Haunted (16 page)

Just like that.

I assumed Father Dom wanted to see how I was doing. You know, I had been out of school for two whole days, thanks to my feet. A nice person would naturally wonder if I was all right. A nice person would be concerned about my well-being.

And it turned out, Father D. was totally concerned about my well-being. But more spiritually than physically.

“Susannah,” he said, when I walked through his office door—well,
walk
might be too strong a word for how I was getting around. I was still sort of hobbling. Fortunately, my slides were super cushioned, and the wide black band that held them to my feet completely covered most of the unsightly Band-Aids.

I still sort of felt like I was walking on mushrooms, though. Some of those blisters on the soles of my feet had gone hard as rocks.

“When,” Father Dominic asked, “were you going to tell me about you and Jesse?”

I blinked at him. I was sitting in the visitor’s chair across from his desk where I always sit while we have our little chats. As usual, I had fished a toy out from the good father’s bottom drawer, where he keeps the juvenile paraphernalia teachers confiscate from their pupils. Today I had hold of some Silly Putty.

“What about me and Jesse?” I asked blankly, because I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. I mean, why would I ever suspect that Father Dom knew about me and Jesse…the truth about me and Jesse? I mean, who would ever have told him?

“That you…that you two…” Father Dom seemed to be having some trouble choosing his words.

That’s how I got his meaning before he ever even got the whole sentence out.

“That you and Jesse are…I believe the term these days is
an item
,” he finally blurted.

I immediately turned as red as the robes of the archbishop, who’d be descending upon our school at any moment.

“We—we aren’t,” I stammered. “An item, I mean. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t know how—”

And then, in a burst of intuition, I knew. I knew exactly how Father Dom had found out. Or thought I did, anyway.

“Did Paul tell you that?” I demanded. “Because I am really surprised at you, Father, for listening to a guy like that. Did you know that he is at least partly responsible for my blisters? I mean, he totally came on to me—” I didn’t feel it was necessary, under the circumstances, to add that I hadn’t resisted. At all. “And then when I tried to leave, he sicced this Hell’s Angel after me—”

Father Dom interrupted me. Which is something Father Dominic does not do often.

“Jesse himself told me,” he said. “And what is this about you and Paul?”

I was too busy gaping at him to pay attention to his question.

“
What?
” I exclaimed. “
Jesse
told you?” I felt as if the world as I knew it had suddenly been turned upside down, topsy-turvy, and inside out. Jesse had told Father Dom that we were an item? That he had feelings for me? Before he’d even bothered to tell me? This could not be happening. Not to me. Because incredibly good things like this never happened to me. Never.

“What, exactly,” I asked carefully, because I wanted to make sure that, before I got my hopes up, I got the story straight, “did Jesse tell you, Father Dom?”

“That you kissed.” Father Dominic said the word so uncomfortably, you’d have thought there were tacks on the seat of his chair. “And I must say, Susannah, that I am disturbed that you said nothing of this to me the other day when we spoke. I have never been so disappointed in you. It makes me wonder what else you are keeping from me—”

“I didn’t tell you,” I said, “because it was just one lousy kiss. And it happened
weeks
ago. And since then, nothing. I mean it, Father D.” I wondered if he could hear the frustration in my voice, and found that I didn’t even care. “Not even nothing. A big
fat
nothing.”

“I thought you and I were close enough that you would share something of this magnitude with me,” Father Dominic said all glumly.

“Magnitude?” I echoed, smashing the Silly Putty in my fist. “Father D., what magnitude? Nothing happened, okay?” Much to my everlasting disappointment. “I mean, not what you’re thinking, anyway.”

“I realize that,” Father Dominic said gravely. “Jesse is far too honorable a young man to have taken advantage of the situation. However, you must know, Susannah, that I cannot in good conscience allow this to continue—”

“Allow
what
to continue, Father D.?” I could not believe I was even having this conversation. It was almost as if I had woken up in Bizarro World. “I told you, nothing—”

“I owe it to your parents,” Father Dominic went on, as if I hadn’t spoken, “to look out for your spiritual welfare as well as your physical well-being. And I have an obligation to Jesse, as well, as his confessor—”

“As his
what
?” I yelled, feeling as if I might fall out of my chair.

“There is no need to shout, Susannah. I believe that you heard me perfectly well.” Father Dom looked about as miserable as I was just beginning to feel. “The fact is, that in light of…well, the current situation, I have advised Jesse that he needs to move into the rectory.”

Now I did fall out of my chair. Well, I didn’t fall out of it, exactly. I tumbled out of it. I tried to leap, but my feet were too sore for leaping. I settled for lunging at Father Dom. Except that there was this huge desk separating us, so I couldn’t, as I wanted, grab big handfuls of his vestments and shriek
Why? Why?
in his face. Instead, I had to grip the edge of his desk very tightly and go, in the kind of shrill, girl voice I hate but couldn’t stop emitting at that point, “The rectory? The
rec- tory
?”

“Yes, the rectory,” Father Dominic said defensively. “He will be perfectly content there, Susannah. I know it will be difficult for him to adjust to spending his time somewhere other than—well, the place where he died. But we live very simply at the rectory. In many ways, it will be much like what Jesse was accustomed to when he was alive….”

I was really having a lot of trouble processing what I was hearing.

“And Jesse
agreed
to this?” I heard myself asking in that same shrill, girl’s voice. Whose voice
was
that, anyway? Surely not my own. “Jesse said he’d do it?”

Father Dominic looked at me in a manner I can only describe as pitying.

“He did,” he said. “And I am more sorry than I can say that you had to find out this way. But perhaps Jesse felt…and I must say, I agree with…that such a scene might…well, a girl of your temperament might…well, you might have made it difficult….”

And then, from out of nowhere, the tears came. My only warning was a sharp tingle in my nose. The next thing I knew, I was fighting back sobs.

Because I knew what Father Dom was trying to say. It was all there, in hideous black and white. Jesse didn’t love me. Jesse had never loved me. That kiss—that kiss had been an experiment after all. Worse than an experiment. A mistake, even. A horrible, miserable mistake.

And now Jesse knew that I’d lied to him about Paul—knew that I’d lied to him, and worse, probably guessed why I’d lied…that I love him, that I’d always loved him, and didn’t want to lose him—he was moving out, rather than telling me the truth, that he didn’t return my feelings. Moving out! He would rather have moved out than have spent another day with me! That’s the kind of pathetic loser I am!

I fell back into the chair in front of Father Dom’s desk, weeping. I didn’t even care what Father Dom thought—you know, about me crying over a guy. It wasn’t like I could just stop loving Jesse now that I knew—for absolute sure, once and for all—that he didn’t love me back.

“I d-don’t understand,” I said, into my hands. “What…what did I do wrong?”

Father Dominic’s voice sounded gently harassed. “Nothing, Susannah. You did nothing wrong. It’s just better this way. Surely you can see that.”

Father Dominic really isn’t very good at dealing with love affairs. Ghosts, yes. Girls who’ve had their hearts stomped on? Not so much.

Still, he did his best. He actually got up from behind the desk, came around it, and laid one of his hands over my shoulder and patted it kind of awkwardly.

I was surprised. Father D. wasn’t a real touchy-feely guy.

“There, there, Susannah,” he said. “There, there. It will be all right.”

Except that it wouldn’t. It would never be all right.

But Father Dom wasn’t finished.

“You two cannot go on as you have been. Jesse’s got to leave. It’s the only way.”

I couldn’t help letting out a humorless laugh at that one.

“The only way? To make him leave home?” I asked, angrily reaching up to wipe my eyes with the sleeve of my suede jacket. And you know what salt water does to suede. That’s how far gone I was. “I don’t think so.”

“It isn’t his home, Susannah,” Father D. said kindly. “It’s your home. It was never Jesse’s home. It was the boardinghouse where he was murdered.”

Hearing the word
murdered
, I am sorry to say, only made me cry harder. Father D. responded by patting my shoulder some more.

“Come now,” he said. “You’ve got to be adult about this, Susannah.”

I said something unintelligible. Even I didn’t know what it was.

“I have no doubt that you will handle this situation, Susannah,” Father Dom said, “as you’ve handled all the others in your life, with…well, if not grace, then aplomb. And now you had better go. First period is nearly over.”

But I didn’t go. I just sat there, occasionally letting out a pathetic sniffle as the tears continued to stream down my face. I was glad I’d worn waterproof mascara that morning.

But Father D., instead of taking pity on me, the way a man of the cloth is supposed to do, only looked at me a little suspiciously. “Susannah,” he said, “I hope…I don’t believe I have to…well, I feel obligated to warn you…. You are a very headstrong girl, and I do hope you will remember what I spoke to you about once before. You are not to use your, er, feminine wiles on Jesse. I meant it then, and I mean it now. If you must cry about this, get it over with here in my office. But do not cry to Jesse. Don’t make this harder on him than it already is. Do you understand?”

I stamped a foot, then, but as pain shot up my leg, instantly regretted the action.

“God,” I said not very graciously. “What do you take me for? You think I’m going to beg him to stay or something? If he wants to go, that’s fine by me. More than fine. I’m
glad
he’s going.” Then my voice caught on another traitorous sob. “But I just want you to know, it’s not
fair
.”

“Very little in life is fair, Susannah,” Father Dominic said sympathetically. “But I shouldn’t have to remind you that you have far, far more blessings in your life than many people. You are one very lucky girl.”

“Lucky,” I said with a bitter laugh. “Yeah, right.”

Father Dominic looked at me. “You seem better now, Susannah,” he said. “So perhaps you won’t mind running along now. I have a lot of work to do concerning the feast tomorrow….”

I thought about how much I hadn’t told him. I mean, about Craig and Neil Jankow, not to mention Paul and Dr. Slaski and the shifters.

I should have told him about Paul. At the very least, I should have told him his whole fresh-start theory. Then again, maybe not. Paul was definitely up to no good, as my aching feet could attest.

But I was, I’ll admit, a little bit peeved with Father Dominic. You would have thought he’d have shown me a little bit more compassion. I mean, he’d basically just broken my heart. Worse, he’d done it on Jesse’s order. Jesse didn’t even have the guts to tell me to my face that he didn’t love me. No, he had to make his “confessor” do it. Nice one. Really made me sorry I’d missed out on life in the 1850s. Must have been sweet—everyone going around, making priests do their dirty work.

I couldn’t, of course, run along, as Father Dom had suggested. I couldn’t technically
run
anywhere. But I hobbled out of his office, feeling extremely sorry for myself. I was still crying—enough so that when Father D.’s secretary saw me, she went, with motherly concern, “Oh, hon. You all right? Here, have a tissue,” which was a lot more comforting than anything Father D. had done for me in the past half hour.

I took the tissue and blew my nose, then took a few more for the road. I had a feeling I was going to be bawling my eyes out until at least third period.

Stepping out into the breezeway along the courtyard, I tried to get a hold of myself. Okay. So the guy didn’t like me. Lots of guys hadn’t liked me in the past, and I’d never lost it like this. And, okay, this was
Jesse
, the person I loved best in all the world. But, hey, if he didn’t want me back, that was just fine. You know what it was? Yeah, it was
his
loss, that’s what it was.

So why couldn’t I stop crying?

What was I going to do without him? I mean, I had totally gotten used to having Jesse around all the time. And what about his cat? Was Spike going to go live at the rectory, too? I guess he would have to. I mean, that ugly cat loved Jesse as much as I did. Lucky cat, getting to go live with Jesse.

I wandered along the length of the breezeway, looking out at the sun-soaked courtyard without really seeing it.
Maybe
, I thought,
Father D. was right
. Maybe it was better this way. I mean, let’s say, just for a minute, that Jesse liked me back. Better than liked me. Loved me, even. Where was it going to go? It was like Paul had said. What were we going to do? Date? Go to the movies together? I would have to pay, and it would just be for one ticket. And if anyone saw me, to all appearances sitting by myself, I would look like the biggest dork in the world. How lame.

What I needed, I realized, was a real boyfriend. Not just a guy people besides me could see, either, but a guy I liked, who actually liked me back. That was what I needed. That was exactly what I needed.