Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (109 page)

“All right. But I’m pretty beat. I’ll probably just head home after dinner and call it an early night. Oh, hey. Are we still on for soup next Tuesday?”

“I’ll be there.”

We still volunteered at the Bend Community Center a couple of nights a month. Back in December, Mike had paid us to work at the soup kitchen a few hours a week. He said he couldn’t afford to keep that up all year, but some of us continued to go anyway.

When it was almost seven, I cleared off the tables and swept up. Then I grabbed a pound of Kona beans from the shelf, our most expensive coffee, and asked David to ring me up.

“You want me to wrap it with a little raffia bow on top? I’ll do it up nice.”

“Sweet,” I said.

I watched as he treated the bag of beans like they were diamond earrings from Tiffany’s. He always did the best wrapping out of all of us and people requested him when they were buying gifts.

“So did you, like, have a crush on him back when you were in school?” David asked.

“No, nothing like that. I knew him when I was 10 years old.”

“By the time I was 10 years old, I had a crush on every boy in the class.”

“Well, it wasn’t like that with us,” I said. “We were just friends. But we were good friends. Me, Jesse, and Derek.”

“I wish I had friends like that when I was a kid,” David said, crossing his arms. “My good ol’ days weren’t so good. Kids can be so mean. You were lucky, Abby Craig.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was. I still am.”

He finished wrapping the present and handed it to me just as Derek walked in, smiling.

CHAPTER 18

Derek and I left our cars parked at the café and walked down Bond. The chilly air felt good and it was nice to be on sidewalks that weren’t slippery.

Derek commented on the stores and restaurants that had opened since he had left. Most of them were new to him.

“This feels like a completely different place,” he said. “But it’s still cool. Nothing like L.A.”

“I imagine not.”

“Are you gonna stay?”

“I think so,” I said.

As we crossed the street, I thought about how much I had changed as well. That last year in high school, all I wanted to do was leave Bend in my rearview mirror. Forever. I hated it. It felt small and suffocating. But now, almost five years later, I was happy here. It was home.

We walked inside Brother Jon’s Ale House. The tantalizing aroma of charred meat met us as we stepped up to the hostess. I gave her my name, and we only had to wait a few minutes before we were led to a booth by the window.

We ordered a couple of Mirror Ponds and talked about the old days. Derek’s face was flushed, and I suddenly remembered those same bright cheeks he always had when he was a kid. Only they were rounder and larger back then. And now that he was seated across from me, I noticed that the sweater he was wearing was the same style too, the kind that had a cable pattern running vertically through it and a bulky, high neck.

“Didn’t you wear those sweaters in the fourth grade?” I asked.

He shrugged and then smiled, his eyes twinkling in the lights. At that moment he almost looked like a leprechaun.

“Good fashion never goes out of style,” he said.

“If you say so.”

“Thanks for the coffee beans. And I want to apologize again about last night. I’ve been feeling real diarrheal about it all day.”

“You know they have pills for that,” I said. “But seriously, it was no big deal. It was late. I must have caught you at a bad time.”

“Yeah.”

I waited for him to fill in the blanks, but he just sat there, staring at me and drinking from his glass.

“You know, sometimes those days don’t seem real,” he finally said. “That summer between fourth and fifth grade. There was something magical about it.”

“Yeah. That’s it exactly.”

We were quiet for a moment and I let the memory roll through me like a soft dream. The sky was a deep blue and Jesse and Derek were standing in the river with their shirts off, their backs lobster red, holding fishing poles and casting their lines out into the current. I was lying up on the grass under a shady tree, using my soccer ball as a pillow while I watched them.

During that summer we went to the same spot every day to fish, skip stones, and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We talked about the movies and music we liked. We talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I was going to be a vet, Derek a writer, and Jesse a basketball player.

The air was heavy and sweet from the pine trees and dandelion seeds swirled around us in the gentle breeze. It was one of those summers where everything touched by that hot sun was brought to full bloom. It
was
magical.

I could tell he was back there too, lost in the memory.

We lifted our glasses without saying anything and touched them together. Then we looked down at our menus.

“So, what do you recommend?” he said.

“Everything,” I said, clearing my throat. “The burgers and appetizers are particularly good.”

We ordered a plate of the goat cheese fritters and a couple of burgers with bacon and avocado. Derek got another beer, this time a Notorious Imperial IPA from Boneyard.

“The beer up here is so full of hops,” he said.

“When in Rome. It’s a hops hotbed up here.”

I told him a little bit about Ty and how he came home sometimes reeking of hops after a day of brewing over at 10 Barrel.

“So he brews for a living?” Derek said.

“Well, not full time. He’s also a waiter over there, and I’m hoping he’ll still be able to run rapids with me this summer. Sometimes he’s a ski instructor, too. He does a lot of things, depending on the season.”

“Cool. That sounds like a fun life. It must never get boring.”

I smiled.

“What about you?” I asked. “What do you have going on?”

“Well, when I’m not working for the old man, I have this novel I’m trying to write. I’m just in the beginning stages, but I think it’ll be good.”

I wanted to ask him what it was about, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to be like one of those people who ask what’s for dinner. He would tell me if he wanted me to know.

“Wow,” I said. “Talk about cool.”

“Well, I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. It seems like everyone in L.A. is working on a script or a novel or at least has an idea for one.”

“Still. I think that’s great. I remember the stories you wrote back in school. They were really something.”

“You remember them?”

“Are you kidding? Your writing was so good and real. And scary. A lot of monsters and ghosts. I had nightmares sometimes after listening to you. And I don’t think I was alone. You made the teacher a little nervous when you went up and read a story to the class.”

Derek laughed.

“I had forgotten about that,” he said.

“Really? I can almost picture it. Sometimes Jesse would do the illustrations and you two would go up there together and share.”

“Oh, yeah. We made those little books. I must still have some of them in an old box in the attic.”

When he asked about my plans, I felt happy that I had something to say, something I was excited about. It was the first time in forever that the future and talking about it didn’t make me squirm.

“I’m going to culinary school in the fall,” I said.

“That’s excellent,” he said, his face bright. “So you’ll probably be working at one of these trendy restaurants around here someday.”

“Maybe so.”

As he talked about a cousin of his who worked as a sous chef in Las Vegas, a sudden, cold chill rushed over me. I shivered. There was something odd and unnatural about it. It didn’t feel like a draft or something weather related.

I looked around trying to figure out what it was. Everything seemed normal. There was nothing unusual about the people sitting at the tables or the bar.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, scooting out of the booth.

As I tried to stand, a sudden feeling of exhaustion hit. I had to grab the table to steady myself.

I was glad Derek hadn’t noticed. I walked away slowly, focusing on taking one step and then another.

It couldn’t have been the beer. I had only had a few sips. And I knew I hadn’t slept much the night before, but that wasn’t it either. It felt like all the energy had left my body. At once. Like the plug had been pulled and I had nothing left.

I finally made it to the bathroom and went in one of the stalls. I put the lid down and sat.

After a minute I felt better. I went out to the sink and splashed my face with water.

“Food’s here,” Derek said when I got back.

I smiled, looking down at our plates. And then I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was sitting on the other side of the window pane, in the mist, watching Derek.

The dog.

CHAPTER 19

The dog wasn’t upset or agitated. He wasn’t barking like the night before. He seemed fairly content sitting there, watching us as we ate and talked. He was calm, but no less persistent. I knew he was there to remind me that I had to talk to Derek.

“These are really, really good,” he said.

Still chewing, I could only nod and smile. I could also feel the combination of the goat cheese and fried dough bringing me back to life. Maybe I had just gone too long between meals.

“So what was going on last night?” I said after I swallowed. “I mean, you sounded kind of upset on the phone. Is there something you want to talk about? I know it’s been a long time, but I’m a good listener.”

Lame, I thought. I sounded like that stupid bald psychologist on television.
And how is that working out for you
? rang in my mind as I waited for Derek to say something. 

“No, there’s nothing wrong,” he said.

He drained his glass as I quietly sighed. He wasn’t going to make it easy. The dog broke his vow of silence and barked, dragging me along.

“It’s just that you sounded like something was bothering you,” I said. “I mean besides me.”

He put down the fritter he was about to put in his mouth and stared at me, smiling.

“You’re not gonna let it go, huh?” he said. “I guess I’ll have to come clean. Look, sometimes when I stay up late and write, I drink. I know it’s a cliché, but it helps loosen my thoughts and the words seem to flow better. Me and Jack do good work. You know, Jack Daniel’s. So that’s what was going on when you called. No big thing.”

I looked at him and wiped my greasy fingers on a napkin. I guess that made sense. Almost.

“It’s just that,” I said. “I don’t know, I thought I heard someone in the background or something.”

Derek looked around, his energy faster now. More gray.

“Oh,” he said, looking flustered. “Uh, no. No one else was there.”

He paused for a minute and then snapped his fingers.

“But I was talking to my girlfriend at some point in the night. Maybe that’s what you heard.”

“Rachel’s here with you?”

“No. She couldn’t make it. She’s, uh, still back in L.A. But we were Skyping last night. I don’t remember the time, but it was late. I was probably talking to her on the laptop when you called.”

I sat back and drank some water, trying to figure out why he was lying. The loud sound of glass crashing hadn’t come from a computer and his energy was off the charts, jerking and bouncing around him as he grasped for words.

“I think that must have been it,” he said.

“Okay.”

Normally, it wouldn’t be any of my business, except the ghost dog was right there looking at me, impressing upon me to make it my business. I had to tell Derek about him, but I didn’t really know how without bringing up everything else.

He was quiet for a few minutes as he signaled the waitress and ordered another Boneyard. I ordered a Coke. I wanted to be clear headed when I explained to him about the strange things I saw these days. The waitress brought our drinks and our burgers.

“So how’s the house looking?” I asked. “Are you finished decorating?”

“Yeah, it’s done. My dad should be pleased.”

“Where is it?”

“Over on Skyliners Road,” he said. “Way down there. It’s not that far from Tumalo Falls.”

“Hey, that’s fun,” I said. “That was one epic bike ride. Remember?”

“How could I forget? My ass was so sore I couldn’t sit still for a week. The teacher must have thought I was off my meds.”

On the last day of summer, before we started fifth grade, the three of us decided to ride our bikes to Tumalo Falls. It ended up being more than 12 miles one way. It didn’t seem so far going and when we got there and went up the short trail to the falls, we were too excited to think about anything else. But as the afternoon sun beat down on me on the way back, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it. Especially during those last dry and dusty miles into town.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think we might have overextended ourselves on that one.”

“You think?” Derek said and laughed.

I took a bite of my burger.

“Hey, what was Jesse like in high school?” he said, his eyes glassy.

“He was exactly the same as when you knew him. He never changed like the others did. It didn’t matter how popular he was, he was always nice to everybody. And he was a star, too. Star basketball player, star student, star everything.”

Here it was. The opportunity.

“I’ve got something I want to tell you.”

Derek looked up at me, his eyes trying to focus.

“Uh, sure,” he said. “What?”

And for the next half hour or so, I told him about who, or what, I had become since I drowned. I told him about coming back to life with visions of killers and living in a black and white world.

And then, finally, about the ghosts.

CHAPTER 20

“Are you serious?” he said, for the second time since I had finished my story. “You see ghosts? For real?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Then he laughed. It was a strange response, the first time someone just laughed at my secret.

“Sorry, Abby. It’s just that… well, as it turns out, I’m writing a ghost story. That’s what my book is about. And now here you are. It’s just bizarre.”