Help for the Haunted(5)

“Hey, Wednesday, you see something you like?”

This question came from Brian Waldrup, a freshman who lived in the golf course development, when he caught me staring. Brian was not the only person at school to call me by that name: Wednesday Addams. I reached into my father’s tote and pulled out the diary, if only to look like I was doing something. As I stared at that empty first page again, I wondered what memories would come if I allowed myself to break my father’s rule.

“You know what?” Brian said. He had folded up his recliner and was making his way closer. When he reached me, I felt his breath, skunky with tobacco, against my good ear. He paused, and I thought of so many things I wished he’d say: I see you leaving Boshoff’s office too. Are you okay? Or, I remember the homemade paper hearts you handed out on Valentine’s Day in first grade. You gave me two because I’d broken my arm and you felt bad. Or even, I know what happened to your parents—we all do—and I hope at the trial this spring the jury puts that psycho, Albert Lynch, behind bars. Instead, he asked, “What did your parents keep in the basement?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie, Wednesday. Gomez and Morticia wouldn’t approve.”

“I’m not lying. There’s nothing down there.”

Impossible as it seemed, Brian came closer still, his tight body pressing into mine as he whispered, “You’re lying. Just like they did. And you know what else? Your mom got what she deserved. Your father too. Right now, the two of them are burning in hell.”

That might sound like the worst thing a person could say, but I tried not to feel bothered. It was a lesson I used to get every Sunday, when my family still went to Mass in the gym at Saint Bartholomew’s Catholic School, where we arrived early and sat in the front pew at the edge of the three-point line. As we followed along with Father Coffey in the epistle—my sister and me in Sunday dresses that I loved but she hated—whispers came from the pews behind us. Even if I didn’t hear what was being said, I understood that it had to do with us, the Mason family, and our presence in that makeshift church.

I smiled at Brian Waldrup. After all, despite those symbols and devil numbers drawn in pen on his knuckles, he was just a kid my age whose mother picked him up from school in her Volvo every afternoon. I had seen them rolling out of the parking lot on their way to that pretty yellow house on the golf course, where I imagined her sliding a roast or chicken into the oven most nights, flipping pancakes or scrambling eggs most mornings. Thinking of the differences between Brian’s life and my own made it less difficult to smile because I was reminded how harmless he was. And when I finished smiling, I tucked the diary back into my father’s tote and headed toward Rose’s enormous red truck rolling up the drive at last, AC/DC screeching from her speakers.

“Boo!” Brian yelled as he watched me walk away.

When Rose came to a stop, I opened the truck door and climbed inside. Since she’d hacked off her hair again a second time last winter, it had grown back long and wild, black as mine still, but with a reddish hue that hadn’t been there before. Rose liked to keep the windows down and let the strands whip around her, so that when she came to a stop she had to pull the mess away from her face.

“Hey,” she said from behind her tangled hair.

“Boo!” Brian called from the curb, waving his hands and jumping up and down.

“What’s his problem?” my sister asked as her pale, broad face made an appearance, dark eyes blinking.

“He’s trying to scare me.”

She made a pfft sound, then leaned over and gave him the finger. My sister flipped people off like nobody else: thrusting her arm, popping that middle digit fast and flashy as a switchblade. “Butt-holes like him are the second reason I hated this school.”

“What was the first?”

“Food sucked. Teachers blew. And I hated homework.”

That’s three, I thought but didn’t say since she had moved on to yelling at Brian.

“Step in front of my truck so I can squash your balls!”

“Boo!”

“Is that the only word in your vocabulary, you moron?”

In a quiet voice, I said, “Just go. It’s easier to ignore him, Rose.”

She turned back to me. “Sylvie, if we don’t stand up to him and all the rest, they’ll never leave us alone. Never.”

“Maybe so. But right now, I’d rather go to the mall.”

Rose blew out a breath and gave it some thought before letting it go. “Guess it’s Dinky-Dick’s lucky day. Otherwise, I’d get out and pummel him.” She popped her middle finger one last time before slamming on the gas.

“Boo!” Brian shouted as our giant tires squealed. “Boo! Boo! Boo!”

He kept at it, like a ghost haunting an abandoned house on a hill. If you believe in ghosts. I did and I didn’t. But mostly, I did.

Nine months. That’s how long my mother and father had been dead.

And yet, despite what I told Brian, those things my parents kept in the basement—things so many people in Dundalk wondered about whenever they laid eyes on my sister and me—they were down there still.





[page]Chapter 3

The Shhhh . . .



An hour—that’s how long we spent roaming the echoing corridors of the mall, riding the escalators in a daze brought on by the bright lights and smells of chocolate chip cookies and cinnamon. There was so much to take in that Rose didn’t even walk ahead of me the way she usually did. She was the more attractive sister, with a taller, more athletic body and what people call a handsome face on a girl. I caught men giving her a once-over as we passed, but Rose ignored them. As we wandered, I had a happy feeling for the first time in a long while, because our lives felt almost normal.