Page 31 of Paper Ghosts

The silence was broken when the bell rang for classes. In the chaos of the mass exodus, she dropped a piece of paper with her number on it in front of Clutch, with the words Meet me by the woods there.

It was terrifying, but it was more excitement than she could ever remember feeling and she didn’t know if it was the act of doing something she knew she shouldn’t be doing, or if it was Clutch himself. Either way, her body felt positively electrified, like she was finally alive in her own skin.

This could be her very own Andy Smooth moment.

“You want to go to a graduation party?” her dad repeated when she told him over takeout that night. He had gone through a phase where he’d bought enamel-coated pans and smart-looking aprons and fancy spices in sleek containers that looked like test tubes. But his culinary experiments had usually ended with the smoke alarm going off. “Whose?”

“Tasha Keller’s.”

“Well, I’m glad. For you and for her. You and Tasha grew apart.”

“We didn’t have much in common.” Then she added, “Everyone’s going, not just me.”

“Does your grandmother know?”

“No,” she said quickly, too quickly. “She doesn’t like the Kellers, for whatever reason.”

Tug shook his head. Pam Keller’s phone calls to him had petered out over the years, but every once in a while she would contact him, keeping him on the phone for hours. He never avoided talking to her. “They deserve more kindness than they get.”

Bailey unwrapped her chicken burger and waffle fries. She didn’t look at him as she asked, “I know you said Mim married your dad because that was the only way her grandmother would let her inherit. But why did your dad marry her?”

“My dad?” He paused. “What makes you bring him up?”

Bailey bit into her burger. “Just wondering. You never said.”

“I think it was because he liked this town. He also respected your grandmother, so he was perfectly willing to give her what she needed most from their marriage.”

“You?”

Tug laughed. “No, not me. I was a surprise, a few years after they married. Your grandmother didn’t want children. What my father gave her is space to be alone in this house. That’s what she needed most.”

Bailey made a show of lifting the bun of her burger, then reaching for the ketchup. “There was never anyone she wanted to marry?”

“I remember he said once he thought there was someone she was close to, but I don’t know who.”

“Weren’t there rumors?”

“Outlandish ones, as all rumors about your grandmother are. I think she encourages them to be outlandish.” He laughed again. “The one I remember most is that it was someone from a rock ’n’ roll band. But she made her choice.”

“This house is very important to her.”

“Listen, sweetheart, I accept that you have a different relationship with your grandmother than I had. My childhood isn’t yours, and I don’t want to pass my trauma down to you. But you need to understand this if you’re going to stay here: If there ever comes a time when your grandmother has to make a choice, and this house is one of the choices, she will always choose it. Don’t be misled into thinking otherwise.”

She knew what he was implying, that Mim hadn’t chosen him, the way a parent should. The way he had always chosen Bailey. “If you want to start dating, I’m okay with that. I want you to find happiness, Daddy. I know it’s not here.”

He reached over to squeeze her hand. “I feel the same way about you.”

Bailey just shrugged. She wasn’t sure what this thing with Clutch was, because it had come on suddenly, like a fever. It wasn’t love. At least, not yet. But the fact that she’d grabbed on to it so fast had to mean something. And if she didn’t find out now, would she ever get the chance?

She was taking great pains to keep everyone, but especially Mim, from finding out, but it wasn’t like Mim could get angry. She had done the same thing, after all. There was even a small flicker of hope that Mim might even be happy for her. Maybe, instead of growing up to be Mim, she could become the person Mim had wanted to be, but couldn’t.

Someone not so alone.

A breeze brushed behind her and Bailey turned as if she might catch sight of the presence in the house as it left the room to go down the hallway, where it spent most of its time, just wanting to be near Mim.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Tasha Keller’s senior year wasn’t any better than Bailey’s. It was, in fact, much worse.