The Dead of Summer (12 page)

“We are calling the spirit of Kennedy’s dearly departed daddy…” She leaned closer to my ear and asked, “What was his name?”

I bit my lip as I considered my options. If I gave her the wrong name, would it not work? I decided against it. I might give her the name of some ghost that really was scary. My daddy wasn’t scary, right? Well, I didn’t know what years underground would make a person look like if they showed up to this séance. Did a ghost actually materialize? I had no idea. At least I didn’t think my daddy would hurt me if he returned from the dead and joined us for this nonsense in Lindy’s bedroom.

Actually, I wasn’t sure what he’d do, him being dead for so long and all. Even at fifteen years old, I didn’t have a whole lot of memories of my daddy. The few that I had were spotty at best. I recall one time he took me to the movies when Mama was sick. He let me get popcorn
and
candy. Mama would have made me choose between the two. I remember him putting his fingers to his lips when we left the theatre and telling me not to tattle about it when we got home. He
seemed
like a good guy. Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him, though because I was envisioning his skin hanging off his face like a bad zombie movie.

But of course, I couldn’t lie to Lindy. And it’s not like it was really real anyway. At least that’s what I told myself as I practically whispered, “His name was Mark. Mark Ryan.”

Lindy nodded solemnly. “We are calling the spirit of Mark Ryan, father of Kennedy Ryan, to come join us here and now.”

My fingers stiffened as we awaited a response. It was so quiet in the bedroom that I could not only hear my blood flowing in my veins, I could hear Lindy’s lungs inflating and deflating sharply.

Suddenly, the planchette jerked and my breath caught in my throat. I glanced at Lindy, a smile playing on her lips. “Lindy,” I whispered with annoyance. “You
moved
it.”

Lindy shook her head. “I didn’t. I swear.”

At this revelation, my fingertips began to sweat as the pointer moved toward the letters. It traveled to the letter H. I glanced up at Lindy to see her mouthing, H.

The pointer moved toward the E at a snail’s pace and then made a sharp turn and zipped over to the L where it rested for a moment and then finally, the O where it stayed.

“Hello,” Lindy called out excitedly. “The ghost is saying
hello
, Kennedy!”

I simply nodded, my jaw locked as if I didn’t want to talk out of disbelief or out of fear.

“Are you Kennedy’s daddy?” Lindy asked, not missing a beat. I let out a slight whimpering noise and I instantly felt Lindy’s withering stare on my face.

The planchette jerked over to the top of the board and pointed to the word
yes.
My heart nearly leaped out of my chest.

I pulled my hands off of the plastic. “I don’t want to play anymore, Lindy.”

“It’s not a
game
, Kennedy. You don’t appreciate what an opportunity you have right now. It’s so cool that you can talk to your dead daddy. I’m jealous. Now put your damn fingers on that pointer and talk to him.”

My mouth hung open, not from Lindy’s insistence that I continue, but the fact that she was jealous my daddy was dead. I really didn’t think she processed words before she said them sometimes.

“Fine,” I grumbled as I repositioned my fingers. “But I don’t like it.” I wanted her to know that I was definitely doing this under duress, not that she really cared about anything except for what made
her
happy.

Lindy promptly continued her questions for my poltergeist of a daddy. “Did you die a horrible, torturous death?” she asked, lowering her voice for dramatic effect.

“Oh my God! Lindy that is—”

Lindy cut me off. “We have to know these things, Kennedy.” She spoke to me as if I were a five-year-old.

“Lindy, he died in Afghanistan. I don’t want to know how he died. If you ask again, I am going home,” I replied with a trembling lip. I was trying to sound like I was in charge of myself, but it was rough against Lindy, my Patrick to her SpongeBob.

“Fine,” she huffed in a tone that indicated anything but fine. “I’ll ask a different question, so you don’t have to go and cry like a big baby.”

I nodded curtly, ignoring the dig.

“Let’s make sure it’s him. We need to ask something only he knows. Hmmmm.” She tapped one finger to her plump lips, deep in thought. “Oh, I’ve got it. Where is your body?” Lindy asked mysteriously.

I sighed with annoyance, but I stared intently at the board because this question didn’t bother me. Of course he was buried in a cemetery. I didn’t know exactly what cemetery, and I had never asked my mama so I would have no way to check if Lindy was lying about moving the planchette or not. I was half expecting some generic cemetery name like St. James or Oak Park Cemetery, but what the board spelled out made my blood run cold.

In the basement.

“In the basement?” Lindy squeaked. “How are you buried in the basement?” I could tell just from her pretend-scared tone that she was getting a perverse thrill out of this whole thing.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lindy. Of course he’s not buried in a basement,” I scoffed with a mixture of fear and annoyance.

“Let’s find out what basement!” Lindy said excitedly.

“No!” I yelped as I leaped off the bed. This was probably the only time in our entire friendship that I had stood up to her. “We’re done. I know you’re moving the piece. My dead daddy is not in this room. And he is certainly not buried in a basement,” I announced with conviction, hands shaking, voice wavering. I was desperately trying to believe it myself. “Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds?”

Lindy pulled the flashlight to her chin again. “But you’ll never know for sure,
will you?
Muwahhhhhhh
!” She dissolved into a high pitched cackling laughter.

I stood with my arms folded, trying not to completely lose it on her, reminding myself how lonely the losers’ table in the cafeteria was.

In the end, Lindy ended up sticking the board in the box and telling me to put in back on the shelf. She then decided that it was late enough and she wanted to go to sleep. I clicked off the light and crawled into the day bed Lindy had in her room for sleepover guests. It was actually more comfortable than my own bed at home and I would normally sleep like a baby.

But on this particular night, I just couldn’t get comfortable as hard as I tried. Lindy was snoring away within minutes (she would deny snoring with her dying breath, I’m sure), but I stared at the ceiling till dawn. My mind was racing with dead daddies, boys waiting for me in the woods, and a best friend that was determined to undermine my quest for happiness.

As I groggily headed back home late the next day—Lindy had slept till noon and I felt weird slipping out of the house with her still sleeping)—I wondered if I should stop by Carson’s house and explain what happened and why I was a no show the night before. I wished I had been able to call or text him, but I realized he had never given me his cell phone number or asked for mine.

That’s strange. . .he must not like you if he didn’t even ask for your number.
Lindy’s voice popped into my head. I told her to shut up as I tried to come up with a logical explanation why he never asked for my number and couldn’t come up with one.

I avoided passing his house as I slipped into my own, bracing myself for my mama’s onslaught of motherly love.

“Hi! I’m home!” I called out when I didn’t see her in the living room, perched on the couch as usual. I was met with stony silence.

That’s odd
, I thought as I dropped my overnight bag on the floor. Then, I heard the sound of crying. It was so muffled I couldn’t make out where in the house it was coming from.

“Mama?” I crept toward the kitchen, Mama’s second favorite place in the house.
Why would she be crying, though?
I wondered.
Maybe she was making dinner and realized she ran out of corn meal for her crispy fried chicken?
Mama cried over the craziest things sometimes.

I stepped into the empty kitchen. A mixing bowl lay abandoned on the counter, a big wooden spoon rested on the side of the bowl. It smelled like Mama’s barbecue sauce. I noticed the oven was also on. Mama must be fixing to make some wings. But where was she? And why was she crying?

“Mama?” I called out again, leaving the kitchen and passing through the dining room to enter the small foyer that housed the staircase leading to our bedrooms. Our house was a small Cape Cod style; living room, kitchen, dining room, half-bath on the first floor and then two bedrooms and a full bath upstairs. As I paused in the foyer, I heard footsteps, but they weren’t coming from this staircase.

“Kennedy?” The cellar door slammed and I whirled around to find Mama standing there, a package of frozen chicken wings in her hand, tears still streaming down her face.

I stared at the closed door. “Were you in the basement?”

“I was just getting the chicken wings for dinner,” Mama said quickly.

Confused, I cocked my head to the side. “I thought you said the freezer broke? Didn’t you have to call a repairman?”

Mama blushed and chewed her bottom lip. “I did. It’s all fixed!” she said in a sunny voice, beaming unnaturally at me.

“You let the repairman in yourself?” If my jaw could hang any lower, it would be in the basement with the fixed freezer.

Mama waved her hand in front of her face and tittered nervously. “Of course, Kennedy! Don’t be silly! I’m a grown woman. I can take care of myself!”

I raised my eyebrow and wondered if Mama hadn’t been ordering mood altering prescription drugs from Canada. Her behavior was downright unusual. I was about to comment when I heard the sound of the mailbox being opened and shut.

“Oh, it sounds like the mail is here!” Mama sang out as she sashayed across the threadbare dining room rug. “Can you go get it, Sweetpea?” She pushed open the salon doors that led to the kitchen.

I stared after her as the doors swung for several moments before settling down.
Could the guy she was communicating with online be the freezer repairman?
I found myself wondering as I turned on my heel to get the mail. I made a mental note to get a hold of Mama’s computer and check her browser history. I was certain that she would be clueless as to how to erase her history.

I opened the front door and was immediately assaulted with the steaminess of the day.
Had it been that hot on my walk from Lindy’s?
I glanced down the block, feeling sorry for the mailman. He usually came later in the day, when the heat wasn’t so oppressive. I thought he might like a glass of sweet tea to take with him.

Not seeing him, I shrugged and lifted the lid to the mailbox.
He must be moving quickly
, I mused as I stuck my hand in the nearly empty mailbox.
That’s unusual
, I thought as I pulled out a single envelope.
We normally get more mail than this.

I turned the envelope over to discover a single word scrawled on the front.
Kennedy
. I realized that this was obviously wasn’t sent through the mail. Glancing around, I tried to see who could have put the envelope in the mailbox. Except for Mr. Crumley whizzing past on his moped, the street was completely deserted.

I stepped outside and sat down on the front swing, curiosity peaked. Nobody had ever left me an anonymous letter in the mailbox before. My mind raced with possibilities as I ripped it open. Money, a secret admirer letter, the bookmark I had accidentally left in a book and Marnie promised—

Oh crap! I left that book under the bush in Lindy’s backyard yesterday. I’ll have to go back and get that before she finds it and reads the poems inside.

That thought quickly left my mind however, as I pulled the lone contents of the envelope out. It was a single piece of paper with a hastily scrawled note, “Meet me at midnight…tonight.”

Carson!
He still wanted to meet me even though I stood him up last night!
Beaming, I tucked the note into the back pocket of my jean shorts and sailed into the house, drunk from my Carson cocktail, completely forgetting about my mama’s crazy and my missing book.

That night, I stared at the clock on my dresser, willing the bright green lights to speed up and be in the eleven o’clock hour. I wondered how long it would take me to get to the trail at night. I shivered a little at the prospect of walking around in the dark, but then I reminded myself that Carson would be meeting me there.

Finally, at 11:32, I couldn’t take it anymore. I slipped out of bed and tip-toed over to my bedroom door which was open a smidgen. Cracking it open ever so quietly, I stuck my head out and peeked down the stairs. Mama was still awake, burning the midnight oil at the kitchen table, pouring over the computer.

The way I saw it, I had two choices. Number one, I could sit at the foot of my door with my head leaned against the door jam, waiting for Mama to get tired, close up the laptop, and go to bed so I could then sneak out the front door. Judging from the steamy mug of coffee next to her, I had a feeling that was going to be quite a ways into the night—too late to meet Carson. I doubted he would tolerate being stood up two nights in a row.

Or, my other choice was to open my bedroom window, climb out onto the tree branch that hung nearby, and scramble down to the ground. Hopefully unscathed. I opted for choice number two.

I quietly pushed the screen up and it squeaked in protest. I bit my lip, glancing toward the door. I tip-toed back to the bedroom door and silently pushed it closed. Hopefully Mama wouldn’t check on me before she went to bed, but if she did, I needed to create a decoy. I glanced around my room, but unlike Ferris Bueller, I didn’t have a manikin to use. Shoving my pillows under my blanket, I figured that would have to do. As I stuck my feet into my flip flops, I inspected my work with a nod; if Mama checked on me before bed, she usually just stuck her head in; she didn’t come in and actually examine my breathing. I put a stop to that one night when I was twelve and she leaned in to kiss my cheek. I had been startled and ended up accidentally smacking her in the nose and making it bleed. From that point on, she avoided contact with me when I was asleep.