Ghosting Read online

  i wonder later if i should have let her act that way, like nothing was wrong. if things would’ve been different. because the next day it was like nothing happened. except that i couldn’t look at dad without wanting to hit him and then he announced at dinner that he was going back for another tour of duty. in a week. which was a month earlier than he’d said before. mom didn’t say anything. just kept cutting her pot roast into smaller and smaller pieces.

  after he left i tried to talk to mom. asked if she was okay. if she was going to stay with dad.

  and she looked at me all in surprise, and asked why i’d say something like that. and i stammered out something about that night and how dad hurt her, and she interrupted me, saying i must have misunderstood what i saw. that dad was a hero. and she loved him.

  i scored my first dime bag the next day. because i know what i saw.

  i stop talking then. max looks at me like i’ve just vomited up a stinking mass of gopher guts, which i might as well have.

  Oh, Felix, she says, her eyes all glimmery like she might cry.

  and then she puts her arm around my shoulders and squeezes me hard and damn if i don’t burst into tears like i’m a freaking baby. but she just holds tight.

  when i finally stop, she fishes in her bag and comes up with a few tissues, which i fill up with snot.

  Whoa, I say. Sorry about that, I add with a feeble attempt at a grin.

  You need to talk to someone, Max says.

  I just did, I say.

  Still, Felix. What happened . . . it’s not right.

  Hey listen, Max, I’m okay, I say. I really am.

  and i light up another joint.

  MAXIE

  Other than saying

  I’m sorry,

  which seems so little,

  so lame,

  I am without words.

  I only remember

  Felix’s dad as teasing,

  cheerful, and young,

  younger than most

  of the other dads.

  He played Wiffle ball with us,

  and even the board game Mouse Trap,

  which we were obsessed with

  for a while.

  A rapist?

  I take the joint Felix offers me,

  take a hit,

  then cough

  most of it out.

  Felix chuckles,

  taking the

  joint back.

  Lightweight, he teases, imitating Brendan.

  We’re quiet for a moment,

  listening to the loud music

  coming from the

  party house.

  You leave a boyfriend back there in Colorado, Max? he asks.

  I blush a little.

  No, I say. There was one guy I liked, but he wound up with my friend Mandy. And they’re good together, better than me and him, so it was okay. How about you?

  Then I could kick myself,

  remembering his story about

  the girl named Betsy and

  the kiss.

  But he isn’t thinking about

  Betsy.

  Nah, he says. Too many years worshipping at the altar of Emma.

  I’d known for a long time

  that Felix had a thing

  for Emma,

  though tonight’s the first time

  he’s said it

  out loud.

  But I could always tell

  from the way

  his eyes would

  follow her,

  even back in 5th grade,

  with this hopeful,

  awestruck expression

  when he thought

  no one

  was

  looking.

  Yeah, well, just for the record, you’re a million times better than any Brendan.

  Which isn’t saying a whole lot, Felix laughs. Since I can tell you like Brendan about as much as that can of MoonBuzz.

  No kidding, I say.

  Abruptly I open the car door wide,

  grab the MoonBuzz can by my seat,

  and turn it upside down.

  Then watch, as bright red-pink liquid

  gushes out,

  into the gutter.

  ANIL

  1. I leave the party by a kitchen door,

  hoping no one notices me go,

  and also hoping maybe Felix and Maxie

  are still in Brendan’s car.

  Feeling jittery, unhappy.

  An outside observer would probably think it was

  because I saw Chloe’s old boyfriend, Josh,

  coming on to her.

  But they’d be wrong.

  Yes, I saw Josh put his hand on her waist

  in that casual, I’ve-had-sex-with-you way,

  but what surprised me most about it was

  how much it didn’t bother me.

  What did

  was the smile she flashed at him.

  It was exactly the same smile

  she gave me when I walked up with a cup of punch.

  And, in fact, the same smile

  she gave Emma and Brendan

  when they joined us.

  Don’t get me wrong.

  It’s a good smile. A winning smile.

  The kind you see in glossy magazines.

  But,

  I keep thinking about Maxie,

  her seeing a swing set as dinosaur bones.

  And her smile,

  that small, crooked smile,

  a real smile,

  that Chloe Carney’s lips,

  no matter how perfect,

  can never replicate.

  2. Smoke is drifting out of an

  open window of the SUV.

  So I know at least Felix is still in there.

  He should probably be more careful.

  Chloe said the neighbors on both sides

  are at vacation homes in Wisconsin,

  but this is the kind of party

  that’ll eventually get busted.

  Which makes me ready to get out of here.

  My dad would kill me if I got picked up

  by the police the weekend before school starts.

  3. I come up to the window

  and Felix spots me.

  Dude, he says. Join us.

  So I do, sitting on the backseat floor,

  my legs sticking out the open car door,

  declining the joint Felix offers.

  How’s the party? he asks.

  Pretty crazy, I say.

  I sneak a look at Maxie, who is leaning back

  in her seat, eyes closed.

  The lavender shirt she’s wearing

  looks nice on her.

  Whoa, says Felix, I think I just saw a comet or shooting star or something.

  Felix’s eyes, which are trained upward

  through the glass moonroof, are very red.

  Must be pretty far gone on weed.

  Sure, Felix, Maxie says.

  But she opens her eyes

  and follows his gaze upward

  through the moonroof.

  Then she looks back at Felix

  with a tender expression on her face,

  like she really cares about this guy.

  I wonder if they’re dating

  and feel this weird stab of jealousy.

  What the hell, I think to myself.

  I barely know this girl.

  And I have a girlfriend. Chloe Carney.

  No, really, says Felix. I swear something streaked across the sky.

  I once saw a comet, I say.

  Really? says Maxie.

  4. So I find myself telling about the time

  when I was a kid

  and my dad got two telescopes.

  He’d heard about the McNaught comet

  that was due to show the brightest

  on January 12 that year.

  Two telescopes so Dad and I could watch

  at the same time.

  And I remember putting my eye


  up to the telescope, feeling the cold metal

  circling my eye socket.

  I looked up at the midnight blue of the sky,

  dotted with all those radiant specks of white,

  spread out randomly as if someone had

  carelessly strewn fistfuls of diamonds

  onto a black cloth.

  I saw it, that McNaught comet,

  a thin stream of light across the night sky.

  This is a very historic moment, Anil, my dad said, his voice solemn.

  The brightest comet in thirty years,

  he told me,

  and it would probably be that long, or longer,

  before another one as bright came along.

  And I find myself telling Maxie and Felix

  that at age ten I suddenly got freaked out,

  realizing that the next time

  a big comet came along

  my dad would be an old man,

  maybe even dead.

  And I might even be a father myself.

  I remember feeling terrified,

  like my life was this speeding train

  you can’t stop.

  I shut up then, embarrassed that I’d said

  all that stuff.

  Dude, says Felix. You’re messing me up.

  5. Felix starts rolling a new joint.

  Maxie is quiet though.

  I can tell she’s thinking about what I said,

  really thinking about it.

  Yeah, she finally says. I know what you mean.

  There is a pause,

  and then she goes on.

  But sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes it slows down. Little moments. Like now, she adds suddenly, with a sweet smile that for some reason tugs at my heart.

  Felix lights the new joint

  and takes a deep pull on it.

  Breathes out a cloud of smoke.

  I can’t take my eyes off of Maxie’s face,

  through the smoky haze inside the SUV.

  And I wonder if I’m maybe getting a secondhand high

  off Felix’s reefer.

  I once had a moment like that, with my dad. A slowed-down moment, that is, Maxie says dreamily. It was one summer at the beach, Gillsons Beach, and we found some sea glass . . .

  I watch her intently,

  her eyes looking back in time

  at herself and her dad

  on that beach.

  Two pieces of sea glass. It was amazing enough to find one, but two was something else. One was a frosty light blue and the other was green. And my dad got the idea that we should build a sandcastle and use the sea glass as windows. So we set to work, and that afternoon seemed to go on and on as we worked on the castle under the hot sun, the sound of waves breaking, close but not too close. I loved it. And when we set those two pieces of sea glass in for windows, it was perfect.

  6. No one says anything for a few moments.

  Maxie is still back on the beach with her dad,

  and Felix has his eyes closed,

  a smile on his face.

  I like that story, he says. Ya know, I think that’s why I like weed. It slows stuff down, he adds.

  He takes a long drag on his joint.

  So, d’you think Brendan has anything else in this cooler besides MoonBuzz? Maxie asks. I’m really thirsty for water, or at least something that isn’t going to kill me.

  Let’s check it out, says Felix.

  He reaches over to open the cooler

  and accidentally

  he knocks his half-full can

  of MoonBuzz out of the cup holder

  onto Maxie,

  splashing her lavender shirt

  with lurid Hawaiian Punch–colored red liquid.

  Oh shit, I’m so sorry! Felix says.

  Maxie grabs up a few used, rumpled tissues

  and dabs at her shirt, but it doesn’t do much good.

  I look around to see if there’s something,

  like paper towels or rags.

  Nothing.

  I pop open the storage compartment

  in the center console. Nothing there either.

  7. I reach over and punch the button

  on the glove compartment

  and it drops open, with a muffled thud.

  In the glow from the interior light

  I see it,

  gleaming black, just sitting there,

  filling up the glove compartment.

  A gun.

  Maxie has seen it, too,

  because she lets out a cry,

  one of astonishment and

  fear.

  What? asks Felix.

  Maxie points

  and Felix leans forward, following her gesture.

  Holy crap, Felix says, his voice a whisper.

  MAXIE

  My heart is pounding.

  I

  hate

  guns.

  A kid in Colorado once