Dead People

by Edie Ramer

  I’ll be there as soon as I can. I promise.

  Love, love, love, love, love.

  Mom

  Erin’s hands felt heavy as she lifted them to the laptop keys and pressed Reply.

  Mom, the ghost hardly comes out, so don’t worry about it hurting me. I feel sorry for it. I heard it in the guest bedroom next to mine once, making crying noises.

  The ghost whisperer is trying hard to get rid of the ghost. She said ghosts are like little kids sometimes. This one is like a naughty big kid, but I hardly see it.

  I made dad stay here so I can be here when you come. I don’t care that the kids at school don’t like me.

  Will you hurry and come for me? I thought you’d be here by now.

  Love,

  Erin

  She pressed Send. It was too bad she couldn’t type more, because she had a lot of stuff to say and no one to say it to. But some things she couldn’t tell her mom, ‘cause her mom got too worried.

  Her mom had a lot of worries.

  Someone knocked on her door and Erin closed the laptop.

  “Erin? Your dad wants to see you in his studio,” Tricia’s fake happy voice said.

  Erin locked her laptop in her desk drawer. She didn’t trust anyone. Not even the ghost.

  When Erin trudged out of her bedroom, Tricia waited in the hall with a huge smile, but Erin knew acting when she saw it. Especially bad acting.

  “I’ll walk up with you, see what you and your dad want for supper, spaghetti or chicken.”

  Erin shrugged. Tricia was using her, but that was no new thing. People had been nice to her all the time to get close to her mom. Now Tricia was nice to get close to her dad.

  At least Cassie didn’t do that. Cassie liked her for herself. Erin didn’t think Cassie even liked her dad.

  In the studio, her dad told Tricia to make whatever she wanted, but when Tricia left, he went to the doorway and called her back.

  “What would you like to eat?” he asked Erin.

  “Pizza.” That’s what she and her mom had almost all the time.

  “We’re having pizza,” he said to Tricia, who came back to the doorway.

  Tricia’s smile wobbled. “Uh, I’ll go to the grocery store and get—”

  “Don’t bother, we’ll have one delivered.”

  “But...but...”

  “Thank you.” He closed the door on her face.

  Erin wanted to giggle but her dad turned to her and she suddenly didn’t feel like anything was funny. He was going to try to win her over again, she could tell by his expression, like he was walking around with a thorn stuck in his big toe. It hurt him to talk to her, but he kept trying and she kept turning him off.

  Every time she felt like softening, she thought of her mom and froze up again. Her mom didn’t have anyone but Erin.

  Her dad went to the synthesizer and gestured to Erin to sit on the stool in front of it.

  She shook her head.

  “I’ll give you a lesson,” he said.

  She put her hands behind her back. The synthesizer looked beautiful and mysterious, shimmering from the late afternoon sunlight that illuminated the room. She wanted to learn how to use it more than she wanted to eat pizza.

  Her mom would never know if she said yes. But Erin would know.

  “No,” she said.

  His lips turned down at the corners and she tensed. “You’ll sing, then,” he said. “Have a seat.” He gestured at the synthesizer stool again.

  “I don’t know words to any songs.” The words stumbled from her mouth, and she realized her mistake. She should have said “No!” right away. Real stern, like she meant it.

  “We’ll learn the words together.” He pulled up another stool a couple feet away and slipped on his guitar strap over his neck.

  He bent forward and fiddled with the keyboard workstation. Her hands started to sweat. When he sat back on his stool, she wiped her palms on her jeans.

  She should leave. Her mom would hate that she was doing this. And what if he thought her singing sucked?

  Her legs felt weak, like her bones were made of rubber bands, and she lurched to the stool and plopped onto it. “I’m not as good as Mom,” she said, her voice cracking.

  “Not many people are.” He tuned his guitar. “Everyone has their own strengths. Let’s start off with something simple.” He played “Mary had a Little Lamb,” only he did it with the long blues riffs, like Jimi Hendrix did on “The Star Spangled Banner.”

  A tingle went up Erin’s spine. Luke played the guitar as good as her mom sang.

  “Sing.” He started the verse from the beginning.

  She told herself it didn’t matter if he thought her singing was awful, and maybe she should sing bad on purpose. Her mouth opened and the words poured out, her voice strong now. And instead of singing bad, she sang as good as she could, not nervous at all.

  He played too good for her to mess up on purpose. It wouldn’t be right.

  Listening to him, Erin understood why Tricia watched him all googly-eyed.

  “Mary had a little laaaaaaaaaaamb.” She hung onto the last syllable as the guitar note vibrated in the air, going on and on and on. At the end, her voice wobbled, and he went on to more notes, and she sang the next sentence.

  When the song was over, she got lightheaded, like she did last summer when she’d stayed outside in the sun too long with no water. She’d gotten hot and had thrown up. Remembering, she pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t get sick again.

  If he wanted to sing another song, she’d say “No” for sure.

  He leaned forward and pressed a button on the workstation. The music started, first his bluesy guitar singing out, the sound so pure it thrummed inside her chest along with her pounding heart.

  He’d recorded the song!

  Oh no, she knew what was coming next. Her voice. How could she stand listening?

  Her voice soared out, and she started to bring her hands over her ears—but then she realized her voice sounded like his guitar instead of like her mom. Her mom’s voice was like molasses, thick and deep. Erin’s voice was different, like spring water, but with a husky edge.

  It sounded...not horrible.

  She pressed her hands to her stomach and sat there like that until it was over. He sat back and frowned.

  Something clogged up her throat, choking it, stopping her from talking. She looked away from him, in case he avoided her eyes and then she’d know she sucked after all.

  “You’re good,” he said. “You’re seriously good.”

  She hopped off the stool. “I have to go to my room.”

  Her breaths loud, she ran out. As she closed the door, she heard the same music start up.

  He was listening to her sing again. He wouldn’t do that if he was lying.

  Tears stung her eyes, but she didn’t cry as she ran down the stairs. When she reached her room, she closed the door behind her and went to the dresser mirror.

  In her mind, she heard the music. “Mary had a little laaaaaaamb,” she sang, “a little lamb, a little laaaaaaaaamb.”

  Maybe she was going to be special, like her mom.

  But there was only room for one special person in the family.

  She should tell her dad not to mention this to anyone, especially her mom.

  Erin’s stomach twisted, the turkey sandwich she ate at lunch coming up her throat. She ran into the bathroom, bent over the toilet and hurled. Gunk spewed out of her mouth and her nose. When she had nothing left in her stomach, she stumbled to her bed and lay on her side, pulling her knees up to her stomach. She rocked slightly, her tears leaking onto the creamy sheet.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Luke stood in the doorway of Erin’s bedroom. She was curled in a fetal position on her bed, like a human cannonball of sadness against the sunshine yellow wall. He silently swore. He’d thought Erin connected with him this afternoon, just a little. She hadn’t said anything and neither did he, but he’d felt it.

&n
bsp; So why was she coiled on her bed with her back to him, saying she wasn’t hungry?

  Was she anorexic? She was on the thin side, but not down-to-the-bone skinny. But what the hell did he know about it?

  “You’re having pizza,” he said. “Either you come down to the kitchen or I bring the pizza up here and we eat it on your bed.”

  The doorbell tolled its death-knell downstairs. He crossed his arms over his chest, watching Erin. She didn’t move.

  The bell tolled again. Erin remained unmoving. Stubborn. She got that from him and from Vanessa.

  He didn’t want to eat in her too cheery bedroom, but if he went back on his word—

  The fucking bell tolled again, and he remembered Tricia said she was leaving early tonight to work at the motel, something about one of the clerks taking off for her birthday.

  He didn’t say anything to Erin, just snapped around and headed to the stairway. It was probably Cassie. He clambered down the stairs. Let Erin worry about what he was going to do.

  “I’m giving you a key,” he said, letting Cassie in. She wore a brown corduroy jacket that matched her hair and eyes. “Temporarily.”

  “You’re in a lovely mood.” She whisked past him.

  “Isabel’s been playing hide and seek for two weeks now and you haven’t found her. I want her out of here. Yesterday.”

  She turned to face him. “Are you in a hurry to get rid of me?”

  No! Hell no! These last two weeks, he sat across from her in the family room every night. As they talked and sometimes dueled with words, he imagined making love to her, holding her full breasts, running his hands down her curvy hips, fitting himself into her softness, between her legs.

  From the looks she shot him sometimes, he suspected she might be tortured too. They talked about movies or food or politics. Never anything private or suggestive, as if they’d made a silent pact to keep their relationship impersonal.

  But it was as personal as hell. After an hour, he usually left, unable to take any more.

  He was writing songs about unattainable love. He had the girl bands covered and a few of the guys too.

  “I’m in a hurry to get rid of the ghost,” he said.

  “Glad we straightened that out.” She gave him a tight smile, then marched down the hall to the family room, her jacket swishing just above her hipbones, giving him a nice shot at her swaying ass in a pair of black jeans.

  He got hard thinking about getting into those jeans. But Erin was still too messed up to screw around with anyone, much less the ghost whisperer. Especially the ghost whisperer, with her connection to Erin that he’d seen the first time they talked in the library and kept growing stronger.

  Two evenings ago, he’d heard Erin laugh. He’d followed the sound to the family room. The door was open, and he’d stood in the hall, listening to Cassie tell Erin about a ghost who didn’t want to leave earth until her favorite TV show was off the air. Jeopardy.

  Erin had stuttered another laugh. He hadn’t been able to breathe for a couple of minutes, his breath caught in his chest.

  The family room door was open a crack now, but Erin was upstairs, refusing to come down. It was just him and Cassie.

  He paused outside the door. This was a bad idea. A very bad idea.

  He pushed it open anyway.

  ***

  The door groaned, a humanlike sound that lifted the hair on Cassie’s nape. Draping her jacket on a chair, Cassie knew it was Luke even before she glanced up and saw him. She’d never been attracted to alpha men, and Luke was so alpha he could be a spokesman for the Alpha Support Group if they would admit to needing one—which would never happen, because they were too alpha.

  So why him? These last two weeks, she’d been spending too much time with Luke, looking forward to the times he’d step into the family room and keep her company, saying he wanted to be there when Isabel deigned to drop in.

  No wonder she wasn’t having any luck with Isabel. She was thinking about Luke instead of how to convince Isabel to leave earth.

  Looking at Luke now, she tensed. His jaw jutted out a fraction of an inch more than usual, his mouth was tense and the timing was off. He usually waited until Erin was sleeping.

  Something was wrong. He was here for a reason, not because he couldn’t stand being away from her for another second. As if she’d ever thought that.

  Fine with her. Her nights of mooning over what never would be were over. Done. Unless it was something to do with Isabel, the answer was going to be “No.”

  “I ordered pizza for dinner. Eat with us.”

  Her stomach rumbled, but the turkey sub sandwich in her purse could stop the grumbles. Besides, a pizza shared with Luke and Erin sounded like something a family might do, and they weren’t a family. Nowhere near.

  “No.” She saw ghosts, not delusions.

  He nodded and swiveled for the doorway, then stopped with his back to her. Seconds ticked by before he sighed, deep and long, a “Lord, I seen the blues” sigh.

  He swiveled back, his face shadowed, turning his sapphire eyes a dark blue. “Erin won’t come down.”

  She hesitated, then realized what she was doing and her muscles locked. Oh no! She wasn’t falling for this. Let him figure out his own problems. She was here for Isabel, not Luke, not Erin.

  “When she gets hungry enough she’ll come.”

  “She’s in bed with her back to the wall. She won’t turn around.”

  Cassie visualized Erin, unhappy, brooding, cringing inside.

  Damn him. He’d raised the stakes, and how could she say no? She knew too well what Erin was feeling inside. The unhappiness, the anger, the self-loathing. Even though she’d done nothing wrong, she’d still feel as if she did.

  “I am hungry.” She unlocked her muscles, one by one. After all, eating a pizza was a small thing, twenty minutes at the most, not a lifetime commitment. “Do you want me to go up and get her?”

  He gazed at her for so long her skin itched and she curled her fingers to keep from reaching under her sweater and scratching her arms.

  “We can go together,” he said.

  She started toward him and he held out his hand. She put her arms behind her back. He dropped his arm. Her head up, breathing shallowly, she strode past him. As she walked up the stairs, she spared a thought to Luke’s eyes on her butt. She’d caught him looking at it a few times, and it hadn’t been revulsion she’d seen on his face. Far from it.

  A smiled tipped up her lips, so inappropriate, but she couldn’t regret it. How often did she feel good about her butt?

  At the doorway of Erin’s bedroom, she looked at the girl curled up on the bed, radiating misery from every tight muscle. The smile lingering on Cassie’s face dissolved and a wad of unshed tears clogged her throat. She tried to speak twice. The third time, her voice wheezed out.

  “Hey, Erin, I’m eating pizza with you and your dad. Are you coming?”

  “I can’t.”

  Was she sobbing? Cassie leaned forward to hear better. “Why can’t you eat with us?”

  “I just can’t. I’ll be sick.” Erin’s voice was stronger, no wobbles, no sobs.

  “You’re allergic to pizza? I thought I saw a box on the counter last week, but maybe that was your dad’s.”

  Erin’s body stilled, as if she stopped breathing. The room pulsed with tension, then Erin rolled over, her knees bent, looking at Cassie out of bruised eyes.

  Cassie sucked in a breath. “Erin, are you sick?” Before she finished the questions, she was halfway across the room, her arms out.

  Sitting up in one smooth move, Erin shook her head, her blonde hair whipping out. “No! I’m just not hungry.”

  Cassie stopped a foot away and peered into Erin’s face. Erin’s blue eyes looked hungry. Haunted hungry, as if there was a constant sadness inside her. Or was she reading too much into Erin’s expression? Seeing the child she used to be?

  “I’m calling the doctor tomorrow.” Luke’s voice startled Cassie out of he
r concentration. “I’ll ask for an emergency appointment.”

  Erin blinked, the hunger gone as if her eyelids erased it, a darker emotion stirring in her eyes. “Nothing is wrong. I’m not sick.”

  “You’re acting sick. If it’s not physical, I’ll set you up with a therapist.”

  “No! You’re ruining everything.” Hate speared out of Erin’s eyes. Cassie stepped back, out of the way of that cutting gaze. “Dr. Anspeth said I didn’t have to see another therapist.”

  “Look, Erin.” Luke shoved his hand through his hair. His tone was resigned, defeated. “I’m new at being a dad. I know I’m doing a lousy job, but I’m trying. Can’t you try a little too?”

  “I hate you. I’ll never change. You may as well take me back to my mom.”

  Cassie caught a convulsion of pain in his face. A second later, the cynical guitar player was back. “The judge ruled your mother unfit. You’d have to go back to the foster care system. Is that what you want?”

  Cassie heard shuffling behind her, sock-covered feet thudding onto the carpet.

  “I’ll eat your stupid pizza.” Erin marched past Cassie and Luke, her hands swinging militantly, her face closed as tight as a jail cell. “But it won’t make any difference. I’ll still want to go back to my mother. I’ll never like living with you.”

  Luke watched her, his expression unreadable, until Cassie turned into the hallway. Only then did he glance at Cassie. “It’s going to be a fun meal. Be sure to bring your appetite.”

  “You know, I think I’ll pass after all.”

  “I’d pass if I could. But she’s my daughter.” He turned and started down the hall, his footsteps heavy but his shoulders squared.

  Cassie let him get to the stairs before she followed him. She was feeling sorry for him, and that wasn’t good. She already empathized with Erin, even though Erin was acting like a brat.

  These two, they were starting to suck her in, make her care. And that was bad, bad, bad.

  This was just another job. She needed to get hold of Isabel, convince her to leave, and then get the hell out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Welts of sunlight slashed across Cassie’s eyes, glaring into her motel room through the open blind slats. She groaned and shaded her eyes with her forearms. Squinting, she looked around. Something was missing.