Shade (18 page)

It was like any other indie/emo/punk club, trying too hard with the starkness. The walls were dull brown wood paneling, splashed with paper flowers straight out of a first-grade art class (but too perfect to have been made by real children). They might as well have been captioned, “Check out our irony!”

Logan would have loved it. I would have loved it, if he’d been here. If he’d been here, the thump of bass guitar and the crash of drums would have filled me with something other than knee-weakening, soul-ripping anguish.

Megan saw the look on my face and seized my hand. “Bar.”

I followed, willing my feet not to stumble over what suddenly seemed like a very lumpy carpet.

“Two Cokes!” Megan shouted at the bartender, holding up our green-stamped hands. Then she plucked two red straws from the dispenser and bent one in half. “Short straw equals designated driver.” She put them behind her back for a moment, then held them up in one fist.

I saw the long one sticking out from under her thumb. I pulled on the short one.

She didn’t let go. “No, you need to drink more than I do tonight.”

“The rum’ll just make me cry.”

Megan’s face crumpled. “Aura, I’m so sorry. I thought coming here would get your mind off Logan.”

“I don’t want to get my mind off Logan.”

“But you have to move on.” She nodded to the bartender as he slid our sodas across the bar. I held her glass under the closest table while she unscrewed her flask and dumped the contents into the Coke. “You sure you don’t want a sip?”

“It’s no fun drinking without him. It’s no fun listening to music without him.”

“But when he was alive, we did those things on our own, and you had fun.”

“You’re not getting it.” The song ended, and I paused while Megan briefly clapped and cheered. “How would you feel if Mickey became a ghost?” I asked her.

She gave a bitter laugh. “Like he’s not already? I’ve seen him,
seriously, six times since Logan died, including the viewing and the funeral. He’s always got an excuse.”

“He’s in mourning.”

“And I could comfort him. But he won’t let me.” She set down her drink. “Here’s what he does. You’re me, and I’m him, okay?”

“Huh?”

“Pretend! It’s a dramatization.” She pointed to her chest. “Try to hug and kiss me. Don’t let go until I make you. Just be me.”

I wrapped my arms around her neck, moving my mouth toward hers. She angled her face away so that my lips landed on the corner of her jaw. Her arms stayed limp at her side. I hugged harder. Megan finally gave me a quick, impatient back pat.

“Oh God.” I let go of her quickly and stepped away. “A back pat?”

“That’s when I get close enough to hug him in the first place.” She picked up her drink. “Usually he shifts out of the way too fast.”

I was speechless. What cave had I been living in, not to realize how much Logan’s death had screwed up everyone else?

Megan took a short sip. “We haven’t even had a real kiss since Logan died. With tongue, I mean.”

The band had paused while the lead singer told a story about the girl he’d written the next song for, so I kept my voice low and private.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Megan. “Why didn’t you tell me you guys were having problems?”

“It seemed mean to complain about Mickey to you. At least he’s still alive.”

“Yeah, but—” I stopped myself from pointing out that at the moment, Logan and I were a happier couple than Megan and Mickey.

“That guy behind you is checking us out.”

A tall, skinny boy with swooping black hair was standing next to a pillar, about twenty feet from us. When he saw us noticing him, he stepped back as if to hide behind the pillar.

“He’s totally your type,” I told Megan. “Go talk to him.”

“I can’t.”

I poked her arm. “You don’t have to spawn his children. Just talk. Or don’t talk. Dance.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t feel like dancing.”

Megan fidgeted with the ragged side seam of her black cami. “Then what are you going to do?”

I saw a side room with a small arcade. “Play games.”

“Okay.” Taking a deep breath, she handed me her drink. “Here, I’ll drive home. I always puke when I drink and dance, anyway.”

I watched her approach the boy, who turned out to be really cute when he smiled. He must have given her a good opening line, because she laughed and put a hand to her cheek like she did when she blushed. It was good to see her really smile again.

The band started a new song, and Megan led the guy to the floor near the stage. I turned away, since I didn’t want to see Connor playing for some other singer not nearly as talented as Logan. Instead I carried both glasses to the darkened back corner of the bar area. A couple wearing Johns Hopkins lacrosse shirts popped up from a small table and went off to dance.

Score. I sat at their empty table and placed one of the glasses in front of the other chair to purposely make it look like I was waiting
for someone to return any second. That way no one would talk to me.

“Hi.”

I sighed. No one
alive
would talk to me.

A violet boy stood next to my table. He was maybe two years younger than me and wore a vintage Cure T-shirt, the
Disintegration
one that a lot of emo boys like.

“Hi,” I said.

“Cool.” He gave a giant ghostly grin. “Most girls pretend they can’t see me.”

I tried not to grimace. I had a feeling girls had blown him off when he was alive, too.

“Can I sit down?” he asked.

“Without a real ass? Probably not, but go for it.”

He laughed as he sank into the chair, which wasn’t even pulled out. “You’re Aura, right?”

I froze in the middle of a sip. “How do you know my name?” It wasn’t like he could’ve heard it—or heard anything—from another ghost.

“I was reading about you online before I died. You help people pass on, right?”

I relaxed a little, glad he wasn’t referring to my alleged role in Logan’s death. “Not directly. I just translate for ghosts at my job.” I switched my phone to the calendar function. “If you need help, we could make an appointment.” Whatever it took for him to go away before people saw me talking to a dead freshman.

The ghost’s eyes bugged out. “That’d be awesome!”

“Let’s figure out where we can meet closer to my aunt’s office so she can hear your story. Have you ever been to—”

“Wait.” He looked confused. “Can’t it just be you?”

“Huh?” I put down my phone.

“Okay.” The boy placed his hands on the table. “The thing is … I died before I got to see real live tits. Not just on the Internet.” He hurried to add, “I wouldn’t touch you or nothing. Obviously. But even if I could, I wouldn’t do that to you.” He looked at his hands as he dropped them into his lap. “I just want to see.”

My mouth had frozen in an O. I couldn’t throw my drink in his face, or slap him, or knee him in the nuts. I couldn’t lose him without running to the bathroom, and I was not about to leave this choice table and spend the rest of the evening leaning against the wall.

“You want me to flash you,” I said.

He nodded vigorously, like I’d asked if he wanted fries with that.

“And then you’ll pass on.”

“That’s all I want. So, yeah.”

I could almost believe that a fourteen-year-old boy could find deep spiritual peace from a pair of real boobs.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Jake. Sorry, I should’ve said that before.”

“How did you die?”

He frowned. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Just tell me.”

“My stepfather ran over me with his car.”

I gaped at him. “You’re kidding.”

“I was standing in the garage when he pulled in. He told my mom he meant to hit the brake.”

“Do you think that’s the truth?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t look real surprised at the time.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re a ghost. You need justice.”

Ex-Jake seemed to ponder this for several seconds, then shook his head. “Nah. I really just want to see some tits.”

I groaned and put my face in my hands. “Go. Away.”

When I peeked through my fingers, the boy had disappeared. But what I did see was even worse.

Three tables over, Zachary was sliding into a large, semicircular booth with Becca Goldman. She crowded close to him, first flipping her dark brown hair over her shoulder, then twirling a strand around her finger.

I was now willing to give up my table. I grabbed my glass and stood up, turning to flee before he saw me. Unfortunately, I crashed into someone solid.

“Oh!”

My lifelong neighbor and former friend Rachel Howard stood with her arms out, her (thankfully) brown Wilco T-shirt soaked in rum and Coke.

“Sorry,” was all I could say. “I gotta go.”

“No.” She touched my arm. “
I’m
sorry. That’s what I came over to tell you.” Rachel let go of my sleeve and sat down, her eyes pleading with me.

I took my seat again. “Sorry for what?”

“I was such a crappy so-called friend after Logan died. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.” Rachel hunched her shoulders. “My sister, she works at the hospice over at Sinai. She said that when someone’s grieving, saying nothing is even worse than saying
the wrong thing.” She clutched her hands together on the table. “Can you forgive me?”

“Of course.” I sopped up the puddle of condensation with the sleeve of my hoodie. “The whole thing is too bizarre for anyone to deal with.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“Forget it.”

“Thank you.” She lifted the wet part of her shirt to her nose. “You have rum?”

“Megan has it. She’s dancing.” I folded the paper coaster into a half circle. “Are you here with Becca and Zachary?”

“Yeah, and Jenna and Christopher.” She leaned in. “It’s not what Becca’s making it look like. We’re here as a group. No one’s hooking up.”

I shrugged. “I don’t care. We’re just friends.”

“Riiight.” Rachel slurped the last of her soda, then wiped her dark, sweat-damp bangs out of her eyes. “If you wanted Zach, all you’d have to do is this.” She curled her index finger. “No wait, this.” She did the same gesture with her pinky. “And it’s not like he’ll be here forever. He’s going back to Hotland in June.”

“It’s complicated. Logan’s still around.”

“I know. My little brother’s seen him in the neighborhood, near his old house.” She picked up her empty glass as she stood. “I’m going back over there so Zach can come talk to you without leaving Becca alone. He’s so polite. Must be a British thing.”

“Don’t let him hear you call him British,” I called after her.

Rachel slid into their booth, and Zachary waved at me. But when Becca’s hand went under the table into his lap, I cut short my answering
wave. Far be it from me to keep my “friend” from getting some tonight.

Just then Megan stomped up, tears streaming down her face. “You’re right. I suck!”

“What happened?”

She dropped into the chair. “He kissed me.”

“Who?”

“Eric, that guy I was dancing with. We were slamming, totally in sync, and it just happened.”

“What’d you do?”

“I kissed him back. A lot. I can’t believe I did that.” She slumped to rest her chin on her fist. “I know Mickey needs me, even though he doesn’t show it. But I wanted to feel alive. Everywhere else, I’m surrounded by dead people, or living people obsessed with dead people.” She put a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I don’t mean you.”

“Yes, you do, but don’t be sorry. And don’t worry, I won’t tell Mickey about Eric.”

“Thanks, but we were right in front of Connor. He’ll tell Siobhan and then she’ll tell Mickey.” Megan sniffled as she pulled out her phone. “I better tell him myself. His friends could be here, texting him right this second.” Her thumb hovered over the keypad. “What should I say?”

“How about, ‘I just kissed a guy at Black Weeds because you’ve been ignoring me. P.S. I love you.’”

While she texted rapidly, I wondered what Logan would do in Mickey’s place. As a ghost he would probably freak, seeing it as a sign I was moving on without him. When he was alive … well, I couldn’t imagine, because Logan never would have shut me out in the first place. He wasn’t the broody type.

Megan laid the phone on the table. “One way or another, things’ll change now.”

I rattled the ice in the bottom of my empty glass. “So this guy was a good kisser?”

“Beyond good. Especially for a first time.”

I tried to remember my first kiss with Logan. But my memory could only conjure up that last cold, numb kiss at his bedroom doorway.

I forced myself back to the present. “Something Wicked sounds awesome,” I told Megan. “The drummer is amazing.”

“You know who it is, right?”

“No, I can’t see the stage from here.”

“It’s Brian. Eric said the band needed a sub, and I guess Connor got Brian in.”

Great,
I thought.
Someone else who’s moved on.

The song ended. Becca stood on the seat of their booth, the hem of her black spandex microskirt above Zachary’s eye line. She cheered and whistled as she hopped up and down.

Then Becca “accidentally” slipped, falling against Zachary’s shoulder so he had to catch her. Laughing, she slid down against his body, ending up in his lap, in a graceful move that would’ve looked goofy if anyone else had tried it.

Megan jabbed her thumb over her shoulder. “Aura, you have got to do something there. How long do you expect Zachary to ignore the ‘Screw Me’ sign on Becca’s forehead?”

“As long as he wants.”

She picked up her phone and stared at the empty screen. “You should ask him to dance.”

The thought made me queasy. “If he said no, I’d look like a loser. If he said yes, Becca would look like a loser, and Monday morning I’d get a world-record-size bitch-slap.”

“Whatever.” Megan’s phone buzzed in her hand. “Mickey!” She tapped the screen, then squeaked. She turned the phone so I could see:
COME OVER HERE. PS I LOVE YOU MORE.

“Doesn’t he have the SATs tomorrow too?”

“Yeah, and he’s probably really stressed.” She gave me a wicked grin. “I can help with that.”

Relieved to have an excuse to leave, I asked, “Drop me off at home on your way?”