How Not to Spend Your Senior Year (14 page)

“That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard,” I said. “I'd make an appointment with the school counselor to have that conspiracy theory problem checked, if I were you. Maybe there's a designer drug for it.”

“Claire,” Mr. Hanlon's voice's interrupted.

I jumped, then sucked in a deep breath.
Easy, girl,
I thought. Mark was on the wrong track. But the fact that his mind had leaped right to the conclusion that something wasn't quite right was still unsettling.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Hanlon. I didn't see you,” I said.

He smiled. “And I'm sorry to interrupt. I just wanted you to know I think you've done an excellent job on these rough drafts. I particularly like your take on why so many students seemed to fixate so quickly on the possibility that there could even
be
a ghost.”

“What's your theory?” Mark asked at once.

“That believing in a ghost helps ease the transition,” I said.

“In what way?”

“Well, at first glance, the possibility of a ghost may seem farfetched,” I said. “But believing in something that seems impossible, or at least unlikely, may actually be easier in the short run than accepting the truth: that someone you know has suffered a tragic accident.”

Mark considered for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “I'll buy that.”

“That's a relief,” I said.

“Keep up the good work,” Mr. Hanlon said as he handed me back my drafts. I was pretty sure he was holding back a smile. “I pencilled in my comments. I look forward to reading the rest.”

“Thanks again, Mr. Hanlon,” I said.

He ambled away, leaving Mark and me alone.

“I have a ghost theory too,” Mark London suddenly said. “You wanna hear it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

He gestured to the yearbooks, the envelope filled with grade school class pictures, all with a blank spot where Jo O'Connor should be.

“Jo O'Connor didn't have to die to become a ghost,” Mark London said. “She's been one her whole life.”

That night I dreamed again.

This time I knew it was a nightmare, right from the start. Everything was dim and foggy, like those scenes in a horror film when the heroine decides that, even though no girl with an ounce of sense would wander around in a graveyard at night, she's going to be overcome by an attack of the stupids and do it anyway.

In my dream I'm standing on a sidewalk. Fog obscures my feet, just like it always seems to obscure the ground in the movie graveyard, disguising unseen pitfalls. I don't quite know how I got to where I am, and for sure I don't know how I'd get away if I suddenly decided I needed to run. For just a moment, the fog obscures my vision too. Then it begins to clear and I can see what it is I'm standing in front of.

It's a school. Made of brick, tall and imposing. As I watch, students begin to rush toward it. I can hear shouts of joy as they recognize and greet one another.
Then, suddenly, I'm in the scene itself, and the students are all around me. Their momentum carries me up the steps to the school, then inside it. Abruptly, in one of those strange time-shifts that sometimes occur in dreams, I'm standing outside a classroom without ever having walked down the hallway. I'm clutching a school schedule in my hand.

This is where I'm supposed to be,
I think in my dream.
Room 103.

I open the door and go in. I find a seat in the back of the classroom and slide into it. From her desk at the head of the room, the teacher begins to call the roll. One by one, the students respond and raise their hands. I wait for my turn, tense and nervous. Identifying yourself as the new kid for the very first time is always hard, even if you've done it over and over.

“Jo O'Connor,” the teacher calls out.

I raise my hand. “Here,” I reply.

The teacher's brow furrows in some emotion I can't quite identify. Confusion. Annoyance. A combination of both. She gazes around the classroom, her glance sweeping like a searchlight.

“Jo O'Connor,” she calls once more, a little louder.

I raise my hand a little higher, waggling it in the air.
“Here!”
I cry.

This time I can tell the teacher is annoyed. She makes a mark in red pen beside my name in the roll book, shaking her head back and forth. At this, I actually get to my feet.

“Here! I'm Jo O'Connor, and I'm right here,” I call.

Not one student turns her or his head. It's as if I don't exist, as if I'm not there at all.

Now the time in the dream seriously speeds up, like watching a video on fast-forward. Only in the movie that's suddenly become my life, it's the same scene playing over and over. I sit in the back of classroom after classroom as roll is called. Each and every time the teacher comes to my name, I respond and raise my hand. Each and every time, not one person notices.

Finally I can't take it anymore. Hurling myself out of my seat, I run from the classroom and dash down the hall. I run straight to the nearest girls' bathroom.
There, heart pounding, staring into the mirror above the sinks, I discover the terrible truth.

I no longer exist. I've succeeded so well in blending in that I've erased myself entirely. Not even I can see myself.

I woke up with Mark London's voice ringing in my ears.
I think Jo O'Connor's been a ghost her whole life.

No,
I thought.
It isn't true. You weren't there. You don't know how it was.

But no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to convince myself. Not entirely anyhow. All I could think of was that old riddle about a tree falling in a forest. If there's no one to hear it, does its falling still make a sound?

If the only proof of her existence lay in Jo O'Connor's heart, a thing she'd never really shared with anyone, who was to say she'd ever existed at all?

“I can't believe you talked me into this,” Elaine said.

“I didn't talk you into it. You volunteered.”

“Only because I knew you'd do it without me if I didn't go along.”

“I have to do this. It's the only way,” I said.

It was Monday morning and we were in the Little Theater, right before Drama class. Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning following my conversation with Mark London followed by my nightmare, I'd finally figured out what I had to do. The way to lay Jo O'Connor's ghost to rest.
Paradoxically, I'd decided it wasn't to finish her off, as I'd originally envisioned.

It was to bring her back for one last appearance instead.

Along about four a.m., I'd come to the inescapable conclusion that the only way for Jo's ghost to fade away was to have her show up again. She could talk to Alex, tell him how much she appreciated everything he was doing for her, but relate how all the memorials in her honor were keeping her tied to the mortal plane. A thing that wasn't healthy for anyone.

The trick was making sure Alex was in the right place at the right time for the ghostly manifestation to occur. And making sure he was alone. Arranging this was something I didn't feel I could do all on my own, so I'd enlisted Elaine's reluctant help. Extremely reluctant help.

“Are you out of your mind?” she'd all but yelled early that morning when I'd put our secret contact plan to work and managed to reach her on the phone. “That's insane. It'll never work. It's a terrible idea. In fact, it may be the worst idea I've ever heard.”

“Stop exaggerating,” I'd said into the phone. “I've been thinking about this all night, Elaine. I can't be just a ghost. There's got to be more to me than that.”

I could feel my voice rising hysterically.

“Of course there's more to you than being a ghost,” Elaine said, her own voice calming. “Who put that ridiculous idea into your head?”

“Mark London,” I confessed.

Elaine gave a snort. “I knew that guy was bad news,” she said. “I wouldn't take any action based on his opinion, if I were you.”

“Look, Elaine. I really have thought about this all night,” I said. “This obsession with Jo's ghost has got to stop. She's the only one who can make that happen, but she can't do it on her own. She needs your help.
I
need your help. Please don't let me—us—down.”

“That was an extremely low blow,” Elaine said. “And stop talking about yourself as if you're more than one person. You're creeping me out.”

“I am more than one person,” I said. “And they both have the same question: Was that a yes or a no?”

Elaine was silent for a moment. “Yes, I will help. No, I won't let you down,” she finally said. “But I want to go on record as officially saying I think this idea completely bites and you'll live to regret it.”

“Look on the bright side, then,” I said. “You'll get to say I told you so. Okay, here's what I need you to do. . . . ”

A few sentences later the plan was in place. Elaine would ask Alex to meet her in the Little Theater before Drama. It would actually be easier for them to be alone than it sounds. The Beacon schedule called for this sort of mini-break to occur between second and third periods. Students got an extra fifteen minutes. Most used the break to grab a mid-morning snack before ambling along to the next class.

When a deplorable tendency toward lateness for third period had developed, the school authorities had threatened to cancel the break entirely. This had resulted in to-the-minute promptness. In fact, it had become something of a schoolwide contest to see who could cut it the closest and still officially be on time. It was a pretty safe bet
that no one would be heading to the Little Theater early.

Even Mr. Barnes would be assisting the plan, although he didn't know it. Like clockwork, he used the break to go for a quick latte. He'd be out of the building for those fifteen minutes. The combination of circumstances wouldn't buy me a lot of time, it was true, but I was hoping it would be enough to convince Alex it was time to let Jo O'Connor go.

“How do I look?” I asked Elaine now.

She studied me for a moment. “Like a cross between a cat burglar and a Kabuki performer,” she said. “Without the white makeup.”

“That's very helpful. Thanks so much,” I said.

Since there wasn't a lot of time to put my plan into action, I'd decided to make use of Claire Calloway's fashion sense to help Jo's ghost show up. The theory was that I, Jo, would materialize from between the black masking curtains that hung at the back of the stage. To that end, I hadn't changed my clothes, but I had tucked Claire's long hair up inside a black nylon stocking.

The idea was to get Alex to focus on the most recognizable thing about me: my face. Elaine had already made a quick trip to the light booth to supply suitable ghostly illumination. The auditorium lights were off. Only the lights at the back of the stage were on, down low.

I'd make my appearance, plead with Alex to let me move on, then disappear with a little more lighting help from Elaine. If that didn't work, I wasn't quite sure what I'd do.

Don't think like that. Think positive,
I thought.
This is going to work. It's got to.

“Okay, I think I'm set,” I said. “You'd better get up to the booth. Alex should be here any minute.”

“All right,” Elaine said. She turned to go, her expression stony. I knew that look. It's the look Elaine's face gets when she's really upset about something and either can't or won't talk about it.

“Elaine,” I said.

She turned back. “What?”

“I know you don't want to do this, but you're doing it anyway. So I just want to say, thanks.”

Her expression softened. “You're welcome. Just remember, you owe me one.”

“As if you'd let me forget.”

A quick smile flitted across Elaine's features as she turned toward the booth once more.

“Elaine? Are you there?” we suddenly heard a voice call out.

For one split second both Elaine and I froze. “Omigod. That's Alex,” I said. “Get up to the booth. Hurry. Go.”

Elaine sprinted up a side aisle toward the tech booth while I dashed to the back of the stage. I'd just made it behind the curtains when I heard Alex's voice once more.

“Elaine?”

All of a sudden I could hear the stage lights start to make the funny humming sound that sometimes happens when the levels change. I knew Elaine had made it safely to the booth. From there she'd literally set the stage. The rest was up to me.

“Alex,” I moaned. “Aleeex.”

“Elaine, what's going on? Where are you?” Alex asked. “And by the way, that isn't very funny.”

Great,
I thought. My less-than-sterling
impersonation of my own ghost had so far succeeded only in making Alex annoyed. If I couldn't do better than that, I'd really be sunk.