Ghosts of Bergen County

by Dana Cann

  “In 2004,” Mary Beth said.

  “Thank you,” Dr. Yoder said. He turned his face in her direction. “What I don’t understand is—” he started. “What did the ghost—I mean, why did the ghost seek you out?”

  “The ghost lives in our house,” Ferko said.

  “But Mary Beth first encountered her at the elementary school,” Dr. Yoder said.

  “Amanda followed me to the elementary school,” Mary Beth said, “but sometimes I wonder whether I followed her.”

  Ferko’s head swam. Jen lowered her sunglasses over her eyes.

  “Tell me,” Dr. Yoder said.

  “I’d been inside for a year and a half. I was grieving.”

  A shadow darkened Dr. Yoder’s face.

  “When I went out again, I went up the hill instead of down. I wanted to avoid down. I still do.”

  “I don’t understand,” Dr. Yoder said.

  Mary Beth glanced at Ferko, her expression serene.

  “We lost a child,” Ferko said. “A girl. There was an accident.” He imagined the blue car, the green stroller, the cruel impact.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  The tape turned in its wheels. A breeze bent the thinnest limbs on the trees. Ferko was starting to see something now: a thread, at first fuzzy, then distinct, in the deep recesses of his mind, the place where puzzles were solved. He’d never been good at puzzles—jigsaws or Rubik’s cubes or crosswords. But now a thread grew visible, thin and tenuous, but black, as tangible as night, connecting, somehow, Amanda to Catherine.

  Jen pulled her chair closer to the tape recorder and its built-in mic. She sat, then sighed. The lenses on her sunglasses were as dark as the face of the tape deck, which she now addressed: “Guess who else went to Princeton yesterday to meet with Solomon DeGrass?” The question was rhetorical, answered in her next breath: “Me.”

  Mary Beth blinked. Ferko waited. The thread connecting Catherine to Amanda thickened and grew shoots, like the spindly legs of spiders or the webs they spun.

  And Jen told the story again. She’d had a dry run only the day before, but it was harder now, with her dad in the audience. Solomon had judged her, of course, but she didn’t care about Solomon DeGrass. Her father’s presence made her voice quaver. Yesterday she’d pretended to be an actor in a play. Today she hid behind sunglasses and studied the moving parts visible through the plastic housing of the cassette deck—the wheels and white sprockets that turned the tape. Computers and MP3 players didn’t have moving parts. It seemed a shame. Inside and up the stairs, in the bedroom that was once hers, that was still hers on those days and nights when she slept here, was a ceiling fan. How many times had she lain on her back and studied it, counting its revolutions? Now the cassette’s wheels marked time, and each revolution advanced the tape, while the story progressed—the bar, the cab, the roof, home. When she got there she chanced a look at her dad, whose face was a mask of thought, beneath which the wheels turned, like the wheels on the tape deck. And now another memory swamped her—a party at Paula McDonough’s house to celebrate the end of seventh grade. It was Jen’s first boy-girl party—a real one, with music and dancing. Paula had a stereo in her finished basement, with a cassette player and a bunch of mixtapes she’d made for the party from records her brothers owned. It was summer; the day was long. No one bothered to turn on the lights when the sun went down. Kids danced. Jen danced. Greg Fletcher kissed her, and she kissed him back. Her mom was dead, less than six months gone, and she was kissing a boy. And then the boy left. And not just the party. He left left. He moved to California.

  Now her dad said, “It means something.”

  Of course it did: Greg’s move back East, his relationship to the DeGrass family, the car he borrowed and wrecked and never returned, his obsession with Ferko.

  “Greg Fletcher was driving the car that hit your baby,” she said.

  “Greg Fletcher,” Mary Beth said.

  “Jen,” Ferko started, but she waved him off.

  “No, I don’t know for sure.” She opened her phone and dialed his number. She didn’t know what she’d say if he answered. But then he did.

  “Jen!” he said. “Long time!”

  She stood, then quashed the urge to turn her back and retreat for privacy, the automatic response signaled by that part of her brain where manners ruled.

  “What are you doing today?” she asked. “Ferko and I are hanging out.”

  “Ferko’s MIA.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Put him on.”

  She met Ferko’s eyes. “He’s not here. I’m meeting him.”

  “Where?”

  She was running out of lies.

  “There’s a place called Ivy’s on Houston.” Old habits in old haunts.

  “Houston where?” he said.

  “First. South side.” She turned her wrist to check the imaginary time on her imaginary watch. “Five thirty.”

  “It’s twelve now,” he complained.

  “I just got up,” she said.

  Disappointment packed his silence. “Okay,” he said after several moments, “tell Ferko he fucked up, but I’ll make it right. Also, tell him I’m buying.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “I never liked that kid,” Dr. Yoder said, meaning Greg Fletcher.

  “You loved him, Dad. Everyone did.”

  “I didn’t,” Ferko protested.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “He used to beat the crap out of me.” This wasn’t exactly accurate, but it was more tenable than the truth—that Ferko had somehow allowed Greg’s superior athletic skills and outsize popularity to cut a deep, permanent wound inside Ferko’s head and heart, both together.

  “But you wanted to be him,” Jen said, revealing, in an instant, the truth it had taken Ferko thirty years to resolve: he’d disliked himself more than he’d disliked Greg Fletcher.

  Even Dr. Yoder nodded. He was shirtless and shoeless, misshapen and yellow, wearing only black swim trunks and goggles, extra eyes on the wide expanse of forehead, which ranged from his eyebrows to the thin wisps combed over the crown of his head. He looked like a large insect dropped from a tree to the exposed pool deck.

  They said their goodbyes, and Dr. Yoder pressed the goggles over his eyes and sat on the lip of the pool with his feet in the water. “Good luck,” he called, then took a breath and went under, pushed off the side and swam, no more than a few strokes from one side to the other. He emerged, took a breath, and pushed off again.

  They’d made a plan. They ensconced Mary Beth in a coffee shop around the corner, and found Greg in Ivy’s, standing at the bar with a glass of beer. He was wearing an ironed blue button-down with long sleeves rolled up to the elbows, red shorts with green checks and a rope belt, blue flip-flops. It was too much color, really. It hurt Ferko’s eyes in the dim light. Ivy’s patrons showed their colors with tattoos and hair. But now there were none. Only Greg, looking like a lost tourist. And Jen and Ferko, looking like what?

  “I came by early and the place was closed. I guess they don’t do a good lunch business.”

  “They don’t have a kitchen, Fletcher.”

  “She knows the coolest places.” He kissed her cheek.

  Ferko pointed a thumb toward the second booth, the one he and Jen had once shared after snorting dope in the windowless water closet upstairs. They took their respective benches, and Greg slid in next to Jen. He raked his tanned fingers through the hair that fell in his eyes, flashed the peace sign. “Two more of these?” he called to the bartender. Greg glanced at Jen, then Ferko. “Cool?”

  “Absolutely,” Ferko said. It was a word that had come into favor uptown, overused by the overpaid. It managed at once to convey competence and insincerity. He smiled.

  Greg’s face lit up. “Where ya been, man?” He opened his hand, which Ferko took but wound up grasping only Greg’s thumb, a sausage link joined to a palm, fingers wrapped in a soul-brother shake.

  “I been around,” Fer
ko said, in spite of himself. It was an awkward gesture, an even more awkward exchange. The bartender loomed with a tray and two pints of beer.

  “Hey, Jen.” He placed the beers on the table.

  “Manny.”

  “It’s been a while.” His sideburns reached his chin. He held the tray like a Frisbee. “You’ve got new friends.”

  “I’ve always got new friends, but these are old friends. Edgefield, New Jersey.”

  “I forgot you’re from New Jersey.”

  “Everyone’s from somewhere,” Jen said. “Ferko and Fletcher, this is Manny.”

  “From LA.” He gave Ferko his free thumb, another soul-brother shake. Then he opened his hand to Greg, who ignored it. “Don’t leave me hanging, bro,” Manny said. But Greg did. He sipped his beer.

  “Seriously, dude,” he said, once Manny had left. “What happened to you?”

  Ferko revived his phone with a single touch. The screen illuminated, symbols he didn’t try to decipher. He placed it on the tabletop next to his beer. Then took a swig. “I got a lot going on,” he said.

  “We all do.”

  “No,” Jen said, “he does.”

  Ferko made a show of reading his screen. Mary Beth had sent a text with a dozen question marks.

  “I’m trying to make him rich,” Greg said.

  “Who asked you to make me rich?” Ferko lifted his eyes. Greg’s face opened like a flower, a wondrous expression typically reserved for the recently converted, the born again.

  “Why don’t you make me rich?” Jen chimed in. “No offense, Ferko, but you’re already there.” She turned to Greg. “He’s got a house in Glen Wood Ridge.”

  “New construction,” Ferko said, then added, “2004.”

  “Edgefield’s rich cousin,” Jen said.

  Ferko pressed his eyebrows together and studied her. They both did.

  “That’s what my dad calls Glen Wood Ridge—Edgefield’s rich cousin.”

  “Cousin!” Ferko said, appreciating the analogy, the connection to their mission. He turned his attention back to the phone, according to the script they’d constructed.

  “Stop with that, man!” Greg swatted the phone, which spun twice before stopping in more or less the same spot.

  “Dude!” Ferko said, getting in the spirit of Greg Fletcher.

  “That’s rude,” he said. “You’re like George Cosler.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Always checks his phone.”

  “Leave him alone, Greg.”

  Ferko scrolled down. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m a bit distracted.” In his head he counted from one to ten. Then his eyes found Greg’s. “The police think they found the car that hit my baby.”

  “Really?” Greg’s reply was immediate.

  “They’re running tests.”

  “Tests.”

  “They said they might have the results today. But it might be next week.” Ferko’s senses were heightened. His blood pumped. A bead of perspiration licked his temple.

  Now Greg was silent, but not indifferent. He was colorless. His mouth formed his lopsided smile, but it seemed directed inward instead of outward. Everything about his face was sunken, collapsed.

  “What kind of tests?” he asked finally.

  “There’s evidence.” Ferko paused a beat. “Or potential evidence.”

  “Evidence?”

  “Don’t make him say it,” Jen jumped in. “There’s evidence.”

  “I’m trying to understand.”

  “The car hit a stroller,” Jen said. “They’ve got a bumper. There’s evidence on the bumper.”

  “Potential evidence,” Ferko put in, sticking with the story.

  “Do they have the whole car?”

  Ferko shrugged. “I guess.” He glanced at his phone as though an affirmation were imminent.

  Greg exhaled, a balloon deflating. “Where?”

  “I’m waiting for details.” Ferko tapped a key on his phone.

  “Where’s the men’s room?” Greg squinted toward the far end.

  “Up the stairs.” Ferko pointed toward the back with his chin.

  Greg slid out of the booth, an expression on his face that Ferko couldn’t read.

  “What do you think?” he asked, after Greg took the stairs two at a time with his long stride.

  “It’s him,” Jen said. “It’s got to be, right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The front door opened and Jen looked up. Two guys walked past—friend-of-Jen types, wearing jeans in spite of the weather. Tattoos peeked from the collars and cuffs of their T-shirts. The closer guy gave Jen a Boy Scout salute, three fingers together at the line where his spiky hair met his forehead. They went straight for the back and up the stairs to the hallway and the sink and the single doorway labeled TOILET, which was locked. They withdrew to barstools downstairs.

  “What do we do?” Jen asked Ferko.

  “Wait to see what happens when he comes back?”

  “Did you text Mary Beth?”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  Jen looked up again, past Ferko’s shoulder, as the front door opened. Two friends of Jen’s. “She’s back,” said a woman, who put an arm around Jen’s neck and kissed the top of her head.

  “Are you?” the guy asked. “Are you back?” They were younger, and reminded Ferko of Tina and Dave. Maybe those two would walk in next. They’d all relive Ferko’s arrest.

  “I’m here,” Jen said.

  “Fair enough,” the woman said, and she turned toward the back, with its stairs and hallway and door with a lock and its private space to cut lines and snort dope. Her braided pigtails bounced as she walked. Her friend followed, but the guys sitting at the bar stopped them and they waited in the queue.

  Ferko glanced up the stairs. Still no Greg. “Why did you choose here?” he asked her. “Why Ivy’s?”

  “It was the first place I thought of.”

  Ferko waited for more.

  “I was on the spot,” she said.

  He sighed. “Who are your friends?”

  “Her name is Corina.” Jen didn’t turn around. “Her boyfriend is Jared.”

  “What about the other guys?”

  “The one guy’s Tony. I don’t know the other guy. At least I don’t think I do.”

  “You’re like the mayor of Ivy’s.”

  She bit the tip of her finger.

  “Have you talked to Tina and Dave?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Did they ask about me?”

  She nodded again.

  “And?”

  “I told them you were kicking, like me.”

  “Are you?”

  “So far.”

  Greg was on the stairs, taking his time. The two guys in the dope queue—Tony and his friend—stood and waited for Greg to complete his descent. His hair was mussed, like he’d run water over it, like he’d splashed some on his face. He walked slowly. Jen made room, but Greg stood, steadied himself with his strong hands on the worn tabletop.

  “I’m not feeling well,” he announced.

  Ferko met Jen’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Greg said, without saying what he was sorry for, and he turned to leave.

  “Greg, wait.” Ferko slid out of the booth and stood. He was off-script now. “What’s wrong?”

  Greg stepped back.

  “You can tell me.” Ferko laced his voice with mock empathy, but took no pleasure in being the aggressor. Greg once could outrun anyone. But not now.

  “Don’t leave, Greg,” Ferko said. “Don’t make that mistake again.”

  “What the fuck?” Greg glanced at Jen, still parked in the booth.

  Ferko texted Mary Beth: It’s him, but when she arrived a minute later, breathless, her face flushed, Greg Fletcher was gone.

  Mary Beth and Ferko collected themselves in the booth while Jen found a blank card in her bag. She retrieved a pen from an unzipped pocket. She looked at them and waited. Together they w
rote a note:

  To the Glen Wood Ridge Police Department:

  On September 14, 2005, there was a hit-and-run at the corner of Lyttondale and Amos. A child in a stroller died. The case remains unsolved.

  I have reason to believe that Greg Fletcher, a current resident of Manhattan, was involved.

  At the time, Mr. Fletcher was staying at the home of his relatives, Mr. and Mrs. DeGrass, who own a house in GWR. Mr. Fletcher had use of the DeGrass’s family car, which I believe was the car involved. The DeGrass family was traveling out of the country at the time of the accident, and is likely not aware of the open police investigation. Mr. Fletcher told Mr. DeGrass that the car was totaled in a single-car accident, and then paid cash to compensate Mr. DeGrass for the vehicle. Mr. Fletcher can tell you how he disposed of the vehicle. Mr. Fletcher is affiliated with a firm called Riverfront Capital, with offices at 1151 Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. His cell phone is 405-339-4990.

  Thank you for looking into this.

  They left the card unsigned, and Jen addressed the envelope without a return address. Then she retrieved a book of stamps from her bag, peeled one off, placed it on the sealed envelope, and gave the card to Mary Beth to mail later.

  Now they looked at each other, and there was nothing left to say. Jen finished her beer. (As she’d penned the card she’d also, somehow, made respectable progress on her glass.) Ferko’s was still half-full. Greg’s was barely touched, growing warm and flat, and Jen wrapped her fingers around the abandoned glass and claimed it. There were more people inside Ivy’s. The light outside had changed. Ivy’s was somehow brighter and darker, both at once, and the new light made the shapes sharper, the noises crueler. Ferko imagined the trip home tonight, a long walk across town to the PATH station in the fading light. Then one train. Then another. By the time he and Mary Beth arrived in Glen Wood Ridge it would be fully dark, even as two months ago, in June, when he’d first met Jen, eight thirty would still have been daylight. And these insights produced a wave of sadness, an isolating loneliness that overwhelmed Ferko for a moment. Summer was ending. The days would get short. Then they’d get cold. They had one easy act left—mailing the anonymous card. Then it got hard—the waiting. Ferko wasn’t convinced the card would work. If it didn’t, they’d try again. He was through at Riverfront. He’d go home with Mary Beth, and settle into some new routine that would define who they’d become next.