Twilight (6 page)

“But—”

“
Querida.
” Jesse leaned over the gearshift and slipped a hand behind my neck. “You worry too much.”

“Jesse, I—”

But I didn’t get to finish what I’d started to say—nor, a second later, could I even recall what I’d meant to tell him. That’s because he’d pulled me—gently, but inexorably— toward him, and covered my mouth with his.

Of course, it’s impossible when Jesse’s lips are on mine to think about anything other than the way those lips make me feel… which is unbelievably cherished and desired. I don’t have a whole lot of experience in the kissing department, but even I know that what happens every time Jesse kisses me is… well, extraordinary.

And not just because he’s a ghost, either. All the guy has to do is lower his lips to mine and it’s like a Fourth of July sparkler going off deep inside me, flaming brighter and brighter until I can hardly bear the white-hot heat anymore. The only thing that seems as if it might put the fire out is pressing myself closer to him….

But, of course, that only makes it worse, because then Jesse—who usually seems to have a fire of his own burning somewhere—ends up touching me someplace, beneath my shirt, for instance, where, of course, I
want
to be touched, but where he doesn’t think his fingers have any business roaming. Then the kissing ends as Jesse apologizes for insulting me, even though insulted is the
last
thing I feel, something I’ve made as clear to him as I can, to no apparent avail.

But that’s what I get for falling in love with a guy who was born back when men still treated women as if they were dainty breakable figurines instead of flesh and blood. I’ve tried to explain to him that things are different now, but he remains stubbornly convinced that everything below the neck is off-limits until the honeymoon….

Except, of course, when we’re kissing, like now, and he happens, in the heat of the moment, to forget he’s a nineteenth-century gentleman.

I felt his hand move along the waistband of my jeans as we kissed. Our tongues entwined, and I knew it was only a matter of time until that hand slipped beneath my sweater and up toward my bra. I uttered a giddy prayer of thanks that I’d worn the front-closing one. Then, my eyes closed, I did a little exploration of my own, running my palms along the hard wall of muscles I could feel through the cotton of his shirt…

…until Jesse’s fingers, instead of dipping inside my 34 B, seized my hand in a grip of iron.

“Susannah.” He was breathing hard and the word came out sounding a little ragged as he rested his forehead against mine.

“Jesse.” I wasn’t breathing too evenly myself.

“I think you’d better go now.”

How had I known he was going to say that?

It occurred to me that we would be able to do this—kiss like this, I mean—a lot more often and more conveniently if Jesse would get over the absurd idea that he has to stay with Father Dominic, now that we are, for want of a better word, an item. It was my bedroom, after all, that he’d been murdered in, way back when. Shouldn’t it be my bedroom he continues to haunt?

I didn’t couch it in those terms, though, since I knew Jesse, who’s an old-fashioned guy, doesn’t exactly approve of couples living together before wedlock. I also put resolutely from my mind the warning Father Dominic had given me, just before he’d left for San Francisco, about not giving into temptation where Jesse is concerned. It’s all very well for Father D. to talk. He’s a
priest.
He has no idea what it’s like to be a red-blooded teenage mediator. Of the female variety.

“Jesse,” I said, still a little breathless from all the kissing, “I can’t help thinking… well, this thing with Paul. I mean, who knows if maybe he really has come up with some new way to… to keep you and me apart? And now, with Father Dom gone for who knows how long, I… Well, don’t you think it might be better if you came back to my house for a while?”

Jesse, even though he’d almost just had his hand up my shirt, didn’t like that idea at all. “So you can protect me from the nefarious Mr. Slater?” Was it my imagination or did he sound more amused than, er, aroused? “Thank you for the invitation,
querida
, but I can take care of myself.”

“But if Paul finds out Father D. is gone, he might come after you. And if I’m not around to stop him—”

“This may come as a surprise to you, Susannah,” Jesse said, lifting his head and placing my hand in my lap once more, “but I can handle Slater without your help.”

Now he
definitely
sounded amused.

“And now you’re going home,” he went on. “Good night,
querida
.”

He kissed me one last time, a brief peck good-bye. I knew that any second he was going to disappear.

But there was still something else I needed to know. Ordinarily, I’d have asked Father Dominic, but since he wasn’t around…

“Wait,” I said. “Before you go… one last thing.”

Jesse had already started to shimmer. “What,
querida
?”

“The fourth dimension,” I blurted out.

He had begun to dematerialize, but now he looked solid again.

“What about it?” he asked.

“Um,” I said. I’m sure he thought I was just asking to keep him there for a few more precious seconds. And truthfully? I probably was. “What is it?”

“Time,” Jesse said.

“Time?” I echoed. “That’s it? Just… time?”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “Time. Why do you ask? For school?”

“Sure,” I said. “For school.”

“The things they teach now,” he said, shaking his head.

“Cat food,” I said, holding out the bag. “Don’t forget.”

No wonder we can’t seem to make it past second base.

He took the bag from me.

“Good night,
querida
,” he said.

And then he was gone. The only sign that he’d been there at all were the badly fogged windows, steamed by our breath.

Or rather, by my breath, since Jesse doesn’t have any.

Mr. Walden held up a stack of Scantron sheets and said, “Number-two pencils only, please.”

Kelly Prescott’s hand immediately shot up into the air.

“Mr. Walden, this is an outrage.” Kelly takes her role as president of the junior class extremely seriously… especially when it has to do with scheduling dances. And, apparently, aptitude testing. “We should have been given at least twenty-four hours’ notice that we’d be undergoing state testing today.”

“Relax, Prescott.” Mr. Walden, our homeroom teacher and class advisor, began passing out the Scantron sheets. “They’re career aptitude tests, not academic. Your scores won’t show up on your permanent record. They’re to help you”—he picked up one of the test booklets lying on his desk and read from it aloud—“‘determine which careers are best suited to your particular skills and/or areas of interest and/or achievement.’ Got it? Just answer the questions.” Mr. Walden slapped a pile of answer sheets onto my desk for me to pass down my row. “You’ve got fifty minutes. And no talking.”

“ ‘Which do you enjoy more, working while a) outdoors? or b) indoors?’” I heard my stepbrother Brad read aloud from across the room. “Hey, where’s c) heavily intoxicated?”

“You loser,’” Kelly Prescott chortled.

“‘Are you a ‘night person’ or a ‘day person’?” Adam McTavish looked mockly shocked. “This test is totally biased against narcoleptics.”

“‘Do you work best a) alone or b) in a group?’” My best friend, CeeCee, could hardly seem to contain her disgust. “Oh my God, this is
so stupid
.”

“What part of ‘no talking,’ ” Mr. Walden demanded, “do you people not understand?”

But no one paid any attention to him.

“This
is
stupid,” Adam declared. “How is this test going to determine whether or not I’m qualified for a career?”

“It measures your
aptitude
, stupid.” Kelly sounded disgusted. “The only career you’re qualified for is working the drive-through window at In-N-Out Burger.”

“Where you, Kelly, will be working the fryer,” Paul pointed out dryly, causing the rest of the class to crack up….

Until Mr. Walden, who’d settled behind his desk and was trying to read his latest issue of
Surf Magazine
, roared, “Do you people want to stay after school to finish up those tests? Because I’ll be happy to keep you here; I’ve got nothing better to do. Now, shut up, all of you, and get to work.”

That had a significant impact on the amount of chitchat going on around the room.

Miserably, I filled in the little bubbles. My misery didn’t just stem, of course, from the fact that I was operating on zero sleep. While that didn’t exactly help, there was the more pressing concern than career aptitude tests. Yeah, they don’t much apply to me. My fate is already laid out for me… has been laid out for me since birth. I’m destined to be one thing when I grow up and one thing only. And any other career I choose is just going to get in the way of my true calling, which is, of course, helping the undead to their final destinations.

I glanced over at Paul. He was bent over his Scantron sheet, filling in the answer bubbles with a little smile on his face. I wondered what he was putting down as fields of interest. I hadn’t noticed any entries for extortion. Or felony theft.

Why, I wondered, was he even bothering? It wasn’t like it was going to do us any good. We were always going to be mediators first, whatever other careers we might choose. Look at Father Dominic. Oh sure, he had managed to keep his mediator status a secret… a secret even from the church, since, as Father D. put it, his boss is God, and God invented mediators.

Of course, Father D. isn’t
just
a priest. He’d also been a teacher for years and years, winning some awards, even, until he’d been promoted to principal.

But it’s different for Father Dom. He really believes that his ability to see and speak to the dead is gift from God. He doesn’t see it for what it really is: a curse.

Except… except, of course, that without it, I never would have met Jesse.

Jesse. The little blank bubbles in front of me grew decidedly blurry as my eyes filled up with tears.

Oh, great. Now I was crying. At
school.

But how could I help it? Here I was, my future laid out in front of me… graduation, college, career. Well, you know, pseudo-career, since we all know what my
real
career was going to be.

But what about Jesse? What future did
he
have?

“What’s wrong with you?” CeeCee hissed.

I reached up and dabbed at my eyes with the sleeve of my Miu Miu shirt. “Nothing,” I whispered back. “Allergies.”

CeeCee looked skeptical, but turned back to her test booklet.

I’d asked him once what he’d wanted to be. Jesse, I mean. You know, before he’d died. I’d meant what he’d wanted to be as a far as a career went, but he hadn’t understood. When I’d finally explained, he’d smiled but in a sad way.

“Things were different when I was alive, Susannah,” he’d said. “I was my father’s only son. It was expected that I would inherit our family’s ranch and work it to support my mother and sisters after my father died.”

He didn’t add that part of the plan had also included his marrying the girl whose dad owned the farm next door, so that their land would be united into one supersized ranchero. Nor did he mention the fact that she was the one who’d had him killed, because she’d liked another fella better, a fella her dad hadn’t exactly approved of. Because I already knew all of that.

Things were tough, I guess, even way back in the 1850s.

“Oh,” was what I’d said in response. Jesse hadn’t spoken with any detectable rancor, but it seemed like a raw deal to me. I mean, what if he hadn’t
wanted
to be a rancher? “Well, what would you have
liked
to be? You know, if you’d had a choice?”

Jesse had looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. It was different then, Susannah.
I
was different. I did think… sometimes… that I might have liked to have been a doctor.”

A doctor. It made perfect sense—at least to me. All those times I’d staggered home with various parts of me throbbing in pain—whether from poison oak or blisters on my feet—Jesse had been there for me, his touch soft as cashmere. He’d have made a great doctor, actually.

“Why didn’t you, then?” I’d wanted to know. “Become a doctor? Just because of your dad?”

“Yes, mostly that,” he’d said. “I’d never even dared mention it to anyone. I could barely be spared from the ranch for a few days, let alone the years medical school would have taken. But I would have liked that, I think. Medical school. Though back when I was alive,” he’d added, “people didn’t know nearly as much about medicine as they do today. It would be more exciting to work in the sciences now, I think.”

And he would know. He’d had 150 years to hang around and watch as inventions—electricity, automobiles, planes, computers… not to mention penicillin and vaccines for diseases that in the past had routinely killed millions— changed the world into something unrecognizable from the one in which he’d grown up.

But rather than clinging stubbornly to the past, as some would have, Jesse had followed along excitedly, reading whatever he could get his hands on, from paperback novels to encyclopedias. He said he had a lot to catch up on. His favorite books seem to be the nonfiction tomes he borrows from Father Dom, everything from philosophy to explorations on emerging viruses—the kind of books I’d have given to my dad on Father’s Day, if my dad wasn’t, you know, dead. My stepdad, on the other hand, is more the cookbook type. But you get my drift. To Jesse, stuff that seems dry and uninteresting to me is vitally exciting. Maybe because he’d seen it all unfolding before his eyes.