27. Ghost of a Chance
27
Ghost of a Chance
WHEN I REACHED the bottom of the Ridge, Carver’s blue Ford pickup truck was parked in the lot. He dipped his head out of the open window, a John Deere hat flipped backward on his head, and waved me over. He had a beautifully carved wooden birdcage in the passenger seat that he’d made himself, strapped in for safekeeping.
I let out a low whistle when I saw it. “Is that
mahogany
?”
He scoffed. “Hell no. It’s cherrywood. What do you think I am, made of money?”
“You do have a steady high-paying job in tech and can take all of the vacation you want
while
working from home so, like, yeah, I do,” I replied.
He playfully slammed me on the arm. “Shush. Just wait until you sell the next Harry Potter. Then you’ll be rolling in the dough and everyone’ll want you to be their best friend—perhaps with benefits, if they’re lucky.”
I rolled my eyes. “No one will sell the next Harry Potter. It hit
a zeitgeist that’ll never be re-created, and because there is so much to
choose
from now, it’s near impossible to predict the next publishing trend—”
“Okay, okay,” he groaned, “I get it! Uncle, I call uncle!”
I stuck out my tongue, and then nudged my chin toward the birdcage. “What’s that for, anyway?”
He grinned then. “I got an idea for a part of Dad’s will.”
“You were thinking about that?” I asked, surprised.
“Of course I was! What do you take me for, a nonmeddling middle brother?”
“Touché.”
“Okay, I say we feed the little fuckers who keep stealing the squirrel food, trap twelve of them, and let them go during the funeral.”
“Those are going to be some mad crows . . .”
“So? What’re they going to do? Shit on my windshield?”
“Steal your Rolex.”
He looked annoyed. “Do you have a better idea?”
“No, but I do like the birdcage—can you give me a ride back to the bed-and-breakfast?”
“Sure, hop in. Just be careful with the cage,” he added as I walked around to the other side. I slid in, and noticed a copy of the
Daily Ram
on the seat. I picked it up, and flipped through to the back. “The obit was lovely,” he added as I found it.
Good, they used one of my favorite photos of Dad. It’d been taken a few years ago, when everyone had come to New York to celebrate the New Year and we’d all grabbed our champagne and climbed the fire escape to the roof. He had a cigar in one hand, laughing into the night, his face lit by New Year’s fireworks. I smiled at the memory.
Carver pulled out onto the road again and made a U-turn back
into town. “You know—you don’t have to do all of this alone. I love scavenger hunts.”
I folded the newspaper back up and stuck it between the seats. “I know, but you’re all so busy. I’m the bum of the family.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” he replied. “You ghostwrite for Stephenie Meyer.”
“Not even the same genre, bub.”
He shrugged. “Worth a shot.” He picked up a Slim Jim from the console and tore open the wrapper with one hand. “Want some?”
“I can never stop chewing it.”
“Half the point.” He bit into the end and tore it with his teeth. “I heard you had a run-in with Heather . . .”
I winced. “Word gets around that fast?”
“Dana couldn’t stop gushing over how cool you were when I ran into them at the coffee shop this morning,” he replied. We rolled to a stop at the only stoplight in town. The mayor was making his rounds with a high school dog walker, and he was the happiest boy as he crossed the street in front of us. We waved, and the high schooler waved back. “I also heard you talked to Mom about feeling excluded.”
Seriously, was
nothing
sacred in this town?
I rolled my eyes. “It’s fine, she explained it—”
“I’m so sorry,” he interrupted.
That surprised me.
“I wasn’t thinking. Neither was Alice. We just . . . you never wanted to . . . we thought it would be too much,” he confessed, “especially after we noticed that you started talking to your—” He changed course quickly. “Someone we can’t see again. Like Dad did.”
I clenched my hands into fists. “Did you think he was crazy, too?”
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Florence.”
“Then tell me, what
do
you think?” I snapped. Even though it’d been ten years, that same anger was quick to simmer beneath my skin. “That I’m talking to some imaginary friend? That I’m losing it?”
“You know I’d
never
think that—”
“
Faking
it—?”
“Is it Dad?” he interrupted.
Oh.
“Would you even tell us? Or keep it to yourself? Like you keep everything else to yourself? Florence, the lonely island!”
That was it. I was out.
First it was Ben, who did a miraculous Houdini act at
just
the right time, and now Carver was laying into me about things I obviously did
not
need to work on.
My patience was already thin, but now it was absolutely demolished.
I reached for the handle and forced the truck door open, forgetting I was still buckled in. So I unbuckled my seat belt, after almost strangling myself, and shoved my way out of the car. “I’ll see you at the wake, Carver.”
He cursed. “No, wait, Florence—!”
I slammed the car door before he could finish whatever he was about to say. I didn’t want to hear it, anyway. Florence, the
lonely island
, was tired and sweaty, and she didn’t want to talk about her faults before a nice hot shower.
And what was more worrying was that
someone
caught me talking to Ben, and the rumors were at it again. I pulled my jacket tightly across my chest, folding my arms together, as I hurried back to the bed-and-breakfast. People weren’t looking at me as I passed—but what if they were? What if they were leaning in toward each other, whispering, “There goes the ghost whisperer,” and laughing under their breath?
Stop it. They weren’t.
It was my stupid brain turtling. This wasn’t high school anymore. I was a decade out of it. I was older. I was wiser. And despite Carver, my head was still filled with the memory of dandelions in the wind—and I realized that the rest of this didn’t matter.
And I was okay.
Somehow.