“Cut from ear to ear?” Kayla asked.
Harry nodded.
“Wow,” she said.
They were sitting on Harry’s porch, day after the night of the big event. Joey was not around. Harry was glad of that today. He didn’t need reinforcements for this.
“Thanks for pretending to believe me,” he said.
“You’re welcome…. Wait a minute. I’m not pretending.”
“Really?”
“I believe you believe it.”
“Then you don’t believe me? Which is it, Kayla?”
“I don’t think you’re lying to me, but I think you might have dreamed it, fainted from the heat, hit your head, dreamed it. We didn’t see anything.”
“I thought you saw on TV how one person could see it and another couldn’t. Saw it on the Sissy Channel.”
She laughed and punched his arm. Hard. It really hurt. He rubbed it.
“Sorry,” she said.
“You never know your own strength…. But you don’t believe I saw a ghost?”
“It’s just hard to accept.”
“You went to see a ghost.”
“Sure. It was fun. But I didn’t really expect to. I just wanted to go because you were going.”
“Really?”
“Really. I believe you saw something. Even if you dreamed it. You wouldn’t lie to me about something like that. Would you?”
“Nope. You’d beat me up.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously, you’d beat me up.”
“I would. But seriously. You wouldn’t, would you, Harry?”
“Never.”
“I didn’t think so. Did you tell your parents?”
“No,” Harry said, shaking his head. “I couldn’t tell them where I was—you know.”
“Sure. I wasn’t thinking. That wouldn’t be smart, would it?”
“You didn’t tell your parents where you were, did you?”
“Course not,” she said. “Joey’s dad found out he was out, like he always does, and Joey got a beating. Both his eyes are blacked. I saw him mowing his yard. He hardly looked at me. He was limping some.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow…You know what, Harry? I came to see you for another reason. Not just to talk about the ghost.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re moving.”
Harry felt as if he had just been hit between the eyes with a mallet.
“Oh. When?”
“Coming weekend.”
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “I just found out.”
“Your dad got another job?”
“No. Mom and I, we’re moving.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. They had some trouble.”
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
“We’ve talked about it before.”
“He has a temper.”
“So does Mama. But this…It’s different. Dad…He was seeing someone else. It’s probably best, him staying here. He’s not a cop anymore. Gonna open a garage. He likes mechanic work. Mom, she’s got a job in Tyler, at a dress shop.”
“I’m so sorry, Kayla.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s how it is, as Mom says. We’re leaving pretty soon. Mom has a house rented.”
“Oh.”
“That’s all you can say? Oh?”
“I don’t know what to say…except I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay here, go to school here. We could go to college together. This is a nice town.”
“It’s all right. But I can go to college in Tyler, maybe come back here and get with the cops, like Daddy was.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“Me either. You think maybe people are meant for each other? You know, the stars and all that?”
“I don’t know about the stars. But maybe some people are. Maybe you get lucky now and then and things are just right. Puzzle pieces fit.”
“And now they have to unfit.”
“Yeah.”
“It doesn’t have to be forever.”
“Absolutely not.”
Kayla took his hand. She pulled it next to her and he could feel the back of his knuckles touching the side of her bare leg, just below her khaki shorts. Her perfume was strong. Harry felt warm all over. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Not like when he had seen the ghost, but in a good way.
They sat silently, their fingers entwined.
“I guess you have to go?” he said.
“Harry?”
“Yeah,” And when he said it, he turned his face toward her. She leaned toward him and kissed him lightly on the lips. It wasn’t much, just a touch, but he felt a kind of feeling he had never felt before. Not just movement in his tighty whities, but something else. Something strange.
“I got to go,” she said. “I’ve already been here too long. Told Mama I would help pack.”
“Sure.”
“See you around, maybe?”
“Sure. Of course you will. We’re puzzle parts that fit. Remember?”
“I’m gonna miss you.”
“You too. Lots.”
She got up then and started walking away. When she got to the road she started running, and Harry noted that she could run very fast, and not the way most girls ran, but like an Olympian carrying the torch.
She ran faster yet, and pretty soon he saw her turn the corner and go out of sight around a neighbor’s house. He got up and walked quickly along the long porch, followed it around to the other side of the house. Stood on the porch where the sunlight was bright. He squinted, put a hand over his eyes, like the Great Scout surveying the horizon.
He could see her again. She was running where the road had curved, and as she ran she was blocked out by more houses. He watched as she darted between them. It was just a glimpse, but he was glad he saw her. Her long legs leaping out and her blond hair flying.
The road turned away and a house blocked the road and he couldn’t see Kayla anymore.
8
Six months later, sitting on the floor in front of the TV, trying to find something to watch, cruising the
