The Mediator #4: Darkest Hour Page 3

  But Jack had plenty of time to learn that not all the undead were like Jorge. Besides, it was his birthday. I didn't want to bum him out.

  So instead, I slid the phone booth door open again and said, "Let's go swimming."

  Jack was so stunned by the whole thing he didn't even protest. He still had questions, of course . . . questions I answered as patiently and thoroughly as I could. In between questions, I taught him to freestyle.

  And I don't want to brag, or anything, but I have to say that, thanks to my careful instructions and calming influence, by the end of the day Jack Slater was acting like – and even swimming like – a normal eight-year-old.

  I'm not kidding. The little dude had completely lightened up. He was even laughing. It was as if showing him that he had nothing to fear from the ghosts who had been plaguing him his whole life had lifted from him his fear of … well, everything. It wasn't long before he was running around the pool deck, doing cannonballs off the side, and annoying all the doctors' wives who were trying to tan themselves in the nearby lounge chairs. Just like any other eight-year-old boy.

  He even struck up a conversation with a group of other kids who were being tended by one of my fellow sitters. And when one of them splashed water in Jack's face, instead of bursting into tears, as he would have done the day before, Jack splashed the kid back, causing Kim, my fellow sitter, who was treading water beside me, to ask, "My God, Suze, what did you do to Jack Slater? He's acting almost... normal."

  I tried not to let my pride show.

  "Oh, you know," I said with a shrug. "I just taught him to swim, is all. I guess that gave him some confidence."

  Kim watched as Jack and another boy, just to be irritating, did double cannonballs into a group of little girls, who shrieked and then tried to hit the boys with their foam floaties.

  "God," Kim said. "I'll say. I can't believe it's even the same kid."

  Neither, it became apparent, could Jack's own family. I was teaching him the backstroke when I heard someone whistle, low and long, from the far side of the pool. Jack and I both looked up and saw Paul standing there, looking all Pete Sampras-y in white and holding a tennis racquet.

  "Well, would you look at that," Paul drawled. "My brother, in a pool. And enjoying himself, no less. Has hell frozen over, or something?"

  "Paul," Jack screamed. "Watch me! Watch me!"

  And the next thing any of us knew, Jack was racing through the water toward his brother. I wouldn't exactly call what Jack was doing a proper crawl, but it was a close enough imitation of it to pass, even in an older brother's eyes. And if it wasn't pretty, there was no denying the kid was staying afloat. You had to give him that.

  And Paul did. He squatted down and, when Jack's head bobbed up just beneath him, he reached down and pushed it under again. You know, in a playful way.

  "Congrats, champ," Paul said, when Jack resurfaced. "I never thought I'd live to see the day you wouldn't be afraid to get your face wet."

  Jack, beaming, said, "Watch me swim back!" and began to thrash through the water to the other side of the pool. Again, not pretty, but effective.

  But Paul, instead of watching his brother swim, looked down at me, standing chest-high in the clear blue water.

  "All right, Annie Sullivan," he said. "What have you done to Helen?"

  I shrugged. Jack had never mentioned his brother's feelings on the whole I see dead people thing, so I didn't know if Paul was aware of Jack's ability or if he, like his parents, thought it was all in the kid's head. One of the points I'd tried to impress upon Jack was that the fewer people – particularly adults – who knew, the better. I had forgotten to ask if Paul knew.

  Or, more important, believed.

  "Just taught him how to swim is all," I said, sweeping some of my wet hair from my face.

  I won't lie or anything and say I was embarrassed for a hottie like Paul to see me in my swimsuit. I look a lot better in the navy blue one-piece suit the hotel forces us to wear than I do in those heinous shorts.

  Plus my mascara is totally the waterproof kind. I mean, I'm not an idiot.

  "My parents have been trying to get that kid to swim for six years," Paul said. "And you do it in one day?"

  I smiled at him. "I'm extremely persuasive," I said.

  Yeah, okay, I was flirting. So sue me. A girl has to have some fun.

  "You," Paul said, "are nothing short of a miracle worker. Come have dinner with us tonight."

  All of a sudden, I didn't feel like flirting anymore.

  "Oh, no, thank you," I said.

  "Come on," Paul said. I have to say that he looked exceptionally fine in his white shirt and shorts. They brought out the deepness of his tan, just like the late afternoon sunlight brought out the occasional strand of gold in his otherwise dark brown curls.

  And a tan wasn't all Paul had that the other hottie in my life didn't: Paul also happened to have a heartbeat.

  "Why not?" Paul was kneeling by the side of pool, one dark forearm resting across an equally dark knee. "My parents will be delighted. And it's clear my brother can't live without you. And we're going to the Grill. You can't turn down an invitation to the Grill."

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I really can't. Hotel policy. The staff aren't supposed to mingle with the guests."

  "Who said anything about mingling?" Paul wanted to know. "I'm talking about eating. Come on. Give the kid a birthday treat."

  "I really can't," I said, flashing him my best smile. "I have to go. Sorry."

  And I swam over to where Jack was struggling to lift himself onto a huge pile of floaties he'd collected, and pretended to be too busy helping him to hear Paul calling to me.

  Look, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I said no because the whole thing would just be too Dirty Dancing, right? Summer fling at the resort, only with the roles reversed: you know, the poor working girl and the rich doctor's son, nobody puts Baby in the corner, blah blah blah. That kind of thing.

  But that's not it. Not really. For one thing, I'm not even technically poor. I mean, I'm making ten bucks an hour here, plus tips. And my mom is a TV news anchorwoman, and my stepdad has his own show, too.

  And okay, sure, it's only local news, and Andy's show is on cable, but come on. We have a house in the Carmel Hills.

  And okay, yeah, the house is a converted hundred-and-fifty-year-old hotel. But we each have our own bedroom, and there are three cars parked in the driveway, none of which are propped up on cinderblocks. We don't exactly qualify for food stamps.

  And it isn't even that other thing I mentioned, about there being a policy against staff mingling with the guests. There isn't any such policy.

  As Kim felt obligated to point out to me a few minutes later.

  "What is your glitch, Simon?" she wanted to know. "That guy's got the hots for you, and you went completely Red Baron on him. I never saw anybody get shot down so fast."

  I busied myself scooping a drowning ant off the surface of the water. "I'm, um, busy tonight," I said.

  "Don't give me that, Suze." Although I had never met Kim before we'd started working together – she goes to Carmel Valley High, the public school my mother is convinced is riddled with drug addicts and gangbangers – we'd gotten pretty close due to our mutual dissatisfaction at being forced to rise so early in the morning for work. "You aren't doing anything tonight. So what's with the anti-aircraft fire?"

  I finally captured the ant. Keeping it cupped in my palm, I made my way toward the side of the pool.

  "I don't know," I said as I waded. "He seems nice and all. The thing is" – I shook my hand out over the side of the pool, setting the ant free – "I kind of like somebody else."

  Kim raised her eyebrows. One of them had a little hole in it where she normally wears a gold stud. Caitlin makes her take it out before work, though.

  "Tell," Kim commanded.

  I glanced involuntarily up at Sleepy, dozing in his lifeguard's chair. Kim let out a little shriek.

  "Eew," she c
ried. "Him? But he's your – "

  I rolled my eyes. "No, not him. God. Just . . . Look, I just like somebody else, okay? But it's like … it's a secret."

  Kim sucked in her breath. "Ooh," she said. "The best kind. Does he go to the Academy?" When I shook my head, she tried, "Robert Louis Stevenson School, then?"

  Again, I shook my head.

  Kim wrinkled up her nose. "He doesn't go to CVHS,does he?"

  I sighed. "He isn't in high school, okay, Kim? I'd really rather – "

  "Oh, my God," Kim said. "A college guy? You dog. My mom would kill me if she knew I was going with a college guy – "

  "He's not in college, either, okay?" I could feel my cheeks growing warm. "Look, the thing is, it's complicated. And I don't want to talk about it."

  Kim looked taken aback. "Well, all right. God. Sorry."

  But she couldn't leave well enough alone.

  "He's older, right?" she asked, less than a minute later. "Like way older? That's okay, you know. I went out with an older guy, like, when I was fourteen. He was eighteen. My mom didn't know. So I can totally relate."

  "Somehow," I said, "I really don't think you can."

  She wrinkled her nose again. "God," she said. "How old is he?"

  I thought about telling her. I thought about going, Oh, I don't know. About a century and a half.

  But I didn't. Instead I told Jack it was time to go inside, if he was going to have a bath before dinner.

  "Jeez," I heard Kim say as I got out. "That old, huh?"

  Yeah. Unfortunately. That old.

  C H A P T E R

  3

  I don't even really know how it happened. I was being way careful, you know? Careful not to fall in love with Jesse, I mean.

  And I'd been doing a really good job. I mean, I was getting out and meeting new people and doing new things, just like it says to do in Cosmo. I certainly wasn't sitting around mooning over him or anything.

  And yeah, okay, the majority of guys I have met since moving to California have turned out either to have psychopathic killers stalking them, or were actually psychopathic killers themselves. But that's really not a very good excuse for falling in love with a ghost. It really isn't.

  But that's what happened.

  I can tell you the exact moment I knew it was all over, too. My battle to keep from falling in love with him, I mean. It was while I was in the hospital, recovering from that severe butt-kicking I mentioned before – the one I got courtesy of the ghosts of four RLS students who had been murdered a few weeks before school let out for the summer.

  Anyway, Jesse showed up in my hospital room (Why not? He's a ghost. He can materialize anywhere he wants) to express his get-well wishes, which were extremely heartfelt and all, and while he was there, he happened, at one point, to reach out and touch my cheek.

  That's all. He just touched my cheek, which was, I believe, the only part of me that was not black and blue at the time.

  Big deal, right? So he touched my cheek. That's no reason to swoon.

  But I did.

  Oh, not literally. It wasn't like anybody had to wave smelling salts under my nose or anything, for God's sake. But after that, I was gone. Done for. Toast.

  I flatter myself I've done a pretty good job of hiding it. He, I'm sure, has no idea. I still treat him as if he were . . . well, an ant that has fallen into my pool. You know, irritating, but not worth killing.

  And I haven't told anyone. How can I? No one – except for Father Dominic, back at the Academy, and my youngest stepbrother, Doc – has any idea Jesse even exists. I mean, come on, the ghost of a guy who died a hundred and fifty years ago, and lives in my bedroom? If I mentioned it to anyone, they'd cart me off to the looney bin faster than you can say Stir of Echoes.

  But it's there. Just because I haven't told anyone doesn't mean it isn't there, all the time, lurking in the back of my mind, like one of those 'N Sync songs you can't get out of your head.

  And I have to tell you, it makes the idea of going out with other guys seem like … well, a big waste of time.

  So I didn't jump at the chance to go out with Paul Slater (though if you ask me, having dinner with him and his parents and his little brother hardly qualifies as going out). Instead, I went home and had dinner with my own parents and brothers. Well, stepbrothers, anyway.

  Dinner in the Ackerman household was always this very big deal … until Andy started working on installing the hot tub. Since then, he has slacked off considerably in the culinary department, let me tell you. And since my mom is hardly what you'd call a cook, we've been enjoying a lot of takeout lately. I thought we had hit rock bottom the night before, when we'd actually ordered from Peninsula Pizza, the place Sleepy works nights as a delivery guy.

  But I didn't know how bad it could get until I walked in that night and saw a red-and-white bucket sitting in the middle of the table.

  "Don't start," my mother said when she noticed me.

  I just shook my head. "I guess if you peel the skin off, it's not that bad for you."

  "Give it to me," Dopey said, glopping semi-congealed mashed potatoes onto his plate. "I'll eat your skin."

  I could hardly control my gag reflex after that offer, but I managed, and I was reading the nutritional literature that came with our meal – "The Colonel has never forgotten the delicious aromas that used to float from his mother's kitchen on the plantation back when he was a boy" – when I remembered the tin box, the contents of which had also been advertised as having a delicious aroma.

  "Hey," I said. "So what was in that box you guys dug up?"

  Dopey made a face. "Nothing. Bunch of old letters."

  Andy looked sadly at his son. The truth is, I think even my stepfather has begun to realize what I have known since the day I met him: that his middle son is a bohunk.

  "Not just a bunch of old letters, Brad," Andy said. "They're quite old, dated around the time this house was built – 1850. They're in extremely poor condition – falling apart, actually. I was thinking of taking them over to the historical society. They might want them, in spite of the condition. Or" – Andy looked at me – "I thought Father Dominic might be interested. You know what a history buff he is."

  Father Dom is a history buff, all right, but only because, as a mediator, like me, he has a tendency to run into people who have actually lived through historical events like the Alamo and the Lewis and Clark expedition. You know, folks who take the phrase Been there, done that to a whole new level.

  "I'll give him a call," I said as I accidentally dropped a piece of chicken into my lap, where it was immediately vacuumed up by the Ackermans' enormous dog, Max, who maintains a watchful position at my side during every meal.

  It was only when Dopey chortled that I realized I'd said the wrong thing. Never having been a normal teenage girl, it is sometimes hard for me to imitate one. And normal teenage girls do not, I know, give their high school principals calls on any sort of regular basis.

  I glared at Dopey from across the table.

  "I was going to call him anyway," I said, "to find out what I'm supposed to do with the leftover cash from our class trip to Great America."

  "I'll take it," Sleepy joked. Why did my mother have to marry into a family of comedians?

  "Can I see them?" I asked, pointedly ignoring both my stepbrothers.

  "See what, honey?" Andy asked me.

  For a moment I forgot what we were talking about. Honey? Andy had never called me honey before. What was going on here? Were we – I shudder to think it – bonding? Excuse me, I already have one father, even if he is dead. He still pops by to visit me all too often.

  "I think she means the letters," my mother said, apparently not even noticing what her husband had just called me.

  "Oh, sure," Andy said. "They're in our room."

  "Our room" is the bedroom Andy and my mother sleep in. I try never to go in there, because, well, frankly, the whole thing grosses me out. Yeah, sure, I'm glad that my mom's finally happy, after
ten years of mourning the death of my dad. But does that mean I want to actually see her in bed with her new husband, watching West Wing? No thank you.

  Still, after dinner, I steeled myself and went in there. My mom was at her dressing table taking off her makeup. She has to go to bed very early in order to be up in time for her stint on the morning news.

  "Oh, hi, sweetie," my mom said to me in a dazed, I'm-busy kind of way. "They're over there, I think."

  I looked where she pointed on top of Andy's dresser and found the metal box Dopey had dug up along with a lot of other guy-type stuff, like loose change and matches and receipts.

  Anyway, Andy had tried to clean the box up, and he'd done a pretty good job of it. You could read almost all the writing on it.

  Which was kind of unfortunate, because what the writing said was way politically incorrect. Try new Red Injun cigars! it urged. There was even a picture of this very proud-looking Native American clutching a fistful of cigars where his bow and quiver ought to have been. The delicious aroma will tempt even the choosiest smoker. As with all our products, quality assured.

  That was it. No surgeon general's warning about how smoking can kill. Nothing about fetal birth weight. Still, it was kind of strange how advertising from before they had TV – before they even had radio – was still basically the same as advertising today. Only, you know, now we know that naming your product after a race of people will probably offend them.

  I opened the box and found the letters inside. Andy was right about their poor condition. They were so yellowed that you could hardly peel them apart without having pieces crumble off. They had, I could see, been tied together with a ribbon, a silk one, which might have been another color once, but was now an ugly brown.

  There was a stack of letters, maybe five or six in all, in the box. I can't tell you, as I picked up the first one, what I thought I'd see. But I guess a part of me knew all along what I was going to find.

  Even so, when I'd carefully unfolded the first one and read the words Dear Hector, I still felt like somebody had snuck up behind me and kicked me.

  I had to sit down. I sank down into one of the armchairs my mom and Andy keep by the fireplace in their room, my eyes still glued to the yellowed page in front of me.