"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 cried. "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.
CHAPTER 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.