Ghost Time (10 page)

Cam waited, and I could totally feel him watching me, trying to figure out what just happened, and then, a minute later, he rolled down the window and yelled after me, telling me to come back, and he even said please, but I kept walking. I heard him start the car, then he drove over and pulled up, driving alongside me. He leaned out the window and he goes, Can I give you a ride? I said, No, thanks, not even looking at him.

He was leaning out his window, and he goes, So you’re going to walk the whole way home? I go, That’s right, and then he pulled up beside me, driving with one hand, leaning out the window: Can I walk with you? he said, and I said, No. And he said, Why not? And by that point, I could tell he thought he was being suave. I go, Because I want you to leave me alone, and he goes, Why, because I got impatient with you for grinding my poor—. I go, Cam,
I told you
I don’t know how to drive a stick and you said you’d be patient and you weren’t patient at all. First you tell me I have to try things I’m afraid of, but then, when I try—. Okay, okay, he goes, no need for yelling, is there? I stopped and I just looked at him: Go away, I said turning, trying to walk in a different direction.

No, he said, turning the car and circling around, following behind me. It was getting so dark it was almost time to turn the headlights on. I walked all the way to the highway, before I turned around: Quit following me! I said, and Cam goes, Okay.
But I want you to know I accept your apology. I go, That’s funny, because I didn’t apologize, and he goes, Yes, you did. Remember when you said, Cam, I love you so much and I’m sorry for being bitchy and making a big drama out of nothing, please forgive me?

And then, it snapped, and I stopped, cold. The drama, I mean. Why was I throwing such a fit? Why that moment and not the moment before, I don’t know. Just that my feelings get ahead of me sometimes, and I don’t even realize what I’m doing. Or why.

So when he stopped the car, I walked around, behind the car, but when I got in, I just stared ahead, because that’s as far as I could go. I waited for him to start the car, but he didn’t. He just looked at me, waiting. I don’t know why, but then and there, it finally clicked in my head. He was right: throwing tantrums, creating this whole huge drama, for what? I didn’t even understand why, but I finally got it, that there’s no need. I felt so stupid, too, dumber than his car, and that made me smile. Cam goes, What are you laughing at? I just shrugged, and I go, Can we go back to the parking lot? And he goes, You want to learn to drive in the dark? I looked over, and I gave him this smile and I said, That’s not what I want to go back for.

(TWELVE DAYS LATER)

3:46 PM

Saturday, I didn’t want to go out, because I didn’t want to run into anybody, and Mom went to the grocery store, and I just didn’t know what to do with myself. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to be alone, which is so strange, because I was alone for so long, until I met Cam. Now that he’s gone, I can’t remember how I used to pass the time.

Sometime around three, I couldn’t stand being in my room anymore, so I got up and I walked outside, and I was right outside our door, staring at the spot where Cam’s car was parked—Tuesday. Karen drove over, that morning, when she came to my house, looking for Cam, and that night, someone dropped her off and she drove Cam’s car home. But I didn’t tell her I had a set of keys, because I didn’t think about it, and she didn’t ask.

Finally, staring down at some empty, grease-stained parking lot, afraid of being alone anymore, I was just like,
WTF?
All of a
sudden, I knew what I had to do, so I went back inside, grabbed Cam’s keys and my jacket. I got on my bike and road over to Cam’s house, and I knocked, but Karen didn’t answer. I looked inside, and I didn’t see any sign of her, and her car was gone. So I pulled my bike around, leaning it against the side of their house, and I walked over to the garage, behind their house, and peeked inside the window, just to be sure. Then I went back to the front door, and I tore a piece of paper out of one of my old notebooks and wrote her a note:

Karen,

I’m taking Cam’s car.

I’ll bring it back in a few hours.

Please don’t worry.

xx, Thea

I pulled open the garage door—it’s an old garage, and you have to be careful, opening the door with both hands, because it’ll spring on you, but anyhow. I backed out the drive, and their driveway made me so nervous, the gravel crunching beneath the tires, like the whole neighborhood knew I was taking Cam’s car without asking permission. I made it all the way out of town, though, and pulled out, onto the highway, before it even occurred to me that I had no idea where I was going.

The thing is, there are so many back roads, upstate, so many places a person can get lost. I just drove, like we always drove together on Saturdays, and I kept thinking I’d turn around at the next exit, but I didn’t. I was on the highway for about twenty minutes before I turned off on this road, heading north, and I drove
another fifteen minutes, taking a dirt road along this creek bed. A few miles down, the road came to an end, and I had to stop. So I rolled down the window, and I sat there, listening to the creek, the leaves, and then, for the first time all week, I started crying. I mean, I fought it, hard as I could until finally I started sobbing.

It was at least ten minutes before I calmed down and blew my nose on a rag I found beneath the seat. Then I got out of the car and sat on the hood, staring at the creek, like it had an answer. But what can you say when there’s nothing to say, except,
Where are you? Where the hell are you?
It’s worthless, but I said it anyway. I shouted it, even, as if Cam could hear me: Where are you?! My throat hurt, I shouted so loud, and a few birds flew off, scared, and then the creek was still again.

A moment later, like two seconds later, my phone rang, and I jumped—I was sure it was Cam. For a moment, I truly believed he knew exactly where I was, that he’d heard me, that he was coming to get me. Then I checked the number, but it was Karen, so I sat there, and I debated answering, because I couldn’t take her yelling at me about the car, but then I figured I might as well get it over with. I answered and she goes, Hey, you, and she didn’t sound angry, and I said, Hi, clearing my throat. She goes, Where are you? I go, I don’t know, and she said, Are you hungry? I said, No, not really, because I wasn’t at all, and she said, I’m making dinner. Do you want to join me? I said, Honestly, I don’t think I can eat anything, and she said, Me, neither. But I’d much rather not eat with you than not eat alone, she said, and I had to smile.

All right, I said, looking up at the trees, and it was so beautiful, but I just wanted to hit something, you know? I can’t explain,
but Karen goes, Good, then I told her I might be a while. And she said, That happens when you don’t know where you are, and I said, Guess so. She said, We’ll eat when you get here, whenever that is. Or we won’t eat when you get here, how’s that sound? Karen? I said, and she said, Yes? And I told her, I go, Karen, I’m just… I’m just really angry, and I meant it, but soon as I said it, I didn’t feel angry, I felt like crying again. She didn’t answer for a moment, and I wasn’t sure if she heard me, and then Karen said, I’ll set the table, take your time, before she hung up.

I sat on the hood a few minutes longer, looking at this bridge, because I couldn’t seem to move. There was an old bridge, downstream a ways, and it was so rusted, it was completely orange, with these barnacles of chunky rust all over it and half of the bridge was missing in the center. I kept thinking if Cam were there, he’d have to climb that old bridge, all the way across, stand there, right over the water. For a moment, getting up off the hood, I got the feeling Cam had been there before. In that very spot. I looked around—I just had this feeling, like he might come walking down the road at any moment, but he wasn’t there, of course. It was just me and the birds I was scaring.

Standing there, staring at the rusty bridge, downstream, the slow creek passing by, all I could think was,
You should be here
, as if he could read my thoughts, feel the fist in my chest, come back. I think I even said it out loud. Come back, please come back, but he didn’t come back just because I was thinking of him. So I got in the car, and turned the engine over. Now all I had to do was find my way home. Seemed like I should just be able to head back the same way I came, right? But it never works that way, does it?

(TWENTY-FIVE DAYS EARLIER)

5:32 PM

We went to Silver Top after school,
Fort Marshall’s oldest diner
, just like the sign said over the cash register. We go there all the time, and believe it or not, I actually get homework done there now. Doesn’t hurt any that I’ve got my very own tutor, 24/7, but Cam doesn’t do my homework for me. Honestly, he’s such a smart-ass, he always says doing my homework for me would be cheating me of an education, and he’d never cheat me. Anyhow, Sharon came over to check on us, ask if we needed refills—I love Sharon, she’s like our diner mom.

Sharon must have been a bombshell thirty years ago. She has that about her, the way she carries herself, holds her head. But there’s something a little hard-living about her, too. Like those sixties country-music women, so brilliant and beautiful, but always hooking up with the worst possible men. I don’t know anything about Sharon, really, but it’s just a vibe you get, looking
at her. I mean, even though she’s gray and nicotined, the woman’s got chutzpah—isn’t that what you call it when you meet a woman who has balls?

Anyhow, I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but when I looked over, at the Elders, this group of old men who practically live at Silver Top, the way their heads were turned, it reminded me of the painting
The Last Supper
. So I decided to draw a picture and call it
The Last Cupper
, and right away, I started drawing the long table and Jesus, and then I started filling in each Elder in place of the apostles or whoever it was that showed up for the Last Supper.

It was just a sketch, but I turned the notebook to show Cam, and he ducked his head down, so the Elders wouldn’t see him laughing. I didn’t put them in white robes, I put them in their usual duds, their jeans and plaid and madras shirts. I let a couple of them wear their hats, too. Come here, Cam said, leaning forward, curling his finger at me, so I did. What? I said, and Cam kissed me, grinning, and I leaned back.

You know what I want to draw next? I said, and Cam smiled this big smile, so proud. Cam always encourages me—he encourages me more than anyone, really, even my mom, because he’s always telling me not to be afraid. No, what he says is not to be so afraid that I don’t let myself follow the pictures in my head, draw the things I see. Never censor my imagination, because it’s the cardinal sin of creativity, and of course I know that, but when someone’s behind you, 100 percent, and they tell you that, it means so much more than you can mean, alone. So I started
giving myself permission to draw anything at all, and I never really let myself do that before. Letting someone else really see me—the things you create, like your art—it’s just like being naked, only with a different skin.

(FIFTEEN DAYS LATER)

7:46 AM

When we got to school, everyone was standing around the flagpole, out front. Bus after bus of kids were getting off, and without even thinking about it, we all head straight for the flagpole, looking up, because everyone was standing there, looking up, and for a second, you know something’s wrong without knowing what. Like one of those things you feel in your gut. And then you saw it, just a glimmer of too much sky, too much blue, and then, piece by piece, we all saw it: someone had cut every single star out of the American flag, flying in front of our school.

One by one, everyone’s jaw dropped, speechless—everyone was speechless. Looking at each other like, How could it be? Who did it, and how? Really, how did they do it? Because you couldn’t climb up a hundred feet above ground, and cut up the flag, holding on to the pole. So how did they do it? Did they pull the flag down? That was the only explanation, right, but even
that would take a long time, cutting out every single star. So, what, did someone deface, de-star, whatever, an identical flag and then take the school’s good flag down and swap them out?

Completely bizarre, okay. And it was windy, too, so the wind kept blowing the flag like a kite, practically showing it off. It was eerie, too, the way you could see all that sky through fifty empty stars. Looking at it, I felt like we were… I don’t know how else to put it, except that it felt like our town was being invaded by some parallel universe. As if there was another country, another America, shining through that flag. An America that we’d never thought about because we’re all so hopelessly American, it’d never even occurred to us that there could be two of us, you know?

Well. Before you knew it, Cheesy, Vice Principal Gray, all these teachers, the school counselor, and the whole office staff were out front, ordering everyone to get inside. For a minute, it threatened to become a mob scene, too, but of course the teachers managed to get everyone inside. Still, all day long, everyone kept asking, How? Who could pull that off? It was the prank to end all pranks, and one by one, everyone turned to look at me, thinking the same thing:
Cam. Did he have something to do with this?

After first bell, the janitorial staff, all three of them, was out front, trying to take the flag down, but then the chain got caught at the top of the pole, and they couldn’t get it down. So then they tried to cut the chain with these huge bolt cutters, and what happens? They cut the chain in a way that the flag managed to stay in place, with this whip of loose chain blowing in the air, ringing the flag pole like a little bell with every gust of wind. So then they
had to call the mayor’s office—this is what I heard—the principal’s office called the mayor’s office, and the mayor’s office sent a crane to take the remainder of the broken chain and the flag down. After all, it’s a crime to deface the flag.