Flowers (16 page)

"Who cares what they think?" Margaret shook her see-through hair. "I get tired of them telling me what to do and where to go. They don't want anybody to have any fun."

Ellen didn't know who "they" were, but Margaret's eyes always narrowed with anger when she spoke of them. "You aren't supposed to leave."

"Gosh, Ellen, you're starting to sound like your mom." Margaret's hollow voice rose in pitch as she mimicked Ellen's mom. "'You were supposed to be home an hour ago. You were supposed to make an A on that math test.'"

Ellen laughed, even though Margaret's shrill imitation was too perfect, and it reminded Ellen of what was awaiting at home. "What will they do to you if you leave?"

Margaret shrugged. "Whatever."

Margaret had left the cemetery once, had floated outside Ellen's window in the mobile home park. This had been about two weeks after her burial. Margaret had seemed so much more lost, lonely, and creepy outside of the graveyard. Whatever invisible chains kept her bound to the dirt under her tombstone must have been painful to break, because when Ellen visited the next day, Margaret had faded to nearly nothing. A month passed before Margaret returned to her usual thin form.

Ellen moved to her best friend and gave her a hug. At least, she tried. Her arms passed through Margaret, raising goose bumps. "Don't do anything to make them mad. They might take you forever next time."

"I want to see Doug," Margaret said.

"Doug's not worth it."

"How do you know? What do you know about losing somebody you love?"

Ellen's eyes grew hot with held tears. Margaret was beautiful. She could have had any boy she wanted. Ellen was afraid that Margaret still could, even dead. "I've really got to go."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be mean."

Ellen sniffled. "It's not your fault. I'm just feeling sorry for myself."

"See you tomorrow?"

Ellen nodded and hurried from the graveyard, making sure no one was looking before she climbed over the cemetery wall. She slipped into the woods and onto the well-worn path that led home.

"What's wrong?" Mom asked. "You've hardly eaten a bite. You're not going to starve yourself so you can look like the girls in Seventeen, are you? I told you to quit wasting money on those stupid magazines."

"No, Mom, I'm not on a diet." Ellen was tired of eating macaroni and cheese and greasy hamburger. Mom's cooking even made the school cafeteria lunches look good.

"You look pale." Mom leaned over the small table and pressed her hand to Ellen's forehead. Her hand was nearly as cold as Margaret's. "You're not taking sick, are you?"

"I feel fine." Except her belly was like a nest of snakes. She was worried that Margaret would come out tomorrow.

"Well, you don't look fine."

"I think I just want to go lie down a while."

"Got your homework done?"

Ellen nodded. She always did her homework while the teachers were explaining it to the rest of the class. Margaret had gotten beauty, but Ellen was lucky with books. Too bad Doug was smart, too, and never asked Ellen to help him with homework.

"Well, good. That's one less thing I got to worry about." Mom's face was pinched and tired, her cheeks flushed. She might have been drinking. Ellen couldn't smell anything over the cloying aroma of cheese powder.

Ellen pushed her plate away, knowing she'd see the leftovers again tomorrow. And tomorrow might bring other horrors. She went down the narrow paneled hall to her bedroom. The bed took up most of the floor, and she crawled onto it and lay on her back, looking at the pictures of musicians and unicorns on her walls. The unicorns would have to go. She was getting too old for unicorns.

She reached over, slid her desk drawer open, and took out the photograph. Its edges were worn from handling, but the face was just as wonderful as always. Doug smiled out from between the white borders, straight teeth and dark eyes and curly hair. Something swished against the window, and Ellen's breath froze in her lungs. What if Margaret was at her window, looking in? What if Margaret had seen her gazing longingly at Doug's picture?

She got on her knees and looked out the window. The lights blazed in the windows of the mobile homes, which were arranged as awkwardly as tombstones. Different sizes, moved in at different times, all slowly fading under the wear of time. This was her graveyard, and she was as trapped here as Margaret was in hers of grass and granite and artificial flowers.

Nobody stirred outside, neither the dead nor the living. Leaves scurried across the bare yards like frantic mice. A pole at the end of the park glowed with a sick blue light, but it was too cold and weak to attract bugs. Ellen drew her curtains tight and rested back on her pillow.

Doug. He'd said hello to her in the hall the other day. She summoned the memory in all its glory, the flash of his eyes, the warm tone of his voice, his head above the crowd of students changing class. She'd been too nervous to say anything in response, all she could do was give a lame wave and what she hoped was a smile.

Probably looked like a grimace. She brought a small hand mirror from her drawer and practiced her smile. Dimples that were dumpy instead of cute. Her cheeks were fat. She had a pimple on her chin. God, she was hideous. No wonder Doug didn't want her.

She and Doug had been close briefly, right after Margaret's death. They had sat together at lunch, Doug wearing sunglasses so that no one could tell that Mr. Cool had been crying. They'd even hugged at the funeral, and now Ellen embraced that fleeting memory of his muscles.

If only Margaret could die every day, then maybe Doug and I—

As soon as she had the thought, she was sickened. She'd rather have Margaret back alive than to have any guy in the world. Anyway, if Margaret were alive, Doug would still be going out with her. Margaret had been beautiful. Still was. And Ellen was a frumpy, dumpy piece of nobody. She cried herself to a restless sleep.

"You didn't go out," Ellen said the next afternoon.

Margaret lowered her voice, looking around at the other graves. "I was scared."

"I don't blame you." Ellen felt a small spark of joy, a lightness in her chest. If Margaret didn't go out, everything would be okay.

"I want to see him."

"You'd better be careful, Margaret. They want to keep you a secret."

"I don't have to talk to him or anything. I just want to see him. To remember what he's like."

"What about Doug? What if you freak him out?"

"I didn't freak you out."

"Well, you did a little, at first. I mean, it's not like I believed in ghosts or anything, or did one of those corny seances to try and bring you back."

"I wonder if Doug misses me as much as I miss him."

Ellen didn't know whether to lie or not. She had never kept secrets from Margaret before. She looked at the ground, at the seam of stubborn dirt where the grass hadn't taken root.

"Are you ashamed of having me for a friend?"

"Of course not." Ellen knelt in the moist grass by the tombstone. "You'll always be my best friend. Forever."

"Better than Doug?"

Does she know? Ellen's throat was tight. What would a ghost do to you if you tried to steal her boyfriend?

"Doug still thinks about you a lot," Ellen managed to say, which wasn't a lie. "I talked to him a few weeks ago. He said that you guys listened to Crash Test Dummies together. He said that 'Swimming In Your Ocean' was your favorite song."

"Crash Test Dummies. Now that's what I call irony, seeing the way I got killed."

Ellen tried to change the subject away from Doug and death. "Do they have music...over there?"

Margaret looked beyond the graveyard, beyond trees and stone and all things solid, as if she hadn't heard Ellen. "It doesn't hurt to get killed. It hurts more, afterward. Being dead, I mean. And knowing it. That's the worst thing."

"I wish I could trade places with you." So Doug would be in love with her. Even if she couldn't do anything about it, couldn't hold his hand or kiss him. She'd be happy enough just to know he carried her in his heart. Just to be able to make him happy or sad when he thought of her.

"Don't say that." Margaret drifted down from the stone. Part of her misty flesh seeped across Ellen's face. Ellen shivered.

"It hurts to be dead, Ellen. It hurts to remember everything you lost."

"You haven't lost me," Ellen said, wondering if Margaret was splashing the chill of death on her face just to warn her. But Ellen would never commit suicide. She was too scared. And if she died, she'd never have Doug. But would Doug have her?

"I don't ever want to lose you." Margaret smiled, a white sliver of movement among the smoky threads of her face. The front gate of the cemetery creaked open.

"Somebody's coming," Ellen said, but Margaret had already disappeared, back to her cold and dreamless sleep. Ellen pretended to mumble a prayer in case the visitors happened to see her. Then she went out the front gate and headed toward the soccer field.

Ellen's mom would be mad, but Ellen didn't care. Nothing else mattered anymore. Let everybody else hate her. She had to find out once, for all, and forever.

"This is really weird, Ellen," Doug said.

What did Doug know about weirdness? His world was soccer games, shooting for college scholarships, getting tons of pictures in the yearbook. He'd been in the graveyard before, but not since Margaret's funeral, and certainly never when the sky was purple with sundown. A pale slice of moon hung in bare branches like an ornament.

"How come you've never been back?" Ellen asked.

"Because I—" Doug paused, gasped. "I don't know. It makes me think about her, and I don't like to think about her. It makes my chest hurt."

They stood before Margaret's grave, Doug shivering in his soccer shorts and T-shirt. She'd dragged him here right after practice, had called him to the sidelines and told him she had something really important to show him. So important it couldn't wait for him to get dressed.

She'd taken his hand, and he hadn't pulled away. She led him across the street and over the hill, feeling the eyes of Doug's friends on her back. They probably thought good old Doug was going to score, put another one in the net. Ellen trembled as they walked, brushing aside his questions until they came to the graveyard.

"Margaret is my best friend," Ellen said. Doug looked at her as if she were crazy, but she didn't feel crazy at all. In fact, for the first time in years, she felt that her life was under her own control.

"Yeah, Margaret was great," Doug said, looking around at the tombstones gray in the weak light. "She was really special."

"I have to know, Doug. Did you really love her?"

Doug let go of her hand. "You're scaring me."

"The truth is nothing to be afraid of." Ellen squinted at Margaret's grave, but could see none of the strange milkiness of her ghost. She hoped they hadn't called Margaret away, that they hadn't confined her to some dismal, dark hibernation. "Did you love her?"

Doug looked around. He seemed uncomfortable without an audience. Ellen wondered if this was how he acted when he was alone with Margaret. "Uh, yeah. Sure. Of course I did."

"How many girls have you gone out with since then?"

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"It's got everything to do with everything."

"Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine." Ellen grinned, not caring if her dimples were dumpy. "Never been better. How many girls?"

"Heck, I don't know. Five, six."

"Maybe ten?"

"Maybe."

"And you loved Margaret the best?"

"You're weird. I've got to go."

"Just answer me, and you can leave."

He scratched his head. His eyes reflected the moonlight. "Well, I loved her. But you got to move on. You got to keep living. I know you were her best friend, but I didn't know you were so hung up on her."

"Even dead people have feelings." She almost wished Margaret would rise like fog, to tell Doug how much she missed him. Ellen wondered how Mr. Cool would handle that.

"I'm getting out of here." Doug headed for the gate, hunched, his arms huddled across his chest. November was always cold, especially in the graveyard. But Ellen knew some things were colder than November. Like a guy's heart.

"She loved you, you know," Ellen called.

Doug stopped near the gate, his shadow mingling with the wrought-iron bars. "I thought you were taking me out here so we could be alone. I was going to kiss you. I was going to be gentle. Hell, I was even going to walk you home after."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," Margaret said, her voice everywhere and nowhere.

Doug glanced at the sky, shook his head as if to clear away cobwebs or memories or imagined voices, then hurried through the gate.

"He's not so hot after all," Margaret said from her tombstone perch. "Not like I remember him."

"Some people grow on you, and some don't."