What happened to Dex and me on D’Arcy Island seemed like more than a bad dream. If I told anyone what actually happened, how a psychotic, cross-eyed midget from a 1900s mission turned me against Dex, how we were hunted down by zombie-like lepers, and how I nearly drowned saving a child who was already dead…well, it sounds so unbelievable even I think it over in my head. There was a reason why I blocked most of it out. Except for that second night, when we awoke to the wails of an insane ghost and my need for Dex overtook everything else. And when I say need, I mean lust. That was purely my fault.
I gave Matt a small smile, knowing the blush was deepening up to my hairline.
“A lot happened that I can’t even remember. I’ll tell you the rest one day.”
I shot a look at my parents, who were exchanging wry glances with each other. Well, let them think what they want. I was happy to know that at least the twins gave me more than the benefit of the doubt.
“Apparently, Perry thinks she needs to work out now to fight ghosts,” my mom said after she tore her eyes away from my dad’s increasingly red ones.
I bit my lip, not sure how to answer that without sounding like a loon. I knew from my mom’s voice that she was treating the whole thing like it was a joke.
“But if that gets your weight down, I’m all the more for it,” she had to add.
“So,” Al said, shooting my mother a wary look and then smiling at me as if he was apologizing on her behalf. He didn’t need to. I was used to that shit from my mom. It’s probably why my father and Ada didn’t even notice. “If you don’t mind me asking, how do you plan to defend yourself from…uh…ghosts?”
I knew Al didn’t believe in ghosts per se (though he did believe in “Evil”), hence the gentle yet skeptical tone he was using, but he still seemed sincere in his questioning. Marda was watching me expectantly too.
I tried to answer as diplomatically as possible. “I just think it’s good to be prepared. It’s not so much the ghosts as it is the situations we are in.”
“Is that how you got this?” Matt asked, pointing at the scar on my wrist that sat beneath the purple Silly Bandz bracelet.
“That…was a lively rose bush,” I said, knowing how stupid that sounded.
“So you’ve been going to the firing range so you can shoot gardens?” my dad scoffed. He had never been very supportive of the whole gun use thing. Not that I had a gun or ever planned to get one.
I stared him down. “As I said, dad, it’s good to be prepared.”
“How do you kill ghosts anyway? You obviously can’t shoot them,” Marda said, somehow managing not to sound the slightest bit patronizing.
I honestly didn’t know. I had always wondered that myself.
“I’m not really sure. I don’t think you can; I mean they are already dead and everything. I think you can trick them though.”
“How do you mean?” Tony asked, leaning forward past Matt so I could see him.
“Well,” I started and wondered how best to explain without sounding crazy. I decided I already sounded crazy and went on, keeping my eyes on the wax that was dripping off the candles in the center of the table.
“When we were on the island we had to escape this ghost named Mary. She had stolen one of Dex’s knives and was about to sever the rope that connected the sailboat to the shore.”
I looked around me to see how everyone was reacting so far. My dad rolled his eyes and got up, going to the washroom or perhaps outside to get fresh air and wonder where in God’s name his daughter came from. My mom was watching me with worried, fearful eyes. The rest, including Ada now, were glued to my every word.
“I didn’t know what to do,” I continued. “I didn’t even think. I just grabbed the flare gun out of Dex’s backpack and shot it at her.”
The twins hollered simultaneously.
“You’re f**king joking!” Matt cried out.
Even Al looked too flabbergasted to get mad at his son’s use of language at the dinner table.
“No, I wish I was. I just fired it. She was maybe only ten feet away.”
“And did that…kill her?” Marda asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She was already dead, so how could it? But what I think it did was trick her. My theory is that most ghosts don’t really accept the fact that they are dead. I think they spend most of their time wandering around in another dimension, living in denial. I don’t know. Anyway, I think all that did was make Mary think I killed her, at least long enough so that we could get away. It at least knocked her ass off the cliff and that’s all we needed.”
“Why the hell didn’t you write about this?” Matt said, shaking his head and reaching for his glass of wine.
I laughed.
“Why? Because...who the hell would believe me? I sound like a lunatic, I know I do.”
“You sound like your grandmother,” my mom said in the coldest tone I’d heard from her lips in a very long time.
Al gave her another look, this one fully loaded. Something was going on but I couldn’t read into it, not across the table in this busy Italian restaurant. My mother rarely spoke about my grandmother. She died when I was very young and I only saw my grandfather when we went on family trips to Sweden.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said to her, trying my hardest to not sound defensive.
My mother looked down at her manicured fingers for a second before taking a tepid sip of water. “Your grandmother lied a lot, that’s all.”
I smiled at her though there was nothing pretty about it.
“I’m not lying.”
She didn’t say anything else but she didn’t need to.
Trying to dissipate the tension, Tony spoke up. “Too bad you don’t have one of those boxes from Ghostbusters. You know, some way to contain them.”
“Yeah,” I agreed absently, still keeping my eyes on Al and my mother. “But we’re still trying to figure this whole thing out. Learning as we go.”
“You and this Dex fellow,” Al said, noticing my gaze, and for once I was glad to talk about Dex.
“Yup. Going up to Seattle on Monday to film the next episode at the Riverside Mental Hospital. Then on Friday there’s a Christmas party for work. ‘Tis the season.”
“And is your work going to be paying for your hotel this whole time or are we going to have to help out?” my dad asked, returning to the table just in time. It’s like he has some radar that alerts him when someone mentions anything money related. Or touches the thermostat.