Vintage: A Ghost Story (11 page)

I woke on the couch and found Trace asleep in the easy chair across from me. I struggled to rise from underneath all the winter blankets Trace had wrapped around me. I never thought I’d be thankful to wake up sweaty.

The thick taste of bitter chocolate ruled my mouth, and I brushed my teeth and even tongue with warm water for a good ten minutes before satisfied the awful flavor was gone.

Trace stirred as I came back into the room. She stretched a moment, then blinked. “What time is it?”
I glanced at the glowing numbers of the cable box. “Just after two.”
“Feeling better?”
“Yeah.” A partial lie. I felt weak but no longer cold. “Thanks for coming over.”
She smiled. “Any time.” She wiped the sleep from her eyes. “So, what now?”
I shrugged. I could see the mess we had left in the kitchen. “I have to clean this place up before my aunt comes back.”
“No, about Josh,” she said.
“Oh.” I collapsed onto the sofa. The fear returned. The memory of almost drowning myself in a scalding bath to feel human. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Maybe… maybe we should find some way to keep him away from you?” She headed toward the bathroom. “Exorcism?”
“It’s more than Josh I’m scared of.” I called out to her.
She came back in a few moments shaking her head. “It looks like a flood in there.”
“It’s me. Even now, I can’t forget how he made me feel.” I lightly touched my chest over my heart where his fingers had once been. “I want that again. Part of me wants to feel him inside me again. I tell myself, next time I’ll be careful and it won’t get as bad.” I shivered thinking about Josh inside me. Did junkies feel this way, so soon after the fix wore off? Even a bad one? Did they yearn for another?
“Hon, what little gay boy doesn’t say that after he gets laid for the first time?”
“Evil.” I didn’t find her joke the least bit funny.
She came over to me and ran a hand through my hair. “I’ll call people. We can go over to Liz’s house tonight. I won’t leave you alone.”
I nodded but kept silent. And afterward when she dropped me back home? What then?
The brick walkway leading up to Liz’s house was bordered by sleeping rosebushes on wrought-iron trellises. As Trace climbed the front steps I hung back for a moment to finger one closed blossom, feeling the yellow petal’s softness. I nearly caught the edge of a thorn.
“Trace!” Liz opened the door all the way. When she looked over Trace’s shoulder to see me standing there, she smiled. “And you brought your sister.”
I rolled my eyes at Trace, who laughed. “Hey, Liz. Nice glitter.”
Sparkling green surrounded Liz’s dark eyes, perhaps a whole jar of glitter used, but it matched the emerald hue of the silk top she wore.
“You okay?” Liz asked in the midst of giving me a quick hug. “You look a little unsteady.”
“Yeah.” I had spent the day cleaning the house and then went under a hot shower. Yet, as soon as I stepped out of the house and saw how dark it looked outside, even wearing layers of fresh clothing seemed little protec tion from the cold night. I felt on edge.
“Tonight’s going to be special. I can feel it.” She wrapped an arm around Trace and led us deeper into the house toward the living room.
Liz’s folks had abandoned her in favor of money. Earning it and spending it. They were rarely at home, going either on business trips or on vacation without her. Liz hated being left alone in the huge house.
From the spacious living room, I heard Maggie call out to us. She met us with a wide grin then stuck out her tongue for all to see the shiny new barbell.
“She’s been doing that for hours,” Liz chided.
“When did you get that done?” Trace said as she took her place on an overstuffed chair. Wearing all black except for the pink rhinestones on her shirt that spelled out
Kitty Slut,
she contrasted with the ivory fabric of the seat like a silhouette.
“Right after school,” Maggie answered her.
I lie down at Trace’s feet. If I wore a leash and dog collar, I would have looked, maybe even felt, like a happy pet.
Across the room, Kim squatted in front of the stereo, picking apart the CD racks flanking it. “With all your money, Liz, you’d think you’d buy some new CDs. These are the same shit ones you always have.” She threw down the jewel case she held in her hands.
We all ignored Kim. I’m not sure whether any of us really liked her or simply tolerated her. I think she and Liz had been close in elementary school and the friendship had been dying a slow death ever since. To make matters worse, lately Kim began copying Maggie’s “in your face” style. Only, with her, it turned out wrong, leaving us a little girl with a bad haircut and an attitude.
“So,” Maggie said, clicking the barbell against her teeth and glossy lips. “Envious?”
“Not at all,” Trace told Maggie.
We’d both had the antiquated single holes in each earlobe because Trace considered piercings unattractive on the terminally pale.
“Well, if you change your mind, Taylor works in this great place on South Street.”
“Taylor?” Trace and I exchanged confused looks.
Both girls smiled. “Oh.” Liz purred out the syllable to almost a full minute. “That’s right, you haven’t met Taylor yet. We found him all alone and thought he might like to have some fun with us.”
Kim called out, “His stint in juvenile is over.”
“Damn, you’re proud of that.” A deep and richly masculine voice came from the kitchen. “You’ll next want me to use words like ‘shiv.’”
The guy peeked into the room. His brown hair was split down the middle and hung almost to his jaw. The gleam of countless gold loops spread out on his eyebrows, in his nose, and along his ears, mixed with smooth skin the color of mocha. A stud glittered under his lower lip above a thinly trimmed beard. He wore a metal band T-shirt and tight pleather pants, the first per son I’d ever seen able to make them look good.
I felt a nudge along the small of my back. Trace’s velvet shoe. I pushed back against her—my way to agree with her assessment of this Taylor. He seemed very… noticeable.
The new boy slipped back into the kitchen. There was a clinking sound and Taylor returned carrying Liz’s mother’s good silver tray loaded with an assortment of glasses, all filled with bright colors.
“Jim Joneses?” I asked, taking the nearest half-empty glass, to match my outlook of late. The liquid’s shade of bright green was reminiscent of a lacquered Pop-Tart. I hate Pop-Tarts.
Taylor handed Trace a wineglass filled with swirling crimson. “Yeah. Liz told me it was tradition.”
Trace accepted the glass with a smile and a cooed, “Thank you.”
I glanced down into the emerald depths of my drink, looking for residue but finding none. Jim Joneses were this mad creation of our hostess. She came up with the notion one bored evening: Mix different flavors of Kool-Aid with premium-brand vodka or pure grain alcohol from Daddy’s liquor cabinet— more the size of a liquor armoire—and for one lucky glass/ drinker, add a finely ground, random selection from Mommy’s medicine cabinet. A few weeks ago, I had been the hapless winner and spent the whole evening out on their deck, my legs dangling over the side, mind paralyzed.
Which, considering all that had happened to me, might not be so bad. Yet, I grew wary. Doesn’t liquor make you feel warm but just lower your body temperature? I took a tentative sip and found it too damn sweet and strong with alcohol, but without a trace of the bitterness that most pills always left behind. I figured my glass was safe.
“I hope it’s not Cloz again. Kept me running to piss all night.” Leather gloves covered Kim’s hands. I watched her fingers brush against Taylor’s as she accepted a glass.
Maggie said with a sneer, “You couldn’t run. We had to walk you there or else risk a puddle.”
Above me, Trace settled back in her chair, one hand leisurely holding the glass, the other tapping the rattan legs of a stool that Taylor sat on beside her. He raised his own glass to her in a mock toast.
First points of the evening: Taylor. “So what’s the agenda?”
Liz answered me with two words. “The board.”
“Do we have to, Liz?” Kim whined. “Ouija’s so amputee. Can’t we just pretend to have fun?” She sat down opposite the new guy.
For once, I agreed with Kim, but not for any of the same reasons. Even just pretending to contact the dead made my flesh crawl.
Our hostess seemed adamant, though. “Don’t make me think you’re a 100 percent bitch. My house, my rules, remember?”
“Fine.” Kim picked herself up. “I’m going outside for a smoke.” She looked directly at Taylor. “Anyone want to join me?”
No one answered and she stomped her Doc Martens as she left.
Maggie brought out a box from underneath a small side table. I remember the first time I saw Liz’s Ouija; I had coughed out half my Jim Jones while laughing. The designer must have been on serious drugs to draw on the lid smiling kids sitting around a table anxious to use the board. Now, the “Mystifying Oracle”—written in old, curving font on the board—scared me. The background’s yellow parchment looked like jaundiced skin. A deep scratch scarred the cardboard and marred “No,” as if to emphasize the word. I considered the Ouija mocking, yet dangerous, like a cyanide tablet with a cheerful candy coating.
I caught Trace’s eye and shared my concern with her with a look.
“Liz, maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she said, coming to my aid.
“Aww, could be fun,” Taylor offered.
Maggie tossed the white plastic planchette onto the board. It landed upside down,
Made in Korea
clearly visible. “I’ll protect everyone from the ghosties.”
I finished off my first glass of Jim Jones in one deep gulp, anxious to pass out before something bad happened.
“So who should we try to contact?”
“How ’bout the guy on Rt. 47?” Maggie suggested.
Trace and I both shouted out “No!” Everyone looked at us.
“I know who.” Taylor said softly. “Back at the Juvenile Hall, there was this guy who had the freakiest tattoo on his shoulder. More than a sketch. It looked so perfect. Creeped me out every time I saw it. So everyone asks Don—that’s the guy’s name—who she was.
“Don said his little sister was raped and killed by a friend of his. Don was at Burlington for beating the shit out of the guy who did it. The tattoo was so he’d never forget her.”
All of us remained quiet a moment after he finished.
“Damn,” muttered Maggie.
“So what do you think?”
To me it sounded like the worst idea ever. I had wanted to escape ghosts for the night, not invite one over.
But Liz and Maggie were all for it. They arranged the board between them. “You have to lead, Taylor,” Liz said and waved for him to join them on the floor.
He did and looked up at Trace and smiled. She slid off her seat and sat opposite him.
“Move closer,” Maggie told me.
“I’ll just watch from here.” I brought up my knees to my chin and wrapped my arms around my legs. Maybe nothing will happen. Not everyone who dies leaves a ghost behind. Still, I promised myself I’d stay quiet once they’d begun. No need to attract attention.
They all put their fingers onto the planchette. Trace giggled and Liz shushed her.
“I think her name was Samantha,” Taylor said. “Samantha Divvens.”
For the next ten minutes they all took turns calling out to her, asking her spirit to talk to them, all the while moving the piece over the board.
But I heard Samantha first. Thumps and creaks coming from upstairs. I looked up at the stucco ceiling. The creaking of a bed? The sounds became louder.
“What was that?”
The bulb in the nearest lamp in the room popped and blew. Everyone jumped a little. Then all the lights in the house went out. Everything was dark.
“Shit,” cried out Liz.
I heard Taylor say “Must have blown a circuit.” I knew he was wrong.
“Trace,” I whispered. “She’s here.”
“Where’s a flashlight, hon? Or candles?” Maggie’s voice remained steady.
“In the kitchen.” More thuds from above. “Tell me that’s Kim playing with us.”
“Maybe.” A hand on my shoulder startled me. “Shh, it’s me,” Trace said. Her voice was slightly slurred.
I heard the sound of drawers in the next room being opened and rooted through. A dim beam of light flashed in our direction. Maggie cursed. “Batteries are dying.” She walked into the room, moving the light over each of us. I saw Trace leaning against Taylor, his arm around her.
Liz finished off her own drink and reached for the next nearest glass that still had some Jim Jones left. “Kim,” she yelled at the ceiling, “if that’s you stop fucking around!”
The thumping did not stop.
Maggie moved over to stand next to her girlfriend. “Hon, we need to find the circuit breaker.”
“What is going on up there?” Taylor asked. He went over to the front windows and pulled aside the thick, velvet curtains. “Damn. The rest of the street has power.”
“I don’t know!” Liz wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Maybe the basement.”
“Let’s go down there. Sometimes all you need is to flip a switch or something.”
“She must be pissed off,” Trace muttered. She sounded very drunk. Or wasted. She even stumbled heading toward the stairs. Her glass must have been the lucky one. “I want to see her.” She tottered putting one foot on the bottom step and her fingers on the banister.
They still think it’s a game.
Taylor reached her before I could. “Not alone you don’t.” He steadied her against him.
“We should just stay here,” I said in a low voice. I didn’t want
her
to hear me.
“Silly boy,” Trace giggled and started up with Taylor right behind. He held up a Zippo lighter, the tiny flame shedding a very weak, disheartening light.
I looked over my shoulder. Liz and Maggie were gone. No sign of Kim. I didn’t want to stay in the dark by myself. Against my better judgment, I climbed the stairs after them.
The staircase curved around to the second floor landing. A hallway of doors faced us. The creaks and thuds came from down there.
“Samantha,” called out Trace. I wanted to put a hand over her mouth even though I knew the ghost couldn’t hear her anyway.
The first door turned out to be the bathroom. I caught a glimpse of us reflected in the mirror. I think my eyes looked wild.
The next door was ajar. Just as Trace was pushing it open, Taylor cursed and the lighter went out. “Burned my finger,” he said.
Enough light came through the window to reveal a child’s bedroom. The sounds suddenly died away. On the bed, lying on a colored quilt muted by moonlight, was a little girl. Her arms lie at her sides, her legs spread apart. Pretty blond hair around her head like a halo. She wore a ripped nightgown pushed up past her knees.
I took a step closer. My foot creaked on the floorboards. I looked down at a discarded doll inches away. It wore a frilly dress and a cloth cap. The turn of the doll’s head gave the impression its neck was broken.
From behind me I heard a distant Trace calling out again, “Samantha.” I turned around to see the door shut.