Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (69 page)

“Okay,” I said slowly, not knowing what else to say or sure what she was talking about.

What I was sure of, however, was that David had gotten a little too much sauce in him and spilled all over the sides about me. And just when things had started to quiet down. I was also sure that a health food hadn’t been discovered yet that would help him recover from the neck wringing I was going to give him. Of course she looked familiar to David. She was his damn bartender.

“Ever notice how all those shows about ghosts only have white people being haunted?” she said, looking out the window. “Well, I guess I’m here to bring a little balance to things.”

I still didn’t know what she wanted from me.

“I don’t know what else to think, except that I’m going crazy,” she whispered, now looking deep into my eyes. “But I think it’s happening to me. I think I’m… I’m being haunted.”

I didn’t say anything.

“David said he had a good friend who was a ghost hunter. He was supposed to ask if this was okay, me talking to you. But I think he’s blowing me off, acting like he doesn’t even know me. I didn’t know what else to do.”

I wondered if he was too embarrassed over having told her about me or if he really didn’t remember. If he had just blabbed out and then blacked out.

“That’s okay,” I said. “But I still don’t know what you what me to do. Or what I can do.”

Jesse’s words buzzed around my brain about how I needed to protect myself, how I couldn’t help everybody and that there were a million ghosts out there that would want something from me.

“I really don’t know where else to turn, Abby,” she said. “Or who else to ask. None of this makes sense to me. Like I said, I don’t even believe in ghosts. Look, I can pay you. I just need help. I think it’s getting worse. I see him every night now.”

“Who?” I said.

She was looking out the window again.

“What’s that black rock all over the street?” she asked, her voice low and raspy. “When did they do that? Must help with the mud in winter.”

I looked outside. I couldn’t see what she was talking about. The asphalt?

“Who do you see every night, Paloma?” I said.

She looked at me again.

“Huh? Oh, he hangs out at the club. This guy, this spirit or whatever, he just stares at me. At first I thought he was real, I mean, human. You know, just a creep. I tried to have the bouncer throw out his ass. But no one else sees him. Just me.”

It began in her eyes. The terror. They started to dance wildly. And then it swamped her like a canoe in a windstorm. She started shaking, the ice rattling in the clear plastic cup before she could put it down, her voice quivering.

“Sorry,” she said as she looked down and ran her trembling hands through her short hair. “I haven’t been able to sleep in weeks. I know you don’t know me from Adam’s house cat, but this isn’t who I am. I don’t scare easy, but this
pinche pendejo
, this thing, it frightens the shit out of me.”

I believed her. I believed that she was really scared. But that wasn’t enough.

We agreed to meet again.

“Thanks,” she said, getting up. “You’re a good person for doing this.”

“I’ll be in touch,” I said.

She started walking to the door, but then stopped and took a few steps back toward me.

“You know, sometimes right after I see him, I don’t feel myself. It’s almost like he’s—”

But she didn’t finish. She just shook her head.

I swallowed hard and watched her go outside. She stopped at the sidewalk and looked down at the street for a long time, stroking her chin. Then she got into her car and drove away.

***

I had trouble sleeping that night.

Paloma Suárez seemed a little out there. I wasn’t ready to buy into everything she was saying. But as I tossed and turned, I started thinking about the ghosts I had seen before. Some needed help. One even helped me. But I had never come in contact with a ghost like she was describing.

Staring up at the ceiling in the dark, I knew that if what this woman was saying was true and if I decided to try and help her, I might be in over my head.

I told myself that I was getting ahead of myself, that I still had a lot of fact finding to do before I crossed that river. After all, I had also felt like Annabelle and Spenser were “haunting” me when I first encountered them. But in the end, they just needed help. Maybe this was the same thing. Or maybe this Paloma Suárez just had a screw loose.

But my mind refused to listen to logic. It raced far ahead like a runaway stagecoach through the long sleepless night.

CHAPTER 3

I got too far under the ball and watched as it sailed high, past the bright lights, and into the dark sky before bouncing out into the desert brush, nowhere near the goal.

I should have done more with it. We had only been down a goal and there were still a few minutes left in the game. The shot could have made the difference. At least I could have rolled it in on target. If I had done that, there was the chance the goalkeeper could have tripped or been hit by lightning.

The keeper took his time retrieving the ball and then kicked it far down field. I didn’t get it back again and the ref blew the whistle and it was official. We didn’t make the playoffs.

“Darn it all,” Tim said.

I was using stronger language in my head.

His glasses were fogged up and sliding down his nose.

“It was a long shot anyway. We don’t really belong in the playoffs,” he said. “We basically suck.”

I went over to the sidelines. Tim was right. It hadn’t been a good season. I had barely practiced all summer and we only had won two games. It would have been a complete fluke to have advanced.

I didn’t say much and grabbed my stuff, heading to the parking lot. I sat in the Jeep, drinking water while texting Kate that I was heading home.

I jumped at the knock on the window.

“Oh, sorry,” Tim said as I rolled it down. “Uh, we’re going out for drinks next week. Just wanted to invite you and let you know.”

“Thanks. I’ll be there.”

“Hey, have a good night. And be careful out there.”

I didn’t know what he meant for a minute, but then remembered that he was just referring to my day job. We had talked a few times about me being a river guide and he told me that going on rivers freaked him out ever since he was a kid and had a bad experience. I didn’t ask him what happened. I didn’t want to start swapping drowning stories. But since finding out what I did during my days, Tim usually said goodbye with a worried expression and a reminder to be careful.

“I will,” I said. “Goodnight.”

It was a dark, moonless night. But down in the city it was bright. Bend had become popular over the last few years, maybe because of all the breweries in town. It was a record year for beer festivals. BrewFest, Fermentation Celebration, and The Little Woody all seemed to keep bringing more and more tourists in.

Ty was spending his weekend pouring at an event. He invited me to come along, but I passed. I was pretty tired and was looking forward to hanging out and watching some black and white movies and catching up on my sleep.

Yawning, I thought again about the soccer ball way up in the sky as I turned toward home.

***

The sound of a lone frog echoed in the darkness. I was sitting in the big Adirondack chair pushed up near the pond, staring at the dark silhouettes of the moving trees.

The air smelled heavy, like it was raining somewhere far away. But there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, just thousands of glittering stars in the darkness, reminding me of Ty.

He had been teaching me a little bit about the night sky this summer, showing me the details of the world above. I had never given it much thought before, but there was an entire universe up there, full of life and myths and stories and passion.

And sitting out here like this, when I thought about Ty, I usually also thought about Jesse.

It didn’t make any sense that I loved them both. But that’s how I felt. I couldn’t help it.

I had seen Jesse only a couple of times during the summer. We walked through the park along the river and I told him about work and a little bit about my new friends. I asked him about what he did but he never said too much about where he was spending his time, just that he was somewhere else.

We rarely talked about Ty, but I was sure he knew about him. He had to.

Thinking about Jesse standing in the shadows of my life and watching me fall in love with someone else sent a wave of sadness through me.

I held the air in my lungs and then blew it out slowly.

“I’ll always love you, Jesse,” I whispered into the wind, hoping it would take the message to him.

Hoping that he would understand.

CHAPTER 4

“Really?” I said to Ty. “He really asked that?”

We were sitting outside on the upstairs deck, overlooking Bond Street, eating dinner at the Deschutes Brewery Pub. Cars rumbled below us and people walked, some stumbled, along the sidewalk.

“Yep,” he said, smiling and wiping his mouth with a napkin. “It happened just like I said. The guy was from out of town and with a straight face, he asked me for a
butt
beer.”

We both laughed again, my nose stinging from the Coke shooting up.

“He said it,” Ty said. “Really. It’s a direct quote. ‘I’ll have one of those black butt porters.’”

“So what did you tell him?” I said.

“I told him he’d have to go to Deschutes Brewery for the butt beer. That they made it, not us. The group he was with busted up and someone told him that the beer is called Black
Butte
Porter, not Butt Porter. The poor bastard turned all red.”

Ty smiled in that way that sent chills through me and as I looked at him, those tingling feelings inside rose up in waves. He reached across the table and took my hand.

“Sorry I can’t hang out with you tonight,” he said. “I feel really bad about it.”

We were supposed to be going out, but he had gotten called into work. He was learning about brewing and they were starting a new batch later.

“Don’t feel bad. It’s a great opportunity.”

The waiter came over and put down the beer that Ty had ordered on the table.

“Okay,” he said, nodding his head. “You’ve gotta try this. On tap it’s totally different and I think you’ll like it now.”

I took a sip of the foaming liquid. He was right. It was a lot better than the bottled version. But I still liked the pale ales best.

“Not bad,” I said.

He smiled as he stuffed the rest of his elk burger in his mouth. I finished the last of the sweet potato fries on my plate and drained my Coke.

“So all your groups on the river were all right today?” I asked. “I noticed some exuberant types with you there at the end.”

“They weren’t too bad,” he said.

Ty never minded the rowdy teens and they usually wound up in his raft. He was pretty good with them and was able to keep the young punks in line.

“How about your groups?” he asked.

“They were all fine. Those ladies from the photography workshop in the last run were really nice. I got some serious tips from them, too.”

“Money tips or photography tips?” he asked.

I held up my hand and rubbed my thumb and fingers together.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said.

I watched as a large group walked behind Ty and headed over to the empty table at the far end of the balcony. I recognized a few of them from soccer, players on some of the other teams. I waved when one of them looked over at me. He waved back.

“It’s so busy in here tonight,” I said. “I’m surprised we haven’t bumped into any of our rafting customers.”

“That’s no coincidence. I always tell them to go over to Ten Barrel, that we have the better product. Which is true, you know.”

I smiled.

“Then why are we here?”

“Research,” he said.

I sat back.

“Oh, so Kate said she’ll come to The Shins with us. She’s writing a story on people who go to the concerts for free while they float on the river.”

“Good,” he said, smiling. “It’s about time she gets in the canoe and does a Schwab concert right.”

The river ran right by the outdoor venue and some people floated in watercrafts, listening to the concerts.

“What is she up to these days?” he asked.

“Working on some big story. She seems like her old self again.”

I loved all the work Kate had done on the house, but I was glad when she started putting in extra hours at the newspaper again. Journalism was in her blood and it was where she belonged.

“I’ll be right back,” Ty said.

I stared out at the street. Some girls wearing bikini tops drove by and honked at a group of guys walking down the street. They whistled and started punching one another on the arm.

As I glanced over at the soccer players a few tables away, I noticed someone standing behind one of them. He was an older man, maybe a grandfather or uncle. He was smiling as he watched her eat. 

I looked away quickly, even though there was nothing wrong, nothing that the old man ghost wanted from me. I saw these ghosts occasionally, but I always heard Jesse’s voice in my head, telling me to focus on this world, not the ghost world.

Ty and I still didn’t talk about it, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Sometimes I hated it because it felt like there was an elephant ghost in the room that nobody spoke about. And if something came up, like a problem, I knew that Ty wasn’t the one I could go to for help.

But at other times, I kind of liked that he wasn’t all that interested in ghosts. He was unusual that way. Most people had a strong opinion about it one way or another. And not talking about it was sometimes a good thing.

In some ways, Jesse would be happy about Ty. He would like that I found someone who could give me a normal kind of life.

Ty walked back, bringing his sunglasses down over his eyes.

“Sorry I have to get going, Abby. They just called. I guess they’re starting earlier. I told them I was on my way. Actually, I think I’ll just walk.”