A Boy a Girl and a Ghost Page 6

  I leave, not looking back, and take the stairs two at a time up to my room. I flop onto my bed and try to sort out what I’m feeling. All the emotions are just so strong. God, is this what normal healthy teenagers are always going through? If so, I’m kind of glad to have missed some of it.

  My parents are up later than usual, and since I know Helena won’t be at the graveyard, I go to bed early and sleep.

  While I’m sleeping, I dream again of that day at the graveyard where I first saw ghosts.

  8

  Monday, June 20, 1977

  My parents clearly talked last night—about me and Helena. Over breakfast of oatmeal and toast, they are a unified front.

  “We think it would be nice if your Helena came over for dinner,” Mom says.

  I cringe at the “your Helena.” It’s not like she’s mine. It’s not like she’s likely to ever be mine.

  “Yes, son,” my dad adds. “Since you two seem to be such good friends, we’d like to get to know her too.”

  I shovel a bunch of oatmeal in my mouth and point at it, indicating it would be rude to talk with my mouth so full and buying myself some time.

  We are all in new territory. Cancer, doctors, and chemo—we know how to deal with that. Girls—now that’s something new. I don’t know how to deal with it and their idea is to invite her to dinner—yeah, I don’t think they have a clue either.

  Because if she isn’t just my friend, which they most assuredly suspect, inviting her over like this is an invitation to mess things up for me. On the other hand, if she is just a friend… Well, what would it hurt?

  I almost choke on the oatmeal. Of course it could hurt, it could ruin everything, but how can I get out of this?

  “How about Saturday?” Mom asks. “Your dad can barbeque, I’ll make a pie.”

  It’s Tuesday today, so that at least gives me some time. I shrug and stare into the lumpy mass of oats.

  “It’s settled then,” Dad says. “Can you ask her today? Let us know?”

  I nod and pray for breakfast to be over.

  My ghost friend has a name. Lionel Malak.

  Holy shit, my ghost friend has a name!

  The inspiration came when I was doing my shift at the bookstore. I keep thinking about him—cause I really didn’t want to think about inviting Helena to dinner—and it occurs to me that I don’t need to be able to hear him to understand him. People communicate all the time without words.

  Restless, I sneak out of the house early tonight and go to Uncle Don’s grave. When I get there, my ghost friend seems nervous and sad, he has his hands out and shakes them.

  “Sorry,” I say, getting his meaning. “I couldn’t make it last night.”

  He nods.

  “Listen, I figured out a way for us to communicate.”

  He brightens up and nods again. He so has something to say.

  “You’ll spell it out for me and I’ll write it down.” He looks confused, which makes sense, I didn’t explain it well at all, I’m just too excited. “Okay, okay. I’ll ask you questions to find out what letter is in the word and you’ll signal your answer. Okay?”

  He nods and smiles. There are some flashes of white, so I can tell other ghosts are gathering around us. We have an audience.

  “Let’s start with your name. First letter. Is it a consonant?”

  He nods.

  When I had been researching cryptography for my diary, I had come across the binary search algorithm. With it you divide your choices in half, and if your guess is wrong you find out if the answer is above or below your guess. It’s much quicker than going through each choice every time.

  “Is the first letter an M?” He nods no. “Show me with your hand if it’s higher or lower.” He points his thumb down. So I know it must be B through L and have eliminated half the possibilities with one guess.

  “G?” He nods and looks disappointed. “When I’m wrong, let me know if it’s higher or lower—it’ll go faster this way.” He points his thumb up.

  “J?” He points his thumb up and we are down to K or L.

  He smiles when we finally get to L. It goes like this, and despite using the binary search algorithm, it’s still kind of slow. But we finally get there.

  “Your name is, Lionel Malak.” I’ve been writing the letters in my journal, and when I look back up at him, he seems so happy. And I am too. I just had a direct communication with a ghost. It’s real comforting to me—I’ve been on death’s door three times. Twice with pneumonia and once with a MRSA infection (basically a nasty staph infection). Being able to see and communicate with someone who has already died is, as you would imagine, comforting.

  Unless, of course, this is all in my head. Paranoid schizophrenia could also explain this.

  As I contemplate this, Helena flops down on the grass next to me and lights a cigarette. I had been so involved that I hadn’t seen her approach. She’s dressed in her La Familia outfit and her cigarette/mint scent washes over me.

  “What’s that?” she asks, grabbing my diary. “I… What the hell language is this written in? I can’t make out a thing.”

  “It’s encoded. I don’t want my parents reading it and flipping out.”

  “Encoded?” she asks, puffing her smoke up towards the heavens.

  “Yeah. It’s a simple letter shifting algorithm. Not hard to break, but enough to keep prying eyes out.”

  She looks at it hard and hands the diary back. “Cool. Maybe you can teach it to me someday.”

  “Sure. It takes some time to get used to, but I can write real fast this way now.”

  After she finishes her cigarette, she says, “So back to Truth or Truth?”

  I nod.

  “When we last left,” she continues, “you had asked why I was hanging out with you. Do you still want to know?”

  I swallow hard and nod.

  She sighs. “It’s simple really, and I hope in that hormone-infested male brain of yours you can keep it simple.”

  I know I’m not going to like what she has to say. “Go on.”

  “You’re a weird kid, Wade. You hang out at night in a cemetery. You were kind to me when I needed it. You tell a girl she looks better without makeup. You’ve seen some hard shit in your life and that makes you…” she trails off, her eyes going to the sky. It’s clear tonight, the stars a bright canopy above us. “Well, it makes you someone I want to get to know.”

  I nod. It makes sense. I wasn’t expecting her to profess undying love, but those hormones she spoke of had most certainly been doing a number on me.

  “Listen,” she says, leaning towards me. I look into her eyes and somehow resist the urge to examine her cleavage in that La Familia outfit. “I don’t make friends easy or often.” She snorts and continues. “I don’t do well with girls, in general, and boys, well—they tend to be rather focused on what kind of relationship they want.”

  She leans back and sighs, looking back up to the stars for a bit. “My turn,” she says. “And I will remind you that you are required to tell the truth.”

  I’m sweating now. This game is the kind you love and hate, both with great vigor.

  “Your hormone-addled brain wants us to be more than friends, doesn’t it?”

  God it’s hot. I swear I’m about to explode, I feel a trickle of sweat crawling down my back. Sounds seem real loud again and my heart is thumping in my ears.

  “You have to answer, Wade.”

  I want to run away. I want to disappear. I want to be anywhere but here… You know what? That’s a lie. I long to be in her presence. I long to touch her. “Yes,” I say, it comes out loud, too loud, but I can’t stop talking now that the energy has found a release. “I would love to be more than just friends. It scares the hell out of me, but I don’t know if I want anything more than that. You are smart and fascinating, and probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.” Suddenly I’m standing, my voice is loud and my hands are thrust towards the heavens. “Yes, yes, yes, YES! The answer is yes.�
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  I look down at her and her eyes are wide and her mouth is open as she stares at me.

  My face flushes hot and I sink back down to the grass. “But,” I begin, “that is probably just the hormones talking.”

  She stares at me for a moment more and then laughs hard. The sound is deep and husky and rings out over the granite stones marking the final resting places of the dead.

  “Damn, but you are the weirdest kid,” she says when she stops laughing. “Damn!”

  I shrug and stare at the grass, I can’t meet her eyes.

  “Thank you for telling me,” she says. Her voice is gentle now. “I have something more to say, can you look at me?”

  I look up and meet her eyes. It’s pretty dark, but I can see compassion on her face. She’s not smiling or laughing or mocking me.

  “Friendship, Wade, is what I need. Hell, I can get a date any time I want one. Finding a friend, that is much more rare. Much more valuable. Understand?”

  I nod, but still can’t talk.

  “I’m tired,” she says, getting up and brushing herself off. “How about tomorrow night? I don’t have to work and could hang out longer.”

  “That’d be great,” I say, finally finding my words.

  9

  Tuesday, June 21, 1977

  The Helena grilling continues over breakfast this morning. Mom and Dad are very disappointed that I forgot to ask her to dinner. A promise is required before I get away. I don’t want to do it—the potential for disaster is huge—but I guess I’ll have to.

  I spend the rest of the morning with Billy. We’re up in his room hiding from his twin sisters reading comics. They aren’t allowed to have locks on their bedroom doors, so I’m sprawled on his bed and he’s leaning up against his door. The girls have tried to sneak in three times already.

  “She just wants to be friends,” I say. I’d been trying to read the same panel of The Incredible Hulk Unchained four times. My mind just isn’t there.

  Billy looks up, his green eyes meeting mine. “Sorry, man. That truly and epically sucks.” I love it that I don’t have to explain it all to Billy. He knows I’m talking about Helena.

  “But she still wants to hang out. She really does want to be friends.”

  His eyes widen. “No shit? It wasn’t the ‘oh please be my friend’ blow off?” His falsetto voice for the “oh please…” part makes me laugh. He gets up, risking a breach by the twins, and starts walking around on his tiptoes swinging his hips awkwardly and says in his best (read terrible) falsetto, “Oh Aaron, you are such a nice boy. I don’t want to risk what we have. Can we just be friends?” He grabs some dirty clothes and shoves them under his spider-man T-shirt, building up two lumpy, and rather disgusting, masses.

  He looks ridiculous, but I’m not laughing anymore. What he said sounds too close to what Helena said.

  “Oh Aaron, you may be the smartest and kindest boy I’ve ever met, but I’d rather some dumb stupid football player stick their tongue down my throat.”

  “Okay, Billy. That’s quite enough.”

  “I have a great big chest,” he says, pushing up the clothes under his shirt. “So I need a man with a mighty chest too. A man with more brawn than brains. A manly Neanderthal of a man.”

  “I am warning you… You better shut up,” I say.

  But he doesn’t listen, he continues. “But god how I value you as a friend. Boyfriends may come and go, but a true friend, like you Aaron Wade, lasts a lifetime.”

  He continues on, but I’m not listening anymore. I’m out of his room and running down the stairs. I tear out the front door not even saying goodbye to Mrs. Chadow and get on my bike and ride. Hot tears run down my cheeks and the wind from my pedaling makes them ice cold despite the eighty-something degree temperature.

  God how I hate this. Billy’s little rendition hit close enough to home to hurt. Helena wants to be friends, I know it. I know she is being honest about that. But it still feels horrible. These emotions I am feeling are so big. It feels like I’ll die if I can’t “be” with her. Friendship is not enough, not nearly enough. I must touch her. I must have her. I must possess her.

  I snort and suck in air, I’ve been riding hard, streets and houses passing me by with me hardly seeing them. I am thinking like that Neanderthal from Billy’s little performance. This is not me. I am more logical than this. I am more rational than this.

  I end up at the graveyard and slow down, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I need someone to talk to about this. Billy is out—I think he’s jealous. Actually, any of my old pre-leukemia friends are out too. They’d be as much use as Billy. My father is out—he would probably love it, but I would die of embarrassment talking to him about this. And my mother? No need to even go there.

  Who can I talk to? I need an adult, someone who has survived this. Someone who can provide some perspective.

  Lionel.

  He’s a ghost, he’s an adult, and he certainly can’t tell my secrets. I pedal to Uncle Don’s grave and look for him, but I don’t see him. Actually, I don’t see any ghosts.

  Maybe they are not here. Maybe I can’t see them in the daylight. I did that one time as a kid, but maybe it’s different now.

  I get off my bike, letting it fall onto the grass as I slump next to it. I wipe the remnants of tears off my face and wipe at the snot on my nose.

  I don’t want to be friends. I lie down flat on the grass, shielding my eyes from the bright sun above.

  “You okay, boy?”

  My heart leaps into my mouth and I surge up into a sitting position. There is a man dressed in a suit standing there. He’s short and rotund with a deep frown on his face. The frown is out of place, it doesn’t seem to be the normal configuration.

  “Yeah… I’m fine,” I say, but my tone does not agree with my words.

  “Well, you don’t look so fine to me.” He speaks in a southern accent and I notice he’s got cowboy boots on with his suit.

  I sigh and shake my head. “Just having a bad day, mister.”

  He nods, and much to my surprise, lowers himself to the grass next to me. With his bulk he does it slowly, a sigh escaping his mouth when he’s finally down. “This here your kin?” he asks, pointing at Uncle Don’s gravestone.

  I nod.

  “I’m here visiting kin. My aunt Tilly is buried back that way a bit. I’ve come to town to wrap up her affairs.”

  I watch him closely. He’s older than I first thought, his black hair losing the battle against the encroaching grey.

  “But where are my manners? My name is Edward Lopez, but everyone calls me Big Ed.” He nods and smiles, that smile looks right there on his face.

  “I’m Aaron Wade.”

  “So tell me, Mr. Wade, what are you doin’ here? I see your uncle’s been gone a bit.” He points to the gravestones. Uncle Don died in 1975. “I suspect you’ve got something else on your mind, and if a kind ear will help, then I am here for you.”

  “I couldn’t, Mr. Lopez.” I feel my cheeks flushing.

  “Understood,” he says with a groan, slowly levering himself up to a standing position. “But if you change your mind, I’ll be at my aunt’s house. It’s not far from here.” He points to the northwest. “I’m on the corner of 400 West and 940 North. You know where I’m talking about?”

  I nod but can’t meet his eyes. His kindness is so unexpected and I’m just so embarrassed by all I’m feeling.

  He slowly walks off and I’m left stewing in my emotions, wishing my could-be-a-hallucination ghost friend was around.

  I think I now understand why they call this kind of infatuation—the kind I am in the throes of in regards to Miss Helena Monfort—a crush. It’s because the feelings are crushing. There is a weight to them that makes it hard to breathe, or think, or be a rational human being.

  I’m not stupid. I know it’s the hormones, and I know the hormones are about the propagation of the species. A biological imperative. But, god does it suck.

  But, on the ot
her hand, this is an entirely normal problem for a teenage boy to be having. In the midst of all this, I am still aware of that, glad that I am healthy enough to have this completely normal teenage problem.

  But the day crawls by, I have an awkward dinner with my folks where the question of Helena having dinner comes up again, and I am so glad once the house quiets down and I can sneak out.

  It’s about 11:30, the moon a bright sliver in the sky, the air cool, but not cold. I make my way to the graveyard. My feet want me to fly, Helena said she would have more time to hang out, but I resist. I consciously slow myself down. I have a brain, I can think, I can rise above the chemical stew coursing through my veins.

  I can, can’t I?

  I walk in the dark, my flashlight still in my backpack along with my journal. The graveyard is just so peaceful on nights like this. I appreciate it and for a moment forget about her.

  “Boo!” a voice shouts, shattering my calm.

  I jump back, my heart pounding hard, my breath coming fast as adrenaline courses through my veins.

  A throaty laugh comes out of the dark. I look and see Helena. She’s squatted behind one of the larger gravestones on the way to Uncle Don’s.

  “Shit, Helena. You almost scared me to death.”

  “Sorry… I got here early and was bored.”

  “So you thought it would be a good idea to scare the shit out of me?”

  She stands and I can tell she’s dressed in jeans and a sweater. No La Familia getup tonight. “I didn’t do that literally, did I?” she asks. “I mean, if you need to run home and change your undies, I’ll understand.” She’s laughing again.

  “Shut up,” I say, making my way to Uncle Don’s grave. I smile because this is the kind of thing Billy might have staged—if he had the guts to sneak out of his house and face the graveyard at night again. It’s the kind of things friends do—mess with each other. It feels good—she really wants to be friends, but also feels kinda bad for the same reason.