by Joanne Levy
Not much later—Ghostbusters was still on and you know what? It was pretty good!—Dad was back.
“We’re in here,” I hollered. Alex and I exchanged glances as we waited for Dad to take off his shoes and join us in the den. “It’s too early; this can’t be good,” I said quietly to Alex while I stroked Salvatore Lasagna’s soft fur.
“It’s not,” Bubby said.
“Oh no, what did he do?”
My grandmother sighed. “Let’s just say we have a lot of work to do.”
I looked at Alex and shook my head. “Apparently it didn’t go well, but don’t let on.”
Alex zipped her lips and pasted a smile on her face just as Dad appeared in the doorway, still looking good, except for the huge grease stain down his front.
And the hunched shoulders.
Oh, and the frown of the defeated.
“Oh no! What happened?”
Dad didn’t say anything as he stepped into the room and sat on the big recliner.
“Mr. Bloom, is everything okay?”
Dad gave Alex a half smile. A very unconvincing half smile. “Well, I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Oy.” I cringed, afraid to even hear what happened.
“Did you like her? Was she pretty?” Alex asked, obviously not getting that none of these things mattered, since it was clear Dad wouldn’t be going out with George’s sister again, no matter how pretty she was.
Dad looked at Alex, as incredulous as I. “She was a nice lady.”
“So what happened, Dad?” Maybe we should just get this out so he could move on. Date one was just for practice, anyway. “She wasn’t a vegetarian, was she?” I could almost see Dad ordering a big T-bone and his tree-hugging vegan date picking it up and throwing it at him in protest.
He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t that. We were at the bar, waiting for our table, and she dropped her keys. When she bent down to get them, she tripped a waiter and guess who got a plate of fried calamari down the front of him?”
“Yum, calamari,” Alex mused, quite inappropriately.
“Oh, Dad, that’s awful.” I shook my head, sympathetic to his first-date bad luck. “Did you at least like her?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I thought she was nice, but I’m sure I blew it.”
“He did,” Bubby said with a huge sigh. “He talked about earthquakes and asteroids.”
“You didn’t talk about natural disasters and probabilities and stuff, did you?”
He nodded, obviously realizing he’d made a mistake. “I couldn’t help it. I was nervous.”
Even Alex cringed.
“That’s it. No more Discovery Channel for you.”
“I forgot how hard dating is.”
I shook my head. “No, you didn’t. Knowing how hard dating is, is precisely what kept you from doing it all this time.”
He looked at me and nodded. “You’re probably right.”
“I’m proud of you, though, Dad. You got out there and that’s the hardest part. The next one will be easier.”
“Next one?” he asked, looking a bit green. “There’s going to be a next one?”
“Yes, next one. We’re not giving up on you just yet.”
“That’s my girl,” Bubby said. “We’ll find him another girl to go out with. I think my old bridge partner, Marjorie, has a daughter who’s divorced since I died.”
Is it wrong that I totally pitied Marjorie’s daughter?
Chapter 8
Tamsin McNeil’s birthday party was on Sunday. And it was a sleepover, my absolute favorite kind of birthday party! It was Memorial Day weekend, which meant no school on Monday, so it worked out perfectly.
The extravaganza was to begin with dinner on Sunday night, so Dad drove me to Tamsin’s house (stopping to pick up Alex on the way) at five.
“What are you going to do tonight, Dad?” I asked, a little concerned.
“Oh, I don’t know, soak my favorite shirt in Oxi-Clean?”
“That’s sad,” I said.
He looked at me. “I was just kidding. Since my mad dad skills are not required tonight, Fred and I are going out to a movie.”
Mad dad skills? Oy.
I didn’t comment. Thankfully, by that time, we were in front of Tamsin’s house.
“I’ll call tomorrow when we need a pickup, okay?”
He nodded. I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Have a nice time at the movie.”
“See you, Mr. Bloom,” Alex said as she got out of the backseat.
“Have fun, girls.”
We walked up to the house together, each of us with our gifts, sleeping bags, pillows, and overnight bags in tow. “What does she have planned?” I asked Alex.
She shrugged. “She said something supersecret but guaranteed to be awesome.”
“Everyone says that.”
Tamsin was turning thirteen (on Tuesday, actually, but you can’t have a party on a Tuesday), which for us normally meant a bar or bat mitzvah and not a regular party, but Tamsin isn’t Jewish, so she got a regular party. My birthday is in December and Alex’s is in November, but our parents all decided spring bat mitzvahs are much nicer than winter ones, so ours are both next June. I hope I still get to have some sort of celebration so my turning thirteen doesn’t go unnoticed until MANY months later. But of course, I’m sure Dad will let me do something.
Alex pushed the doorbell and we waited for Tamsin to come to the door and let us in. It wasn’t Tamsin who opened the door, but her older brother Mark.
Alex blushed the second she saw him. “Hi, Mark,” she said.
Mark was in ninth grade, so in a whole different school from us. We hadn’t seen him in a long time. Well, let me tell you, time had been good to him. He was way taller than I remembered, and his hair was all long and shaggy around his face. Très cute! He had a few zits, but they weren’t horrible. He still looked good.
“They’re in the basement,” he said, not bothering to even say hi as he closed the door behind us.
“How’s ninth grade?” Alex asked. She actually had googly eyes.
“S’okay,” Mark said.
I grabbed my friend’s arm and dragged her toward the stairs. “Come on, Alex.”
She resisted, but then Mark turned and headed down the hall toward the kitchen, so she had no choice but to come with me.
“He got hot!” she whispered.
“You say that about every guy.”
“I mean it. Why didn’t Tamsin tell us her brother got so cute?”
“Maybe because she didn’t want you ogling him!”
We were the last to arrive. Fiona Stevens, Sherise Thompson, and Anita Yee were already downstairs with Tamsin, sitting on the couches and watching America’s Next Top Model.
“Hey!” I said.
Tamsin jumped up and ran over to hug us both. “Thanks for coming!”
I handed over her gift. “Happy almost birthday!”
“Thanks! I hope it’s what I think it is!”
I hoped she thought it was a gift certificate for the Gap, because that’s what it was. With the wedding and the lightning strike and all, I didn’t really have time to get Dad to take me to the mall to get her something well thought out. Instead, he picked up the gift card on his way home from work on Thursday.
Alex handed her the gift she brought, which was a makeup kit we’d all seen at the mall a few weeks back and had agreed was awesome because it had everything all together in one place AND was coordinated for your colors by season. Tamsin looked best in cool colors, so her kit was called Winter. Mine, which I was hoping to get once I saved up enough money, was Autumn.
“Thanks, Alex,” Tamsin said, placing the gifts on a side table with the rest. “We’re going to watch ANTM, and then my mom will order the pizza. I have something really special for later.”
She was grinning, so I could tell she was really excited about whatever it was that she had planned for us.
Alex and I took sp
ots together on the floor and joined in critiquing the models’ performances. We loved this show. We all had (not so) secret dreams of being on it one day, although we promised we wouldn’t be all catty and mean to each other. Sometimes we had little disagreements, but mostly we did all get along.
At least we did. Until that very night.
Chapter 9
After the pizza, we returned to the basement, all excited for what was to come. Tamsin disappeared into the smelly storage room and then emerged a few seconds later with a box. It looked like a board game and my heart sank. I didn’t want to play Monopoly or something lame like that.
But Tamsin had that twinkle in her eye.
“What is it?” Sherise asked.
Tamsin sat down and put the ratty old box down on the floor between us. “It’s a Ouija board.”
“What’s a Ouija board?” Anita asked.
Tamsin took the lid off. “It’s a special communication board. You ask spirits to come and talk to you.”
Alex nudged me with her foot. I glared at her to keep her quiet.
“Oh, I don’t like the sound of that,” Anita said, sounding scared.
“Don’t be frightened,” Tamsin said. “We get to ask it questions.”
“Who answers?” Fiona asked.
“See this?” Tamsin held up a teardrop-shaped piece of plastic with legs. “We all put our hands on this, and then the spirits guide us to the answer on the board.” She pulled the board out of the box and laid it on the floor. It had all the letters of the alphabet on it, and also a YES in the top-left corner and a NO in the top-right corner. At the bottom it had GOOD BYE. There were also some mystical sun and moon drawings on it.
“I don’t like this at all,” Anita said.
Tamsin glared at her. “Then you don’t have to play.”
“Where did you get this?” Fiona asked.
“I got it at a garage sale, but the lady I bought it from said it had been in her family for generations, and that it was very lucky.”
“If it was so lucky,” Alex said, “why was she selling it at a garage sale?”
Tamsin shrugged. “I guess it had already brought them all the luck they needed. Are we going to do this or what?”
“You’re all going to get possessed by ghosts,” Anita said, moving back away from the board. “Maybe she was selling it because it’s haunted.”
I looked closely at the board, wondering if it was legit. “Hey,” I said. “It says Parker Brothers on it. I bet you can buy this at Walmart.”
“Still…” Anita was obviously freaked out.
“I think it’s all hooey,” I said, but quietly under my breath.
“It is,” my grandmother answered, giving me a little shiver.
“Oh. Okay. Good to know.” I leaned toward Alex. “Bubby says it’s all a crock.”
She nodded. “I thought so.” She winked at me, though. She had that look in her eye that told me she was up to no good.
“Okay, girls,” she said loudly so everyone would pay attention. “Let’s get this started.” She moved closer to the board and nodded at the rest of us to do the same.
We shuffled in. Well, all but Anita.
“Tamsin, it’s your birthday party, so you should get to go first. Do you have a question ready?”
“Yes,” she said, bouncing a little in her seat.
“Okay,” Alex said, obviously taking over. “Everyone put your fingertips on the thingie.”
We all did. Of course, except Anita, who was watching from her spot in the corner.
“Okay, Tamsin. What’s your question?”
Tamsin took a breath. “Who will I marry?”
Everyone gasped. We all knew Tamsin was currently crushing on Tyler Landis, an eighth grader. He was an excellent hockey player who hoped to one day make it to the NHL. Alex liked to tease Tamsin that her future boyfriend wouldn’t have any teeth, but Tamsin said with his NHL contract, he’d be able to buy himself a whole mouth full of teeth.
Personally, I’d rather my husband have his own natural teeth, thank you very much. But I guess Tamsin wasn’t bothered by dentures.
All of a sudden, the plastic thing started to skitter and move under our fingers.
“Oh!” Anita yelped.
It was moving over toward the left side of the board.
“Where’s the T?” Tamsin said. “Oh. Never mind.”
Suddenly the piece started moving back toward the center. Toward the T.
I glanced at Alex, who looked at me and we both knew: it wasn’t being guided by any spirits. It was totally being guided by Tamsin.
“She won’t be marrying him,” my grandmother said. “He likes Emily Hadley.”
I nodded. Figures he’d like an eighth grader.
Alex nudged me. “What?”
“Tyler likes Emily Hadley,” I whispered.
“No kidding?” Alex whispered back.
I nodded.
“Well, she does have boobs,” Alex said.
“Oh, it’s spelling out T-Y-L-E-R!” Tamsin squealed.
Fiona, Sherise, and even Anita squealed along with her.
“Okay, my turn,” Alex proclaimed. I wondered why she would bother, since she knew it wasn’t real.
“Who will I marry?”
Under my fingertips, I could feel the thing moving towards the M. M as in “Mark.” Surprise, surprise.
“Stop pulling it, Alex!” Fiona said with a cluck of her tongue.
“I’m not! It wants to move to the M.”
“M?” Tamsin said. “Who’s an M?”
“Your brother.”
Tamsin frowned. “No, you can’t marry my brother.”
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t, that’s all.”
Alex got mad. “You think I’m not good enough for your precious brother?”
“That’s not it. He’s older than you.”
“Only by two years. So who cares?”
I looked at Sherise, who shrugged.
Then I looked at Anita, whose eyes were so full of tears, they were going to spill over any second.
“Anita?” I said, bringing all the attention to her.
She looked down, causing two big tears to fall out of her eyes onto the carpet.
“Tamsin,” I said, turning to her. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, what’s wrong?”
She sighed. “This is my birthday party and I want to have fun, okay?”
“Fun? Did someone say fun?” a man said.
I looked around, but there were no men in the room.
“Who’s there?” I said, before I realized the words were even out of my mouth.
The girls looked at me and then toward the stairs.
“Mark?” Tamsin hollered. “Go back upstairs!”
But it wasn’t him. There was a spirit in the room—one only I could hear.
“You okay?” Alex asked quietly.
“Someone’s here.”
“What’s with all the whispering?” Tamsin asked. “No whispering.”
“Why are you crying, Anita?” Sherise asked, shuffling over to console Anita.
“Never mind,” she said, wiping her tears away. Everyone focusing on her allowed me to find out who was with us. I got up and went into the little bathroom, turning on the light before I closed the door.
“Who’s there?” I whispered.
“Chuckles.”
“Chuckles?” What a weird name.
“Chuckles the clown.”
You’ve got to be kidding, I thought. “What are you doing here?”
“This is a birthday party, isn’t it?”
Involuntarily, I sighed. “Yes, but we’re not toddlers. Don’t you think we’re a little old for a clown?”
“You’re never too old for a clown!” He sounded very sure of it.
I certainly wasn’t.
“Can’t you go find some six-year-old’s party to crash?”
He sou
nded sad when he said, “It’s not the same if people can’t hear me and know I’m just trying to have fun with them. I’m not mean; I’m not trying to scare anyone.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about being at a party, and all of a sudden balloons start blowing themselves up and twisting into animals. Do you think you would like that or would you be terrified?”
I thought it would be cool, but saw his point. I guess if I didn’t know what was going on, that would be pretty scary.
But I had an idea. “Can you really do that? Make balloon animals?”
“Yes, and I can do magic tricks, although I guess you wouldn’t be able to see them.”
“Do you have balloons?”
All of a sudden, about twenty long, skinny balloons appeared in front of me. “Okay, cool. Give me some time to break the news to the girls, and then you can put on your show. How’s that?”
“Really?” Chuckles sounded so happy.
“Sure, why not. It’s better than that lame Ouija board.”
“Oh, thank you, Lilah. Thank you!”
“You’re welcome. When was the last time you did a real party? Like… when you were alive?”
“Oh, it’s been ages. It was… let me think… 1964.”
Wow, that was way before my dad was even born.
I left the bathroom after flushing the toilet and running the tap for a second so no one would wonder what I was doing in there.
But they probably wouldn’t have noticed, anyway, because when I came out of the bathroom, I walked right into the middle of a fight.
“Why is she good enough and I’m not?” Alex said, right in Tamsin’s face.
“I never said that.” Tamsin was mad and crying.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Fiona filled me in. “They’re fighting over who gets to marry Mark.”
“Okay, this is ridiculous,” I said, trying to drown out the insanity going on in front of me. “First of all, we’re hardly old enough to get married. Second of all, Mark gets a vote. Has anyone gone upstairs to ask him what he thinks?”
Gasps of horror erupted around me.
“I didn’t think so.”
“So until he is consulted, and we are like twenty, I think this is all a moot point.”
Poor Anita sniffled in the corner. “I’m sorry. I never meant to start a fight.”