Dr. Slaski looked interested in that.
“Is he?” he said with a little more animation. “And why would he want to do that, do you think?”
“Because…” I was embarrassed to admit it, but what choice did I have, really? I took a deep breath. “Because he thinks we should be together. Him and me. Because we’re mediators.”
A slow smile broke out across Dr. Slaski’s dry, liver-spotted lips.
“Shifters,” he corrected me.
“Shifters,” I said. “Whatever. Dr. Slaski, it’s not right, and you know it.”
“On the contrary,” Dr. Slaski said with a phlegmy cough. “It’s probably the smartest thing that boy’s ever done. Romantic, too. Almost gives me faith in him.”
“Dr. Slaski!”
“What’s so wrong with it, anyway?” Dr. Slaski glared at me. “Sounds to me like he’s doing you a favor. Or the boyfriend, anyway. You think this Jessup—”
“Jesse.”
“You think this Jesse likes being a ghost? Hanging around for all eternity, watching you live your life, while he hovers in the background, never aging, never feeling an ocean breeze on his face, never again tasting blueberry pie. Is that the kind of life you wish for him? You must love him a lot, if that’s true.”
I felt heat rising in my cheeks at his tone.
“Of course that’s not what I want for him,” I said fiercely. “But if the alternative is never having known him at all— well, I don’t want that, either. And neither would he!”
“But you haven’t asked him, have you?”
“Well, I—”
“Have you?”
“Well.” I looked down, unable to meet his gaze. “No. No, I haven’t.”
“I didn’t think so,” Dr. Slaski said. “And I know why, too. You’re afraid of what he’ll say. You’re afraid he’ll say he’d rather live.”
I looked up sharply. “That isn’t true!”
“It is and you know it. You’re afraid he’d say he’d rather live out the rest of his life, the way he was supposed to, never having known you—”
“There has to be another way!” I cried. “It can’t just be one thing or the other. Paul said something about soul transference—”
“Ah,” Dr. Slaski said. “But for that, you need to have a body available to take the soul you want to transfer into it.”
I thought darkly of Paul. “I think I know of one,” I said.
As if he’d read my thoughts, Dr. Slaski said, “But you won’t do that.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Won’t I?”
“No,” he said. His voice was beginning to sound fainter and fainter. “No, you won’t. He would. If he thought it’d get him what he wanted. But not you. You don’t have it in you.”
“I do,” I said as fiercely as I was able.
But Dr. Slaski only shook his head again. “You’re not like him,” he said. “Or me. No need to get huffy about it. It’s a good thing. You’ll live longer.”
“Maybe,” I said, tears filling my eyes as I looked down at my hands. “But what’s the point, if I’m not happy?”
Dr. Slaski didn’t say anything for a while. His breathing had grown so raspy, that after a minute or so, I began to think he was snoring, and looked up, fearing he’d fallen asleep.
But he hadn’t. His gaze on me was steady.
“You love this boy?” Dr. Slaski asked finally.
“Jesse?” I nodded, unable to say more.
“There is one thing you could do,” he wheezed. “Never tried it myself, but I heard it could be done. Wouldn’t recommend it, of course. Probably put you into an early grave, like I’ll be, soon enough.”
I leaned forward in my chair.
“What is it?” I cried. “Tell me, please. I’ll do anything… anything!”
“Anything that doesn’t involve killing someone, you mean,” Dr. Slaski said and broke down into a coughing fit from which it seemed to take him ages to recover. Finally, lying back on his hospital bed, the horrible, body-wracking spasms finished, he wheezed, “When you go back…”
“Back? Through time, you mean?”
He didn’t respond. He just looked up at the ceiling.
“Dr. Slaski? Go back through time? Is that what you meant?”
But Dr. Slaski never finished that sentence. Because midway through it, his jaw went slack, his eyes closed, and he fell sound asleep.
Or at least that’s what I assumed.
I couldn’t believe it. He’s about to give me some really valuable tip on how I might be able to save Jesse, and suddenly his Excedrin PM kicks in? What’s the deal with that?
I reached out to touch his hand, hoping that might wake him. “Dr. Slaski?” I called a little more loudly. When he still didn’t respond, panic set in.
“Dr. Slaski?” I cried. “Dr. Slaski, wake up!”
My scream brought the attendant snorting back into consciousness. He was up and out of his chair at once, crying, “What? What is it?”
“I don’t know,” I stammered. “He—he won’t wake up.”
The attendant’s fingers flew over Paul’s grandfather’s body, feeling for a pulse, adjusting IVs…
Next thing I knew, he’d straddled the old man and was pounding on his chest.
“Call nine-one-one,” he yelled at me.
I just stood there, not understanding. “He was just talking to me,” I said. “We were having a totally normal conversation. I mean, he was coughing a lot, but… but he was fine. And then all of a sudden—”
The attendant had to say it twice.
“Call 911! Get an ambulance!”
That’s when I noticed that there was a phone right there in the room. I picked it up and dialed. When the operator came on, I told her that we needed an ambulance and gave her the address. Meanwhile, behind me, the attendant had placed an oxygen mask over Dr. Slaski’s face, and was filling a syringe with something.
“I don’t understand this,” he kept saying. “He was fine an hour ago. Just fine!”
I didn’t understand it, either. Unless Dr. Slaski was much more ill than he’d ever let on.
There didn’t seem to be much else I could do to help, so I figured I’d better go and tell Paul his grandfather had had some sort of attack. I got back to the living room just in time to see Kelly, seated beside Paul on the couch, her legs draped over his like a throw, stick her tongue in his mouth.…A sight I actually would have paid money to have been spared.
“Ahem,” I said, from the hallway.
Kelly pulled her face off Paul’s and looked at me sourly.
“What do you want?” she demanded. Given her animosity toward me, you’d hardly have guessed that we were currently president and vice president of the junior class, and had to work daily (well, weekly) together in order to decide such important issues as where to go for a class trip and what kind of flowers to order for the spring formal.
Ignoring Kelly, I said, “Paul, your grandfather appears to be having a heart attack or something.”
Paul looked at me through eyes that were half lidded. That Kelly sure has some sucking power.
“What?” he said stupidly.
“Your grandfather.” I lifted a hand to push some hair from my eyes. I hoped he didn’t notice how much my fingers were shaking. “An ambulance is on the way. He’s had like a stroke or something.”
Paul didn’t look surprised. He said, “Oh,” in kind of a disappointed voice… but more like he was bummed that his make-out session with Kelly had been interrupted than that his grandfather was, for all we knew, dying.
“Be right there,” Paul said and started to disentangle himself from Kelly’s legs.
“Paul,” Kelly cried. She managed to give his name two syllables, so it came out sounding like Paw-wol.
“Sorry, Kel,” Paul said, giving one of her calves a good-natured pat. “Grandpa Gork’s OD’d on his meds again. Gotta go take care of business.”
Kelly pouted prettily. “But the pizza’s not eve
n here yet!”
“We’ll have to take a rain check, babe,” he said.
Babe. I shuddered.
Then realized what he’d said. As he moved past me to get to his grandfather’s room, I reached out and seized his arm. “What do you mean, he’s OD’d on his meds?” I hissed.
“Uh,” Paul said, looking down at me with a half smile. “Because that’s what happened?”
“How do you know? You haven’t even seen him yet!”
“Uh,” he said, the smile growing broader. “Because maybe I helped make it happen.”
I dropped my hand as if his skin had suddenly burst into flames. “You did this?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Except that I should have. I really should have. Because it was Paul.
“For God’s sake, Paul, why?”
“I knew you’d be coming over to see him after what happened today at the auction,” he said with a shrug. “And frankly, I didn’t need the hassle from the old man. Now if you’ll excuse me…”
He went sauntering down the hall in the direction of his grandfather’s room. I stared after him, not quite believing what I’d just heard.
And yet…
And yet it made sense. It was Paul, after all. Paul, a guy whose morals were more than a little askew.
Feeling numb, I wandered back out into the living room, where Kelly was pulling on her shoes and squawking into her cell phone. “No, I’m telling you, she came busting in here, demanding to know what I was doing with her boyfriend. Well, okay, she didn’t say it quite like that. She made up some story about wanting to talk to Paul’s grandfather. Yeah, I know, the one who can’t talk. I know, have you ever heard a lamer excuse? Then she—” Looking up, Kelly saw me. “Oh, sorry, Deb, gotta go, call you later.” She hung up and just stood there, glaring at me. “Thanks,” she said finally, “for spoiling what otherwise might have been a really nice evening.”
I was tempted to tell her the truth—that I hadn’t spoiled anything. Paul was the one who’d apparently overmedicated his grandfather. At least, that seemed to be what he wanted me to believe.
But what would have been the point? She wouldn’t have believed me, anyway.
“Sorry,” was all I said, and started for the door.
When I opened it, however, I saw my stepbrother Jake standing there, a pizza box in his hand.
“Peninsula Pizza, that’ll be twenty-seven ninety…” His voice trailed off as he recognized me. “Suze? What are you doing here?”
“Just leaving,” I said.
“Yeah, well, you’d better.” Jake glanced at his watch. “You’re gonna be late for dinner. Dad’ll kill you.”
Yet another thing to look forward to.
“Kelly,” I called up the stairs. “Your pizza’s here!” To Jake I said, “Hope you remembered the hot pepper flakes.”
Then I left.
Chapter
eleven
Because of the auction, Andy was late putting dinner on the table, so I ended up getting home just in time. My mom couldn’t understand why I was so quiet during the meal, though. She thought maybe I’d gotten too much sun sitting out at the bake sale table.
“Sister Ernestine should at least have given you an umbrella,” she said as she dug into the pork tenderloin Andy had prepared. “That little girl you were sitting with… what was her name again?”
“Shannon.”
Only it wasn’t me who said it. It was David.
“Yes, Shannon,” my mother said. “She’s a redhead, like David. That much sun can be very damaging to redheads. I hope she was wearing sunscreen.”
I half expected David to come up with one of his usual comments—you know, the exact statistical incidents of skin cancer occurring in eighth graders in northern California, or something. His head was filled with all sorts of useless information like that. Instead, he just flicked his mashed potatoes around his plate, until Brad, who’d finished all of his own mashed potatoes, as well as what was left in the bowl, went, “Man, are you going to eat that or play with it? Because if you don’t want it, give it to me.”
“David,” Andy said. “Finish what’s on your plate.”
David picked up a spoonful of mashed potatoes and ate it.
Brad’s gaze immediately flickered over to my plate. But the hopeful look in his eye faded when he saw how clean it was. Not, of course, that I’d felt like eating. At all.
But I had Max, the family dog-slash-garbage disposal, by my side, and I’d grown expert at slipping him what I couldn’t choke down myself.
“May I be excused?” I asked. “I think maybe I did get a little too much sun—”
“It’s Suze’s turn to put the plates in the dishwasher,” Brad declared.
“No, it isn’t.” I couldn’t believe this. Didn’t these people realize I had way more important things to do than worry about household chores? I had to make sure my boyfriend died, like he was supposed to. “I did it last week.”
“Nuh-uh,” Brad said. “You and Jake traded weeks, remember? Because he had to work the dinner shift this week.”
Since this was indisputably true—I’d seen the evidence myself over at Paul’s—I couldn’t argue anymore.
“Fine,” I said, scooting my chair back, nearly running over Max in the process, and standing up. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you, Susie,” my mom said with a smile as I took her plate.
My reply wasn’t exactly gracious. I muttered, “Whatever,” and went into the kitchen with everybody’s plates, Max following closely at my heels. Max loves it when I have plate-clearing duty, because I just scrape everything into his bowl, rather than into the trash compactor.
But on that night, Max and I weren’t alone in the kitchen.
Even though I didn’t notice anyone else in there right away, I knew something was up when Max suddenly lifted his head from his bowl and fled, his food only half finished, and his tail between his legs. Only one thing had the power to make Max leave pork uneaten, and that was a visitor from beyond.
He materialized a second later.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said. “How’s it going?”
I didn’t scream or anything. I just poured Lemon Joy into the pot Andy had used to cook the potatoes, then filled it with hot water.
“Nice timing, Dad,” I said. “You just stop by to say hi, or did someone on the ghost grapevine alert you to my extreme mental anguish?”
He smiled. He looked no different than he had the day he died…. No different from the dozens of times he’d visited me since then. He was still wearing the shirt he’d died in—the shirt I’d slept with for so many years.
“I heard you were having some… issues,” my dad said. That’s the problem with ghosts. When they aren’t haunting people, they sit around in the spectral plane, gossiping. Dad had even met Jesse…. A prospect I found too horrifying to even contemplate sometimes.
And of course, when you’re dead… well… there isn’t a whole lot to do. I knew my dad spent a goodly portion of his free time basically spying on me.
“Been a while since we had a chat,” Dad went on, looking around the kitchen appreciatively. His gaze fell on the sliding glass doors and he noticed the hot tub. He whistled appreciatively. “That’s new.”
“Andy built it,” I said. I started in on the glass dish Andy had roasted the pork in.
“Is there anything that guy can’t do?” my dad wanted to know. But he was, I knew, being sarcastic. My dad doesn’t like Andy. At least, not that much.
“No,” I said. “Andy is a man of many talents. And I don’t know what you’ve seen—or heard—but I’m fine, Dad. Really.”
“Wouldn’t expect you to be anything else.” My dad looked more closely at the kitchen counters. “Is that real granite? Or imitation?”
“Dad.” I nearly threw the dish towel at him. “Quit stalling and say what you came to say. Because if it’s what I think you’re here to say, no deal.”
“And what do you think that is?” Dad wan
ted to know, folding his arms and leaning back against the kitchen counter.
“I’m not going to let him do it, Dad,” I said. “I’m not.”
My dad sighed. Not because he was sad. He sighed with happiness. In life, Dad had been a lawyer. In death, he still relished a good argument.
“Jesse deserves another chance,” he said. “I know it. You know it.”
“If he doesn’t die,” I said, attacking the potato pot with perhaps more energy than was strictly necessary, “I’ll never meet him. Same with you.”
Dad raised his eyebrows. “Same with… oh, you mean you thought about saving me?” He looked pleased. “Suze, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
That did it. Just those ten little words. Suddenly, something inside of me seemed to break, and a second later, I was sobbing in his arms… only silently, so no one else in the house could hear.
“Oh, Dad,” I wept into his shirtfront. “I don’t know what to do. I want to bring you back. I do, I really do.”
Dad stroked my hair and said in the kindest voice imaginable, “I know. I know you do, kiddo.”
That just made me cry harder. “But if I save you,” I choked, “I’ll never meet him.”
“I know,” my dad said again. “Susie, I know.”
“What should I do, Dad?” I asked, lifting my head from his chest and attempting to control myself—his shirt was practically soaked already. “I’m so confused. Help me. Please.”
“Susie.” Dad grinned down at me, still tenderly brushing back my hair with his hands. “I never thought I’d see the day when you, of all people, would actually admit you need help. Especially from me.”
I used a fist to swipe at the tears that were still rolling down my face. “Of course I need you, Dad,” I whispered. “I’ve always needed you. I always will.”
“I don’t know about that.” My dad, instead of stroking my hair, rumpled it now. “But I do know one thing. This time-shifting thing. It’s dangerous?”
I sniffled. “Well,” I said. “Yeah.”
“And do you really think,” Dad went on, the skin around his eyes crinkling, “that I’d let my little girl risk her life to save mine?”
“But, Dad—”