The Memory of Us

by Lisa Sorbe

  And this date, before it even started, felt like a goodbye.

  West became popular the summer before. As a freshman who made the varsity baseball team on pure merit and filled out the uniform better than most of the upperclassman, he went from hovering near the bottom of the social ladder all the way to the top practically overnight.

  As for me, on the other hand… I couldn’t have cared less about the rise; I’d given up my quest to be liked years ago.

  My father and brother were both dead, and my mother was nothing more than a living ghost. With my entire world upended, trivial things like fitting in ceased to matter.

  So no, I didn’t say yes to West because he was popular and I wanted to suck some of that status right off him and inject it into me.

  I said yes because I wanted to feel normal.

  And because in the months that his star had begun to shine, I’d been seeing less and less of him.

  I missed my dad. And now I missed my brother.

  I was tired of missing my best friend.

  To be fair, West didn’t seek out the attention he received. Unlike myself who, for most of grade school and part of middle school, fretted about wearing the right clothes and carefully ironed my hair into the latest styles, West never cared if his outfit was cool or if his hair fell just right. He was friendly with people simply because he liked them, not because of what they could do for him. And while I’m sure his rise to being the most popular guy in class was in part due to his talents on the baseball field and his wholesome good looks, I think it was this trait that endeared him most to our fellow classmates.

  Even back then, West always brought out the best in people. Made them see themselves for who they were, not who they pretended to be. And for the most part, when not weighed down by that primitive survival mode of fight or flight, most people at their very cores are, in fact, good.

  And who doesn’t want to be around someone who encourages your best self to shine through? Who, by just being in his presence, snuffs out your inflatable pretensions and tenuous—though, at times, debilitating—fears?

  West’s mom snapped pictures of us before we left that night, smiling and laughing and wagging her hand in front of her face like the mere sight of us overwhelmed her to tears. And West kept his arm around my waist the entire time, pulling me just close enough to make me blush.

  Addie Brooks made sure to make copies for my mother, of course. Though, by the time she delivered them, West and I weren’t speaking at all.

  Leith Langdon is a thirty-six-year old retired techie from San Francisco who relocated to Minnesota so he could, as he put it, life the simple life. He has a bushy beard, a floppy haircut, and his flannel shirt looks like it’s made more for aesthetics than for durability. As the owner of the property, he’s completely ecstatic when we confess our fake occupations and shakes my hand for no less than thirty full seconds after discovering that I’m (ahem) writing a book.

  “That is so cool!” His excitement is contagious, and I find my own smile kicking up a notch to mirror his. “I’m honored that you’d even consider including us. We’re small, sure, but if I had a dime for every weird thing that happened here, well…” He shakes his head and strokes his beard, leaving us to wonder.

  “So you’ve actually had contact with the entities, then?” I ask, my interest piqued.

  Leith nods. “Oh, yeah. Started right away, as a matter of fact. Hell,” he says, shaking his head and chuckling, “I lost half the crew because of it.” When he sees my eyes widen, he rushes to explain. “Scared. They ran scared. No one actually died or anything.”

  If I’m not mistaken, there’s a smidge of disappointment tainting his words. I clear my throat and ask, “What happened? What scared them off?”

  Before Leith can answer, West nudges my shoulder and hands me a small notebook with a pen sticking out of the wire bound spine. I take it, making eye contact with him, and bite my lip to keep from laughing. Amusement passes between us without words. When I return my attention to Leith, I’ve already schooled my expression into my serious, I-mean-business attorney face.

  He shrugs. “Nothing violent, really. Just supplies moving around and electric tools turning on when they weren’t hooked up to an outlet. One guy said a drill flew right off the work table and tried to attack him, but I’m not sure how much stock to put in his story. He was kind of”—Leith whistles and makes a circle in the air beside his head with his finger—“if you catch my drift.”

  “I see.” I pretend to take notes, jotting down the lyrics to the song that’s been stuck in my head for the last two days—The Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot—while I listen and furrow my brow. “And how would you describe the mental states of the rest of your crew? Were they also,”—I mimic his gesture with a whistle, and behind me West covers a snort with a cough—“unbalanced?”

  Leith shakes his head, obviously in a hurry validate his men. “No, no. Not at all. The rest of the guys were solid.” He plants his hands on his hips and spreads his legs as if to demonstrate the definition of the word. And then, as if saving the best for last, he says, “Right before we finished, Larry—he was the foreman—got himself sealed in the attic. Took three hours to get him out.”

  “Sealed?” I ask. “Like?”

  “Like the door wouldn’t open. It wasn’t locked, the wood wasn’t swollen or anything like that. In fact, it had just been installed a few days prior. But when he went up to clear out the room, the door shut behind him and wouldn’t open. Said he pounded on the door for hours. But the funny thing is, no one heard him. Not even the guys on the floor below him.” Leith clears his throat, and I swear his face pales a bit. “I walked right by the door when he was in there—had to be right after it happened—and I didn’t hear a thing. Not one damn peep.”

  “I see,” I say again, though this time an actual chill skitters down my back.

  “Well, that sure is something.” West releases a breath and pauses dramatically. “Sounds like you’ve got quite a few things going on here, Mr. Langdon. With your permission, Elena and I would love a tour. Maybe get some background on the property and the previous owners. If you don’t mind, of course?”

  Leith lights up, the color returning to his cheeks. He claps his hands, rubs them together. “Not at all, man. Follow me.” Then, just as he’s about to turn, he hesitates. “You know, it’s pretty cool that you two are both so into this stuff. It’s great when spouses share a common interest, not to mention get along well enough together the way you do.” I frown, shooting a look of disbelief at West, realizing he must have checked us in as husband and wife, the bastard.

  West just smirks and sidles up next to me, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me close. “Oh, Laney and I…we have quite a history.”

  My cheeks heat, my entire body heats, and the chills skittering up my spine have nothing to do with ghost or ghouls or things that go bump in the night.

  Leith nods and then leans in, his eyes wide. “My ex-wife was into competitive dog grooming.” He shudders and casts an affectionate glance at Casper. “You should have seen what she did to our poodle.”

  Leith entertains us with the house’s shady history while he parades us around the estate. (Turns out neither of us even knew the half of it.) There are seven bedrooms (four of which have their own bathrooms), a large dining room with a table that sits at least twelve, and a grand library that I never want to leave. Apparently, the books are original to the house; Leith relays how he found them in an old armoire in the attic and marvels at the way they survived time and the elements. I run my fingers along the spines as I browse the shelves, as if by touch alone I can soak up their words, their stories.

  Even though the home is Victorian, the inside has a sort of mid-century modern meets backwoods cabin vibe, complete with pine scented candles and rustic fireplace mantles lined with evergreen boughs. White ceramic deer and moose heads adorn the walls, along with lord knows how many artistically rendered photographs of Minnesota
’s lakes and forests. The effect works and, seeing the place the way it is now, it’s hard to remember that it’s supposed to be haunted. That the weird and morbid things Leith told us about in the mere half hour we’ve been here have actually happened.

  “You know,” West says, dumping his bag on the bed next to mine and staring around the room, “I’m not so sure I want to stay here now.” His eyes flick warily up at the twin beams decorating the ceiling, the stained wood dark against the white paint. According to Leith, one of the Clapper men hung himself in this room shortly before the family abandoned the property for a more sumptuous life in New York.

  “Oh, stop. What spooky old house doesn’t have a creepy story about some guy hanging himself?” I ask, tossing my own bag down before moving to the window and parting the curtains. I can still feel the weight of West’s arm on my waist, feel the burn of his body pressed against mine. I need to move, do something, so I can shake it off. Already we’re too close, in this long attic room with its clean walls and plush beds.

  The view of the back yard is stunning. The property butts up against the dense forest, and a wildflower garden blends seamlessly into a vegetable patch, the tangled stems and bright blooms and red tomatoes and yellow-green cucumbers providing a vibrant burst of color in the otherwise sparse yard. The whole scene is bathed in a fiery glow, and the radiance spills through the split draperies and into the room, dusting the white walls a pale peach.

  My own attitude has improved immensely since taking on the role of someone else, even with this newfound information regarding the house’s unsavory history. I turn to West, wrinkling my nose in doubt. “Do you really believe everything Leith said? About this place, the stuff that happened here?”

  “Enough that I’m glad I’m not sleeping alone tonight.” He winks at me.

  I make a face. “If you think you’re crawling into my bed, then you have another thing coming.”

  West frowns, pretending to be confused. “Your bed? I was talking about Cas.” He reaches down and ruffles the dog’s ears. “You’re on your own.”

  “Whatever,” I huff. And then, in a singsong voice, I croon, “Casper wants to sleep with me. Don’t you, huh? Yes you do.”

  The dog swivels his head between us, back and forth like a kid deciding between two parents. He eventually yawns, scratches himself, and wanders away to explore the attached bathroom.

  “So much for man’s best friend.” I sigh, pushing aside my bag and flopping down on the mattress. Both beds in the room are queen sized with matching gray quilts, and I run my hand over mine, appreciating the softness of the material. “Such luxury. And here I was, worried about sleeping on moldy carpet tonight.” I smile up at West. “This is gonna be a piece of cake.”

  This is not a piece of cake.

  Sure, since getting into bed and pulling the covers up to my chin, I’ve heard at least a dozen sounds that I can’t explain, whose origins are completely unknown. They seem to rise and fall, swell and evaporate before I can get a bead on them.

  Casper hears them, too. And from the way he’s curled up against my hip (not West’s), I can tell when one of those noises pulls him from his light slumber.

  Now, as a strange knock-knock-knock resounds somewhere in the house, he shifts and releases a low growl. “Shh…” I reach down and trail my fingers over his head, the back of his neck. Within seconds, he’s asleep again.

  I wish I could say the same.

  But these sounds don’t bother me. Not much, anyway. My logical mind knows that this is an old house, and on a windy night light tonight, the weight of the structure is going to creak and moan, pop and settle.

  Although, if there is a vengeful spirit roaming this room, it’s surely the ghost of us. The death of our friendship when we crossed the line and, very briefly, fell into something more. But we were fools back then, like kids playing with matches. And we got burned.

  The one sound that is keeping me awake, however, that’s chasing away tiny filaments of sleep before they can pull me under, is the deep, rhythmic breathing coming from the bed next to mine. Maybe a space of two or three feet separate us and, in the moonlight shifting through the open window, I can just make out West’s sleeping form, the broad line of his shoulder dark against the otherworldly glow.

  The soft way the light grazes his form reminds me of the night we went sledding. The night I gave in to my desires, put my wants above my needs and let him lead me to his bed.

  It also reminds me of homecoming sophomore year, when I started to have feelings for my best friend that were more than simple. It was the night I realized that I didn’t have a best friend anymore. Because while I didn’t fully comprehend it at the time, the boy I shared my youth with was quickly becoming a man, and the games we were about to play together were no longer childish.

  But we were just confused, that’s all. And of course it was understandable; when two people who grow up attached at the hip suddenly see each other in a different light…well, there’s nothing simple about that. Hormones raged and emotions ignited, and everything about West suddenly seemed foreign. And I can’t say for sure, but I’m only assuming that’s how he felt about me, too. How strange it was for us that night—we went from kids riding side by side on bikes, sporting scraped knees and Kool-aide stained lips to teenagers riding together in a fancy car decked out in formal attire, West smelling of cologne and my lips stained with lipstick rather than drink.

  But we were young, and it was just a crush. Only a crush, and not love. And definitely nothing to get all emotional about. Especially back then, when I was so tired of feeling…period. All I wanted to do was cut it off.

  So I did. At the source.

  “Can’t sleep?”

  West’s voice seems even deeper in the quiet. But it’s familiar, even at this low timbre, and it’s easy to remember when we used to have sleep overs as kids, professing dreams that, for some reason, always seemed more possible under the blush of the moon than the light of the sun.

  And maybe the same still rings true now. Because under the same milky glow that, as a child, always instilled in me more nerve than the day ever could, I open my mouth and out of it spills the past.

  “I was just thinking of homecoming.”

  There’s no need to clarify what homecoming, which year. Because for me and West, there was only The One. We never attended another dance together, and I never went to another one, period.

  West blows out a breath, the tail end sounding more like a laugh than an exhalation. “Homecoming? Which year? The one where I was crowned King, or…”

  I make a face, and my voice is sharp. “Sophomore, moron.”

  “Sophomore? What was so special about sophomore year?”

  “Well, apparently nothing,” I huff. Which, I have to admit, is kind of true. Regressing back to a term my sixteen-year-old self would have used, the entire night totally sucked balls.

  “Relax, I’m just messing with you.” The bed creaks as he shifts positions and settles on his back, lacing his hands behind his head. “Of course I remember that night.” He snorts. “It sucked balls.”

  Now I snort. “I can’t believe you just said that. You’re such a nerd.”

  “I just said what you were thinking.”

  How does he always know? Then again, I can—er, could—read him like a book. Although, most of his thoughts remain a mystery to me now. Even though we’ve been spending time together, working on this list and tag-teaming my mother’s house in an effort to get it ready to put on the market by my August departure date, there’s still a wall between us. An invisible barrier, like opposing energy fields that are forever meant to repel each other. It’s a force I want to shatter, break down, pull apart…blow completely up.

  I don’t like this distance between us. We’re still too polite around each other. Not quite like we’re walking on glass anymore, but more like we’re worried there’s a stray shard left waiting somewhere, hiding deep in the carpet, the pointed end up and ready to pierc
e our bare feet.

  “You were a jerk that night.”

  “And you were a bitch.”

  I fly up onto my elbow and shoot him a scathing look. “I was not a bitch, Weston. You spent the entire night dancing with Amber Oakley. Who, by the way, was someone who went out of her way to make my life miserable.” I fall back onto the mattress and train my gaze on the ceiling, studying the four-blade fan as it spins.

  “Oh, please. So she was a brat in grade school.” West chuckles, and I’m immediately annoyed that he can find humor in the memory of a night that was so painful for me. “And I’m pretty sure you two buried whatever hatchet you had sometime during middle school.”

  Wrong, West. Amber always had it out for me, and it wasn’t until high school—until that very night—that I figured out why. She wanted you.

  I don’t say this, though, because I don’t want to feed West’s ego. Granted, this is irrational, because West doesn’t really even have an ego. Not a very big one, anyway.

  “You know,” I say instead, “forget what I said earlier about being too mature to tee-pee someone’s house. Let’s find out where Amber lives now and toilet paper the crap out of her place. I’m talking two-ply, superabsorbent…the works.”

  “Amber lives down in St. Paul. Although you might find it pretty hard to tee-pee a condo. Of course, if you want to hoist your ass up five flights and onto her balcony, maybe wrap a few rolls around the railing, be my guest. I’d be more than happy to watch.”

  I can hear the smirk in his voice, the smartass drawl he didn’t develop until high school, back when he developed all over and knew he could afford to be a bit of an ass.

  I swallow, surprise choking my words. “Y-you know where she lives? What, do you guys keep in touch or something?”

  Or something.

  And I shouldn’t care.