A Boy a Girl and a Ghost Read online

  “Aaron, was it?” she asks.

  “Yeah. Aaron Wade.”

  She nods and extends her hand. “I’m Helena Monfort.” Her handshake is strong and she’s a good four inches taller than me. She’s slim with tight jeans, a sweater, and long black hair. “I’d appreciate it if we keep this incident between ourselves.” She says it sweetly, but I get her message. You keep my secret, I’ll keep yours. I find it odd that she doesn’t ask what I’m doing in the graveyard in the middle of the night.

  I find it odd, but I like it.

  I shake her hand longer than I probably should, but I like the feel of it. Her breath is now an odd cigarettey/minty combo.

  After the handshake, she looks around as if she’s disoriented.

  “Here, take this,” I say, giving her my flashlight. “Head that way and you’ll hit Main.”

  Her gaze follows where I am pointing and then she turns around and looks at me again. “Thanks, Wade. You’re okay, you know that?”

  I shrug, I have no idea what to say.

  I watch her as she walks off. She strides confidently, as if she has somewhere important to go. She walks like a boy, but has the body of a woman. The realization stirs something deep inside me. I am sorry to see her go.

  I’m left there staring in the direction she went, left with only the strange smell of cigarettes and mint. I realize I’m starting to like that smell.

  “Is it a ghost?” Billy asks excitedly. “Are you seeing it right now? What does it look like?” He’s chattering away and I’m still standing there looking in the direction Helena went. She walked to Main Street and headed south. I didn’t move, but my head swiveled so I could watch her go, watch that walk.

  Not long after I lost sight of her, Billy showed up.

  “They’re not after brains are they?” he continues. “Cause if you think about it, a ghost is dead, and it walks. So, you know, the walking dead. You might consider them zombies, and zombies love to…” He trails off, his nervous rant ending. He’s scared—he talks a lot when he’s scared.

  I shake my head turning towards him. I had completely forgotten about the ghosts and why I came at all. “No, I don’t see any ghosts.”

  “Well, maybe you need to do what you did last time,” Billy says.

  So we go to my uncle Don’s grave and lie there. Billy won’t lie down, but states, rather earnestly, that someone has to guard. But I don’t see any flashes of light out of the corner of my eye.

  He’s chatty, asking me questions he should know the answer to. “Your mom and uncle were from Florida, how’d they end up here in Utah of all places?”

  I shrug, my shoulders rubbing against the grass below me. “Uncle Don was a trucker. After Dad got the job at the university and Mom and Dad settled here, he did too. He wanted to be close to his family.”

  In a way it was nice, remembering Uncle Don. He was such a happy man, and had a bit of a southern drawl, unlike my mother who trained herself out of it as soon as she left Florida.

  My aunt and cousin left Cedar after Uncle Don died, went to California to be with her family. I really miss them all.

  I stand up, suddenly feeling sad, and stare straight ahead, like I did when the ghost seemed to have seen me, but nothing. After about thirty minutes of this, Billy is glad to call it a night and we walk home.

  If truth be told, my mind wasn’t on ghosts, it was on a girl.

  3

  Monday, June 13, 1977

  I wake up tired, like I haven’t really slept. After I snuck back into my bed it was 1 a.m., but I laid there for a long time thinking—and not about ghosts.

  It’s actually a nice change of pace. I’ve spent many a night awake in my bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my slanted ceiling thinking about Cancer and Death (Death is a proper noun around my house, just like Cancer, although it is talked about a whole lot less).

  Instead I laid there thinking about a girl, how she moved, how her dark hair rested on her shoulders, how her face looked, briefly lit by the lighter she used, how her hand felt in mine.

  I’m not dumb. I know that girls are what most teenage boys spend their days (and nights) thinking about. But for me it’s new, it’s different. I think it means that I really am healthy.

  I drag myself downstairs at 7 a.m.—having breakfast with the folks before they go to work is a summer requirement (provided I am healthy, of course).

  My mom is dressed in jeans and white blouse, scurrying around the kitchen. My dad has his face buried in a newspaper, the New York Times. We’ve got a little oak table in there big enough for the three of us. I scoot into a chair and pour some Apple Jacks into a bowl and smile. I love the sound cereal makes when you pour it into a ceramic bowl. All chaoticy and musical.

  “You okay, son?” my father asks, his newspaper now in his lap.

  “Yeah,” I say, suppressing a yawn. “Just tired. Didn’t sleep that great.”

  Well, my mom is on me about a second later, pressing that back of her hand to my forehead, feeling the lymph nodes in my throat.

  “Any bruising?” she asks. “Do you feel okay? Sore throat?”

  I push her hands away. My mom is a nurse. And when you get sick, like I did, it’s a curse and a blessing. The curse is she knows way too much. Each little thing that might be related to my leukemia is a world-class disaster. The blessing is, she knows her way around hospitals, knows doctors and nurses, knows how to get you taken care of.

  “Mom, I just didn’t sleep well. I’m fine. I swear.”

  She pulls her pink lips into the smallest of smiles, but her blue eyes don’t follow suit. They are sharp and serious. “Of course,” she says, straightening up. I love my mom, I’ve done really well in the parent lottery, and we’ve been down this road enough that we all know how she can be. I smile at her, grateful she’s taking my word for it. But I feel a stab of guilt—I’m tired because I snuck out of the house in the middle of the night.

  “Just take a nap before you go to the bookstore, okay?” she says.

  “Sure, Mom.”

  After they leave, I grab the big telephone book. It’s not big because Cedar City is big, it’s big because it covers this whole area of Southern Utah. None of the little towns are big enough for their own phone book.

  I flip to the M’s and scan down: Molina, Monahan, Monfort. There is only one, Monfort, Kyle. My palms start sweating and my breath catches in my throat. I have an address. I have a phone number. I commit the information to memory and put the phonebook back in the kitchen drawer exactly how I found it. I don’t want anyone to know I used it. I don’t want any questions.

  I like the hum of my bike tires against the pavement. I like the feel of the wind in my face, the sense of motion and power. For me, my bike feels like freedom. A car would be a lot better, but right now a bike is great.

  I take the quiet neighborhood roads from our house and parallel Main Street going south. The bookstore is that way and I’m due soon. But, Helena Monfort lives that way too, and I end up cutting through the university and going farther south than I need to.

  I’m beginning to think something is wrong with me. I feel this need to see her, so I think I’ll take a chance and ride by her house. Even if she’s not there, I’ll find out something about her. But what if she is there? What if she thinks I’m some crazy love-sick kid and she laughs at me? What if she yells at me like she did Jeff Tate? I couldn’t stand that.

  But I have to see her!

  It’s insane, but then I remember the time Billy was in love with Nancy Keagan when he was twelve. He’d come to my chemo treatments and babble on about her incessantly. I used to think it was about him trying to distract me from the nasty stuff that was being pumped into my body. Now I know better. He couldn’t help himself.

  But I chicken out at the last moment and avoid her house and am sure that I must be insane. But as I keep pedaling, sweating in the heat of the summer day, I keep thinking. As I reach the bookstore, I come to the conclusion that while I
may be insane in this regard, it’s actually (really unbelievably) normal.

  My dad takes off after I arrive at the store at around 1 p.m. and I’m in charge. When I’m not dealing with customers, I flip through a few novels in the romance aisle with titles like Heart in the Sunlight or Love’s Puppet. Romance! This further confirms that this insanity I’m feeling plagues us as a species.

  I’ve got this hardcover in my hand. It’s got a man with long flowing blond hair with his fluffy shirt open revealing his large, hairy chest. He’s taking the hand of a woman in a period dress with an abundance of cleavage showing. I’m standing behind the counter, just about to put it down (it’s all gotten rather boring—I don’t have the right chromosomes for these kinds of books) when the shop bell rings.

  I feel my face flush at someone seeing me reading one of these “bodice rippers.” When I look up, I almost pass out. It’s Helena Monfort.

  “Hey, Wade,” she says, casually nodding her head towards me. I like it how she calls me by my last name. No one does that. It feels special.

  She immediately looks away from me and starts making a show of browsing through the bookstore. I say “show” because it feels like that to me. She’s there and she’s all I can see. All I can think about. My heart is pounding in my chest and I’m real aware of every inhale and every exhale. It’s like time slows down. She goes from aisle to aisle picking up a book in each one and flipping through it. Even in sections she’d hardly be interested in: business, children’s books, etc. That’s the “show” part of her entrance.

  I stare at her. I can’t help myself. Now that I can see her in the light, I can see what she actually looks like. In a word, beautiful.

  She’s tall and slim with womanly curves and this boyish walk. She has long black hair that cascades over her shoulder, landing on the white T-shirt and sweat jacket she’s wearing. Her jeans are tight and the way her flesh moves underneath them is the kind of thing that I am sure drives many a man to write poetry.

  Her body is distracting in a way that is still so disconcerting to me, but it’s her face that I can’t stop looking at. Her eyes are a light brown, but in certain light they look golden sometimes and coppery other times. Amber is the only word I can think of to describe the color. She has high cheekbones with a few scattered freckles on them and a slightly turned up nose. Her lips are full and expressive. It doesn’t look like she’s wearing any makeup. God know she doesn’t need to.

  She makes her rounds through the store and ends up standing in front of the counter, a smile on her lips. I’m still sitting on the stool and we are eye to eye. I don’t think I’ve moved since she entered the store, except to watch her.

  “Nice book,” she says, eyeing the large-chested man and woman on the cover.

  I feel heat in my face and neck. I must be beet red. I hastily put the book down. “I… It… Well, you see… Umm… someone just returned it.”

  She smiles slyly and nods. I close the book and shove it under the counter.

  She’s here. She’s standing right in front of me. What do I say? Where are my words?

  “So, I just wanted to thank you for helping me out last night.” Her smile widens as she takes off the blue sweat jacket (which I belatedly realize is mine) and sets it on the counter. She puts my flashlight on top of it. She then looks around the store. “I’m glad your old man is not here. Last night is our secret, right?”

  “Umm… Yeah. Of course. Totally.” I groan inwardly. I sound like a moron. But where the hell are my words? How do humans survive this, anyway?

  Lines briefly form on her smooth forehead. “You okay, Wade?”

  “Yeah. Fine. Just didn’t get enough sleep last night, you know.”

  She smiles again. “I do at that.”

  We stay there, eye to eye, just the counter separating us. I smell her minty/cigarettey breath—she’s chomping on some gum.

  I smile and then she smiles. Then I feel subconscious about smiling and stop. Then she stops. It’s like our faces are trying to find a configuration that doesn’t feel awkward. She’s still standing there. She’s waiting for something. But what?

  “Need any books?” I ask. “I can give you the family discount.”

  The little frown on her face tells me this is not what she was waiting for. Duh.

  “No thanks. Listen, I’ve got to get off to work now. It was nice seeing you again, Wade.” She turns and walks towards the door.

  “You too.”

  She turns back, smiles at me again, and leaves.

  I feel like one of Billy’s zombies just ripped my guts out. This was a test and I just failed it. I know it.

  Too restless to sleep, I sneak out again tonight. Just me and the stars in the graveyard. I don’t know, I am finding it comforting to be on the cool green grass under the heavens, lying there above my uncle Don’s remains cocooned in darkness.

  It feels safe.

  And yes, part of me is hoping that by some miracle Helena Monfort will show up again. Foolish beyond words, I know, but there it is.

  But after a while even that all goes away and I’m just there. Stars. Grass. Uncle Don’s remains. Lovely darkness.

  That’s when I see him again. The ghost. A flash of white out of my peripheral vision. But I know what to do this time.

  I take deep, slow breaths and rise to my feet. I lock my eyes so they are pointed straight forward and slowly rotate around until I can see him as clearly as possible. Looking directly doesn’t work, not at all. But if I am careful, I can see him out of my peripheral vision.

  Tonight, he seems clearer to me, more formed. I see the complete outline of a tall, thin man. I point and say, “I see you.”

  He moves his hands—it looks like he is shaking his fists in excitement. I feel my heart thudding in my chest, but I stay put this time. I don’t run.

  “I can’t see you well at all. Only out of the corner of my eye.”

  His hand waving stops, and he raises one hand to his head. I’m not sure why. My sense of him, while better than the first time, is still pretty vague.

  “Are you a ghost?” I ask.

  He waves his hands around again.

  I lose my focus and sink back down into the cool grass, zipping up my sweat jacket. Thoughts of Helena come drifting back to me. The fabric smells faintly of her distinctive minty odor. She was the last one to wear this.

  What the hell am I doing? I am the healthiest I’ve been in years and here I am obsessing over a girl who probably never gave me a second look. She came by the store only to make sure I don’t tell her secret—that Jeff “the football star” Tate tried to force himself on her. And I’m hanging out at the graveyard in the middle of the night seeing ghosts.

  This can’t be normal.

  I sit there, staring at the grass feeling sorry for myself for a good five minutes. But that is enough. I stand back up, find him in my peripheral vision, and say, “Okay. You’re a ghost and I can kind of see you. What the hell do we do now?”

  Even with my vague sense of him, I can tell my new ghost friend is excited. He is waving his arms, kicking out his feet, putting on quite the display. I have to laugh. It seems I have a new friend.

  4

  Thursday, June 16, 1977

  I’ve been too busy to write for a few days, but I’ve been keeping up the same pattern. Sneaking to the graveyard every night. Billy almost got caught sneaking back into his house that first night he snuck out and has been too chicken to try again. Which is kind of okay. I like being there alone.

  I’ve been having breakfast with the folks, napping, and then working at the bookstore for most of the afternoon. Billy and I hang out here and there.

  I’ve also done my best to forget about Helena. Billy has helped. He’s completely obsessed with Barbara Bach—she will be playing a Russian spy in the next Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, coming out next month. He goes on and on about her, rather endlessly.

  Today he sneaks in a copy of Playboy featuring Barbara Bach into
the store—he stole it from his older brother. We look at it (and her) behind the counter when the store is empty. I thought it would help with the Helena thing (which I still haven’t told anyone about, not even Billy). I can’t say that it does.

  I mean, I like seeing those pictures, but it makes me feel funny in some many ways. It makes me excited, of course, but I feel dirty too. Like I shouldn’t be seeing this woman naked, like there is something wrong with it.

  Billy was always the one coming up with the pictures of naked women. First it was tribes in Africa in National Geographic where the women just don’t bother to wear much. Then Playboy, but these pictures are very different. The women pose and act sexy. These pictures are supposed to make you want them.

  “That’s enough,” I say, moving from behind the counter.

  “What?” Billy asks. “There can never be enough of sweet Barbara. Shit, man. Did you see this one, with the fur coat? I mean… shit!”

  I sigh and start shelving a few books. A history on Shakespeare—with the festival we have a big section on the bard. A travel guide to Utah. A new bodice ripper, which are popular.

  “What’s wrong, Aaron?” he says. “I suspect you’re about to get all holy on me, but spit it out anyway.”

  “Shut up, Billy,” I say. “It just doesn’t seem right. Staring at those pictures of women like that. We don’t know them. It’s not real.”

  He snorts. “As real as either of us losers are going to see any time soon.”

  I pause, my fingers caressing the pages of Richard Bach’s Illusions. It’s selling well and we have it right at the front of the store.

  “Those girls are illusions, Billy. Nothing real there.”

  He moves from around the counter and stomps through the store. “Barbara Bach is real. She’s beautiful and a star and a freaking Bond girl for god’s sake. And she’s more real than that damn ghost you go see every night. Talk about illusions.” He’s out the door and gone.