"I know that." Jesse ran a hand through his hair in a frustrated sort of way. Have I mentioned that Jesse has really nice hair? It's black and short and looks sort of crisp, if you know what I mean. "What I don't understand is why you told him about me. I didn't know it bothered you that much, my being here."
The truth is, it doesn't. Bother me, I mean. It used to, but that was before Jesse had saved my life a couple of times. After that, I sort of got over it.
Except it does bother me when he borrows my CDs and doesn't put them back in the right order when he's done with them.
"It doesn't," I said.
"It doesn't what?"
"It doesn't bother me that you live here." I winced. Poor choice of words. "Well, not that you live here, since … I mean, it doesn't bother me that you stay here. It's just that - "
"It's just that what?"
I said, all in a rush, before I could chicken out, "It's just that I can't help wondering why."
"Why what?"
"Why you've stayed here so long."
He just looked at me. Jesse has never told me anything about his death. He's never told me anything, really, about his life before his death, either. Jesse isn't what you'd call real communicative, even for a guy. I mean, if you take into consideration that he was born a hundred and fifty years before Oprah, and doesn't know squat about the advantages of sharing his feelings, how not keeping things bottled up inside is actually good for you, this sort of makes sense.
On the other hand, I couldn't help suspecting that Jesse was perfectly in touch with his emotions, and that he just didn't feel like letting me in on them. What little I had found out about him - like his full name, for instance - had been from an old book Doc had scrounged up on the history of northern California. I had never really had the guts to ask Jesse about it. You know, about how he was supposed to marry his cousin, who it turned out loved someone else, and how Jesse had mysteriously disappeared on the way to the wedding ceremony…
It's just not the kind of thing you can really bring up.
"Of course," I said, after a short silence, during which it became clear that Jesse wasn't going to tell me jack, "if you don't want to discuss it, that's okay. I would have hoped that we could have, you know, an open and honest relationship, but if that's too much to ask - "
"What about you, Susannah?" he fired back at me. "Have you been open and honest with me? I don't think so. Otherwise, why would your father come after me like he did?"
Shocked, I sat up a little straighter. "My dad came after you?"
Jesse said, sounding irritated, "Nom de Dios, Susannah, what did you expect him to do? What kind of father would he be if he didn't try to get rid of me?"
"Oh, my God," I said, completely mortified. "Jesse, I never said a word to him about you. I swear. He's the one who brought you up. I guess he's been spying on me, or something." This was a humiliating thing to have to admit. "So . . . what'd you do? When he came after you?"
Jesse shrugged. "What could I do? I tried to explain myself as best I could. After all, it's not as if my intentions are dishonorable."
Damn! Wait a minute, though - "You have intentions?"
I know it's pathetic, but at this point in my life, even hearing that the ghost of a guy might have intentions - even of the not dishonorable sort - was kind of cool. Well, what do you expect? I'm sixteen and no one's ever asked me out. Give me a break, okay?
Besides, Jesse's way hot, for a dead guy.
But unfortunately, his intentions toward me appeared to be nothing but platonic, if the fact that he picked up the pillow that he'd slammed onto the floor - with his hands this time - and smashed it in my face was any indication.
This did not seem like the kind of thing a guy who was madly in love with me would do.
"So what did my dad say?" I asked him when I'd pushed the pillow away. "I mean, after you reassured him that your intentions weren't dishonorable?"
"Oh," Jesse said, sitting back down on the bed. "After a while he calmed down. I like him, Susannah."
I snorted. "Everybody does. Or did, back when he was alive."
"He worries about you, you know," Jesse said.
"He's got way bigger things to worry about," I muttered, "than me."
Jesse blinked at me curiously. "Like what?"
"Gee, I don't know. How about why he's still here instead of wherever it is people are supposed to go after they die? That might be one suggestion, don't you think?"
Jesse said, quietly, "How are you so sure this isn't where he's supposed to be, Susannah? Or me, for that matter?"
I glared at him. "Because it doesn't work that way, Jesse. I may not know much about this mediation thing, but I do know that. This is the land of the living. You and my dad and that lady who was here a minute ago - you don't belong here. The reason you're stuck here is because something is wrong."
"Ah," he said. "I see."
But he didn't see. I knew he didn't see.
"You can't tell me you're happy here," I said. "You can't tell me you've liked being trapped in this room for a hundred and fifty years."
"It hasn't been all bad," he said, with a smile. "Things have picked up recently."
I wasn't sure what he meant by that. And since I was afraid my voice might get all squeaky again if I asked, I settled for saying, "Well, I'm sorry about my dad coming after you. I swear I didn't tell him to."
Jesse said, softly, "It's all right, Susannah. I like your father. And he only does it because he cares about you."
"You think so?" I picked at the bedspread. "I wonder. I think he does it because he knows it annoys me."
Jesse, who'd been watching me pull on the chenille ball, suddenly reached out and seized my fingers.
He's not supposed to do that. Well, at least I'd been meaning to tell him he's not supposed to do that. Maybe it had slipped my mind. But anyway, he's not supposed to do that. Touch me, I mean.
See, even though Jesse's a ghost, and can walk through walls and disappear and reappear at will, he's still . . . well, there. To me, anyway. That's what makes me - and Father Dom - different from everybody else. We not only can see and talk to ghosts, but we can feel them, too - just as if they were anybody else. Anybody alive, I mean. Because to me and Father Dom, ghosts are just like anyone else, with blood and guts and sweat and bad breath and whatever. The only real difference is that they kind of have this glow around them - an aura, I think it's called.
Oh, and did I mention that a lot of them have superhuman strength? I usually forget to mention that. That's how come, in my line of work, I frequently get the you-know-what knocked out of me. That's also how come it kind of freaks me out when one of them - like Jesse was doing just then - touches me, even in a nonaggressive way.
And I mean, seriously, just because, to me, ghosts are as real as, say, Tad Beaumont, that doesn't mean I want to go around slow dancing with them, or anything.
Well, okay, in Jesse's case, I would, except how weird would that be to slow dance with a ghost? Come on. Nobody but me'd ever be able to see him. I'd be like, "Oh, let me introduce you to my boyfriend," and there wouldn't be anybody there. How embarrassing. Everyone would think I was making him up like that lady on that movie I saw once on the Lifetime channel who made up an extra kid.
Besides, I'm pretty sure Jesse doesn't like me that way. You know, the slow dancing way.
Which he unfortunately proved by flipping my hands over and holding them up to the moonlight.
"What's wrong with your fingers?" he wanted to know.
I looked up at them. The rash was worse than ever. In the moonlight I looked deformed, like I had monster hands.
"Poison oak," I said, bitterly. "You're lucky you're dead and can't get it. It bites. Nobody warned me about it, you know. About poison oak, I mean. Palm trees, sure, everybody said there'd be palm trees, but - "