Spirits Read online

“I don’t see what you’re getting all worked up about. I’m just asking her to grab me a cold one out of the cooler. It’s not like I’m asking her to tend bar. I’ll get it my damned self if it’s such a big deal.”

  “Don’t you think you’ve had enough? We’ve been out here four hours, and you’ve already finished a six pack.”

  The final can in the cooler spritzed and cracked as Dad pulled the tab.

  “Hot day. What do you expect? I guess you’d be happy if I died of thirst.”

  Tori felt the eyes of the other beachgoers on her. It felt hotter than the sun itself. She stood up and marched across the sand, down to the pier at the end of the beach where the sea smashed itself against the black rocks and sprayed her baked skin with its cool mist.

  Beneath the pier, a couple of boys only a few years older than she puffed cigarettes and swore.

  “Hey! Hey, you! Up there!”

  One of them pointed at her and gestured for her to come down. She shook her head.

  “Aw, c’mon sweetheart. You’re looking fine enough to eat in that bikini.”

  She crossed her arms over her flat chest encased in the rubbery, pink fabric, feeling more ashamed of her body than ever and wanting to hide.

  The other boy barked and howled like a dog. Tori’s face burned with anger and humiliation, and she ran, arms wrapped across her ruffled bathing suit. Footfalls swooshed behind her in the sand. One of the boys trailed her by a few feet. His blond hair puffed up and down as he neared. The other climbed the hill that abutted the pilings.

  They charged at her heels, and she jolted forward, determined not to let them touch her. Her thighs burned as she sped past bewildered tourists. She shoved a hefty man in a blue fisherman’s hat to the side, and he stumbled to the sidewalk. She would’ve stopped to help him up ordinarily, but they were so close, she could feel the whoosh of the air from their arms pumping. Her bare feet smacked the boardwalk. A splinter lodged itself into the meat of her heel.

  “Aaaroooo! Looks like fresh meat, Paul. Whaddya think?”

  “Could be. Only one way to find out. You gotta taste it.”

  Tori’s heart lodged itself into her throat. She padded down a short stairway and darted between cars lining Beach Drive. Brakes squealed. The sun radiated mercilessly upon her like some cosmic laser beam. All the moisture left her throat.

  In her mad escape, storefronts blurred by. A tall, bearded man emerged from a comic shop and held up a meaty hand. Sneakers slapped against pavement, and a deep voice boomed, “That’s about enough of that.”

  Tori ran a dozen feet past the man but turned to see what had happened.

  The towering man bent at the waist, hands on hips, face purple with rage. Spittle flew from his mouth as he yelled at them. The boys, shaded now by shop awnings, seemed far too soft and innocent to be potential rapists. They nodded and walked back toward the boardwalk, hands tucked in their pockets, the slump of defeat heavy upon their shoulders.

  Tori’s lungs burned, and she stood with her hands on her knees for a few moments before trudging back to the shop. The bearded man crossed his arms over his chest and watched the boys scamper back to their hideout.

  “Thanks,” Tori huffed.

  The man turned to her, as if noticing her for the first time.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. They’ve been harassing girls all week. Probably some losers from the city who came down here to cause trouble. Don’t you worry. I keep my eyes out for thugs like that. Name’s Chris. Chris Silver. And you are?”

  She liked the way he said his name. First, then first and last.

  “Tori. Tori Garrett.”

  He held out a hand as big as a bear’s paw, and Tori shook it.

  “Well, nice to meet you Tori Tori Garrett. You ever need to get out of this heat or if you just want some comics, you come on by.”

  He squinted and tilted his head from side to side and said, “You look like a Wonder Woman kinda gal. I think we still have some copies of number three-hundred. I’ll put one aside for you. And, hey, watch out for yourself. You want me to walk you back to your parents?”

  Chris Silver had a glint in his eye that suggested he understood more than he let on.

  Tori nodded. She didn’t want to be alone.

  “Well, c’mon then.”

  He craned his head back into the shop and muttered some instructions to the clerk behind the counter. Then he offered Tori the crook of his elbow. She took it, and the two strolled down the sidewalk. Her feet burned as they crossed the asphalt.

  “You okay?” Chris Silver asked.

  Tori looked up at him and nodded. Cars stopped to let them cross to the boardwalk, and she felt like a queen being escorted by her king. He smiled and waved at the drivers, and they looked at him like he was the most important person in the world. She clutched his arm a little tighter.

  They marched across the boardwalk and into the gritty quagmire of beach. Mom sat, back turned to Dad, watching the tide roll out and the sun waver in an orange haze as it hovered mercilessly above.

  Crushed cans littered the sand near Dad’s striped beach chair, and the embarrassment of her father’s drinking problem burned her cheeks once she realized Chris would see it.

  “I’ll find them. You can go now. Thank you for your help,” she blurted, so afraid he would judge her for her parents.

  A smirk lifted at the edge of his lips.

  “You got it, kid,” he said. “Don’t forget to come in before you go home for that Wonder Woman.”

  He turned and walked away. She watched him until he was out of sight and turned to face the frozen chaos of her parents’ crumbling marriage.

  CHAPTER 3

  Tori’s cheek stung, and her eyes snapped open. A snake coiled around a staff hovered just above her face. A low voice spoke to someone else in the room, but she couldn’t make out the words.

  “… coming. round. Okay, back off. Give her some air.”

  Faces blurred into focus and slowly moved into the background. Light jabbed her eyes. She squinted and pushed herself onto her elbows. A man with a wispy mustache moved the flashlight away.

  “Hey! Knock that off,” she said, holding the back of her hand up to her eyes.

  “Welcome back,” the mustachioed man said. “We should get you over to University Medical.”

  Tori lifted her knees up and shoved herself off the floor. The man in the blue uniform clutched her by the armpits.

  “I want to go home,” she said, her voice small and hoarse.

  “You’re very sick,” the man said. “You need medical attention. You could have alcohol poisoning.”

  He said more, but the words melted into the ether as she gazed past him, beyond the crowd of scruffy-faced men, to the orange butterfly climbing its way out of the chasm in the floor. Its wings were folded together as it struggled on tiny, black legs to escape. Then it flapped a few times and flitted out the open door into the bluster.

  She snapped back to the man chattering away in front of her.

  “I have to go home.”

  She grabbed her purse from the bar and stumbled on legs that felt heavy and cumbersome.

  Her cheek throbbed in the cold. She put her fingers to it. It felt warm and swollen, but there was no blood when she pulled her fingers back. Her hair whipped. Trees encased in wrought iron jutted up around her. Buildings towered over her, and she swung herself into a circle, trying to orient herself toward the train station. The streets to the right crested up into the belly of the city. To her left, trees rattled and swayed in the brutal Hudson River wind. She made a left and then a right until she saw the hulking train station in the distance.

  The icy, stabbing squall bit at her eyes, and tears trickled over the lash line. The Hudson heaved and rocked in the wind. Manhattan glowed in the distance, judging her.

  Bitterness gurgled in her throat, and chunky sludge crept up. She swallowed, and it burned on the way back down.

  A girl with purple hair ran up to her, frantically wavi
ng her hands and screaming about her shoes. Tori dusted by her, shoulders tense, turning once to watch the dejected outline in the dark before she trudged toward the train station entrance.

  The ache in her head jackhammered between the jarring wind and the street noise. A horn blared at the construction equipment blocking River Street. Some guy in a Lexus jabbed his middle finger out his window to show his extreme displeasure at the stalled traffic. Tori darted across, clutching her Versace blazer up to her neck. She clonked down the sidewalk on screaming feet. Just one more block to the train. She repeated it over and over in her head. One more block.

  A spray of brown-red splattered the asphalt outside the taxi stand. Pigeons strutted and cooed around her, and she froze, fixated on that horrid, red blast. It couldn’t be. It had to be paint. Or maybe some ketchup dried into the crusty ground from some careless street vendor’s cart. That gash spilled blackened puddles onto the crosswalk. She saw it all in reverse and jumped when she watched the wide-eyed, dewy face dash against her windshield.

  A shoulder smacked into her back, followed by a “Watch it, lady.”

  She creaked forward. Only a block. The green station loomed over her, a passage to freedom.

  The loud ssshhhhh of trains pulling into the station nearly made her cry out as the pain wracked her skull.

  There was a 12:08 Montclair-Boonton line train, the last one before she’d have to spend the night on a train station bench. She trotted to Track 15. The train doors were closed. Her stomach churned, and she screamed, “C’mon! Please, let me on!”

  The doors shunted open, and she darted up the steps. The conductor’s bulging eyes glared at her beneath his cap. The feeling washed over her that the building could come crashing down at any moment, and this might be her only escape. She darted inside, too concerned about her own survival to focus long the strange-faced conductor’s expression.

  She frowned. This was an old train with dingy, gray-blue bench seats. It smelled like bug spray and stale potato chips. She was accustomed to the soft, red leather bucket seats, but the skin of her heels burned so much, she flopped down. A spring situated itself against her rear end. She bent, unfastened the oxblood T-strap heels, and slipped them off. A water blister poked up from the bright red flesh at the intersection of her toes and foot.

  She stared out the window. The faint outline of her reflection gave way to the flurry of people dashing to catch the last trains of the night. Pigeons flapped disdainfully.

  The reflection came into full view, but instead of her face, she saw the girl’s face. Her eyelashes framed round orbs, just before the windshield cracked. The car lurched forward, and Tori expected to feel the horrid thump of the wheels rolling over the body. There was no thump, and she realized the train was moving. The sing of metal on metal purred as they moved down the tracks.

  “Tickets. Tickets, please.”

  Tori snatched up her bag and rifled around for her monthly pass. The bug-eyed conductor, a broad-shouldered guy in a chambray uniform shirt, huffed and went to the next passenger. He turned back to her, and his eyes bulged like Louis Armstrong blowing, puff-cheeked, into a horn. A lock of curly hair poked from beneath his conductor’s hat. She shuddered at the sight of him.

  “Something the matter, Miss?”

  Her head jerked side to side almost of its own accord as she plucked the pass from some cluttered corner of her bag and held it aloft. He shuffled off to the next car in search of tickets, clicking his hole-punch all the way.

  The train swayed as it chugged along, and she stared out the window, her heavy eyes tracking back and forth across the blackened industrial wasteland, red lights from radio towers blinking intermittently. Her face sagged under the weight of the day. The swampy landscape that looked dreary even on the brightest day was a mysterious shadowland. The animals in the meadowlands preyed upon each other in the night, away from the eyes of commuters and tourists. The building lights faded into the distance as suburbia rumbled into view.

  She shoved her arm against the window. Warmth radiated from the vents, and the rocking soon put her to sleep.

  The girl was always there, on the other side of her eyelids. Black goo seeped from her lips. Her face rested on a glitter-strewn blacktop.

  It started on the train. Much, much earlier, though. Her day wrapped at eight. The bars were already spilling over with midweek drinkers. She might have stopped for a Scotch and water, but exhaustion was already pulling at her. She’d started the week in Palo Alto, and the thought of getting home after midnight held little appeal.

  She’d walked past the darkened bars and the subdued thump-thump-thump of live music to the train station. The ride home was uneventful. She read about forty pages of a novel she’d been trying to get through, and when the train jerked to a halt at Montclair, she’d gotten out and climbed into her car at the pay lot.

  There were probably six cars left, gleaming from the light cast down by the lamps. She maneuvered out of the lot and onto the street, manicured lawns and upscale shops blurring by. Strands of white lights wrapped around the trees of a chichi restaurant called Le Petit Crapaud. Those twinkling strings glowed and hypnotized her weary eyes for, how long, ten seconds? Maybe fifteen? By the time she turned her attention back to the street, a darkened outline crossed in front of her car. Her heart leapt into her throat, and her whole body shook as she jumped onto the brake, pressing all her one hundred and thirty-seven pounds onto the black lever. Tires screamed and the smell of burnt treads rose up around her. The figure came into rapid view in her headlights. That frozen, surprised, struck-dumb expression smashed against her windshield, and she watched the girl roll off and thud onto the crosswalk. The car lurched up and down as it thumped over the body. A warm flood spread across her wool trousers, and a noise like a wounded animal erupted from the depths of her chest.

  “Miss?”

  Red and blue lights flickered in her rearview mirror.

  “Miss?”

  A hand pulled her by the elbow out of the car.

  “Miss? Montclair, Miss. Your stop.”

  The bug-eyed conductor stared at her, his focus not entirely direct.

  She started, and her body shivered.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  She stuffed her feet into the oxblood T-strap heels and snatched up her purse. The shoes flopped, unbuckled, on her feet as she shuffled down the walkway and onto the platform.

  Rain pelted her face as she stumbled to the parking lot and clicked the key fob to open her Volvo. It looked like some of the clouds might thin out.

  She hated being home. Montclair was a small enough town that everyone knew her, just by virtue of the horror that happened last year. Her face had been plastered all over the TV. And she felt eyes on her, judging. She automatically assumed anyone who glanced her way knew what she’d done, even total strangers. Maybe she’d judged herself. No charges had been filed, and she knew people certainly had strong opinions about that.

  The booze haze she’d gotten at Stevie’s had already dissipated, and she wanted another drink. She reasoned that the alcohol hadn’t made her fall off the stool. It was anxiety, stress, the shitty day she’d had. She’d just gotten disoriented and turned the wrong way.

  Her throat was dry, and her hands shook ever so slightly, a palsy she’d only noticed in the past month or so. It usually struck her in the late afternoon, but it came and went other times, too.

  She swung into the Carriage House’s parking lot and sat behind the wheel for a moment. The heat from the vents felt good against her chilled, damp flesh. She killed the engine, locked the door, and went inside.

  Paolo dabbed at a spill on the bar and looked up at her with a smile. He adjusted his black tie and tugged on the matching vest.

  “Miss Garrett! So good to see you. Vodka and tonic?”

  The thought of sucking down another V&T made her throat itch.

  “Let me get a Jameson on the rocks.”

  He turned to fill the order, and Tori scanned the room
. Same old Blue Bloods. Investment bankers, lawyers, marketing execs. She put a hand to her throat. She felt out of place here for the first time.

  Paolo returned with her drink, and she fished a twenty-dollar bill out of her Vuitton.

  “Keep it,” she said, and tipped the drink against her lips.

  It was sweet and toxic and slid smoothly down her throat. A buzz coursed through her bloodstream almost on impact.

  The sensation of being watched made her snap upright in the cushioned stool. A woman in a red headscarf, the kind gang bangers wear, glared from across the room. She knew her face. She knew it all too well.

  CHAPTER 4

  Hot rage rippled over Carla Perez’s flesh. A set of blue eyes met hers and hastily darted away. She pressed her hands against the table, dampened by the seven-dollar Corona she’d nursed all night long as she waited.

  She strode across the room. Her chair screeched on the tile floor and almost upended as she charged forward.

  Victoria Garrett turned to her drink, pretended the two hadn’t made eye contact, and chatted with the bartender. Her nonchalance was no matter. Carla had waited too long for this. She’d made the long bus ride to Montclair from Newark almost every week since Lexie died. She observed at first, desperate to know if her child’s death had made any impact whatsoever on Victoria’s life. Her poor baby had been accepted at NYU and would’ve started next year. She would’ve been the first person in the Perez family to attend college. Perhaps Carla had hoped Victoria would drink herself into her own grave. Still, she had a suspicion that what she really needed was a confrontation––maybe even a fight.

  She slammed her hands against the bar, and Victoria jumped and turned, spilling her brown drink all over her designer suit. Those glass-blue eyes, vacant and dumb, stared, stricken with absolute dread.

  “You know me?” Carla asked, her voice gruff.

  Victoria set down her half-empty glass.

  “I don’t want any trouble with you,” she said. “Just leave me alone.”

  Victoria clutched her purse, and Carla blocked her exit.