it seemed, had dried up. “To a thing.”

  “What kind of a thing?”

  “A bunch of poseurs hanging out together kind of thing. Don’t worry. I’m fine.” As fine as a person could be after telling her life story to a guy she’d never have given the time of day to a week ago. Oh, and then having a panic attack over a prom ticket. Yes, I was fine.

  Paige ducked her head behind her knees. Her hair drifted over her face. “I know,” she said, her voice petulant and embarrassed at the same time. “It’s just you’re always here. How was I supposed to know what was going on? You could have been anywhere. Anyway, there’s nothing to do when you’re gone.”

  I yawned. “I’d have told you about it if you’d been here after school.”

  “I was waiting for Mom. The calendar said her plane was coming at five, but I never saw her.” She sighed. “Airports are confusing.”

  “It’s just a delay,” I said. “There’s always a delay. She’ll get here.”

  She just wouldn’t stay.

  “She was away a long time, this time. At least, it seemed like it . . .” Paige trailed off, confused by her scrambled memories.

  “I know,” I said. “Dad said she’ll be here the whole weekend.”

  “Oh, good.” Paige smiled. “It’s nice to see her, even though . . .” The smile faltered.

  “I know,” I said again. There was nothing I could do about that. My mind started to drift away. Paige glided along the bed, dimming to a faint shimmer. She hovered over me until my eyes slid closed, and then she whispered, timidly, “Cassie?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “I just thought . . .” She hesitated, and I could almost hear her breathing beside me, except she didn’t breathe anymore. “You remember how we used to have pajama parties? Stay up real late, eat popcorn, watch old movies on TV? Do you think we could do that again sometime? It was so much fun.”

  Sure, I remembered. In particular, I remembered the last time, when I’d been eleven and she fifteen, and I’d had to beg her to sit with me through one movie. She’d made such a production of sighing impatiently and painting her nails during the best parts that I’d never asked her again.

  But now she was asking me.

  I pulled myself upright and felt on my desk for the remote. The TV came on blaring. I fumbled with the volume control before switching to the channel listings station. Funny, this was the TV we’d always used before. I’d never had one of my own until Dad cleaned out Paige’s room and handed hers over to me.

  “This’ll be great!” Paige stretched out on the bed against the wall. I scooted over a couple of inches, as if she needed the space. “I guess there’s no point in making popcorn,” she said.

  “It always made the sheets greasy, anyway.” I watched the channel guide slide upward. “There’s a Katharine Hepburn movie that just started.”

  “Oooh, let’s watch that one.”

  I jogged through the channels to the movie, then sank down so my head rested against the pillow. Paige squirmed beside me like a five-year-old on Christmas Eve. After that mess of a party, it was a small relief to know this, at least, I could do right. She giggled as the actress shot off a clever line of dialogue, and her pale hand groped for mine, passing through it with a tingle. My eyes felt so heavy I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the movie. Paige wouldn’t mind.

  Strains of violin swayed out of the speakers. My eyelids drooped. For a moment, Paige wa
s just a smattering of light between my lashes, and then I was asleep.

  CHAPTER

  12

  Of all the awful things I could wake up to on any given morning, the worst had to be my mom’s voice, when she had that tone like I’d managed to screw up the universe without even being conscious.

  “Cassie. Cassie!” she was saying. I opened one eye and peered at her through my hair. She was standing in my bedroom doorway with her suitcase at her feet, her lips pressed in a glossy line and her auburn bob neat and sleek. Either she primped in the taxi or she’d secretly mastered the art of teleportation. I guessed she figured if she was perfect when she was here, it’d compensate for all the times she wasn’t.

  She knocked the door frame, her knuckles rattling against the wood. That sound made my bones shudder. I yawned and propped myself up on my elbow.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She crossed her tanned arms and raised her eyebrows. “How many times have I reminded you about turning off the TV before you go to sleep? You know my editor’s been cutting his freelance people. The last thing I need to worry about is the electricity bill.”

  Well, hello and good morning to you, too. I hauled myself over the pillow and grabbed the remote. The pastel colors of a Saturday morning cartoon flickered to black. If Mom was in any danger of losing her job, I doubted the magazine would be paying for her to jet around the world every other week, but it was easier not to argue.

  “You just got in?” I asked. The clock said seven.

  “They ended up canceling my flight—mechanical difficulties. I had to wait for the red-eye. I called your father to let him know.”

  “Dad was in bed when I got home,” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Mom’s eyebrows leapt up twice as high as before.

  “It was nothing”—I jumped in before she could start a barrage of questions. “I just met up with a few people from school, drank a root beer.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you’re finally attempting to develop a social life.” She picked up her suitcase. “You look tired. Get some more sleep.”

  If she hadn’t suggested it, I might have zonked right out, but the second the words came out of her mouth, I started feeling edgy. It wasn’t so bad when she was home during the week and I was in school most of the day, but a whole weekend of nothing but Mom . . . just enough time for her to go all hyper-maternal on me and satisfy her guilt before she packed up again.

  I flopped back on the bed and stretched my arms up over my head. Paige had disappeared. I bet she was in Mom and Dad’s bedroom, eager to hear Mom dish about the trip. The food was all right but the atmosphere dull. The hotel service was friendly, but the in-house entertainment lacked pizzazz. Or the other way around. Even when Mom got sent to interesting places, like the Mardi Gras celebrations or the Olympics, by the time she got home she didn’t have much more to say besides how loud the people were, how crowded the streets, how hectic her schedule. Any enthusiasm she had left, she poured into her articles.

  I lay there until I was sure I couldn’t fall back asleep, and then I crept downstairs to make breakfast. If I hurried, I could eat before Mom came down and started lecturing me about proper nutrition. I didn’t see why she bought bacon if she didn’t want me eating it.

  As the fat hissed in the frying pan, I dropped a slice of bread into the toaster and reconsidered last night’s events. It hadn’t gone that badly, really. I’d given the opportunity my best. So what if no great weight had lifted off my shoulders now that I’d had it out with Danielle—I’d been silly to think it would. I’d live, like I always had.

  Mom came down as I was finishing up my toast. The stairs creaked, and I shoved the last bit of crust into my mouth, jumping up to stick my plate in the dishwasher. Not quite fast enough. I turned around, and there she was in the doorway. Great. Inquisition time.

  “I’m going to make some tea,” she said, smoothing her hair back. She’d changed from her posh skirt and blazer to a linen dress, and her bob was slightly rumpled. “Do you want any? You could try the one that’s supposed to be good for your complexion.”

  And here I thought my skin had been looking all right lately. I touched my cheek. “Um, no thanks. I was going to get started on my homework.”

  “You’ve got all weekend for that. Stay awhile. I want to hear all about what you were up to last night.” She brushed past me, plucking the kettle from the counter and dipping it under the tap.

  Mom didn’t get that there were several valid reasons for me not to tell her about last night, for her own good. For starters:

  1. The very thought of a boy inviting me to a party would cause such an explosion of joy that she’d have a heart attack.

  2. Even in the middle of said heart attack, she’d have to ask me all sorts of embarrassing questions, like whether the boy and I were “seeing each other,” when we were “going out” again, and whether I’d gotten a good-night kiss.

  3. The answers to those questions (“Ha!” “I’d guess around the time Hell freezes over,” and “No, thank God!”) would throw her into such despair that her heart would kick right out and she’d die on the spot.

  In a way, it was Paige’s fault. No way could I live up to Miss Popularity herself. I’m sure it looked obvious to Mom—Paige happy, Cassie not so happy; Paige social butterfly, Cassie social misfit; therefore, social butterfly equals happy. As if that was the only difference between me and her. For one thing, Paige hadn’t had a dead sibling living in her bedroom.

  I couldn’t leave now without starting a scene, which would have been worse in the long run. So I improvised.

  “It was for class, really,” I said. “We have to do group presentations for, um, geography class. The six of us got together in the evening to work on it, ordered some pizza, that’s about it.”

  “Sounds like it wasn’t all work, then. Might have been a good opportunity to make friends. I hope you made a little effort.”

  I have friends, I wanted to tell her. You just wouldn’t believe they exist.

  She bent over to shuffle through the tea drawer for the Earl Grey. “If you need to meet up again, you should invite them over here. People appreciate that sort of gesture.”

  “We’re just about finished,” I said. “The last part we’re supposed to do in class anyway.”

  “Well, if you ever want to invite someone over just for fun—”

  “I know, Mom.” What did she think this was—preschool? Actually, she’d probably like that. She could call the other parents and arrange visits and schedule friends into my life, without even having to talk to me about it.

  “I was thinking,” she said, “maybe you’re not meeting people who have enough in common with you. There’s always lots going on at that rec center on Granmore. We could sign you up for a club, or some sort of classes.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll take a look.” I couldn’t think of anything I’d want to take classes in. The art of death management?

  The kettle started to whistle, and while Mom was distracted, I slipped out of the kitchen. Grabbing a couple of graphic novels I hadn’t gotten around to reading yet, I curled up in a chair on the back patio. With a little luck, it wouldn’t occur to her to look for me there until I’d already left to catch that movie with Norris.

  Other than a little poking about the classes idea at dinner and a couple questions about the movie (well, Norris loved it), Mom let me be for the rest of Saturday. By Sunday morning, it was starting to seem like I would get through the entire weekend without a full-blown lecture. I wondered if Dad was actually right this time. Maybe she was trying to ease off.

  Then the phone rang.

  Mom picked it up, her bright and perky voice carrying up the stairs.

  “Hello? Oh, yes, just a second. I’ll get her.”

  Her footsteps padded up, and she peeked into my room. “Cassie,” she whispered, as if the caller might hear us, “there’s a boy on the phone for you.”

  Here was a moment for the histo
ry books: My first call from a member of the opposite sex. No doubt she’d bronze the phone in memory of the occasion.

  “Okay,” I said, giving her my best bored voice so she’d know this wasn’t a potential boyfriend or something, and reached for my phone. Mom flitted off to share the excitement with Dad.

  I was too busy being annoyed to think about what Mom had said and how there was only one boy in the universe who knew my entry in the phone book. So when I pressed the talk button and said hi and Tim’s voice came echoing out of the earpiece, I almost hung up in surprise.

  “Hey, Cass,” he said. “What’s up?”

  All casual, as if this was your regular everyday phone call. I had to open and close my mouth a few times before my brain got into gear.

  “Not much,” I said cautiously. Was he really calling just to shoot the breeze? I was a little out of practice with that chatting on the phone thing. Just pretend it’s Norris, I told myself. “How about you?”

  “Well, I, uh . . . my dad’s out of town for the next few days on business. I thought . . . could you help me talk to Mom again?”

  Oh. Of course. Stupid for me to have imagined this had anything to do with anything else. “I thought we were done with that,” I said.

  “Just one more time, okay? All I want is to know that she’s still here.”

  “Of course she’s there. Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “I don’t know.” He swallowed audibly. “I can’t tell, you know. It’s not like I can see her or hear her or anything. It seems like she’s gone.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s normal.”

  “But I don’t want it to be. Okay, I know I’m not going to be able to see her like you do. But when you were talking to her, it was almost like I could feel her standing there.”

  A board groaned in the hallway. I glanced over my shoulder at the door. Silence. Was that Mom sneaking by, hoping to catch a few words, wondering by what magic a boy had been induced to talk to her daughter? I wasn’t going to hear the end of this for weeks. Bad enough that everyone at school was speculating about Tim and me without Mom getting in on it, too.