Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows) (6 page)

"What ghosts?"

"The ghosts that live in my house."

"Oh. Right." She rolled her eyes and laughed.

"You think I'm kidding? The place is haunted."

"I'm sure it is." She wiggled her fingers in the air, as if conjur ing a spirit from the beyond, and attempted a spooky moan,
although it didn't sound the least bit scary. She was probably the
kind of girl who used to dress as a fairy princess or a ballerina on
Halloween, not realizing that the whole idea of the holiday was to
frighten people. Fairy princesses and ballerinas were about as
frightening as Ba Ba and Bunky.

"My house sits on what used to be a cemetery," he explained.
"Pleasant Hill Road. You know the Pleasant Hill Cemetery?"

She nodded, still obviously amused and skeptical.

"The original location of the cemetery is where my house sits.
The bodies were moved down the street to where the cemetery is
now, and my house was built on the land where their graves used
to be."

She took a minute to digest this. "So the bodies were moved
down the street, but their souls remained behind?"

"I don't know if they remained behind or they just wander
back down the street to visit their old home."

"Their old haunt, you mean?" Her eyes glinted with suppressed laughter.

Bad pun, but he appreciated it anyway. "Exactly. You should
come to my house sometime, Erika. Just sit on the stairs and turn
off the lights. You'll hear them moving around. You'll feel them."

"Just what I want to do," she said. "Sit on a stairway in the dark
and listen for ghosts."

"You don't have to listen for them. You'll hear them."

"What do they sound like?"

He leaned toward her, hoping he looked somber and just a
little bit spooky. "They sneak up behind you and whisper. You feel
their icy breath on the back of your neck. They say, `Eh-eh-eh-ehrik-ah-ah-ah."' He murmured her name long and low and realized he probably sounded more like a dog on the prowl than a ghost. When Spot, his golden retriever, the one animal allowed to
live in the house rather than the barn, sensed a dog in heat within
a three-mile radius, he made a deep, groaning sound like Ted's
throaty wail.

"These ghosts would know my name?"

"Sure. They're from the beyond. They know everything." He
reached behind her and ran his fingers lightly over the nape of
her neck. "It feels like this," he whispered. "You feel their nearness
right here."

She held her breath for a moment, then laughed and leaned
away from him. "If this is supposed to be scary, it's not working."

"Of course it's not. I'm not a ghost." But he liked having his
hand against her smooth, soft skin, with her hair spilling like rain
over his fingers.

"Are you telling her about the ghosts?" Kate asked.

He hadn't even realized she had returned to the sofa. He withdrew his hand from Erika's neck and smiled up at his girlfriend.
"She doesn't believe they exist," he told Kate. "Tell her I'm not
making this up."

Kate eyed Erika and grinned. "He's not making this up," she
recited, sounding not the least bit convincing. Then she extended
her hand, wrapped her fingers around his wrist and tugged.
"Matt thinks one of his tires is flat. He wants you to look at it."

Ted allowed himself to be hauled to his feet. He shot Erika a
long-suffering look. "Not only can I grout a bathroom, but I can
also change a tire," he said. "I'm the most handy guy in this
room.

"And you can ward off ghosts, too," Erika said, then exchanged
an amused look with Kate. "What a guy. You'd better hang onto
him."

"'Yeah," Kate said. "Just in case I ever have a flat, or a ghost."

"Or a bathtub in need of grouting," Ted reminded them both
before following Kate through the room to the back door, away
from Erika.

Just as well, he thought as he stepped outside and the cold
evening air slapped his face. He shouldn't be coming on to Erika
when he was at a party with Kate. He shouldn't be caressing the
nape of Erika's neck when he was sleeping with Kate. He shouldn't
be thinking the things he always thought when Erika was in the
vicinity.

Especially since she clearly had no interest in him. If she did,
she wouldn't be advising Kate to hang onto him.

What was that song he sometimes heard when his parents had
the radio tuned to oldies rock? If you can't be with the one you
love, love the one you're with.

He supposed he could do that, he thought as he wove his fingers through Kate's and paused by the side of the garage to kiss
her. But the lyrics that remained with him were from the song
they'd been listening to in the rec room.

I'm too sexy for my love ...

He wouldn't tell Kate she was too sexy, because she wasn't.

And he wouldn't tell Erika she was too sexy, because even
though she was, that was something she didn't seem inclined to
believe.

ERIKA HAD NEVER GONE TO A WRESTLING MATCH at the
high school. She never had the time. She was always racing off as
soon as the final bell rang, hurrying to her car and driving down
to the stable to squeeze in a riding lesson before the sun set. But
that afternoon it was raining, and she didn't feel like practicing in
the indoor corral. The indoor air tended to get musty, and the
horses kicked up sawdust and sand that left her nose congested
and her eyes watery. She put up with a lot in her training regimen-willingly, happily-but when Allyson mentioned that she
and a few other girls were going to check out the wrestling meet
after school, Erika decided to skip practice and join them.

Just out of curiosity. Just for a change of pace. Just because.

She met up with Allyson and the others after their last class
and strolled down the hall to the gym. "You'll have to explain
everything to me," she warned Allyson as they reached the gym's
double doors. "All I know about wrestling is that goofy stuff on
TV, with the guys on steroids breaking chairs over each other's
heads."

"This is a little different," Allyson said dryly, then laughed. "I
don't know too much about the sport, either. But it's fin to
watch."

"It is?"

"Allyson likes to check out the guys," one of the other girls
teased.

Allyson didn't argue. "They wear these skin-tight singlets that
don't hide much. You'll see."

Erika shook her head and grinned. Allyson was so much more
into guys than Erika was. Not that she was averse to admiring
buff male bodies should the opportunity arise. That afternoon,
apparently, the opportunity had arisen.

She followed Allyson and the others into the gym. The bleachers weren't exactly crowded; no more than a hundred students sat
along the polished wooden benches that extended out from one
cinderblock wall, and a fair number of them were unfamiliar to
Erika. She surmised they were from the visiting team's school.

Allyson, Erika, and the others climbed halfway up the bleachers
and settled in a row on an empty bench. Down below, the gym
floor was covered by a large blue mat with a broad circle printed
on it. "The wrestlers have to stay inside the circle," Allyson told
her. "They lose points if they step outside the circle. See?" she
added, turning to the other girls. "I know more about wrestling
than just how cute the guys look with their rippling muscles on
display."

Rippling muscles on display. That sounded like fain to Erika.

A few more students trickled into the gym and climbed onto
the bleachers. The visiting team filed into the gym through a
locker-room door and Erika gave them the once-over. She paid
less attention to their physiques than to whether they looked
mean and tough and capable of trouncing the Mendham High
School boys.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Their fans in the stands greeted them with a cheer that sounded pretty anemic. A few dozen fans couldn't very well roar
like a stadium full of crazed football lovers. Their cheers echoed
off the hard walls, the high ceiling, and the steel rafters spanning
the gym overhead, and then were swallowed by the much louder
cheering of the Mendham fans welcoming their team as they
marched proudly from the locker room into the gym.

Erika recognized a couple of them-that huge guy at the end
of the line was in her English class, and he looked a lot more fit
in his uniform than he did in the baggy, droopy clothes he wore
to class, which seemed chosen to conceal his enormous bulk.
Erika had always assumed he was fat. He wasn't exactly skinny,
but he boasted more muscle than flab.

At the opposite end of the line, leading the team in, was a
short, skinny boy, an underclassman, Erika was pretty sure. She
couldn't think of any seniors as small as he was. Unlike the uniform of the heavyweight wrestler, which stretched as taut as an
overinflated balloon on his hulking frame, the featherweight
wrestler's uniform puckered slightly under his arms. The uniforms reminded her of pictures she'd seen of men's swimsuits in
the Roaring Twenties. Narrow shoulder straps, a U-shaped neckline that revealed a serious lack of hair on the chests of the
Mendham wrestlers, the form-fitting fabric ending at mid-thigh.
The singlets were so snug on most of the wrestlers, they looked as
if they'd been painted on.

Ted Skala looked damned good in a singlet, she noted.

She'd known he was a wrestler. One of the team stars, in fact.
Unlike some of his teammates, he didn't have a compact, powerful
build. His limbs were long and lean, his shoulders bony. Because
he was thin, his muscles seemed more clearly defined. He stared
straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the cheers of the Mendham
fans as he moved with his teammates to the home-team bench.

"They don't wear regular sneakers, huh," she whispered to
Allyson.

"I think those shoes are more flexible."

The shoes the wrestlers wore resembled high-tops without the
padding and the thick soles. Not very flattering, but Erika supposed that if she and Allyson were there to ogle, she could focus her
ogling higher, on the wrestlers' sturdy legs and solid torsos. Or, in
at least one wrestler's case, on his lean limbs and bony shoulders.

An announcer called the first wrestlers to the mat-the tiny
featherweight boys. They scampered around inside the circle,
grabbing each other, twisting each other, flopping, flipping. One
was on top, then the other. Despite their diminutive size, they
were obviously strong, using leverage and agility. When Allyson
cheered, Erika cheered. When the other wrestler seemed ascendant, she scowled. The referee hovered over them, whistle in
mouth, watching their moves almost voyeuristically.

"This is interesting," she said when the first bout was over,
with a win for the Mendham featherweight.

"Not exactly like show jumping, huh," Allyson replied.

Indeed, it wasn't. It wasn't like any sport she'd ever watched.
The wrestlers were a team, but they competed solo. There was a
rawness to their bouts, something profoundly elemental. No
equipment was used, no bats, no balls, no sticks or pads, and
instead of helmets they wore what appeared to be glorified ear
muffs strapped over their skulls and under their chins. Given the
intimacy of the wrestlers' combat, she imagined that unprotected
ears would be vulnerable to injury.

Another pair of wrestlers began their bout. The whistle blew. A
buzzer sounded. They rounded each other, gripped each other's
waists, bent and stretched and contorted. The visiting wrestler
won that bout. His victory was greeted by a smattering of joyful hoots from the visiting school's fans.

"Our next bout will be at one thirty-five," the announcer said.
Erika instinctively glanced toward the wall clock above the locker
room door, then realized the announcer was referring to the
weight class, not the time. Turning back to the mat, she saw Ted
Skala rise from the bench, strap on his ear-protecting head gear,
and stride to the mat.

He was wearing a game face, not the smile Erika was used to
seeing whenever they crossed paths in school or at parties. His
jaw was set, his gaze steel-hard. His opponent was a couple of
inches shorter and much beefier, his neck as thick as Erika's thigh
and his shoulders round with muscle.