Ninth Key (5 page)

“Why on earth,” my mother said, “would you want to cancel the spring dance, Susie?”

“Because it’s a stupid waste of our very limited funds,” I said.

“But a dance,” my mother protested. “I always loved going to school dances when I was your age.”

That, I wanted to say, is because you always had a
date
, Mom. Because you were pretty and nice and boys
liked
you. You weren’t a pathological freak, like I am, with fungus hands and a secret ability to talk to the dead.

Instead, I said, “Well, you’d have been in the minority in our class. My motion was seconded and passed by twenty-seven votes.”

“Well,” my mother said. “What are you going to do with the money instead?”

“Kegger,” I said, shooting a look at Dopey.

“Don’t even joke about that,” my mother said, sternly. “I’m very concerned about the amount of teen drinking that goes on around here.” My mother is a television news reporter. She does the morning news on a local station out of Monterey. Her best thing is looking grave while reading off a TelePrompTer about grisly auto accidents. “I don’t like it. It isn’t like back in New York. There, none of your friends drove, so it didn’t matter so much. But here…well, everyone drives.”

“Except Suze,” Dopey said. He seemed to feel it was his duty to rub in the fact that although I am sixteen, I don’t have a license yet. Or even, for that matter, a learner’s permit. As if driving were the most important thing in the world. As if my time was not already fully occupied with school, my recent appointment as vice president of the Mission Academy’s sophomore class, and saving the lost souls of the undead.

“What are you
really
going to do with the money?” my mother asked.

I shrugged. “We have to raise money to replace that statue of our founding father, Junipero Serra, before the Archbishop’s visit next month.”

“Oh,” my mother said. “Of course. The statue that was vandalized.”

Vandalized. Yeah, right. That’s what everyone was going around saying, of course. But that statue hadn’t been vandalized. What had happened to it was, this ghost who was trying to kill me severed the statue’s head and tried to use it as a bowling ball.

And I was supposed to be the pin.

“Quesadillas,” Andy said, coming over to the table with a bunch of them on a tray. “Get ’em while they’re hot.”

What ensued was such chaos that I could only sit, Max’s head still on my lap, and watch in horror. When it was over every single quesadilla was gone, but my plate and my mom’s plate were still empty. After a while, Andy noticed this, put his fork down and said, in an angry way, “Hey, guys! Did it ever occur to you to wait to take seconds until everyone at the table had had their first serving?”

Apparently, it had not. Sleepy, Dopey, and Doc looked sheepishly down at their plates.

“I’m sorry,” Doc said, holding his plate, cheese and salsa dripping from it, toward my mother. “You can have some of mine.”

My mother looked a little queasy. “No, thank you, David,” she said. “I’ll just stick with salad, I think.”

“Suze,” Andy said, putting his napkin on the table. “I’m gonna make you the cheesiest quesadilla you ever —”

I shoved Max’s head out of the way and was up before Andy could get out of his seat. “You know what,” I said. “Don’t bother. I really think I’ll just have some cereal, if that’s okay.”

Andy looked hurt. “Suze,” he said, “it’s no trouble —”

“No, really,” I said. “I was gonna do my kickboxing tape later, anyway, and a lot of cheese’ll just weigh me down.”

“But,” Andy said, “I’m making more, anyway….”

He looked so pathetic, I had no choice but to say, “Well, I’ll try one. But for right now, finish what’s on your plate, and I’ll just go and get some cereal.”

As I was talking, I’d been backing out of the room. Once I was safely in the kitchen, Max at my heels — he was no dummy, he knew he wasn’t going to get a crumb out of those guys in there: I was Max’s ticket to people food — I got out a box of cereal and a bowl, then opened the fridge to get some milk. That was when I heard a soft voice behind me whisper, “Suze.”

I whipped around. I didn’t need to see Max slinking from the kitchen with his tail between his legs to know that I was in the presence of another member of that exclusive club known as the Undead.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Jeez, Dad.” I slammed the fridge door closed. “I told you not to do that.”

My father — or the ghost of my father, I should say — was leaning against the kitchen counter, his arms folded across his chest. He looked smug. He always looks smug when he manages to materialize behind my back and scare the living daylights out of me.

“So,” he said, as casually as if we were talking over lattes in a coffee shop. “How’s it going, kiddo?”

I glared at him. My dad looked exactly like he always had back when he used to make his surprise visits to our apartment in Brooklyn. He was wearing the outfit he’d been in when he died, a pair of gray sweatpants and a blue shirt that had
HOMEPORT, MENEMSHA, FRESH SEAFOOD ALL YEAR ROUND
written on it.

“Dad,” I said. “Where have you been? And what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be haunting the new tenants back in our apartment in Brooklyn?”

“They’re boring,” my dad said. “Coupla yup-pies. Goat cheese and cabernet sauvignon, that’s all they ever talk about. Thought I’d see how you and your mom were getting on.” He was peering out of the pass-through Andy had put in when he was trying to update the kitchen from the 1850s-style decor that had existed when he and my mom bought it.

“That him?” my dad wanted to know. “Guy with the — what is that, anyway?”

“It’s a quesadilla,” I said. “And yeah, that’s him.” I grabbed my dad’s arm, and dragged him to the center island so he couldn’t see them anymore. I had to talk in a whisper to make sure no one overheard me. “Is that why you’re here? To spy on Mom and her new husband?”

“No,” my dad said, looking indignant. “I’ve got a message for you. But I’ll admit, I did want to drop by and check out the lay of the land, make sure he’s good enough for her. This Andy guy, I mean.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Dad, I thought we’d been through all this. You were supposed to move on, remember?”

He shook his head, trying for his sad puppy-dog face, thinking it might make me back down. “I tried, Suze,” he said, woefully. “I really did. But I can’t.”

I eyed him skeptically. Did I mention that in life, my dad had been a criminal lawyer like his mother? He was about as good an actor as Lassie. He could do sad puppy-dog like nobody’s business.

“Why, Dad?” I asked, pointedly. “What’s holding you back? Mom’s happy. I swear she is. It’s enough to make you want to puke, she’s so happy. And I’m doing fine, I really am. So what’s keeping you here?”

He sighed sadly. “You
say
you’re fine, Suze,” he said. “But you aren’t
happy.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Not that again. You know what would make me happy, Dad? If you’d move on. That’s what would make me happy. You can’t spend your afterlife following me around worrying about me.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” I hissed, through gritted teeth. “You’re going to drive me crazy.”

He blinked sadly. “You don’t love me anymore, is that it, kiddo? All right. I can take a hint. Maybe I’ll go haunt Grandma for a while. She’s not as much fun because she can’t see me, but maybe if I rattle a few doors —”

“Dad!” I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “Look. What’s the message?”

“Message?” He blinked, and then went, “Oh, yeah. The message.” Suddenly, he looked serious. “I understand you tried to contact a man today.”

I narrowed my eyes at him suspiciously. “Red Beaumont,” I said. “Yeah, I did. So?”

“This is not a guy you want to be messing around with, Susie,” my dad said.

“Uh-huh. And why not?”

“I can’t tell you why not,” my dad said. “Just be careful.”

I stared at him. I mean, really. How annoying can you get? “Thanks for the enigmatic warning, Dad,” I said. “That really helps.”

“I’m sorry, Suze,” my dad said. “Really, I am. But you know how this stuff works. I don’t get the whole story, just…feelings. And my feeling on this Beaumont guy is that you should stay away. Far, far away.”

“Well, I can’t do that,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Suze,” my dad said. “This isn’t one you should take on alone.”

“But I’m not alone, Dad,” I said. “I’ve got —”

I hesitated. Jesse, I’d almost said.

You would think my dad already knew about him. I mean, if he knew about Red Beaumont, why didn’t he know about Jesse?

But apparently he didn’t. Know about Jesse, I mean. Because if he had, you could bet I would have heard about it. I mean, come on, a guy who wouldn’t get out of my bedroom? Dads hate that.

So I said, “Look, I’ve got Father Dominic.”

“No,” my dad said. “This one’s not for him, either.”

I glared at him. “Hey,” I said. “How do
you
know about Father Dom? Dad, have you been spying on me?”

My dad looked sheepish. “The word
spying
has such negative connotations,” he said. “I was just checking up on you, is all. Can you blame a guy for wanting to check up on his little girl?”

“Check up on me? Dad, how much checking up on me have you done?”

“Well,” he said, “I’ll tell you something. I’m not thrilled about this Jesse character.”

“Dad!”

“Well, whaddya want me to say?” My dad held out his arms in a so-sue-me gesture. “The guy’s practically living with you. It’s not right. I mean, you’re a very young girl.”

“He’s deceased, Dad, remember? It’s not like my virtue’s in any danger here.” Unfortunately.

“But how’re you supposed to change clothes and stuff with a
boy
in the room?” My dad, as usual, had cut to the chase. “I don’t like it. And I’m gonna have a word with him. You, in the meantime, are gonna stay away from this Mr. Red. You got that?”

I shook my head. “Dad, you don’t understand. Jesse and I have it all worked out. I don’t —”

“I mean it, Susannah.”

When my dad called me Susannah, he meant business.

I rolled my eyes. “All right, Dad. But about Jesse. Please don’t say anything to him. He’s had it kind of tough, you know? I mean, he pretty much died before he ever really got a chance to live.”

“Hey,” my dad said, giving me one of his big, innocent smiles. “Have I ever let you down before, sweetheart?”

Yes
, I wanted to say. Plenty of times. Where had he been, for instance, last month when I’d been so nervous about moving to a new state, starting at a new school, living with a bunch of people I barely knew? Where had he been just last week when one of his cohorts had been trying to kill me? And where had he been Saturday night when I’d stumbled into all that poison oak?

But I didn’t say what I wanted to. Instead, I said what I felt like I had to. This is what you do with family members.

“No, Dad,” I said. “You never let me down.”

He gave me a big hug, then disappeared as abruptly as he’d shown up. I was calmly pouring cereal into a bowl when my mom came into the kitchen and switched on the overhead light.

“Honey?” she said, looking concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Sure, Mom,” I said. I shoveled some cereal — dry — into my mouth. “Why?”

“I thought —” My mother was peering at me curiously. “Honey, I thought I heard you say, um. Well. I thought I heard you talking to…Did you say the word
dad
?”

I chewed. I was totally used to this kind of thing. “I said bad. The milk in the fridge. I think it’s gone bad.”

My mother looked immensely relieved. The thing is, she’s caught me talking to Dad more times than I can count. She probably thinks I’m a mental case. Back in New York she used to send me to her therapist, who told her I wasn’t a mental case, just a teenager. Boy, did I pull one over on old Doc Mendelsohn, let me tell you.

But I had to feel sorry for my mom, in a way. I mean, she’s a nice lady and doesn’t deserve to have a mediator for a daughter. I know I’ve always been a bit of a disappointment to her. When I turned fourteen, she got me my own phone line, thinking so many boys would be calling me, her friends would never be able to get through. You can imagine how disappointed she was when nobody except my best friend, Gina, ever called me on my private line, and then it was usually only to tell me about the dates
she’d
been on. The boys in my old neighborhood were never much interested in asking
me
out.

“Well,” my mom said, brightly. “If the milk’s bad, I guess you have no choice but to try one of Andy’s quesadillas.”

“Great,” I groaned. “Mom, you do understand that around here, it’s swimsuit season all year round? We can’t just pig out in the winter like we used to back home.”

My mom sighed sort of sadly. “Do you really hate it here that much, honey?”

I looked at her like she was the crazy one, for a change. “What do you mean? What makes you think I hate it here?”

“You. You just referred to Brooklyn as ‘back home.’”

“Well,” I said, embarrassed. “That doesn’t mean I hate it here. It just isn’t home yet.”

“What do you need to make it feel that way?” My mom pushed some of my hair from my eyes. “What can I do to make this feel like home to you?”

“God, Mom,” I said, ducking out from beneath her fingers. “Nothing, okay? I’ll get used to it. Just give me a chance.”

My mom wasn’t buying it, though. “You miss Gina, don’t you? You haven’t made any really close friends here, I’ve noticed. Not like Gina. Would you like it if she came for a visit?”

I couldn’t imagine Gina, with her leather pants, pierced tongue, and extension braids, in Carmel, California, where wearing khakis and a sweater set is practically enforced by law.

I said, “I guess that would be nice.”

It didn’t seem very likely, though. Gina’s parents don’t have very much money, so it wasn’t as if they could just send her off to California like it was nothing. I would have liked to see Gina taking on Kelly Prescott, though. Hair extensions, I was quite certain, were going to fly.