by Micol Ostow
“She was out there talking to herself,” Carlos said, snickering.
“I was rehearsing for a play,” I shot back. To Dad I just said, “I’m fine, really.”
“Hello-hello!”
It was Aunt Victoria, swinging by uninvited to be sure we hadn’t gone feral since losing Mom. Her intentions were good, but that didn’t make her unannounced drop-ins any less stressful. Having her around just called attention to the ways we weren’t normal anymore. We sprang into action, clearing away Mom’s place from the table before Aunt Victoria rounded the corner into the room.
Come to think of it, in a lot of ways, we were all pretty good at pretending to be normal. But it was just that: pretending.
“Spaghetti again?” She eyed our plates. “That’s too bad. I brought you my arroz con pollo y pasteles.”
“Gracias, Tía, it smells great,” I said.
“You can have it tomorrow,” she said, decisive. “I can’t let you have leftover pasta every night. My sister would kill me, que en paz descanse.”
An awkward silence fell over the table as we all tried not to look toward Mom’s empty seat. “Are things going better?” she asked.
Dad looked up, bright. “Yep, Julie actually started cleaning out Rose’s studio. Hopefully, we can get the house on the market and get some offers.”
“I like the sound of that. Moving from here will only help you move on. You’ve got to rip off that Band-Aid and get the pain over with.” She turned to me. “And now that you’re no longer in the music program, you can concentrate on the classes that matter.”
Dad shot me a stunned look, and I glanced away. None of this escaped Aunt Victoria, whose dark eyes flashed. “You read the email from school, too, right?”
“Of course,” Dad covered. “We’re still discussing it.”
“Pues,” Aunt Victoria said, obviously wanting to escape the awkwardness that had come over the room, “if I hurry, I can make my Pilates class. ¡Los quiero muchos, mijos!”
The front door slammed shut behind her, and then Carlos raced to fill the void and come to my rescue. “So … who wants to hear about my slide into home—”
“Not now, Carlos,” Dad said.
Carlos looked at me. “I tried.” He grabbed his own plate and walked out, leaving me to face Dad—and the music—alone.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dad demanded. “I had to lie to your aunt.”
“Sorry.” I swallowed. “I was going to tell you after dinner.”
“Uh-huh.” Dad was not convinced.
“I don’t know why we haven’t taken her off the school’s email list.”
“Because of days like this when I’m too busy to even look at email. And your aunt helping me isn’t what this is about. I know going to those classes has been difficult, but you still like music, don’t you?”
How could I answer that? Did I still like music? It was the most important thing in the world to me. But also the most painful. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Dad was quiet for a moment. “Mi amor,” he said at last, “I know we talked about how hard memories can be, but they’re all we have now. Every day, you and your brother remind me of your mom. It’s like she’s still here. And I love it. If you give yourself a chance, you might get there, too.”
He so didn’t get it. “Sorry, but I just can’t force myself to feel music. It’s like that part of me is gone.”
Just as I said it, I heard a sound fill the air. It was live music. And it was coming from … the garage? Was it Sunset Curve playing in the studio?
Carlos reappeared in the dining room. “What’s that?” he asked. He could hear it, too?
Think fast.
“Uh … I left the stereo on. I’ll get it.”
Before anyone could say anything, I ran to the garage.
It was a full-on ghost jam session.
That was the only way to describe what I saw when I got to the garage. The boys had somehow managed to get ahold of their instruments, and they were rocking out. That was the music that I’d heard—no, that we’d heard—in the dining room.
“Guys! Guys!” I burst in, flustered. “Or, ghosts. Whatever—stop!”
At last, they noticed me over their own sound and stopped.
“The whole neighborhood can hear you,” I said, breathless. “I thought I told you to leave.”
“Wait,” Luke said, startled. “You heard us playing?”
“Yes! And so did my dad and my brother!” How were they not seeing the problem here?
“So, only you can see us,” Alex said, working it through. “But everyone can hear us play? What kind of ghosts are we?”
“Who cares? People can hear us play!” Luke said. He and Reggie high-fived, super excited.
“Yes! We may be dead, but our music isn’t!” Reggie said.
These guys—ghosts—so weren’t seeing the big picture.
Luke and Reggie were taking off their guitars when my father wandered into the studio.
“Dad!” Could he see them?
“Hey,” he said. “Just making sure you’re okay.”
Okay, that answered my question.
He looked around, taking in the band’s instruments. “Is this all the junk that was in the loft?”
“Junk?” Luke echoed, hurt.
“Actually,” Dad said, moving closer to take a better look at the drum set, “some of this stuff is in pretty good shape. Maybe we could make a couple of bucks.”
“What?” Alex cried, devastated. “Stop touching my drums.” He looked at me. “Tell him to stop touching my drums!”
“I liked that song you had on,” Dad said.
“We’re Sunset Curve,” Luke said, proud.
“Tell your friends,” Reggie added.
“It was … just an old CD I found,” I said.
“Well, it’s nice that you’re listening to music again,” Dad said. “Play whatever you want out here, whenever you want.”
“Aw, that’s nice,” Reggie said.
I glared at him. “Stay out of this.”
“Oh, perdón, mi amor,” Dad said, backing up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push. It’s just …”
“No! Not you,” I said. At his confused expression, I added, “I mean … I’ll just be a second.”
“Of course,” he replied. “And we’ll figure out this music program thing, okay?”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He went back into the house, leaving me and the ghosts to give huge sighs of relief.
(Wait, did ghosts sigh?)
“Didja hear that?” Reggie asked, once the coast was truly clear. “He liked our song.”
“He’s a dad,” Alex said. “He doesn’t count.”
“Why can’t you just be normal ghosts and hang out in an old mansion?” I asked. “I hear Pasadena’s nice.”
I didn’t stick around to hear their answer.
I hadn’t made it any farther than the driveway before Luke materialized in front of me. It was very disconcerting. “Aaah!” I was doing a lot of screaming tonight.
“Stop that,” I told him, once I’d calmed down. “I’m serious.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I know this is all completely insane, but you do know how awesome this is. People can hear us play,” he said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I’ve just had a really, really awful day. I have to go.”
He ghost-stepped a little closer to me, trying to keep me from leaving. “Well, I’m sorry you had a bad day, but three guys just found out they had a bad twenty-five years. And then they found out the one thing they lived for in the first place? They can still do. That’s pretty rad.”
He had a point. And his eyes were trained on mine, piercing.
“You’re right,” I relented. “It’s just …”
“Your bad day. I know. Sorry we came into your life. But what I just felt in there? Made me actually feel alive again.”
His words hit me, hard.
“We all felt alive,” he went on. “And you can kick us out if you want, but we’re not giving up music. We can play again. That’s a gift no musician would turn down. You should understand that. Clearly, your mom’s into music.”
I should understand that. And yet, playing was the one thing I couldn’t do. “Was,” I corrected him. “She passed away.” I still couldn’t say it without a lump welling up in the back of my throat.
“Oh, sorry.” Luke did look sorry.
“We didn’t know.”
I flinched, realizing that Alex and Reggie had just appeared in the driveway with us, too. “It’s okay,” I said.
For a beat, we were quiet. No one seemed to know what to say or do next.
But I had a question. One that I knew might have a painful answer. And yet, I couldn’t help but ask it. “You guys haven’t ever … seen her anywhere, have you? You know—wherever you came from.” Because if ghosts did exist … maybe that meant I’d see my mother again, someday? Somehow?
“Nope,” Alex said. “You’re the first person we’ve seen. But we’re … so sorry for your loss.” He looked genuinely sad for me.
“Thanks,” I said, meaning it. “And I’m sorry I got so mad. You guys are good.”
“And that was twenty-five years of rust getting knocked off,” Luke pointed out, grinning.
“Do you play the piano, too?” Reggie asked.
“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t play. That was all my mom’s stuff in there.”
“Oh. Then she was a pretty good songwriter,” Luke said.
“She was,” I agreed. Then, “How would you know?”
“There’s a song on the piano. If it was hers, she had talent.”
If it was hers, she had talent. She did have talent. And I missed her more than even music could express.
If she were here right now, seeing these ghosts—connecting with their music … well, I knew what she’d want me to do. To say.
“I guess … if you need a place to stay, you can stay in there,” I said, nodding toward the studio. “There’s a bathroom in the back, and the couch turns into a bed … if you still use any of that stuff.”
“Dibs on the shower,” Reggie called. “What?” he asked, at my look. “Ghosts can’t like showers? And even sometimes the occasional bath?”
I shook my head. “This? Is too weird.”
Poof. Seconds after Julie walked off, Luke told us he wanted to show us something, and we concentrated until everything went dark and cloudy. When the darkness broke, the guys and I were on the roof of the Orpheum, looking down at the crowd below.
“I know being dead isn’t our first choice, but it sure is easy getting around,” Luke said, obviously pleased with himself for getting here.
I wasn’t so sure about that. It wasn’t such a smooth transition for me. The being-dead part—which was still totally upsetting—and the poofing-around thing, which wasn’t as easy as it looked.
“Why would we come here?” I asked Luke, upset. “It’s just a painful reminder of where we never got to play.”
Right now, it felt like everything was a painful reminder. I didn’t remember much—at least, not clearly—about that room where we’d been before this. But knowing we were, you know, dead, had been hard enough to process. So now, being back?
On the one hand: Cool. Welcome to the next level. So there was such a thing as the afterlife, after all.
On the other hand: We were still, you know, actually dead. Our families and friends had grown up, moved on. And no one but one random girl could see or talk to us.
And meanwhile, none of us had any idea why we were back.
So the jury was still out on whether being here, now, was good news or bad. And in the meantime, like I said: It was all a little bit painful.
“But the game isn’t over yet,” Luke said, poofing out and reappearing down on the street. Reggie and I followed suit.
“Let’s go listen to some music, see how many clubs we can hit before sunrise.” It was what we’d do back when we were … alive. And it was hard to say no. We didn’t have anything better to do, and a little bit of normal “life” wasn’t the worst idea. We started to move through the crowd, still weirded out by the way we could just slip past all the living people, unnoticed (even though it was kind of convenient, too). Not to mention the fact that the living people could literally slip through us.
Suddenly, though, a body slammed into me. Solid as wood. He was tall and dressed like something out of an old movie—a long cape, a top hat—and the impact was so surprising it almost knocked me over. “Hey!”
The man turned and grinned at me. His eyes were an electric shade of blue and his smile had a hint of … menace to it. He tipped his hat to me—like, literally—and then vanished into the crowd.
Who—or what—was that?
Nobody else saw that weird guy, so I decided to keep it to myself for the rest of the night. Enough bizarre things had already happened to us that day. We hit each and every club, just like Luke suggested. Being a ghost did seem to make things kind of … I don’t know, efficient. Going to the clubs as ghosts wasn’t the same as going when we were alive—we couldn’t talk to anyone, for one thing. But it was nice to be out and around people. Even if those people couldn’t see us.
We had just poofed back to the garage as the sun began to rise. All around us, it felt like the city was quiet, just starting to wake up. But then Julie approached the studio. She looked nervous but wide-awake, like she’d maybe been awake for a little while now.
For a second, we hovered outside, not sure what was going on. Then we watched as Julie approached her mother’s piano.
We didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I swear. We didn’t go into the studio. But we understood—maybe better than anyone else ever could—what this moment meant. Julie was coming back to music. The way she’d looked in her mother’s space yesterday when we showed up … (I mean, before she saw us and freaked out). She’d been in awe. I knew, then, that this was a girl to whom music meant everything. Even if she said she didn’t play.
We didn’t want to move, to take a breath (even if, technically, ghosts don’t breathe), because we didn’t want to ruin this moment for her.
Julie sat down at the bench and took her mother’s sheet music—the same music we’d been looking at the day before—and stood it up against the piano. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, like she was maybe saying some silent prayer, inside.
Then she began to play.
The thing was: When we saw that sheet music? We knew the music was good.
But when Julie played, that music was beyond. It was transcendent. It was like nothing we’d ever heard. If ghosts could get goose bumps, I would have, and looking at Reggie and Luke, I knew they were feeling the same way.
The melody built beneath her fingers, her emotion swelling with the rising chords. She began to sway her head side to side, feeling it … and then she began to sing.
Here’s the one thing / I want you to know / You got someplace to go / Life’s a test yes / But you go toe to toe / You don’t give up, no you grow
And use your pain / ’Cause it makes you you / Though I wish / I could hold you through it / I know it’s not the same / You got livin’ to do / And I just want you to do it
So get up get out relight that spark / You know the rest by heart
Wake up wake up if it’s all you do / Look out look inside of you / It’s not what you lost / It’s what you’ll gain / Raising your voice to the rain
Wake up your dream and make it true / Look out, look inside of you / It’s not what you lost / Relight that spark / Time to come out of the dark
Wake up / wake up
Better wake those demons / Just look them in the eye / No reason not to try
Life can be a mess / I won’t let it cloud my mind / I’ll let my fingers fly
And I use the pain / ’Cause it’s part of me / And I’m ready to power through it
&nbs
p; Gonna find the strength / Find the melody / ’Cause you showed me how to do it
Get up get out relight that spark / You know the rest by heart
Tears rose in Julie’s eyes as she repeated the chorus of the song, but she didn’t stop playing. I felt a little teary, too. Her voice was so soulful, the song was so haunting …
I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so moved by music that wasn’t actually my own.
The final note of Julie’s powerful song hung in the air. Julie was slumped at the piano, drained. At some point, we’d poofed through the studio walls—like I said, we didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but listening to Julie play was mesmerizing. Now I approached her, but Luke pulled me back. We poofed to the driveway.
“Why’d you stop me? Julie needed a hug,” I said.
“A ghost hug isn’t the feel-good moment you think it is,” Luke pointed out. “Trust me, what Julie needs is privacy.” He stood up straighter, thinking things through.
“First thing we’re gonna do,” he said, running his hand through his hair, “when we get the courage to go in there—is ask Julie why she lied about playing the piano.”
“And maybe tell her how amazing she was?” I prompted.
“Of course,” Luke said.
“She’s the bomb. I got ghost bumps,” Reggie said.
Before I could reply, another girl came storming down the driveway.
“Whoa, drama,” I said. Yikes. A lot of feelings going on around here.
Luke nodded and gave a knowing look. “Now we definitely can’t go in there.”
“But we can listen,” Reggie said.
We poofed back into the loft. Julie sat at the piano, her eyes dry now. Her friend was a tornado of energy.
“Carlos told me you were out here. We need to talk.”
“Flynn, are you okay?” Julie asked. Okay, so her friend’s name is Flynn.
“No!” the friend—Flynn—exploded. “I’m not okay. You got kicked out of music! I’ve been up all night thinking about what I was gonna say. Might’ve drank seven sodas, but I need to get this out.” She paced, which made a lot more sense in light of the information about the soda.
