Chapter 30
It’s ninety-nine degrees on the Fourth of July. I sit on my bed in just my boxers with my face inches from the pedestal fan, humming into its spinning blades while debating what to wear.
Whitley, in all her persuasive glory, scored us an invite to a lifeguard party. She asked one of them about Pinehurst Swim Club, and after their face went ashen, they said they could help her out. But only at the party. They didn’t want to discuss what they knew at work.
And by us, I mean Xander, Whitley, and me. I’m bringing the group together for the first time.
Suddenly, there’s a single knock on my door. Then it flies open.
“Hi, Stetson,” Xander says, stepping in. Starburst wrappers fall to the floor around him like tiny toy parachutes. “Quit lying around and put some clothes on. We have a mystery to solve.”
“Hey!” I shout, scrambling from my bed and covering my crotch with my arms. “How did you get in my house?”
“Oh, relax.” He unwraps an orange Starburst and pops it into his mouth. “We just saw each other half naked in the river the other day.”
My face burns. I grab a pair of wrinkled khaki shorts from the floor and slide them on, then walk to my closet and sift through the five tops I have to choose from.
I look Xander up and down. He wears a baby blue Hawaiian shirt covered in navy and white palm leaves, cutoff jean shorts, and dirty Converses. “Is this party a luau?” I ask.
“Don’t hate on my style.” He gestures to his feet. “I was going for a classy red, white, and blue look. I got red socks. See?” He flashes his legs. “I haven’t been to a party where I could talk to someone in decades.” He grins. “Dress to impress, they say.”
“They do say that,” I affirm.
“Say what?” Whitley asks, walking through the doorway, wearing denim shorts, a white tank top, and a red bandana holding her hair back.
Xander retreats to a corner. My eyes bounce between them.
“About dressing nice,” I say, clearing my throat.
“Who’s dressing nice? Because it certainly isn’t you.” She plops a plastic bag holding three forty-ounce beer bottles onto my desk.
“Xander,” I mumble.
Whitley freezes, midway through opening one of the bottles. “The ghost is here? Where?” she asks in a whisper. “Oh my god.”
“She doesn’t have to whisper,” Xander says. “And I’d prefer it if she didn’t call me a ghost.”
“You don’t have to whisper,” I relay. “And he’d prefer it if you didn’t call him a ghost. He’s in the corner by my dresser.”
Whitley stares at him, or rather that part of my room, with her fingers touching her parted lips. “I thought it was supposed to be cold when there’s a ghost around.”
Xander sighs. “There she goes again.”
“That’s because he’s not a ghost,” I say. “He’s just cursed. Like me. Remember the witches?”
“Yeah . . . Yeah. The witches.” She waves a hand. “I’ve been looking them up all week. I’m only partly convinced.” I glare. “I got us invited to the party, didn’t I?”
“Yes.” I throw up my hands in surrender.
“Can I . . . say hi to the ghost—I mean him?” she asks.
I nod. She inches toward the dresser, arms outstretched like she’s feeling for an invisible doorway.
“Hello, Whitley,” Xander says as she gets closer.
“He says hello,” I repeat.
Whitley flinches. “He does?” Her poking hands turn into swats.
“You’re getting close.” I scratch my neck. “You’re going to hit him.”
“Can he feel it?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. But it’s still rude even if he can’t.”
Xander’s back presses against the wall as Whitley’s arm sweeps right through his stomach. Blue and white particles swirl in the air like sand caught in the wind.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Xander says, looking down with a grimace. “But it definitely doesn’t feel good.”
“Whitley, stop!” I lunge forward and yank her back by the shoulders.
She gasps, cradling her arm against her chest. “I felt nothing.”
“You wouldn’t,” I say.
“Is he mad?”
Xander laughs and shakes his head. The loose dust particles from his shirt zoom back into their original place. “No,” I say.
She lets out a long exhale. “Okay, so, if he’s going to the party, how do we talk to him?”
“Through Stetson,” Xander says. “Our designated medium.”
“I’ll tell you when you need to know something,” I add.
“Okay,” Whitley says slowly, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t talk shit about me behind my back.”
“I think Xander has more important things to worry about.”
“I don’t know about that.” Xander taps his chin. “I’ve been alone for so long, a gossip session sounds fun. What’s Whitley’s dirtiest secret?”
I laugh.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Whitley says. “I was setting ground rules. You didn’t say if he was a friendly ghost.”
I smack my forehead. “That wasn’t at you. That was for Xander.”
Whitley gasps. “Did he say something nasty?”
“Oh my god.” I throw my arms up. “This is stressing me out. Let’s just get to the party.”
“We’re waiting on you.” She opens a beer bottle. “Does he drink?”
Xander nods.
“Yes,” I say as I pull on a shirt.
Whitley hands me the bottle. “Then here, pass this to him.”
I do. He takes a swig.
Whitley screams.
I jump. “What’s wrong?”
“The bottle,” she says. Her voice trembles. “It just . . . It vanished in the air.”
Xander wipes his upper lip with the back of his hand. “The bottle’s a part of me now.”
“Um,” I begin, scratching my head. “Yeah, that can happen. I told you I wasn’t making this up.”
Whitley runs a hand through her hair. “I can’t believe this.”
“Well, at least you have two more bottles.”
“Thankfully.” She picks up one of the remaining beers and chugs half of it. “I’m going to need them.”
I swipe my keys from my bedside table. “You guys ready?”
“Wait,” Xander says, touching my forearm. “Can Whitley take a picture of us? We need to start your collection for Tennessee. So you can remember me.”
“Good call. Whitley, can you take our picture?” I toss her my phone.
Her head flinches back. “Of you and Xander?” I nod. “Suuure.”
Xander presses against my side and nuzzles his shoulder into mine. He wraps his arm around my back, then his hand squeezes my hip. His warmth seeps into my skin and unravels the tension in my muscles like when a sip of hot tea slides into my stomach.
“Is he ready?” Whitley raises the phone.
“Yes,” Xander and I say in unison. We laugh through our posed smiles.
Whitley snaps a few shots. “I took a bunch.”
I grab my phone from her, eager to see our first photo.
“Oh,” I say, turning to Xander as my face falls.
Xander leans in, looking over my shoulder. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
The picture is only of me. My arm is wrapped around nothing.
His smile sags into a frown. “Yeah . . . that makes sense.” He exhales. “I don’t know what I was expecting.” A beat of silence passes, then, forcing a grin, he takes a sip of beer. “You’ll just have to remember me from this summer, then.”
He pats my back, then walks out with his eyes on the floor.
The warmth of his touch lingers, but soon, it just feels cold.
The party house sits directly across the street from Penango College. Register now for fall classes! flashes on a big LED sign at the campus entrance, which is a row of identical three-story brick buildings standing lifeless on a bed of dead, yellow grass.
Three girls perch on the front porch steps of the house. They wave us over with arms covered in blue star stickers and smeared fake tattoos. We follow their call, stepping over smashed beer cans and crushed red plastic cups littering the lawn like the aftermath of a country music concert tailgate.
“That’s the girl who said she could help us out,” Whitley whispers in my ear.
“Which one?” I ask.
Before she can answer, one of the girls struggles to her feet, gripping the splintered banister for balance. Her half-lidded eyes don’t match the energy of her glittery hair ribbons and glossy nails.
“You made it!” she calls out, her voice sluggish from alcohol.
“Yeah, thanks for inviting us,” Whitley says. “This is Stetson and—” She glances at me, then bites her lip. “Um, it’s just Stetson.”
“I’m Amanda. This is Amy and Julie,” Amanda says, tapping the other girls on their heads. Amy is asleep. Julie blows us a kiss. Her face is badly sunburned, and her French braids are moments away from unraveling.
Whitley leans closer to my ear. “Amanda is the girl who knows about Pinehurst,” she says. I nod subtly.
“They want to do the interviews too,” Amanda says. “I hope my answers for that were okay. I never really thought so much about becoming an adult.” She grins. “It felt like therapy or something.”
Whitley touches her shoulder. “Oh, no. Don’t think like that. You were good. There weren’t any right answers, to be honest. We’re looking for personal stories about growing up.”
Amanda nods. “Right on. That’s cool. So, do you want to come inside?”
We follow her in. The house is livelier than the front yard, though it reeks of warm beer, sweat, and something sour like a mix of my oldest cross-country shoes, Murray’s football pads at the end of the day, and Bennie’s accidents when Whitley forgets to clean them up.
A pulsing speaker in the living room spits out a country song; its flashing purple light serves as the backdrop for two girls snapping selfies in its glow.
Xander grabs my shoulders from behind and coughs into my ear. “What is this place? This isn’t the kind of party I was hoping for.”
A few of the windows are open, but with it pushing a hundred degrees outside, they might as well be closed.
The heat swirls through the house like steam trapped in a pressure cooker.
In the kitchen, five people lounge on the counter, shouting over each other.
Another group plays flip cup at the table, chugging beer and howling like wild animals. Everyone glistens with sweat.
Xander points to a tray of soggy hot dogs swarmed by flies, then sticks his finger in his throat. “I no longer miss the presence of other humans,” he says.
Whitley winces. “Don’t tell my dad these are the participants in my study,” she says. “He’ll never think I’m legit. Better yet, don’t mention this party to anybody.”
She tugs at the bracelets around her wrist, but my attention shifts past her, out through the sliding glass door. On the back deck, gripping a beer so strongly the can caves under his fingers, stands Murray. My chest tightens like he’s squeezing me too.
Amanda laughs, oblivious to my spiraling. “We started drinking at ten this morning, so it’s been a gradual decline in decency,” she says. “But we’re doing fireworks later and there’s still beer outside. Have at it.”
“Where should we start?” Whitley asks.
I fixate on Murray.
She follows my gaze, then lets out a heavy sigh. “Oh. Oh, no.”
Xander leans in. “That’s him. From the pictures. It’s your ex.”
I exhale. “Yeah. Unfortunately, it is.”
“Relax,” Whitley says. “According to your story, it’s not like he can see you.”
“I know,” I say, inhaling sharply. “But the sight of him is bad enough.”
She groans. “For the hundredth time, if you told me what he did, I could actually understand your feelings.”
Xander gasps. “Was he a cheater?” he asks.
“No.” I drag a hand down my face. Why didn’t I think about the possibility of him being here? He’s starting in the fall.
“Let’s get what we need and get the hell on out of here,” Whitley proclaims.
She’s right. A Penango College party with my ex isn’t where I want to spend my night.
None of the couples here know that in a year’s time their boyfriend might be a gaslighter, their girlfriend might resent them for wanting something more, or their perfect person might do what Murray did to me earlier this summer.
I step around her.
“Hey, Amanda?” I ask.
She raises her eyebrows.
“Before we grab drinks . . . Whitley said you knew something about Pinehurst Swim Club.”
Her expression changes. Her back stiffens. She glances over both shoulders before pressing a finger to her lips. “Don’t be so loud,” she whispers. “That’s sensitive stuff.”
I shift on my feet. “Oh. Uh. Sorry.”
She nods toward the flip cup table. “You can ask Robbie about it.”
“The guy in the tank top?”
“Mm-hmm.” She swirls her half-empty cup. “His stepsister was the one who went missing there.”
“Went what?!” Xander, Whitley, and I shout in unison.
For the first time all night, Amanda isn’t laughing.