As Dead as It Gets

She waved me off. “You’re talented. You’re smart. You’re funny. You can put up with Chad. Therefore, you are a good person.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Hush. I didn’t start my advice yet. Here it is: Find the people who treat you the way you deserve to be treated. Tell everyone else to go to hell. And don’t look back.”

  I sighed.

  “Do you believe in God? I believe in God. And I think God makes people exactly who He wants them to be.”

  I blinked. “I—I don’t know if I believe or not—”

  Elliot shook her head. “You’re missing the point.”

  No doubt. “Which is…?”

  “Which is, get over it. Forgive yourself. Stop assuming that you deserve the worst of everything.”

  I dragged my finger in a circle on the desk. “Easier said than done.”

  “Easy?” she repeated, raising her eyebrows. “Who wants easy? Easy’s boring. Now, I have to get back to work. You go take a nap in the library or something.”

  I sighed again. “Thanks. I think maybe—”

  “Don’t think, grasshopper,” she said. “Gut, remember?”

  I’d promised Jared I would come over after school, but I made a detour first—to the small brick house near Redmond High.

  I parked on the street, a few houses away, and got out of the car, my camera hanging around my neck. I tweaked the exposure way down and started taking pictures, expecting to see the girl in the purple dress.

  The white light did hold a quivering, jittering figure—but not the girl.

  It was a man. A boy, actually—a football player.

  Held tightly in his left hand was a trophy. I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—get close enough to see what it said, but I zoomed in on the figurine on top of the gold pedestal: a football player cradling a ball under one arm.

  The ghost was carrying something—just like the girl with her roses.

  A second superghost?

  He hovered about a foot over the sidewalk, looking in the direction of the high school, with an expression of pure rage on his face—forehead furrowed, teeth gritted. He had short, slicked-back hair, and his uniform looked oddly old-fashioned. His shoes were simple no-name black cleats. If I had to guess, I’d say he died in the 1960s.

  At least he had eyes.

  And this guy, unlike the girl in the purple dress, didn’t seem to notice me. His entire focus was directed toward the school. I cringed as another couple walked by. This time, the boy started hopping on one foot and saying, “Ow! Cramp! Ow, ow, ow, cramp!” as they passed the spot where the superghost stood.

  I went closer and fired off a few more frames. Then I looked at my camera. Across the back of the boy’s jersey, I could make out his last name: CorCoran.

  “Five minutes,” I said. “Ten. Then we can hang out.”

  “Can’t you do this at home?” Jared asked.

  I was sitting on his couch with his laptop balanced on my legs. “Mom’s laptop is the only computer in the house that gets internet. And she guards it like a junk-yard dog. But I’ll only be a minute. This is important.”

  He tried to remove my hand from the keyboard. I shook him off and went back to typing. In the web browser, I searched for corcoran + redmond street.

  It pulled up an address listing: RANDALL CORCORAN.

  When I went on to search for Randall Corcoran, what came up was his prison record. His most recent jail time had ended less than two years ago—it was fairly safe to assume that he was the drunk guy Lydia had seen passed out inside the house. So he wasn’t dead.

  Then who was the ghost? His football uniform had accents of green and yellow, like the girl’s cheerleading uniform. So I tried Corcoran dead Redmond high school.

  And found: “Redmond High Holds Memorial Assembly for State Champ Quarterback Phil Corcoran.”

  The article was dated 1965, and it was published in the Los Angeles Times, a much bigger newspaper than our local Surrey paper. Presumably this was a high-profile story because of Phil’s triumphant performance at the state championship. He’d been a senior, the star quarterback of the football team, when he died of injuries sustained in a car accident.

  But something didn’t add up:

  “We take tremendous comfort from the fact that Father Lopez was able to administer the Last Rites to Philip before he died,” the boy’s mother, Mrs. Joseph Corcoran, told the assembled students. “He died in a state of deep peace. He knew he was going to a better place.”

  Impossible.

  Because people who die in a state of deep peace don’t become angry ghosts.

  They just don’t.

  “What are you looking at?” Jared asked, leaning over to look.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  He hovered at my shoulder, scanning the article. “I wonder if that’s the same Father Lopez from my school.”

  He lifted the computer off my lap and went to his school’s website, clicking through a few screens to the headmaster’s bio page.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Look. He was ordained in 1962 and served at Saint Viviana’s on the east side of Surrey. That’s right by Redmond High.”

  Gears started turning in my head.

  “But why are you looking at this?” Jared asked. “It’s pretty morbid.”

  “I…” I didn’t have the faintest clue what to say. “One of my teachers was talking about this guy.”

  “And now you know who he is. So do the rest later,” Jared said, head-butting my arm gently. “Spend time with me.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Three more minutes.”

  “No more minutes.” He wandered away. “Look, I’m going to go through your stuff. I’ll totally rearranging your obsessively organized book bag.…”

  That actually sounded fine, if it would distract him. One of the perks of being obsessively organized is that chances to reorganize things are like little treats.

  “I’m looking at your science book.…” He took it out and set it on the floor. “I’m going to read your English journal.…”

  That was just a reading journal where we summarized what we were reading for class.

  “Go ahead,” I said, turning back to the computer.

  He was quiet for a minute—he really was looking through my stuff. I should have stopped him, but I needed the time for research.

  “What is this?” Jared asked. He was staring at a piece of paper—the one with my drawing of the purple dress.

  “Nothing,” I said, reaching out to take it back.

  He whipped it away, holding me back with his other arm.

  “Seriously, Jared, it’s just a stupid sketch.”

  He finally took his eyes off of it. “Why did you draw this?”

  “No reason. Just give it back, please.”

  He smiled—but it was one of his fake smiles—and moved the paper a tiny bit closer to me. “I’ll trade it for a kiss.”

  “Jared—”

  He handed me the page, and when I’d folded it and slipped it back inside my bag, I felt hands on my ribs.

  As soon as I turned back to him, our lips were pressed together.

  Usually, kissing was a way to wipe the slate clean, to forget our petty arguments. But in that moment, a thought barged into my head like an uninvited guest: If Lydia showed up now, what would she say?

  She would say he was distracting me. Trying to keep me from being mad about his jerkish, immature behavior.

  I’m not going to lie. Kissing Jared could drive a girl to distraction in the best of circumstances. But when I was irritated, or thrown off guard, or made to feel dumb by his little I’m-going-through-your-stuff antics, I was extra susceptible.

  And I couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew it.

  Jared stood up and pulled me with him. He walked me into the foyer and pressed up against me, his breath coming in hot puffs against my neck. I found myself backed against the wall. Then I felt the soft touch of his hands on the skin of my stomach, his fingers trailing around to my back, leavi
ng thin lines of sparking energy behind them.

  “Want to go to my room?” he whispered.

  To his room?

  “No,” I said, dipping my head to escape his kisses. “I really need to do some more work right now.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said, nibbling lightly on my neck.

  Don’t worry about it? I tried to picture myself and Carter together—me telling Carter I had work to do and him telling me not to worry about it. And not in a cutesy way, either—in a way that meant that he really expected me to stop worrying or thinking about anything but standing there, making out with him—because it was what he wanted.

  But what about what I wanted? What about the things that were important to me?

  Suddenly, what I wanted was not to even be in that house.

  “Wait,” I said, turning my head and setting my hands on his shoulders—firmly, but not quite pushing him away. “No.”

  He stopped and looked at me questioningly.

  “I’m going to go,” I said. “I really have a lot of work to do, and I’m not getting it done here.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “You’re leaving? Because I don’t feel like watching you sit and use my computer and ignore me?”

  Okay, yeah, it was his computer. But if he couldn’t find something else to do for a half hour while I worked on something that I’d made it really clear was important to me—

  I mean, I could put up with it. I’d been putting up with it for nearly two months.

  But why should I?

  “Alexis,” Jared said sharply. “You’re acting like a child.”

  Everything in my body that had been warm and tingly turned cold when I heard the edge in his voice.

  I gave him a sideways glance. He was looking at me as if I were crazy.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, softening. “Don’t overreact.”

  I heard Elliot’s words in my head: Find the people who treat you the way you deserve to be treated. Tell everyone else to go to hell.

  Forget this. I reached for my camera. “I’m not overreacting, Jared. I’m leaving.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I have to.” I knelt to put the scattered books in my bag. “I’ll give you a call later…or tomorrow.”

  But when I turned for the door, I found him standing squarely in my way.

  A moment passed between us.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Can’t we behave like grown-ups?” His jaw trembled, like he was losing patience with me. “I don’t understand. Things were completely fine two minutes ago.”

  Yeah, fine for him. Not for me.

  “I am behaving like a grown-up,” I said. “I’m going to go get some work done. Like a grown-up.”

  “You know what? Fine. Do it here. I don’t care. I’ll just find something else to do.” But he didn’t say it like he meant it. He said it like he wanted me to hear, in every word, how irrational I was being and how wrong I was.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, reaching behind him and putting my hand on the doorknob. “I’ll go to the library.”

  He looked down at me, his expression businesslike. “I would really prefer it if you would be mature for once, Alexis.”

  I stared at him. What would I do if he refused to move?

  Don’t be paranoid, I told myself. He wouldn’t refuse to move.

  Except…he didn’t move.

  And then my phone rang, making us both jump. I grabbed it from my pocket and answered without checking the caller ID. I’d have happily had a heart-to-heart with Agent Hasan at that moment if it meant getting out of that house.

  I was vividly aware that Jared was watching me, so I forced myself to play it cool. “Hello?”

  “Alexis?”

  It took me a second to place the voice. “Carter?”

  A wave of irritation flashed through Jared’s eyes.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Are you busy?”

  “Um…” I looked at Jared. “No.”

  “Okay. I have something for you. I mean, for you and the yearbook. I was thinking maybe I could run it over after dinner?”

  “Where are you right now?” I asked.

  “What? I’m home right now, but—”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll be right over.”

  “Really? Are you sure? Okay,” Carter said. “If you want to. See you soon.”

  “Yeah. Bye.” I slid the phone into my pocket.

  Jared’s face had fallen; his mouth turned down at the corners, and all of the tension had gone out of his body, from his jaw to his shoulders to his hands. “Please, Alexis—can’t you stay? I’m really sorry. I know I can be a jerk. I’ve always liked being the center of attention.” He gave a weak half laugh. “I mean, my mom used to tell me I should have a spotlight installed in a hat so I could wear it around.”

  I relaxed a little, taken aback by this first-ever mention of his mother. “Jared…what happened to your mom?”

  “Happened to her?” He looked puzzled. “She’s in Colorado with my stepfather.”

  Oh.

  “So could you please just stay?”

  Back up a second. If his mother was alive and well, then what was his pain, his baggage? I felt oddly like I’d been misled, although that wasn’t true at all. I’d just assumed. And obviously I’d assumed wrong.

  So that meant there was something else he was hiding from me?

  “No,” I said. “I can’t. We can talk later.”

  I slipped around him and left, shutting the door behind me.

  THE “SOMETHING” CARTER HAD FOR ME ended up being a vintage Surrey High sweatshirt that he’d seen at a garage sale.

  “I mentioned it to Elliot,” he said, laying it out on the couch so I could see it, “and she said she thought it would be cool to have a picture of it in the yearbook. I think it’s from the forties.”

  I stared down at the sweatshirt, trying to focus. But I couldn’t really get over the fact that I was standing in Carter’s house—in his living room—for the first time since October.

  “It’s great,” I said.

  “Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool.”

  Since I’d just proclaimed it “great,” I thought it might be wise to actually take a look. It had really baggy sleeves and tight cuffs, and the neckline was so high and tight it seemed like it would choke you. There was a threadbare red S on the front with a small embroidered eagle above it.

  “All right,” I said, scooping it up. “Thanks. I’ll get it back to you soon. Or Marley will.”

  “No rush.” Carter followed me into the foyer. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

  I shrugged. No need to tell him that the primary reason I’d agreed to come was that I wanted an excuse to get out of Jared’s house. “No problem.”

  He brightened. “Thanks. So you’re really into yearbook, huh? That’s nice. I mean, I’m glad. They’re good people.”

  I glanced around. “Where’s Zoe?”

  “Um…” Carter stood awkwardly, with his hands shoved into his pockets. “She’s…home, I guess? I don’t really know.”

  I reached for the doorknob. “Okay, see you later.”

  “I’ll walk you out.” He hurried to open the door for me. Then he followed me to the driveway, where my car was parked next to his. “Is this yours?”

  “Yeah, I got it for Christmas.”

  He stood back and looked it over. “It’s really…brown.”

  “Go ahead, say it,” I said. “It’s ugly.”

  “I’d never say that.”

  “Not out loud, at least.”

  And then he was giving me that impish Carter look, and my heart felt like two pieces of Velcro being ripped apart.

  “It drives,” I said. “That’s what matters.”

  “Does it have a name?”

  I opened the passenger door and set the sweatshirt on the front seat before I looked at him. “A name?”

  “All cars have names.” r />
  “Does yours?”

  “Of course.”

  It was a cool afternoon, and I was beginning to shiver. I hugged myself, thinking that it would be a great excuse for Carter to urge me to get into my car, if he was tired of talking to me.

  But instead, he automatically took off his own sweatshirt. As he brought it near my shoulders, I flinched, and he stopped short.

  The cold made me shake from my toes to the top of my head, but I said, “Don’t. Please.”

  He nodded and backed off, looking abashed and a little disoriented. I felt the same way. Gestures like that had been second nature to us once, but now it was too personal, too much of a reminder of what we’d had.

  What we’d lost.

  “So,” I said through my chattering teeth. “What’s your car’s name?”

  “Ayn Rand.”

  I had to laugh. “Are you kidding?”

  “No,” he said. “What, is that dumb?”

  “It’s…unusual,” I said. “I don’t think you could call it dumb.”

  He was watching me closely. “It’s good to see you smiling.”

  I shrugged. “Only on the outside.”

  He started to laugh, but then I think he realized it wasn’t a joke.

  “Alexis. We’re…” He let the word fall. “I mean, Zoe and I—we’re breaking up.”

  “Oh,” I said. But inside, I was all: OH. “Um…I’m sorry.”

  His eyes sparkled. “I’m not sure I am. Anyway, I wanted to see you…I wanted to tell you.”

  “Why?” I asked. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I just meant…why?

  “I know you’re with Jared,” Carter said. “But I want you to know that if you ever need anything—or need to talk about anything—call me.”

  Was I with Jared?

  I felt like a swirling vortex had opened up under my feet.

  Carter’s cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, and I saw the name on the screen: zoe perry. He started to put it away, but I waved him off. “No, go ahead. I’m leaving.”

  After I’d sat down in the driver’s seat, I looked up to see that Carter was waiting for me to get settled so he could close the door for me. At the same time, he held the phone to his ear, listening patiently to whatever Zoe was squawking about.

  I put my hands on the steering wheel, which had always been the signal for him to shut the car door. He did, and gave me a little wave before walking back to the house.