Page 2 of Paper Ghosts

Everyone cheered when the group finally came onstage, but less for the band themselves and more for the novelty of the experience they were providing. Wills was sitting in between Dorothy and Jani in the front row, their arms linked like they were anchoring themselves to keep from floating. There was no real introduction. Andy Smooth, with a scraggly beard and fringed leather vest, simply adjusted his microphone and started singing the first few lines of “Everywhere Girl” a cappella:

From the windshield of my van

Night grew blackberry blue

And the stars in the sky made their evening debut

The other members soon joined in harmony, then started playing their instruments in the chorus.

Most of them were disheveled, older men who smelled strongly of beer, like it was seeping through their pores—something that became more obvious the longer they played. The hoppish scent soon filled the auditorium. Only the rhythm guitarist appeared around the age of the audience, but even he had a look about him that said he’d lived a harder life than any in their rural community could imagine. He was also the only one who seemed awake. Not just awake, but aware. He was constantly scanning the audience, his eyes stopping on the girls. He smiled and winked a lot. When Andy Smooth caught on to this, he turned while he was singing and gave the younger man a pointed look.

The band harmonies were excellent, even if the music was past its sell-by date, but they only played six songs. Wills thought “Everywhere Girl” was the real gem, with its beautiful imagery. Afterward, while the rest of the band packed up their instruments, the students who’d brought records for Andy to sign formed a giddy line to walk up to the stage. When it was Wills’s turn, she told the seated Andy her name, and he looked up at her with a jerk of his head. She knew immediately what that look was. It had Alice Wester written all over it, proof that even if you left Hen Town, you could never forget how unsettling Gram was.

He paused, then said, “Stay Smooth,” and scribbled on her record jacket before signaling her to move on so he could sign the next.

Wills crossed the stage and walked down the other side to wait for Jani, who was the last person to get hers signed. After Jani walked away, Andy stood and stretched. Someone then said to Andy from the stage, “Nice females here, for the sticks.”

Andy answered, “I’m not in the mood for you right now.”

“Who is she, the one who made you stare?”

Given that Jani was the last person onstage, Wills assumed she was the one he was referring to. It looked like her strategy to wear a dress worked. Wills couldn’t fault her for that. But Andy Smooth replied, “Willamena Wester. She was a kid the last time I saw her.”

Wills immediately turned to see that Andy was talking to the youngest member of the band.

He had no idea who she was, so he had no fear staring at her so intently with those dark eyes. She was just a girl and he was just a boy. It felt so normal. She wasn’t sure she liked it. Or maybe she liked it too much. She couldn’t tell the difference.

Andy immediately stepped in front of him to block his view. She was glad, because otherwise she wasn’t sure she could have turned away. “Don’t even think about it,” Andy said.

“What do you care?” the young man said. “You hate this place. Hell, you hate me.”

“You don’t understand this town,” Andy said. “And you sure as hell don’t understand her grandmother. She’s as rich as Croesus, and I’ve never met anyone so scary. She knows things she shouldn’t know, man. Don’t mess with that family. You’ll regret it.” He gave the young man a push. “Pack up your shit. We’ll eat, then get out of here.”

Watching American Bandstand was one thing, but seeing a band in real life was another, so everyone was too distracted to do any real schoolwork for the rest of the day. Detentions were handed out like Tic Tacs. They were all in a collective dream, partly here and partly playing out a life that existed outside Hen Town, one most of them couldn’t wait to experience.

Wills knew a concert would only be a temporary reprieve from her otherwise regimented life, but she didn’t think it was going to make her feel so off, for so long. All day she was chilled, her skin an endless series of goose bumps and shivers, as if she were coming down with something. By the time she biked home from school, she was in a foul mood, thinking about how things were going to change after high school for everyone except her. Jani was going to college soon. And Dorothy had already set a date to marry her boyfriend and move with him to his grandparents’ farm in northern Georgia. When Wills had mentioned the possibility of college once to Gram, somewhere close by like Chapel Hill, Gram had said no, and arranged for tutors instead. And when Wills had once asked if she could double-date with Dorothy, Gram crisply reminded her of Terrence.

Terrence.

Ugh.

“How was it?” Gram called when Wills walked into the foyer of their redbrick, federal-style home. If houses reflected their owners, then this house was Gram made over. It was three stories, tall and imposing, with more windows to see what was going on than any other house in town. Wills went to the living room and found her grandmother sitting on the gold velvet couch watching General Hospital on the console television. She was holding an embroidery hoop of her current project—magpies to go on the living room chair backs.

Wills sat beside her and waited. She’d spent most of her life on this couch with Gram, watching the lives other people led, and getting commercial jingles caught in her head. Gram loved TV. She loved magazines, newspapers, Sears catalogs, and her monthly delivery of Harlequin romances—anything that brought the outside world to her so she didn’t have to go to it. She devoured them all in large quantities.

At the commercial break, Wills finally responded. “They played very well. I was impressed.”

Gram smiled and patted Wills’s knee. She was a formidable woman who would have stood out even if she didn’t scrape her blond hair into a high bun on top of her head and wear a wardrobe of black turtlenecks under dramatic caftans. It was hard to imagine her ever being young, but it was very easy to imagine that she had once been beautiful. “You’re too easily impressed.”

Wills muttered, “I’m not impressed by Terrence.”

Instead of chastising her, Gram surprised her by laughing. That made Wills look over to the side table and, sure enough, there was a glass of gin and tonic there. She’d started early today. She was normally on her best behavior when Terrence was coming over. “Then you have more sense than I thought. Terrence isn’t meant to be impressive. Terrence is meant to be your shadow so you can shine. You are extraordinary, Willamena. Never forget that.”

Their live-in housekeeper, Mrs. Orr, came into the room at that moment with a bologna and mayonnaise sandwich on a Blue Willow plate. She was an old, dour woman who resented every moment of her existence here with Gram. Her hatred was so palpable that everything she touched popped with static electricity, like sparks from a firecracker.

Everyone thought Mrs. Orr would be a happier woman after her husband passed away. Mr. Orr had been a very, very mean man. If you woke to find your car window broken and your stereo stolen, you knew it was him. Same if your cat went missing, or if your vegetable garden was picked over in the night. After his accident in his toolshed ten years ago, Mrs. Orr had been packing her belongings and preparing to move to her sister’s place in Apalachicola when Gram had paid her a visit and offered her a job as their housekeeper. Wills had always been a compliant and helpful child, but children were a lot of work and Gram became anxious and imbibed a little too much at night when she had errands to do, especially if they involved going outside Hen Town. She needed someone to shop and cook, and to watch Wills those times she absolutely had to leave the house.

Before Mrs. Orr came to live with them, Wills remembered being toted along on Gram’s outings, which were sometimes to the strangest places. An abandoned house, or the corner of Simmons and Orange Streets where a tree still bore the mark from a bad car accident years ago. Gram would just stand there, sometimes nodding her head, sometimes whispering to people who were half in shadow. Some in town wondered if she was casting spells.