Wraith (13 page)

The pained expression deepened. "For how long?
Like… twenty minutes?"

I hedged. "Well, I will have to try a few
dresses on."

He considered a moment. "Dresses? Well, okay.
But I’ll need to check out the changing rooms for you. Some of them can be
pretty dangerous—"

"Zane," I interrupted.

"Yes?" he asked innocently.

"You’re not going in the dressing rooms with
me."

"Even if I—"

"No."

His lips twisted in chagrin. "Hmm… well, I
suppose there could be other girls—"

"Zane!"

He chuckled. "Just kidding, of course. Even as
a ghost, I’m always a perfect gentleman."

"Liar."

"Almost always?"

"Can we change the subject, please?"

His appearance morphed, in the blink of an eye, from
dripping wet board shorts to a perfectly dry, bright green Hawaiian shirt and
cutoffs. "All right, Kali. If you insist. Pig tacos in Haleiwa… and then
shopping. But after this, you will officially owe me."

I grinned. "Not a problem."

The weather remained obligingly beautiful. Warm but
not hot, with blue skies, bright sun, and just the right amount of flower-scented
breeze. My high spirits seemed slightly out of place, even to me, in light of
the realizations I’d come to last night about the recent
"enhancement" of my abilities. Then again, I had a lot of practice at
ignoring things I didn’t want to think about. And right now, I didn’t want to
think about anything except finding the perfect dress and having a great time
at the dance tonight.

"First stop!" I said cheerfully, pointing
ahead to a colorful shop perched mere inches from the cluttered, two-lane road
that was Haleiwa’s main drag. I had parked the car in a tiny lot at the south
end so we could walk the length of the village and back. It was not the most
leisurely of strolls, given that Haleiwa’s mishmash of storefronts were often
set perilously close to a street not nearly wide enough to accommodate the
giant tour buses that frequently clogged it. But at least it had character.
From high-end original art and hand-carved tikis to tacky shot glasses and hula
dolls, you could find all things touristy in Haleiwa. What you wanted might be
in a quaint little strip mall decorated with sweet-smelling flowers… but it
could just as easily come from an ancient plantation shack with clapboard walls
set right next to a dumpster buzzing with flies. Haleiwa’s variety was part of
its charm.

As was its wildlife. No sooner were the last words
out of my mouth than a chicken skittered out from the bushes and ran directly
into our path. Zane stepped unconcernedly through its tail feathers, but I
nearly broke my neck trying not to trip over it.

I felt a buzz on the arm I thrust behind me as I
caught myself—and realized that Zane must have reflexively shot out his hand to
help. But when I looked around, his arms were already back at his sides, his
expression sober.

"Good save," he commented as I regained my
footing.

"Thanks," I responded, watching as the
unrepentant hen scuttled off to join the handsome red rooster that lurked under
a nearby fender. Both birds stared at me reproachfully.

"So we’re buying you a longboard, right?"
Zane questioned. "Were you looking to paddle into the big waves, or are we
talking tow-in? Because if you’re serious about tow-in, you’ll need
footstraps."

"Nice try," I interrupted. "Like I
said, I need a dress. One nice enough for a school dance."

He stopped walking and turned to face me. "A
school dance?"

I felt a sharp pricking of guilt. I hadn’t meant to
keep my plans a secret… the topic just hadn’t come up yet. We had spent our
taco-eating time chatting about other things, although at the moment I couldn’t
remember just what. It was easy to get off topic with Zane; he seemed to know
something about everything. Everything
except
his own life since
puberty, that is. 

"Matt just asked me," I explained, feeling
distinctly awkward, even as I assured myself that I shouldn’t. I had no reason
to think Zane would feel jealous. He and I were just friends; he was not
technically alive. Looking for any more reasons he should
not
care if I
went to a dance with another guy seemed silly.

And yet, as my eyes met his—which currently
flickered transparent along with the bridge of his nose—I got the feeling that
maybe he did.  

A second later, though, the look in question was
gone.

"Well, congratulations!" he said with a
smile, walking forward again. "How did superjock work that out so
fast?"

"His date got sick," I explained.
"I’m the sub."

Zane smirked. "Matt have access to
arsenic?"

I threw him an appropriate glare. "Stop that. I
believe she really got sick. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t go."

Zane offered a good-natured shrug. "I guess
it’s fate, then. The timing is perfect—you couldn’t ask for a better chance to
meet the locals."  He stopped dutifully in front of the store I had
pointed to, but even as he spoke his gaze drifted longingly across the street,
where countless boards of all shapes and sizes stood on the other side of a
surf shop window, stacked vertically like a forest of gaudy trees.

"Are you sure you’re okay with the shopping
thing?" I asked, feeling another, even stronger pang of guilt.

"Absolutely," he responded at once.
"No problem. I’m excited."

I frowned. "You don’t sound excited."

He stopped looking across the street and considered
a moment. "You’re right, I don’t. That was terrible. I’m normally a much
better actor. Wait…" He dropped back a few paces, turned his back, then
whirled around and caught up with me again. His face was now flushed with
anticipation; his eyes sparkled. For a moment, I thought he had seen something
interesting on the ground. "I am SO excited about shopping!" he exclaimed,
throwing his whole body into a contortion I could only describe as a skip and a
jump.
"Let’s go!"

I laughed so hard three people stopped and stared at
me.

"Better?" he demanded, now perfectly calm
again.

I groaned, wiping my watering eyes with one hand
while pulling my phone self-consciously back to my ear with the other.
"Oh, forget it!" I ordered. "Just go stare at the stupid boards,
will you?"

"I thought you’d never ask," he said
gleefully.

"Will you just… maybe… check in once in a
while?" I begged. "I do want your opinion; there’s no one else I can
ask." It occurred to me, suddenly, that I could easily take a picture of a
dress with my phone and send it to Kylee or Tara—or even my mother.

Somehow, that didn’t seem like nearly as much fun.

"Will do!" he answered with a salute,
barely waiting to get the last word out of his mouth before sprinting across
the street through a mountain bike and a minivan and springing into the window
of the surf shop like a gazelle.

"Show off," I muttered again.

A sudden cloud seeped over and through me, a wave of
sadness so profound it seemed to block out the light, even as I knew from the
warmth on my skin and the glare in my eyes that the sun was still shining. The
source seemed to be behind me. I whirled around.

The shadow of an old man, haggard and thin, wearing
threadbare, damp-looking clothing, leaned wearily against the outside wall of
the shop. His rheumy eyes teared. His hands shook.

I dashed forward immediately, down the street and
away. I had run a good couple of blocks before I dodged into a shop doorway and
paused, chest heaving.

Nothing now. It’s all right.

Just forget about it, okay?

The sadness had left me as abruptly as it had come,
but it was replaced with a spurt of righteous anger, and I clenched my fists
with frustration. This was so unfair!
Why
did whatever had happened to
that poor man however many years ago have to make me feel so bad right now?
What purpose did it serve?

At least this one wasn’t alive, right?

"Can I help you find something?"

The cheerful voice of the shopkeeper—a short, chunky
redheaded woman with an accent straight from the Bronx—snapped me back to the
regular world. I made an effort to slow my breathing, then scanned the room
with eagerness. For a doorway into which I had randomly stumbled, the shop was
exactly what I had been looking for: not exactly upscale, but a far cry from
plastic flippers and ukulele-strumming Obama dolls. The focus was beach
clothing, but there were no "surf’s up" tee shirts here—just a few
stands of silk and synthetic men’s Hawaiian shirts, and rows upon rows of
gorgeous, colorful sundresses.

"Yes," I answered heavily. "You
can."

Nearly an hour later, I stood in the same shop, my
face twisted in an anguish of indecision. I was normally not so fussy about my clothes.
Few girls at my school in Cheyenne were uber-concerned with wearing the latest
big-city fashion; most of my friends, like me, were happy with whatever looked
good with their body type and wasn’t too uncomfortable. But this was serious.

Why, oh why, had I agreed to go to this stupid dance
in the first place? Could I not see that I was laying my entire social future
in Oahu on the line? Like an idiot, I had set myself up to meet a gazillion
important strangers in one fell swoop, giving myself only
one
chance to
make
one
all-important first impression on everybody, an impression they
would then have three whole months to think about and talk about—while I had
zero chance to redeem myself!

It was official. I was insane.

My phone buzzed with a text, and I swung the screen
quickly into view. It was from my mother, to whom I had texted a picture of
both dresses twenty minutes ago.

I think they’re both lovely. You can’t go wrong!

I groaned. She wasn’t blowing me off; I knew that if
she said she liked both dresses, she did. My mother was hardly the type to pull
punches when it came to expressing opinions on my wardrobe. But it was not the
decisive answer I needed.

I stepped to the window and scanned the street
again. There had been no sign of Zane since we parted. Where was he? I had
expected to see him long before now.

Two more texts buzzed in in quick succession. Thanks
to me and my fashion dilemma, Kylee and Tara were currently at war, copying
each other on a flurry of transoceanic communications that some phone companies
somewhere were loving every minute of.

The first one was from Kylee, who had lined up in
favor of the crimson red V-neck right off the bat.

It duz NOT make her look slutty! It makz her look
SEXY!!!

Tara, however, had had concerns, preferring instead
the yellow print with the purple and blue flowers, whose gathered, form-fitting
front was slightly more modest, but still showed off my newly tanned shoulders.

Her goal is not to get herself mauled in the guy’s
car! Her goal is to make a good impression on her future friends. The LAST
thing she needs is to tick off the girls by stealing all their guys’ attention!

I looked fretfully from one dress to the other. Tara
had a point. The red with the giant white blossoms
was
really, really
striking on a tall frame, even a too-skinny one, like mine. But it was also
perilously low cut—lower cut than anything I’d ever worn before. That could
definitely cause some anxiety when I was dancing…

My phone buzzed again.

Guysll drool anyway cuz Kali always looks hot—duh.
Let her have FUN!!!

And again.

She will have more fun if she doesn’t get mauled in
the guy’s car. Or the hallway, or the street… She needs to make the statement,
"I’m pretty and confident." Not "I’m easy, do me now."

Seconds later, two more.

U are SO dramatic! Kali can handle it. GO WITH THE
RED, GIRL!!!

Kali can handle anything. That’s why she’s going to
wear the yellow, look amazing, get the guy, and still make lots of new friends.

I stuffed the phone into my pocket with a groan. Tara
was exaggerating about the red, for sure. The girl herself was freakin’
gorgeous—long blond hair, big blue eyes, and bone structure like a Greek
goddess. But none of the guys in Cheyenne had a clue because her hair was in a
ponytail 24/7, she refused to wear contacts, and half her clothes were borrowed
from her brothers.

Which made me wonder why I was asking her opinion in
the first place.

Kylee had better fashion sense, didn’t she? Then
again, her tastes differed from mine. I liked a more natural, classy look—she
was all about bright colors and bold statements. Of course she would like the
red dress.

But was it right for me?

Arrrgghhh!!!

"Kali!"

My spirits leapt instantly; I spun around.
"Zane! Where have you been?"

He blinked at me. "Where have
I
been?
The question is where have
you
been. I’ve been looking all over for
you!"

I blinked back at him. He looked… not upset,
exactly. His voice was calm; his tone was as easygoing as ever. But there was a
look in his eyes and a tenseness to his face that was unusual.

"I’ve been right here the whole time," I
explained.

He looked confused. "But I’ve checked here. At
least three times. Along with every other store on the street."

"Maybe I was in the dressing room?" I
suggested.

His eyes widened. "Every time? For an
hour?"

I chuckled. "You don’t go dress shopping often,
do you?"

The shop owner’s loud voice announced her latest
intrusion. "Well, have you made up your mind yet?" she said with a
broad smile. "Did the friends vote?"