Stay (17 page)

“You have more ghost action right where you work,” Finn said.

“Sylvie Genovese?” I guess in some ways she did seem

haunted.

Finn laughed. “Eliza Bishop. The Captain’s wife? People

really
have
seen her. My mother, and she doesn’t even believe in

that shit. Lots of other people. They hear her in the house. They

see her up on the tower. She flung herself off of there after the

old guy drowned at sea.”

“I read about it. I was practically
quizzed
on it. Guess I better

keep my eyes open for her.”

“The sailors down there . . .” He gestured out toward the black

waters. “People say they hear them moaning. Wind and a little

imagination, right? There’s this guy. Randy Vishner. Fisherman?

He claims they overturned his boat, grabbed his legs, and yanked

him down. But Randy Vishner . . .” He tipped his hand up as if

drinking from a bottle.

“’This is your brain. This is your brain on scotch,’” I said.

“Exactly. Alcohol hauntings.”

“We have a ghost near us, supposedly, at home,” I said.

“Greenlake. This lake in the middle of the city? A girl was mur-

21 Shakti always said we should have a guy we wanted to keep shaving our legs for. I

knew what she meant.

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dered there, by her boyfriend. You’re supposed to see her at night

when you go

there to make out.” 22*

“That’ll kill the mood. Pardon the pun,” Finn said.

Finn had found my hand again. I was glad. It was stupid, I

know, but all that talk gave me the creeps. Especially sitting there

in the darkness, where the night’s black sea looked capable of dif-

ferent things than the day’s blue one. There were bodies under

that water, drowned ships. I felt little prickles of nerves. That

tingle that goes up your back, even when there’s no good reason

for it. I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed mine back.

We talked about my plans now that I’d graduated, plans I was

still unsure about. I’d gotten off track last year with everything

that happened. I’d missed acceptance deadlines. But all I told

Finn was that I was taking a year off before I went to school. He

had gone away for two years himself but was back home again.

He was thinking about staying. He loved being with his family

and running the business. We talked about other things. Music.

Learning to drive. Being an only child. Loving fried foods and

orange juice and the crunchy layer of frosting that a cupcake gets.

I told him about my second grade teacher, Miss Spelling. How

much I loved that name.23*

The radio that had been playing was off now. It was quiet

22 My father would mention Jennifer Riley to me, because she was a real girl with a real

boyfriend (who was still in jail somewhere in California). She’d tried to break it off. He

used a knife. One of the synonyms for “obsession,” after all, is “to haunt.”

23 Okay, I’m lame, but I still like it. Especially how Miss Spelling is a misspelling.

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between us, too. Finn was looking in my eyes like he’d found

something good there, and I was looking back in his. His face had

started to look familiar to me. I wanted to kiss him so bad, and

you could feel that space where you knew it was going to happen.

I looked at his mouth. I wanted to lean in to it. Instead, my own

voice surprised me.

“I want to kiss you, but I want to look forward to the thought

of kissing you for a while first.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “Exactly.”

We were whispering. It might have been one of those rare,

perfect moments. We sat there in it, taking it in, until he stood

up. “Come on,” he said. “It’s getting late.”

He walked me back to my car. He kissed my hair good-bye.

He said something into it very quietly. “Shy girl.”

I had been a shy girl, a cautious, mostly quiet one, but I had

been renamed and renamed again, redefined until I couldn’t see

myself anymore. I had been bold and then I had been
forward
,

and then, when things got worse and I had been twisted into the

unrecognizable, I had been only lost. But with that word, “shy”—

was returned to myself again.

My father wasn’t home yet when I got there. We’d forgotten to

leave a light on, and the house was all gray shadows and empti-

ness. I let myself in. I felt nervous out there all alone. I could

hear the wind whistling around the roof, the thrash of the waves.

I undressed, with that silly, strange feeling that someone was

watching. I thought about ghosts and the rest of those who can’t

let go. I tried to fall asleep, but I only lay awake with my eyes

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Deb Caletti

open. I thought about that huge, heavy paperweight under my

father’s bed, wishing it were under my own. I had that same old

feeling you had when you were a kid, when you needed to get up

to pee but were too afraid. I used to think those robbers were in

the hall, waiting, but now I thought of the widows of sea captains

and dead girls.

I told myself how stupid I was being, and I got up, and the

floor was cold under my feet, and my long T-shirt made me feel

too exposed. My ankles were bare. My legs. I crept down the hall.

I was actually creeping, so I might not disturb whatever—whom-

ever—might be disturbed. I reached the bathroom and that’s

when I screamed. I actually screamed, stupid, stupid—it was my

father in his white T-shirt, heading the same direction with the

quietest of steps.

“Clara!” he said.

“Oh, God, Dad, I’m sorry.” I had my hand to my chest.

“
I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Jesus, honey. Next time I’ll make more noise.”

“I guess I got a little creeped out here on my own.” We faced

each other in the hall. My heart was still doing this mad
babamp

babamp
. Something was different, though. I squinted in the dark-

ness. I took a good look at him for the first time. “Are you okay?”

“She’s not married,” he said. “Never has been. She only uses

‘Mrs.’ so people will keep their distance.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” He flipped the bathroom light on,

and we both blinked in the sudden brightness. Maybe it was the

shock of instant illumination, but it looked like his olive skin had

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turned pale. He searched around for that aspirin bottle again, as

if he’d forgotten where he’d put it.

He turned to me, stared. “It’s just that . . .”

He looked ill. “What? Are you going to be sick?”

“I could maybe love this woman,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say or what to think. In the hall, I had

been scared enough to scream, but right then, as he stood there

holding that bottle, his eyes hollow, he was the one who looked

like he’d seen a ghost.

* 133 *

Christian and I were the kind of couple people start

thinking of as one person. Our names came together when anyone

spoke about either of us. Christian and Clara.
ChristianandClara
.

We saw all of the seasons and the holidays and were going on our

second view of them together. We had our second Christmas. He

gave me this necklace with intertwined C’s. I gave him a leather

wristband24* he never took off as long as I knew him. It wasn’t

really his type, but he wore it anyway. I was with him when Mr.

Hooper got sick. We visited him in the hospital in that blue and

white gown, and then he was back home again in his jogging

suit and scuffers, more thin and quiet than before. Christian and

I made plans to go to college together. I was there for him after

24 Funny how we don’t call these bracelets even though they are bracelets.

Stay

he had this big blowout with his stepfather. We had history. That

leaf he had given me had long ago turned brown and crunchy and

layered with meaning. We had daily
routine
.

Routine is cement for some people, coziness made solid,

certainty building more certainty. For others, routine cracks

surfaces with its weight, creating a boredom that presses down

and down until something breaks. You’d understand either of

those things, wouldn’t you? The settling in or the boredom of

settling in? But what I didn’t understand was this thing that

happened—when routine caused a person more fear. Because

the more Christian came to rely on me, to feel I was the “per-

fect” person for him, the more convinced he became that he

would lose me. And the more he was afraid of losing me, the

more paranoid he got and the more he made sure that what

would happen next was what he feared most.

And what a shame it was. It was all so
needless
. I loved him.

The only one who changed that was Christian himself.

Are you wearing that?

I guess I am, since I have it on.

I can practically see your nipples.

It’s hard to stand up for yourself when you are burning with

shame.

I’ve heard that people stay in bad situations because a relation-

ship like that gets turned up by degrees. It is said that a frog will

jump out of a pot of boiling water. Place him in a pot and turn it

up a little at a time, and he will stay until he is boiled to death. Us

frogs understand this.

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Deb Caletti

Why you didn’t tell me you were going to the library?
He asked

me once.

I didn’t know. I just decided.

You just decided as you were driving past? When it’s ten minutes

out of your way?

It’s not logical, Christian. It’s not some sort of math equation you

can find a flaw in. I decided, I went.

A person doesn’t mention a plan they have, it makes you wonder

if they have something to hide.

Christian, listen. You’ve got to stop this. You’ve got to knock this

off. All this jealous stuff, distrust—it doesn’t look good on you. It’s

unattractive. You’re wrecking things.
It wasn’t the first time I said it.

I said it all the time. The anger, though, it was just another inef-

fective tool in the box with the other ways I dealt with Christian’s

jealousy. It lay there uselessly along with the reassurance and

the joking and the diversion, the ways I kept my eyes down, the

clothes I wore or didn’t wear anymore.

I’m sorry, Clara. You’re right. You are. I am so sorry. I don’t

deserve you.

It was sometime around February. Cold enough that every-

thing was white with frost, even in the afternoon. I was glad

Christian was coming to pick me up from school. I hate the cold. I

feel it deep in my bones in a way I’m not sure everyone does. The

bell had rung and there was the slamming of locker doors and the

mix of people lingering to stay and people hurrying to go. I was

heading out the main entrance of school. A few guys were ahead

of me, and I saw him there. Dylan Ricks. His friend, Jake McNeal,

stopped to tie his shoe, and they all stopped and Dylan saw me.

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“Hey,” he said.

The whole scene suddenly played out in my mind. Christian

would be waiting at the curb in his car. He would remember

Dylan from the time I’d pointed him out long ago, before I knew

not to. Christian would see Dylan talking to me and would watch

my own lips move, and I would have to look at Dylan, and I

knew what that would mean. So I just brushed past Dylan like

I didn’t notice him there right in front of me, which was stupid

and embarrassing. And when I got to the car, I understood that I

was right; Christian’s face was tight and hard, and that rightness

made me mad in a way it hadn’t before. I had guessed it and now

that’s what was happening, and when you start predicting things

like that, you realize you’ve reached some end point of knowing.

This is how it will always be and will always be and will always be.

It’s the dark side of knowing how he’ll order his coffee and that

he’ll get stressed when he’s late because he always gets stressed

when he’s late.

“I thought you said you never saw Dylan.” The car was idling.

Christian flicked off the heat with an angry hand even though it

was freezing. “You lied to me.”

Which was true. I saw Dylan every day in Spanish. I borrowed

a pen from him when mine started leaking ink. He told me when

his dog died, because I’d really liked that dog.

“You probably lied about sleeping with him, too,” Christian

said. “You’re the kind of person that
would
sleep with him.”

Also true.

I started to realize that anything I did, any way I could have

handled this—well, I couldn’t win. No matter what. Each way

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Deb Caletti