Ghost Time (25 page)

She knocked an hour later, when Ray showed up, and I said, Leave me alone, and she opened the door, and she said, Fine, but Ray says Cam’s outside, and I felt it right in my chest, thinking about Cam sitting there, but I looked away. He’s been outside since he dropped you off, she said, and I didn’t say anything. She goes, So do you want to invite him in or should I? I stared at the wall, and then I go, Neither. Thea, she said, giving me that voice that told me I was about to get in trouble, and I go, What? Mom said, Come here, and she opened the door for me to follow her.

I walked to the living room, and then she opened the curtain so I could see outside, and there he was, in his car. Cam had been sitting out there, in the freezing cold, for more than an hour. Go, my mom said, so I grabbed my coat, and walked to the parking lot. I opened the door, and I got in his car, and it was freezing. I could see my own breath. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, Are
you hungry? And he said, Always, and I go, Ray brought pizza, if you want, and Cam nodded. He goes, Ray invited me, before he went inside. Are you still angry? he asked, and I nodded. He goes, We were talking about you, you know, and I said, No, I don’t know, Cam. And he said, I’m telling you the truth, and I said, Great. Thanks. He nodded and sighed, then he goes, Are you going to speak to me again? I said, I’m speaking to you now, and he goes, No, you’re not. You’re yelling in a calm voice, he said, and I laughed, because he was right.

Why did you stay? I said, trying not to smile. Because I wanted to tell you something, he said, and I said, So. Tell me. Then he said, Look at me, and I looked at him, then I looked away. You aren’t looking at me, and it’s important, he said, so I turned to look at him, and then he said it. For the first time, Cam said it out loud: I love you, he said. He took my hand, and I couldn’t say anything. He goes, Did you hear me? I nodded yes, but still, all I could do was stare straight ahead, while my eyes started tearing up. Then, smart-ass, he goes, Thea, do you have something you want to say to me? I nodded and I go, No. He laughed, slapping me, he goes, You are a terrible liar, and I go, Takes one to know one, and Cam goes, I’ve never lied to you, and I never will. All I could do was bite my tongue, because I knew what he was saying. He was talking about my dad, about how I could trust him, he’d never hurt me like that.

I couldn’t say it then. Not even then, but I leaned over, putting my head on his lap, and I lay there, letting him smooth back my hair while I tried to figure it out in my head, trying to untie all the knots in my heart, one by one.

(SIX WEEKS LATER)

4:36 PM

It’s a kind of falling in love, having a new best friend. I mean, things like how you can’t get enough of them. Like how you can spend the whole day together, and you do, every day, but it’s not enough. Like you want to eat them up, every time you see them, and then, soon as you leave, you have to call them, because you thought of one more thing you absolutely have to tell them. And then, the second after you hang up, they call you right back, thinking of one other thing they absolutely have to tell you. And you aren’t even doing anything special, you’re just hanging in your room or whatever, but your room turns into the whole world. Mom always calls it a girls’ honeymoon, when you share everything and you’re totally inseparable, and that’s how I am with Melody.

The thing is, at the beginning, I was the one showing Mel all these things, because she’d been living in a cave her whole
life, basically. Then, one day, I find out she’s made her own discoveries, without me, and I was like,
Wait, you did something without me?
Like one day, I went over, after school, and I sat down on the side of her bed, and Mel goes,
Ready?
She sounded so excited, too, I go, Ready for what? She goes,
I’ve got an idea, and I don’t know if it’ll work, but I want to try.
I said, Okay, tell me, and we’ll try, and she goes,
Well, I want to do a shoot, like a photo shoot where I describe the pictures, but you take them for us. Like I describe what I see, and you draw the pictures or shoot them
, and I go, You mean I shoot what you explain to me?
Exactly!
she said.

I thought I understood, but we’d never done it before. So I go, What if I get them wrong? Because I was suddenly afraid of disappointing her, and she goes,
Thee, you can’t screw it up, that’s impossible.
All right, I said, a little embarrassed that all of a sudden, I’m the one who’s insecure. What’s your idea? I said, and she goes,
It’s a movie.
And I said, Really? What’s it about? Give me the pitch, I said, leaning back, kicking off my shoes, and she goes,
Well, it’s a movie about a girl.
I go, Good start, and she goes,
A beautiful girl—she’s seventeen, eighteen, maybe, and she’s on the run.
And I go, Who is she running from? Mel goes,
I don’t know, but whoever it is, she has to totally reinvent herself.
I said,
Reinvent herself?
She’s seventeen, Mel, and Melody goes,
Exactly. So she runs away to Paris, because what better place to run away and reinvent yourself? And she has a look that’s sort of exotic and otherworldly, too. She has this sort of Paris 1968 vibe, or wait, wait—no, no, I know—maybe she runs away, back in time? That’s it, that’s it!

I’ve never seen Mel so excited, she was holding up her hands, like she was asking me to let her think it through, and then she goes,
I’ve got it: What if she runs back in time? What if she gets ID pictures taken in a photo booth, and bang, flash, she’s gone! When she steps out of the photo booth, she’s traveled back in time—because isn’t that what a photo booth is, a time machine? So when she steps out of the booth, she finds herself in Paris, in April, 1968.
I was just like, Ohmygod, that’s
so good
, and Mel goes,
Now you go, Thea: Your turn. Tell me what you see
, she said, and I could see it. I could see everything she was describing, and I said, But does she have a name? Mel beamed, almost squealing, and she goes,
Yes! Violaine. Her name is Violaine!
Soon as she said that, I could totally see the girl’s face, too, like her long, dark, straight hair and black-and-white photo booth pictures. I said, So she’s got a whole new identity, right?
Yes
, Mel said:
new life, new identity, finds a time machine in a photo booth and she runs away, back in time, to Paris, 1968.

I was just like,
Wow
. So she runs away, back in time, to Paris, and then what? I go, What does she do? Mel goes,
Oh, easy: She goes to the Louvre every day, where men stare at her. She wears this fitted coat with sort of a swing skirt bottom, like Dior meets Vivienne Westwood coat, and five-inch heels. And leather gloves, of course. But no make up—Violaine doesn’t really do make up, and she doesn’t need to, and she goes to the Louvre every day, because it’s so conspicuous, it’s inconspicuous! Isn’t that genius?
If you do say so yourself, I said, laughing. I swear, I have created a monster—the most beautiful monster in the whole wide world, but still.

Seriously
, Thee, she said.
Can’t you just imagine her apartment, and her clothes, and her closet, and the balcony off her bedroom, where she has some plants and the most outrageous view of Paris? She steps outside, one morning, waking up, and watching her do that, just that bit, your first thought is how fucking good it is to be this girl, excuse my French
, she said. I was putting a pillow under my head, but then I almost fell off her bed, I was laughing so hard. But Mel was on a tear:
Then Violaine turns back inside, and you see her vanity with her perfume bottles and her jewelry, and there are gorgeous shoes everywhere, and records and books and magazines….

Listening to Mel, it really felt like she was giving me a tour of this girl’s life, and I could see it, but all I could think was,
Where is this all coming from?
She goes,
Oh, and it’s slow, and sexy, and the whole film follows her exploring all these bars and jazz clubs in Paris, and that’s how we learn what she’s running from, starting a life in Paris.

I go, You’re right, it’s genius. Violaine is running from her past by going back in time. Clever, very clever, and Mel goes,
Of course: Violaine is a revolutionary, a Marxist.
I go, What kind of Marxist hides out in the Louvre, wearing five-inch heels? Mel said,
Ohmygod.
She goes,
Why, a Miuccia Prada Marxist
, and I had to laugh.
Wait, wait—there’s our title
, she said.
The Prada Marxiste!
she said, clapping.
Can’t you see it, Thee?
And I could, too. It was like a brainstorm, only stronger, the way she was describing everything. I could see all the pictures in her head just like it was a movie.

Okay, but wait, I said. How do we figure it out, whatever it is she’s running from? And she goes,
I don’t know. What matters is that her life—Violaine’s life is… different than ours. I mean, can’t one teenage girl in this world create a charmed life for herself that we can all dream about and share? Doesn’t someone get to escape reality and live an incredible life somewhere, in some dimension, even if it’s only for a couple hours in a movie theater? Because if that’s not possible, how else are we going to get through all this, you know?

I didn’t say anything, thinking it over, and then I just had to ask again, But what’s she running from? Mel goes,
Something awful she did
, and I go, Give me an example of something so awful she could have done that would make her run away all the way back in time? Mel goes,
I don’t know. Maybe she screwed around on her boyfriend and got pregnant from another guy and she had an abortion and then her boyfriend found out, and he was completely devastated—.
Okay, easy, I said, holding up my hands, not at all prepared.
I’m just saying
, she said, and I go, I know, but that’s pretty intense. Mel goes,
Well, there has to be a clear motive why she would give up her entire life and go back in time. Because the thing about time travel is, there’s no guarantee she’ll make it back to her old life ever again. There might be no way back to the future, you know, so it’d have to be something pretty intense, right?
Maybe she’s traveling in Ghost Time, I said, thinking about what it could be, what a person could do that would be so horrible they’d leave their own time forever, and Mel perked up.
What’s Ghost Time?
I didn’t even realize I’d spoken
out loud. Nothing, I said, smiling, trying to think of what to say to change the subject, but I couldn’t think of anything. It was okay, though; she left it alone. I don’t know how Mel knew, but I could see on her face that she knew it was something to do with Cam. Sometimes she’s really good at knowing when not to ask a question—not often, but that was one of those times.

Knox knocked and stuck his head in the door before I even had a chance to say come in, so annoying. Then, on second thought, I said, Knox, you’re just in time, actually, and he looked curious, smiling, included. I said, We’re working on a script about a completely gorgeous girl who goes back in time, changes her name to Violaine, and lives in Paris in April 1968. And being a cop, you’d have some idea, so, the questions is, what is something so awful that a girl could do that she’d go back in time, never to see anyone she loves, the people she most loves in the entire world, ever again? He smiled, sort of chuckled about that one, because there I was, trying to bring him in and share, which is what he wanted more than anything, to be included. On the other hand, he deemed the entire situation completely fucked up. So.

Let me ask you this, he said, and I could tell he was changing the subject, but whatever. Why does this girl go back in time instead of forward?
Got this one, Mel
, I said.
There are lots of reasons why she goes back in time, but, mostly, because that’s the only direction she can go. The only way you can get somewhere that’s never been is with art, so she has to make art or go back in time, maybe both, we’ll see!
Honestly, until that moment, I didn’t even know how much that picture with Cam truly meant to me, but I know now.

Because
The Future Is Unwritten
! I said, clapping my hands, grabbing my phone from my bag. I had the picture—I showed Knox the picture of me and Cam, standing in front of the Joe Strummer mural on his birthday. Mel goes,
Show me! Show me, Thee—what are you doing, showing my dad first?
I laughed and said, Mel, I only showed him first because he was closest, but she was right, so I jumped over and showed her. It was only then that it dawned on me that I’d never offered to show her a picture of Cam. And I felt terrible about that, too. I mean, she never asked, but I never offered. I guess because I felt like I was always looking at pictures of him.

Here, I said, holding the camera up for her. And she inhaled so deep, like she was flapping her face, unable to breathe, excited, and she goes,
Ohmygod, Thea! Cam is so cute!
I laughed, blushed. Part of me was like, Oh, here we go again, even my own best friend is going to wonder what he’s doing with me, so let’s be done with it, already. But then part of me was just giddy. I said, Yeah, he is really cute, isn’t he? When I say cute, I mean really fucking cute, like I just want to eat him up! I said, bobbling my head, cooing at the picture of us, and immediately, I feel a flare up in the corner: Knox telling me to watch my language. I was just like, This is
our
world,
our
domain, Knox, you want in or not? I didn’t say that, because there was no point: you know he wouldn’t have known how to answer. Did he want to be included in our world, really? Maybe. Gee, sounds good on paper, honey, but… I’m sorry, but dads and their cafeteria-style intimacy, you know? When I watch Knox, I get it, though. He just doesn’t have a clue. Anyhow.

Then Knox goes, Hey, you two, what do you say about going to get something to eat? Mel goes,
No, thanks
, and he goes, I didn’t have a chance to shop, and Mel goes,
Not again
, and he said, So we’ll pick something up before we take Thea home, and I just looked at her, and I looked at Knox, and he goes, What? I shook my head, never mind.