Page 36 of Haunted

“There was a lot of blood. Head wounds. And everybody in that whole place turned around to look at me, and the owner came out with a towel, and every single person in there felt so sorry for my mother that she went red.”

“Oh, honey.”

“And I was more embarrassed than hurt. I remember that clearly. I wanted to be under the table.” I stop. “And then this boy came over from the other party.”

She’s very still.

“He had a Kermit the Frog shirt on. He came over, and he didn’t say anything about the blood, and he put his arms around me. Full hug. Total stranger.”

“Oh,” she says.

“And he greets me like we’ve just been raised together. Gets my name. Tells his friends from this totally different elementary school that we’re best friends, so they have to be nice to me because we don’t get to see each other that much.”

“He didn’t!” she gasps, scandalized. “Why, that clever little conman!”

“And then he steals a Matchbox car out of the other kid’s goodie bag and hands it to me and tells me, ‘I don’t really like that guy very much anyway. I like you better.’”

She makes a small sound and puts her hand over her mouth.

“And that was it. I spent that birthday with my new best friend. After that, when people would ask, who’s your best friend, because I was a fat kid and didn’t have very many, I would say, Parker Bishop, but he doesn’t go here.”

“Oh, Lance.”

“And then first day of sixth grade, they’d funneled Robbins and McGill elementaries together and there he was. And he didn’t remember me at all. I was mortified.”

“So, you know how kids are. I moved on. And then adolescence kicked in, and I lost the weight and moved up the social scale, and he moved to the bottom of it. I feel like I was the only one who noticed. So around the ninth grade, I’d decided I owed it to him to be a friend.”

“And that’s how you fell in love with him,” she says.

“Well, I don’t know about that. Who knows how much of what you’re really feeling when you’re that young is just hormones and uncertainty.” I feel acutely embarrassed by this line of conversation.

“You did. I watched you sit in a stranger’s living room and hold his hand in front of your own mother. You knew you loved him with a certainty that most adults can’t manage.”

“Well, it was a long time ago.”

“Inside, it never is. When I was twenty-four, I fell in love for the first and only time in my life, and my God, it was wonderful and terrible all at the same time. And it was enough to fill my heart for the rest of my days. The heart, unfortunately, has no word for time.”

“But I’ve become a different man. I don’t think he would even recognize me. Well.” I slap my thighs twice and stand up. “Thank you for the coffee. I’ll let you get back to your day.”

“Well, stop in anytime,” she says, accompanying me the three steps to the door.

I pick up the box and turn to her. “Miss Shelley, next time you talk to him…When he calls, or you do the video thing, would you tell him I was asking after him?”

She opens the door. For a second it looks like she’s going to say something else, and then she doesn’t.

“I’ll do that,” she says. “You’ve gone and done it now.”

“Done what?”

“Captain Eddie’s.” She shakes her head. “I haven’t thought about that place in fifteen years and now it’s all I want. Catfish and fries. That’s your fault.”

I laugh. I actually laugh.

“Get the hush puppies,” I tell her. “Don’t let anybody talk you out of the hush puppies.”

Chapter fourteen

Jonny