Haunted

by Susan Oloier

  I look forward all day to being with Jeremy. Most people would think I’d feel closest to him at the dance studio where we spent most of our time. But, in reality, I feel his presence in the trees, the wind, and even the flowers I bring for him. Plus, there’s the distinct possibility of running into someone if I show up at the studio. I don’t want to listen to the I’m sorrys and pathetic looks of sympathy. In the cemetery, I have Jeremy all to myself. In a sense. At least I tell myself I do. Who knows, maybe by some stretch of the imagination he can hear me. Even see me.

  When I arrive at the cemetery and head down the path toward Jeremy’s spot, sadness creeps over me. It makes it all real. I sit down beside his plot and run my finger over the engraving of his headstone. Jeremy Ian McClure. His birth and death dates. The etching: Forever Missed. I notice the feather is gone. Probably blown away by the wind.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I’m really sorry.” Tears, out of nowhere, spiral down my cheeks. “I wish there were do-overs, you know? So you could be back here.” I cover my face and let myself collapse forward into my own lap. “I miss you so much,” I say, muffled, into my hands. “I’m so sorry, Jeremy.”

  Jeremy

  I’ve been all over searching for her: her bedroom, the halls at Wheaton, the dance studio. She’s not there.

  Then something pulls me back to that dreadful place. The call of my name. Jeremy. I rush back to the cemetery and see her. Hailey. Her long hair curtains her face as she bends over a headstone. Mine. God, it breaks my heart to see her that way. Her fingers comb the cold marble as if she’s still touching my flesh and connecting with me.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath, hoping I can once again feel her skin against mine, but there’s nothing. If I imagine hard enough, I can remember what it feels like. But in the end, those are only illusions. I so much want the real thing.

  “Jeremy,” she whispers like a mantra, and my heart opens up, letting loose a thousand butterflies throughout my body, making me soar. I want to listen to her say my name over and over again. I’ll never grow tired of it. “I wish you could hear me,” she speaks to my grave marker.

  “I can,” I say.

  But only the birds sing from the shadows of the trees. I try to find them, pick out the individuals from their calls. There’s the definite pi-tuck of a summer tanager, which will be gone by fall.

  If she even hears them, she makes no indication. But she definitely doesn’t hear me. My voice blends with the void of silence now. Like me, it is gone. How will she ever know I’m here?

  I lean along the top of my headstone, peering into her face, simply drinking her in with all her grief. When she cries, her blue eyes shimmer all the more. I reach out and try to wipe the tears away like I once did, but their wetness slips over my fingers and they continue their path down her face. If I dream hard enough, I can feel the softness of her cheek. I stretch my hand to the ends of her hair, which I’ve always loved to play with, afraid to find I can no longer feel the texture of it. But I do feel it: the softness of the strands moving over fingertips. I’m alive again, knowing we’re still together albeit in a very different way. The wind stirs, and Hailey’s hand goes to her hair and lingers there as if she’s conceived of the same thoughts I have.

  “If only you could give me a sign,” Hailey says.

  “I’m trying,” I utter softly to her.

  I want to stay with her like this forever. I lean in closer to brush my lips over hers, but a movement in the distance catches my eye. A passing bicycle has slowed outside the cemetery gates. Some guy with a guitar strung across his back stares at Hailey. He’s young, our age. And there’s a very real possibility girls consider him good looking and Hailey might, too.

  Since her back is turned, Hailey doesn’t notice him, but I do. I step closer, disgusted at the untucked shirt, the way his hair juts out at all angles, the chain around his neck, and the tattoo on his wrist. Most of all, I don’t like how he combs his eyes over Hailey, ogling her grief. God, she’s pretty. I know it. I’ve always known it. But it kills me to know others realize it, too. And I’m now powerless to do anything about it.

  I pick up a wayward stone to hurl at him, but he doesn’t even notice the crunch as it skips across the ground.

  I move toward the entrance gate, ready to scare him away. But before I reach the front edge of the cemetery grounds, the guitar guy clambers back onto the bike as if frightened by something he’s witnessed inside the boundaries of this place. Perhaps a hint of a ghost, a wisp of death. I’m glad to see him go.

  My eyes trail back toward Hailey, but I catch sight of an airborne kite, its orange, blue, and red hues lifting off toward the distant hillside, adding life to the darkened forest in the not-so-far distance. It bobs in the sky, capturing drifts of wind beneath and over its silken body. It circles and dips dangerously close to the trees.

  For a fleeting moment, I wonder if Hailey is flying the kite. But I follow the line of the cotton string and find it tethered to the boy. The kite is too big for him, unruly. He slackens the line, and the kite nosedives into the trees, draping itself over the tips of the Tatarian maple. The string trails behind, wrapping itself in the leaves and branches like a sloppy try at tying ribbon on a birthday gift.

  Instantly, the boy looks to me, his eyes pleading for help. He cuts a maze through the gravesites to get to his kite, staring at it from the bottommost trunk of the tree into the dark green foliage. He glances from it back to me.

  “No way,” I say. “Not me. Find someone else to rescue your kite.” Why can’t he just leave me alone?

  The boy puts his hand on the bark, as though he has every intention of climbing to retrieve his kite. But he’s so young—not much older than a toddler. There’s no way he can lift off from the ground, much less scale his way to the top.

  He beckons me over with a flapping of his arms, but he’s perched on the outer lip of the cemetery, a place I refuse to go. I almost expect a monster’s claw to snatch him from the ghastly innards of the forest.

  “No,” I say, turning back to Hailey. I had nearly forgotten her. “Did you see the k—” I begin to ask her, but she’s gone.

  Hailey makes her way to the exit, plucking a dandelion from the vast field of them at the front of the cemetery. She spins the weed in her hands, and I catch the poise of her last steps and the whisk of her long hair as she exits out to the sidewalk and back into the real world.

  I take off after her, but the child is suddenly beneath me, clutching my pant leg. I look to where only the ghost of Hailey remains and then back to the child, torn.

  My curiosity about this boy wins out. Who is he? What’s he doing here without any parent? But I already know, terrified to have my thoughts confirmed. He points toward the maple, the kite in it, the forest. A suggestion of a smile touches his face. He deliberately scoots aside, so I can see the grave marker behind him. I know it’s his, but I refuse to look. I don’t want to know the details of his death. It would be different if he was an old man, but he’s only a child. Children aren’t supposed to die. Then I realize seventeen-year-olds aren’t supposed to die either.

  “I won’t get your kite for you,” I say more to myself than to him. I don’t want to know what’s out there. I’m afraid if I step into the forest, I’ll never come back.

  I glance around at the sun glinting on the leaves as they cast shadows across the grass and pathways, marble stone jutting out of the ground in fairly even rows, flowers tipping out of canisters. And the dandelions, a whole sea of them in front of me. Soon they will be dead, too.

  Eli

  The last day. One more hour of singing traditional and—I’ll admit—my own eclectic songs to the kids. Though a part of me is sad and will miss them, I’m so ready to move on. Of course, there’s still the band and school, but more time will be freed up to work on my own projects, to get closer to my own dreams.

  I set up in the children’s area by myself this time. No conference room today. I prop
my guitar in the middle of the colorful picture books and floor cushions. A stuffed elephant stares at me from the top of the bookshelf, a fugitive from the catchall basket.

  As the kids gather around, some of them milling with their moms in and out of the stacks, I rifle through my sheet music—most of which I don’t need. I’m more of an impromptu person. But flipping through it all gives me time to think about my ride over and my unexpected discovery in the cemetery.

  My eyes had drifted to the grounds as I rode by. I wasn’t trying to see anything. In fact, I did my best to avoid the place, knowing what dwells within its gates. I’m not talking ghosts or zombies or any of that paranormal sh—Shih Tzus. Shih tzus? Really? I so have to work on my replacement words. No, it’s the decomposing-human-body-never-coming-back factor that I don’t like. And the other thing. The thing I try to forget about. Sure, I know death is inevitable and a quote/unquote natural part of life, but I sure as shish kebabs don’t want anything to do with it. Especially since I’m trying like hell to move forward and as far away from the things in the past that still haunt me.

  But to see her there—clearly crying over a grave—well, that made me stop. I mean maybe, just maybe, that’s the reason she’s so freakin’ cold to me in English Lit. Maybe she’s caught up in some stage of grieving like—what are the stages? Acceptance. Denial. That wouldn’t be it. I don’t know. But it could be she’s just sad. And people who are sad and truly missing someone—well, they do some not-so-cool things. Believe me, I know.

  “Hey, Eliiii.” Penny’s sing-songy voice pulls me right out of my reverie.

  “Hey, Penny.” I pick up my guitar as if to play, then raise my eyes, and Hailey’s there.

  “This is Hailey,” Penny says. “She used to work here before you worked here…”

  “We met,” we say at the same time. Hailey half-smiles, and I lift the corner of my mouth into a grin, too.

  But Penny acts as if she doesn’t hear. “Isn’t he just dreamy?” she says as if I’m not standing right in front of her—within hearing range.

  “Dreamy?” Hailey repeats as if considering the idea.

  She studies me for a moment while I pretend to pick chords out on my guitar. I don’t know why I care what she thinks, but I do.

  “Sure,” she finally answers, but I don’t know if she’s being sincere or sarcastic.

  “I need to…” she points toward the empty space behind her and drifts away, letting that be the finish of her sentence.

  “So, Eli,” Penny starts, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, “Are you doing anything after this?”

  My fingers wander over the guitar strings. “Well, I kind of have studying and dinner with the family unit and…” I search for something huge, something to really deter her, “…uh, sleeping.”

  “Maybe we could—”

  I’m afraid she’s going to say sleep together, so I cut her off. “It’s time.” I point to the clock as kids and moms gather for the after-school version of musical story time.

  Penny nods on the outside, but on the inside I can tell she doesn’t want to leave.

  After dragging her feet for a bit, Sharon finally calls her to remove tape from the book jackets, and Penny leaves in a dramatic gesture.

  My grand finale. I stare out at the captive audience of kids, their sweet and innocent faces looking up at me, so oblivious to what the real world is like. But as I strum my guitar and sing, I become distracted. In between the chorus of elephant ears—compliments of my friend on the shelf—and tiger tails on the side, I catch myself watching her. A book placed here, a courtesy smile given there. A tuck of hair behind her ear, the way it flows down her back, meeting the curve of her spine. My eyes climb down the rungs of it in my mind, dangling precipitously close to the tiny bit of exposed flesh at the lip of her jeans.

  Wait a second! I pull myself back to reality. Not only back to the kids and the library, but to the fact that I’m nowhere ready to show this kind of interest in a girl. Am I? I try to focus. Focus, focus. “With…” I almost lose my verve in the song.

  “Lizard lips!” A child shouts out.

  “Lizard lips,” I strum and sing, picking up the melody again.

  Hailey drifts into the children’s section and puts away Dr. Seuss. When she finishes, she stands for a moment beside one of the tall shelves. And watches. And listens. It unnerves me. And I never become unnerved in front of an audience. It’s just something I don’t do.

  “All right,” I cut myself short, realizing thirty minutes has already passed. “So that’s that. Looks like that’s all the time we have for today.” My eyes wander to Hailey who straightens the books on one of the end caps.

  “Is this your last day, Mr. Eli?”

  I break a smile. It always cracks me up when kids call me mister.

  For some reason, the girl’s question has Hailey’s attention. She’s clearly finished her job in this section. And yet here she is, milling around.

  I bend down to the little girl. “You mean my last day of eating lizard lips?”

  I catch Hailey out of the corner of my eye. For the briefest of moments, a smile reaches her eyes.

  “Nooooo!”

  The mom rests her hand on the little girl’s head.

  “You mean my last day of playing music here,” I say to the girl while my eyes are trained on Hailey.

  There’s this gynormous pause. By all rhyme and reason, I mean to say yes. It was totally in my head to say yes. Sharon expects me to leave. My band mates are anticipating my departure. And I’m ready to exit. But something stops me. Maybe it’s the crying in the cemetery. Maybe it’s how it seems her next move hinges on my answer. Maybe my hormones have gotten the best of me when I thought I had them under control.

  “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be back.” I touch her nose with the tip of my finger and stand up.

  “Mommy,” the girl says as the mother leads her by the hand toward the exit. “He said he might come back.”

  “So you’re not quitting after all,” Hailey surprises me by saying. She must’ve noted my puzzled look because she continues. “Penny told me.”

  “Ah.”

  “She’s devastated, by the way.” Hailey runs a finger along the dusty edge of a shelf.

  I delay in packing up my things. “I’m sure.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll see each other in class,” she says.

  “Hamlet.”

  “Hamlet,” she parrots, her eyes locking on mine. “Sharon wanted me to ask if you need any help cleaning up.”

  “N—” I almost let slide my typical response. I loathe others touching my equipment or smudging my sheet music even though it’s often in a bit of disarray on its own. But it’s my disorganization, my coffee stains. “Yeah,” I say. “That would be great.”

  Hailey straightens pillows and realigns chairs while I pack up my guitar. We work in a separate sort of togetherness.

  “You’re really good.” She breaks the silence.

  When I turn, she isn’t looking at me, so I’m not sure she’s even talking to me. Her back is to me, so her words might as well be spoken to the stuffed elephant. When I don’t say anything, she pivots. “Really good.”

  “Thanks. The guitar really isn’t my thing. I’m much more of a piano—” But my sentence is cut off by Penny.

  “So you’re really going home to sleep, huh?”

  My cheeks flush as I look from Penny to Hailey. Hailey raises her eyebrows.

  “Yeah. Definitely need the full eight hours for full beauty effect,” I say.

  There’s an audible chortle. Both Penny and I turn to Hailey. “Sorry,” she says.

  “I know, huh? He doesn’t need any beauty sleep at all.”

  I grab my belongings, drape my guitar case around my back, and head to the back office to say goodbye to Sharon. “See you in school, then,” I say. And I take off.

  “Wait!” Hailey calls. “You dropped this.”

  She hands me a flyer. I take it from her and su
rvey it as if I don’t already know what it is: an ad for the band’s gig on Friday at Hoppers.

  “You’re in a band?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Should’ve known.”

  I feel that pinch of skin between my eyes.

  Hailey waves her arm as if showing me to myself for the first time. “You know, you kind of have that look.”

  The pinch is still there, so she continues, her cheeks flushing every-so-slightly. “The hair, the guitar—the tattoo.” Her vision lingers on my wrist, on the infinity tattoo.

  I break my trance and hand the paper back to her. “Keep it. Who knows, maybe you can bring a date or something.”

  Her expression instantly falls like the darkest of shadows has passed over her lovely face.

  “Or not.”

  She takes the flyer, nods, and heads back to the circulation desk.

  Frickin Fred Flintstone. What was that all about?

  Hailey

  I sit on my bed, studying the flyer in my hand. Black Taxi. The band’s name. Then Eli’s words come back to me: Maybe you can bring a date. I know he didn’t mean to hurt me, but he did. Those words dredge up all sorts of stinging feelings I’ve tried to hide under the cover of my out-in-the-world persona. It always amazes me how the loss and anguish sneak up. I think I’m going along okay, pretending all is relatively well, then bam. It’ll hit me like a Mack truck.

  I hold onto the flyer as if it’s a means to remember the afternoon all the better.

  Eli. He was sweet with the kids: a rare thing for a seventeen-year-old guy. And he was good. Really good. I wonder what he’s doing playing tunes in a public library. I mean, he made up all those song lyrics about making a tent out of elephant ears and holding them up with tiger tails while playing the guitar. There’s just something about him. That hair. Those eyes. That crooked smile.

  And then I consider Jeremy, and I crumple the flyer in my hand and toss it beside the bed. But the gesture is so weak that I disgust myself. I catch sight of the paper alongside my bed, and I wildly rush to it as if it’s a physical presence that attacks me. As I cinch it, I feel the muscles in my face tighten, the blood vessels in my head constrict. I pull the wrinkled page apart, stare at the maimed words about Eli’s band. Then I use every ounce of energy I have to rip it into strips. Pieces fly madly around the room. But still, I can read some of the words, detect hints of its message and what it means. So I continue to scrape it all together, so I can further brutalize it, mince it until there’s nothing left but confetti on my floor. If I had a lighter, I’d burn the thing. What the hell am I doing thinking of another guy’s eyes and smile? What’s wrong with me? I’m such a betrayer.