Ghost Time (2 page)

I had my head on his chest, looking at his skin, so white, such perfect skin, and then I looked up and said, Cam? I felt him snap back like a rubber band, and he looked down at me. I said, Tell me this isn’t what you think about when we’re having sex.
Ghost Time?
He started laughing, making my head shake, and he said, Would that offend you? And I cocked my head like, tell me that’s not what you think about, and he grinned. Well, the forward and backward part, maybe, he said, and I was just like, You are such a perv! You are such a pervy
nerd
! I was about to grab a pillow and hit him when his phone chimed again, and I was like, Ohmygod, who is having an algebra meltdown? I didn’t mean to snap, but he kept getting texts all afternoon, and he suddenly looked so stressed out about it, reading the message. Which is weird, because Cam never gets stressed out about anything, but I know he takes his tutoring really seriously, so I rolled over to let him get up.

He kissed my shoulder, and then he goes, Listen, Thee. I know you can’t keep your hand off my pervy nerd bod, throwing the covers off of us. But I’m late, he said, standing up and putting on his jeans in one jump, while I propped my head on my hand, and then I said, Then again, who knows. If you’re late in one time, maybe you’re early in another, right, boy genius? Hearing that, he immediately stopped buttoning his jeans, looked up at me, surprised, and then he goes, Aren’t you clever! See what a good influence I am on you? Then, of course, I had to laugh.
You?
You’re the good influence? Cam ignored me, cocking his head behind him, all business. Walk me out? he said. So I threw on a shirt, while he zipped up his jacket, and he took my hand, leading
me to the front door… then I snapped back, too. Returning from some other time, the one moving us backward, while I moved forward, alone.

Happy—that’s when I realized what was going on—I was happy. Talk about will wonders never cease, because I was so happy, I fell on my side, giggling, and then there was this voice in my head that was just like,
Would you
stop
? Stop it, you’re disgusting!
We are, too—ohmygod, Cam and I, we’re so sickening, we make my teeth hurt. But then I was just like,
So?
I mean, seriously, how many times in your life do you get to feel like that, much less for the first time? Once, right? You get that maybe once in your whole life, so why would you ever take that away from yourself?

I mean, unless you’re afraid, and I’m not—not anymore. I used to be, I used to be so scared, if anyone had told me six months ago that I’d meet this boy and my whole life would change, that
I
would change, I never would’ve believed it, no way. But I did—it’s all true—I met a boy, and I have changed. Just to prove how fearless I am, I opened the door again, and Cam was just about to pull out, on the highway, so I screamed it, loud as I could. Top of my lungs, I go, I love you, Cam Conlon! I waited, watching his car drive past our building, and I don’t know if he heard me or not, but it didn’t matter, because I know he knows, and I know he feels the same about me. And for the first time in my life, standing there, I thought,
I am the happiest girl in the whole wide world
. Then I saw my mom pulling in, and I groaned,
Ugh. Mom’s home
, and I ran inside to get dressed.

(TWO HOURS LATER)

7:28 PM

I don’t know what’s going on, but my mom’s been really stressed out lately. Like every day when she gets home from work, she’s so bitchy, and I know she hates her job, but it’s like, get off my case, you know? Seriously, it’s not my fault money’s so tight and we have to live in this shitty little apartment. That’s mean, I know, because my mom’s done what she can, but it’s still a dump—I’m sorry, but this place is a dump, at least compared to our old house. I mean, we used to have a nice house, with a garage and a garden and a front yard and a big backyard and two guest bedrooms. We even had a separate dining room we never even used, and now, sometimes I walk in the door, and I know how it happened, but I look around, and I’m just like,
How did we fall so far?

I wish she’d take money from my dad, but she won’t take alimony. Child support, but not alimony. We’ve gotten into it a couple times because I’m like, Mom, why won’t you take the
man’s money? It’s the least he can do, you know? And she goes, Thea. You don’t even speak to the man, and you want me to take his money? I go, Mom, taking his money and not speaking to him is a much better deal, trust me. But she won’t do it, she won’t take his money, and it’s so dumb. Then again, I really admire her for not taking a nickel from the guy—I just wish pride didn’t require we live in a dive, you know?

So I know the money thing stresses her out, and I feel bad, I really do, but still. She kept yelling at me from the kitchen about turning off the TV and doing my homework, and I didn’t say anything, but I was just like,
Mom, please, you know this is my show, I only watch it every night
. But I was in such a good mood, I didn’t want to get into it, so I said, Soon as
The Simpsons
is over, okay? Please, Mom? Because this is the best
Simpsons
ever, I said, whimpering—totally laying it on, right—and she actually bought it. I heard her close the oven, then she poked her head in and she goes, Which
Simpsons
is the best
Simpsons
ever? And I go,
Me back is frontward
; the one with the Buzzcocks, I said, knowing that would get her, and it did. She goes, Which one is that? I go, Mom, the Sid and Nancy one, where Lisa’s Nancy and Nelson’s Sid? Come see.

She walked in, drying her hands with a dish towel, right at the point where Lisa’s realizing maybe she’s not cut out for the life and death of a punk-rock junkie girlfriend, and I go, Poor Lisa, I wonder if she ever meets the man of her dreams. And walking past me, my mom goes,
Poor Lisa
? What about poor Mom and the man of her dreams? she said, sitting down on the couch, beside me. And I go, What, you mean Rain Man’s not the man of
your dreams? She looked at me, like, don’t start, and I tried not to, but I couldn’t help laughing, thinking about Raymond being the man of any woman’s dreams, and then Mom looked at me and goes, Come here—get over here, you, and she pulled me over by my arm, resting my head in her lap during the commercials. She started playing with my hair, and I let her, that’s how happy I was.

(TWO HOURS EARLIER)

3:32 PM

I took pictures this afternoon. I threw on this old shirt of Cam’s that used to belong to his dad. It’s Hang Ten, this brand from the seventies, and it has these big blue and yellow horizontal stripes with a floppy white collar, I love it. We went to the kitchen to get something to eat, and I didn’t feel like getting dressed, but my feet are always cold, so I threw on a pair of white knee-high tube socks, and then Cam snapped his fingers at me, doing this little shimmy with his shoulders, acting all groovy, and he goes, Rockin’ the seventies. And then I shook my hips, pulling out my imaginary guns, shooting him down:
bang! bang!
And I go, That’s right, baby. I’m too foxy for your love, and then he said something totally rude, but anyhow.

Cam was wearing his boxers—he’s so skinny, they were almost falling off his hips—and there was still a red outline of my lip gloss on his left hip bone, from when I’d knelt down, kissing
him, because his hip bones drive me crazy. And just above his elastic band, you could see this thin brown line, like this sliver of gold-brown pubic hair, shining in the light beneath the kitchen window. Oh, but when I say skinny, I don’t mean it in a bad way—I love Cam’s body. All the time. He’s perfect, if you ask me, and that’s why I took pictures of him, standing at our kitchen sink, holding a glass of milk in one hand and this humongous double-decker PB&J—like, three pieces of bread, stuffed in his mouth, and this big dab of raspberry jelly on his chin, like he hadn’t eaten for weeks or something. And I said, Don’t move, and I ran to my room.

Cam’s so used to it by now, me taking his picture all the time, he didn’t move a muscle. Yeah, just like that, I said, focusing, and then he goes, Just look at the camera? And I go, Yeah, look at the camera, and I ended up taking a whole roll—real, honest-to-goodness film, too. Don’t ask me how I’m going to pay to get it printed, but anyhow.

Cam took all the other photos. Those are just digital, all the ones of me, jumping on my bed, in front of my window. That was just before Cam left, and the curtains were drawn, but the light’s so bright, it’s like it’s taking an X-ray of the whole room. There’s this one photo he showed me, and at first, I was like, Ohmygod,
delete!
Because it’s a picture of me, lying facedown, on my bed, and all I’m wearing are those ugly tube socks. But before I could ask for my camera back, Cam got another text. Someone kept calling and texting all afternoon, and I was so annoyed, I told him to turn his phone off when he walked over to check the message.

When he picked up his phone, he looked at it like,
WTF?
And he had such a strange look, reading the message, I said, What’s wrong? He shook his head no, then he looked up and smiled, and he goes, Nothing, babe. It’s fine, but I can’t stay for dinner—I’ve got to work, and when he said that, I was just like,
Tonight?
Seemed kind of late to be calling for a tutoring session, but Cam goes, No, not now, five thirty, and I started whining,
No!
and I threw myself on the bed. So I’m lying there, facedown, legs spread wide apart, squeezing my fists. And you can’t tell by looking, but the moment he took that picture, what I was saying was, Don’t leave! I turned over, and I go, What do I have to do to get you to stay? And Cam goes, Thee, look at this. Look how beautiful you are, as he showed me the picture he took.

The thing is, I really hated that picture when he first showed it to me, but now I kind of like it. Not because it’s the best picture of my butt, definitely not, but because… because it’s true, you know? It’s so true. I mean, I’m not beautiful—I never really feel that way about myself, on my own. But when I look at Cam, when I see me the way he sees me, I don’t know what happens, but I’m the most beautiful girl in the world.

(FOUR HOURS LATER)

9:26 PM

I called him twice, and I texted him, too, like, three or four times before I went to bed—he couldn’t still be tutoring after ten o’clock, right? Usually he calls right back, but I don’t know, I figured maybe he was working on his car—sometimes he’ll stay out in the garage, working on his car until, like, two, three in the morning. Cam’s a total night owl—he’ll stay up half the night, working on his car, or taking drives, or writing equations in our notebook: part geometry; part hieroglyphics; part graffiti tags. Cam has a written language all his own that he shares with me—it’s crazy and beautiful, in no particular order. Anyhow, he loves to work at night, so I didn’t worry about it, really.

And since I figured he was working, I decided I better get some work done, too. Not homework—please, instead of talking to Cam all night, I spent the night working on some drawings
I’m making for him. For the past couple months now, I’ve been designing something I like to think of as our Barbie Dreamhouse. Which looks like a five-thousand-square-foot downtown loft in New York pretty much. Except that in Thea and Cam’s Barbie Dreamhouse, we’ve got this enormous wooden half-pipe, so Cam can skate anytime he wants, rain or shine. And we have also got all these projectors mounted that project wall-size skateboard and surfing and old BMX movies all day, and I have this huge walk-in closet that’s bigger than our whole apartment. It’s not serious or anything—I mean, it’s not like I think we’re going to get married and I’ve already named all our unborn children or whatever—it’s just a place I’m making for the two of us. Like if I could stop time and go anywhere I want to go, I’d be with Cam, and that’s where I’d take him, to our home.

(FOUR HOURS EARLIER)

1:37 PM

I’ve gotten used to it, the way people look at him all the time, because he’s such a pretty boy. He’s tall and thin and has this ruddy skin, never gets any zits. Sandy-blond hair, thin eyebrows, thin nose, long eyelashes that almost look like he uses a curling wand, with these big gray eyes—and his bone structure, like his cheekbones, are
to die
. And I’m not just saying that because he’s my boyfriend, either. Everyone notices, even guys.

Seriously, Cam started shaving his head last year, and it makes his cheekbones stand out even more, so I started calling him Hitboy. Like the video game
Hitman
, right? So we cut last period, and on our way to my house, we pulled over to get some gas. Cam was about to get out, and I go, Wait—I’ve got to rub the Buddha. What I mean is, Cam’s got really thick hair, so after he shaves his head it gets all soft and bristly, and I can’t stop buffing his head with my hand ’cause it feels so good.

So he leaned over, and I rubbed my hand back and forth a couple times. Okay, I said, but he’s such a smart-ass, he goes, Anything else you want to rub? I was just like, Keep your pants on, Buddha, and he goes, You know, Buddha was quite a lady’s man, and I rolled my eyes, and I go, Just fill ’er up, will you? And then Cam goes—never mind. I don’t know what it is, but boys and crudeness, it’s like a pig in mud, you know what I mean? Like, they just love to cover themselves and everyone else in it, right? Anyhow.

I used to be so self-conscious, like if we were out in public, I always felt like people looked at me and looked at Cam, wondering what he was doing with me. But I’ve gotten over it pretty much, and now when people look, especially if it’s an older guy, I know it’s the car. Because Cam has this really cool old car—it’s so
boss
. He inherited his car from his dad—this gold color they don’t even make anymore. Seriously, they don’t make that color of paint anymore; it’s probably toxic or something. Anyhow, Cam’s dad died when he was a kid, and he’d bought the car for Cam because Cam was already working on cars by then. So his dad bought this old Dodge Dart for him to fix up, and he did, after his dad died. Took him two years to find all the parts, but he got it running, and now men check it out all the time. It’s a dude thing, you know?