Shadow of a Life (20 page)

“
Yeah, I guess I’ll go with
you,” Camille grumbled. They excused themselves and I found myself
alone with Peter on the patio swing. We gently kicked our legs and
swung back and forth. The light breeze blew my hair around and
brought with it the faint smell of the last of the lilac blooms.
The birds were chirping—or was it angels singing—and I smiled. We
weren’t alone for long before Dad reappeared and asked what we’d
done to chase away our other friends.

“
I was just about to make
sandwiches for everyone,” he said.

“
Thanks, Dad, but Cam had to
get home. Their family has a yearly Memorial Day barbecue at her
house.”

“
Oh, that’s right. I forgot
they do that. Can I make the two of you something to
eat?”

“
Sure. Thanks.”

Dad brought ham sandwiches and a green
salad out to the patio table and the three of us began to eat. He
and Peter conversed easily, but I found myself continuously
blushing. I thought I’d gotten past that. I think it had something
to do with my dad seeing me with a boy for the first time. I
struggled to hide how I felt about Peter, and I think Dad realized
that I wasn’t his innocent little girl anymore. I was relieved when
Sophia returned and we had an excuse to leave.

I’d previously thought Sophia didn’t
need improving, but when she came back she was absolutely stunning
in an orange sundress with little white flowers embroidered on the
hem. Her hair was curled and gently cascaded down her back, tied
with an orange ribbon the color of her dress. I was excited for
her, but she was a nervous wreck, continuously clasping and
unclasping her hands.

We piled into her car with
Peter riding shotgun. I was getting anxious myself and my palms
began to sweat. I worried that maybe Nick had been making up
stories and was just trying to find a way to ferret Sophia
out.
What if we show up at the football
field to find the Goodwins waiting for us?
I would feel horrible if I’d led Sophia into more pain and
possibly danger.

The football field looked a lot
different than it did when school was in session and games were
being played. It was usually full of students and laughter and
noise. That afternoon it was eerily quiet. Sophia parked her car
near one of the entrances and we all climbed out. I unlatched the
gate separating the parking lot from the bleachers and field. I
wasn’t really sure how to proceed so I led our little group out to
the fifty yard line and we looked around, waiting for something to
happen.

I saw him first. He appeared about ten
feet behind us, looking just as nervous as Sophia. He wore dark
blue jeans and a button up shirt. His dark hair was combed in a
stylish haphazard way. He looked like a male model on the cover of
some magazine standing there with such a serious look on his face.
He gave me a questioning look and I smiled and nodded, trying to
assure him that it was okay.

“
Sophia?”

She closed her eyes before turning
around.

“
Nick?”

Twelve and a half decades melted away
in just moments. Nick closed the distance between them in the blink
of an eye and then they were embracing—laughing, crying,
hugging.

*****

I watched the happy couple for a
moment before Peter grabbed my hand and gently pulled me
away.

“
Let’s leave them alone for
a while,” he said.

I thought he would let go of my hand
once he got my attention, but he held it all the way to the
bleachers and my heart fluttered the entire way. I hoped that my
palms wouldn’t start sweating again. We walked up the stairs and
sat at the top of the stadium, watching Nick and Sophia below
us.

“
Do you think that reuniting
them was enough? If this was their way of extrication, how long
before they disappear? Do they just vanish?” Peter
asked.

“
I have no idea.” I
hesitated. “This might sound stupid, but I feel like this is just
the beginning. I felt drawn to both of them, and they felt drawn to
me, but I don’t feel like it’s ended yet. I still have this burning
desire to help them, but now that they’re together I’m scared that
one of them is going to finish their business and leave while the
other one is still here. I don’t want them to be hurt even more by
having to leave each other again.”

We were interrupted by the beeping of
my cell phone alerting me that I had a new text. It was Camille, of
course, wondering if we’d found Nick yet.

“
Do you two ever do anything
without each other?” Peter asked.

I thought about it for a second. “Not
really.”

He chuckled. “What’s going to happen
when you end up going to different colleges or one of you gets
married before the other one?”

It was my turn to laugh. “Actually, we
both plan on going to Newton University since my dad works there .
. . and maybe we’ll marry twins. Don’t worry, though, both of those
things are a loooong way off. Cam and I can think about it
later.”

“
How exactly did you two
meet?”

“
In first grade—long before
you even moved here. We were assigned to sit next to each other on
the first day of Mrs. Novak’s class.”

“
Girls become closer to each
other than boys ever do.”

“
Cam is almost like a sister
to me, I think. I wouldn’t really know since I don’t actually have
any siblings.”

“
I don’t have any siblings
either, but you don’t find me constantly attached to any of my
friends.”

“
Does it bother you that
we’re so close?”

He looked away. “No. I’ve just noticed
that it’s hard for anyone to ever talk to you without Camille being
there. She talks a lot more than you do and sometimes it’s just
nice to hear what you have to say.”

“
Thanks—I think. Camille’s
not here now, what do you want to talk about?”

“
Hmm . . . good question.”
We sat in silence for a moment while Peter contemplated his subject
matter.

I thought of all the classes we’d
shared, all the field trips we’d gone on together, and all the
childhood memories that were ingrained in my mind. For some reason,
I kept thinking of all the comedic moments. Apparently Peter did,
too.

“
Remember that time in sixth
grade when Mrs. Anderson had toilet paper trailing from beneath her
skirt all through class?” he asked.

I laughed. “How could I forget? No one
had the guts to tell her. I don’t think anyone learned anything all
day because we were so preoccupied with the TP dangling from her
backside.”

“
Do you think it eventually
fell out on its own or did she find it when she went home that
night and put her pajamas on? She was probably
humiliated.”

“
Probably. I would’ve been
mortified for sure. If it had happened to me, I would have tried to
convince my dad that we needed to move—to another
state.”

“
I’m sure we all had our
fair share of embarrassing moments growing up.”

“
Oh come on, I had more than
my fair share.”

“
What did you ever do that
was embarrassing?”

“
Uh-uh. You
first.”

“
Okay. Let me think.” He
tapped his fingers on the bleacher. “I know. One time I was at the
park with a bunch of friends. We hadn’t been there in a while and I
decided to go down the slide. I climbed to the top and announced to
everyone down below that I would be going down the slide head
first. I got down on my stomach and pushed myself forward—only my
shorts got caught on the handrail and they came off. I went all the
way down the slide without pants . . . and everyone
watching.”

I laughed so hard I could barely sit
upright. It was a good thing I didn’t have to pee.

“
When was this?” I managed
to ask between giggles.

Peter looked a little sheepish. “I
wish I could say it was when I was young, but I’ll be honest—it was
last summer.”

I laughed even harder. “I think that’s
the greatest story I’ve ever heard.”

“
What about you? It’s your
turn to tell me something embarrassing.”

I turned red. I’d hoped we could skip
over my embarrassing moments. “Okay. One time in fifth grade I went
to a fall carnival up in Boston with Camille’s family. We pigged
out on all the fried foods they have at those kinds of places and
then rode a bunch of rides. I was starting to feel kind of crappy,
but we went on the Gravitron anyway. I totally puked when we got
off.”

“
Come on. You’ve got to have
something more embarrassing than that. Everyone pukes at
carnivals.”

“
Yeah, well, I puked all
over Camille’s dad.”

“
Eww. Okay, that’s pretty
bad. I can just see the look on Mr. Spencer’s face. He’s such a
serious guy.”

Peter and I spent the next
half hour talking about school and memories of growing up in
Marion. Every once in a while we glanced down at the field where
the young lovers sat and talked. I saw them kiss a couple of times,
but I didn’t say anything about it to Peter. That was a subject I
did
not
want to
bring up with him.

“
Where’d they go?” Peter
asked a while later, looking down at the field where Nick and
Sophia had been sitting.

I looked down to see that
they were no longer on the overgrown fifty yard line. Had something
happened to them? What if they’d finished their business and they
were gone forever?
I didn’t get to say
good-bye.
I stood up in a panic just as
they both reappeared right in front of Peter and me, holding each
other’s hand tightly.

I breathed a sigh of relief.
“So?”

“
We’re good,” Sophia said,
looking up into Nick’s eyes.

“
Jamie, I can’t believe this
has happened. I’m so glad I met you yesterday.” Nick turned to
Peter and stuck out his hand, introducing himself. “Hi. I’m Nick
Trenton.”

“
Peter Ashby. I’m a friend
of Jamie’s.”

“
So what do we do now? How
do we know if you guys have finished your business?” I
asked.

“
I’ve never actually seen it
happen before, but Nick says he was with someone once when they
extricated. They described a pulling sensation and then they only
had a few moments before they disappeared. He said their aura
disappeared with them,” Sophia answered.

“
Do either of you feel a
pulling sensation?” I was scared to ask.

“
Nope,” Nick
responded.

“
Good. I mean, I wouldn’t
want you to have to leave each other already. What do we do
now?”

Sophia and Nick exchanged
glances again. “We’re going to take a couple of days and go down to
Haiti together. I want to see the wreckage of the
Mary Celeste
.”

“
That’s probably a good
idea. I can keep looking into things here while you’re gone. Maybe
I’ll uncover something that will help us—if you come
back.”

We all knew that the “if” was the most
loaded word of that sentence.

“
When will you leave? What
kind of travel arrangements do you need to make first?” Peter
asked.

Sophia laughed in her tinkling way.
“We’re ghosts, remember. All we have to do is pick a flight and hop
on. Customs can’t hold us back. I really don’t think we’ll be gone
for more than a couple of days, but we thought we should leave as
soon as possible, before the Goodwins find either of
us.”

“
I understand.”

“
Don’t worry. We’ll drop you
off at home first,” Nick teased. I was thankful that our
relationship felt so natural already.

On the drive back to our neighborhood
Peter sat in the back with me while Nick took his new place in the
front. He kept his hand on Sophia’s knee as if she would disappear
again if he wasn’t touching her. My hand lay on the seat next to me
and Peter reached over and covered it with his own, giving it a
little squeeze. I turned in surprise and he smiled and winked.
Neither of us moved our hands and we sat in silence, no words
needing to be exchanged, all the way to Peter’s house.

When we arrived at my home, Sophia and
Nick both got out. I hugged each of them tightly, not sure if that
was our final goodbye.

“
Keep me posted, will you?”
I said.

“
Of course. Don’t have too
much fun without us, either,” Nick said.

He opened the passenger side car door
for Sophia and helped her climb in before walking around and
getting in the driver’s seat. He was backing out of the driveway
when Sophia rolled down her window and called to me.

“
Hey, Jamie, text Camille
and tell her to meet me in her tree house in about ten minutes.
She’ll kill me again if I don’t let her meet Nick before we
leave.”

CHAPTER 15

I
lay on top of my bed, staring at the ceiling. It was the
middle of the night and I should have been sleeping, but I couldn’t
stop thinking about Sophia and the chance that I might never see
her again. Since she’d been around, my life suddenly had a purpose.
I tried to picture what it would be like when everything went back
to normal—whatever normal was—but I couldn’t do it. I predicted
that I would find myself pedaling to the library multiple times a
week again, but I didn’t think I would find the same joy in books
as I used to. Would Peter and I still hang out or would he go back
to being the casual acquaintance that he’d been before he got
caught up in the insane ghost business with me? Would I find myself
constantly looking over my shoulder for someone hiding in the
shadows?