Get in trouble stories, p.19
Get in Trouble: Stories, page 19
Over in the corner of the yogurt shop a middle-aged woman sits and moves a stroller back and forth with one hand while she eats with the other. Immy keeps looking over. She can’t tell if it’s a real baby in the stroller or a Baby.
“So he’s there for a few seconds and he does what, exactly?” she says.
“He watches TV with me. The commercials. He seems to like the commercials where a man and a woman are driving somewhere in a car. You know, those ones where there’s a road going alongside the ocean? Or a hill. He looks at the commercials on TV and he looks at me,” Ainslie says. “He just looks at me. Like no one has ever looked at me before. And then he goes away.”
There’s something about the way Ainslie says this, about her face, and so Immy does what the Ghost Boyfriend does. She looks at Ainslie as carefully and as closely as she can. Ainslie looks like she had a very bad night’s sleep. Her lips are chapped and there’s lots of concealer, poorly applied, under her eyes. As if she’s keeping secrets there, under the skin. “Do you ever see him at night? In your bedroom?”
Ainslie blinks. “No,” she says. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Good,” Immy says. “Because that would be creepy, if he was there looking at you while you were asleep.”
Ainslie’s face crumples, just a little. “Yeah. That would be creepy.”
School is school. Why can’t it ever be something else? Immy can’t believe she has two more years of this. Two more years of equations and sad books where bad things happen to boring people and Justin giving her wounded looks. Okay, so maybe he’ll get over it faster than that. If she ignores him. Two more years of unflattering gym shorts and Spanish that she’s never going to use and having to be the person that she’s always been, because that’s the person that everyone thinks she is. That everyone assumes she’s always going to be. Everyone thinks this is the real Immy. And what if the Immy they see is the real Immy, and the one on the inside is just hormones and chemicals and too many little secrets and weird jumbled thoughts that don’t mean anything, after all?
Maybe she should shave her head. Maybe she should take her classes more seriously. Maybe she should give Justin another chance. Maybe not.
She has a dream that night. She’s driving a fast car along a curving road. The ocean is far below. The Ghost Boyfriend sits in the passenger seat. They don’t say anything to each other. The moon is high overhead.
She texts Ainslie in the morning. I dreamed about your Boyfi. Weird right?
Ainslie doesn’t text back.
That afternoon Immy and Sky go over to Ainslie’s house to study for a Spanish quiz. Elin takes AP Latin because, Elin.
They mostly don’t study, though. They ransack the cupboards for the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Little Debbie Spinwheels and bags of Oreos that Ainslie’s mother hides away in soup tureens and behind boxes of rice and cereal. Once they found a little baggie with weed in it and they flushed it down the toilet.
Ainslie says they’re doing her mother a favor eating the Oreos and Reese’s. They’re teenagers. They have higher metabolisms.
Sky says, “Dónde está Mint?”
Ainslie says, “He’s downstairs. In the rec room with Oliver and Alan.” She’s decapitating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Ainslie only eats the insides. Like a spider. Spiders only eat the insides. “I turned him off, actually.”
“You did what?” Immy says.
“I turned him off,” Ainslie says. “He was kind of freaking my mom out. I can see why they did the recall. It’s not romantic, having a Boyfriend pop in and out of existence all the time. And it’s not like Mint ever said anything romantic. He just stared. And, you know, after a week it felt like if I was looking in one direction, maybe he was right there behind me. I got a sore neck because I kept jerking my head back to look up at the ceiling because once I looked up and he was there. And once I found him under the kitchen table. So I kept having to look under things, too.”
“Just like a real ghost in a movie,” Sky says. Sky loves scary movies. No one will go see them with her.
“What about Embodied? Did you try him out in Embodied Mode?” Immy says.
“Yeah,” Ainslie says. “And that was also no fun. He said all the right stuff, the stuff Oliver and Alan say, but you know what? I didn’t buy it. I don’t know. Maybe we’re getting too old for Boyfriends.”
“Let’s go turn him on,” Sky says. “I want to see. I want to see him float up on the ceiling.”
“No,” Ainslie says. Ainslie never says no. They both stare at her. The little pile of emptied Reese’s Cups. She says, “Here. You want the chocolate?”
Ainslie wants to show them something online. It’s an actor they all like. He’s naked and you can totally see his penis. They’ve all seen penises online before, but this one belongs to someone famous. Sky and Ainslie go looking for other famous penises, and Immy goes back to the kitchen to study. But first she goes down to the rec room.
The rec room is full of Ainslie’s mother’s abandoned projects. An easel with a smock still draped across it. A sewing machine, a rowing machine, bins of fabric and half-finished scrapbooks with pictures of Ainslie and Immy when they could still run around the yard naked, Ainslie and Immy and Sky when they had their first ballet recital, Ainslie and Immy and Sky and Elin graduating from middle school. Back before Ainslie’s parents divorced, and Immy got boobs and Ainslie got Boyfriends. All those Ainslies and Immys, with their dolls and their princess dresses and Halloween costumes and Valentines. Immy’s always been the prettier one. Ainslie isn’t a dog, isn’t hideous, but Immy’s much prettier. If Boyfriends worked the usual way, Immy could get one like that.
But maybe then she wouldn’t want one.
There are three coffins standing up inside the closet of the rec room. No room for a fourth, is Immy’s first thought. They used to spend hours playing with Oliver and Alan. Now they hardly ever do. That’s her second. And it’s not like Immy can just suggest bringing them out. They belong to Ainslie. It’s not like playing dolls. It’s more like telling your friend you want to hang out with some fake people she keeps in her closet, and anyway they’re only nice to you because Ainslie wants them to be nice to you. If Immy had a Boyfriend she wouldn’t keep him in a closet in her basement.
The first coffin she opens is Oliver. The second one is Mint. It’s a ridiculous name. No wonder he’s been acting weird.
“Hi, Mint,” she says. “It’s Immy again. Wake up.”
Then she holds her breath, and turns around to look for him, but he’s not there, of course. He’s just a fake boy in a fake coffin, right? That’s what Ainslie thinks, anyway. What Immy thinks is you shouldn’t be able to just turn your Boyfriend off, just because he’s not the way you want him to be.
She sticks her fingers into his hair. It’s incredibly soft. Real hair, which should be creepy, but it’s not. If he were Ainslie’s real boyfriend, she couldn’t do this.
She finds the little soft place behind the ear and presses down. Once for Embodied, twice for Spectral Mode. She presses down again. She wakes him up.
When she closes the lid of the coffin and turns around, this time the Ghost Boyfriend is perched on an exercise bike. He’s staring at her like she’s really there. Like he knows her, knows something about her.
Like he sees the real Immy, the one she isn’t sure is really there. Right now, though, she’s real. Immy is real. They both are. They’re making each other realer the longer they look at each other, and isn’t that what love should be? Isn’t that what love should do?
“I’m Immy,” she says. “Imogen.”
She says, “I wish you could tell me your real name. Ainslie doesn’t know I did this. So be careful. Don’t let her see you.”
He smiles at her. She puts out her hand, moves it to where she would be touching his face, if she could touch his face. “If you belonged to me,” Immy says, “I wouldn’t keep you in a box in a closet in the dark. If you were my Boyfriend.”
The rest of the night is penis GIFs and Oreos and Spanish vocabulary. When Ainslie’s mother gives Immy and Sky a ride home, Immy looks back and she thinks maybe she can see a boy looking out of the window of Ainslie’s bedroom. It’s kind of a gas to think about Ainslie being home all alone with her Ghost Boyfriend. Immy falls asleep that night thinking about Ainslie, and ceilings, and kitchen tables, and Mint’s soft, baby-fine hair. She wonders whose hair it was.
Immy doesn’t know if Ainslie knows she’s being haunted. She seems out of sorts, but that could just be Ainslie-and-her-mother stuff. Meanwhile, Sky and Elin are having a fight about some boots that Elin borrowed and wore in the rain. All Immy can think about is Mint. She keeps having that dream about the car and the highway and the ocean. Mint there in the dark with her, the moon above them. Maybe it means something? It ought to mean something.
Friday night is Elin’s birthday present to Ainslie, tickets to see O Hell, Kitty! play at the Coliseum. Sky and Immy are going to have a movie night without them, except then Elin gets Sky a ticket, too, an apology for ruining her boots.
Whatever, Immy doesn’t want to go anyway.
The idea comes to her when she hears about Ainslie’s mom, who was going to be the ride to the concert, and who, it turns out, has gotten a ticket for herself after watching some videos on O Hell, Kitty!’s YouTube channel. Embarrassing for Ainslie, sure, but this is Immy’s chance to see Mint.
Immy knows where Ainslie’s mom keeps a spare house key. She knows the alarm code, too. One of the benefits of a long-standing friendship: it makes breaking and entering so much easier.
She tells her parents she’s been invited to dinner at Ainslie’s house. She gets a ride from her dad. Her mother might have waited around until someone opened the front door, but that’s why she asked her dad.
She waves—go, it’s okay, just go—and he drives away. Then she lets herself into Ainslie’s house. She stands in the hallway and says, “Hello? Mint? Hello?”
It’s early evening. Ainslie’s house is stuffed with shadows. Immy can’t decide whether or not to turn on the lights. She’s made peace with what she’s doing, it’s for a good cause. But turning on the lights? That would be making herself at home.
She looks up at the ceiling, because she can’t help it. She goes into the kitchen, and crouches down to look under the table, and is, despite herself, somehow relieved when Mint isn’t there, either.
It gets darker second by second. Really, she needs to turn on the lights. She goes into room after room, turns on lights, goes on. She has the sense that Mint is there ahead of her, leaving each room as she enters it.
She finds him finally—or does he find her? They find each other—in the rec room. One minute Immy is alone, and the next Mint is there, standing so close that she takes a step back without meaning to.
Mint disappears. Then reappears. Standing even closer than before. They’re nose to nose. Well, nose to chin. He’s not much taller than she is. But she can see through him: the couch, the exercise bike, and the sewing table. He shouldn’t stand so close, she thinks. But she shouldn’t be here.
None of this is okay. But it’s not real. So it’s okay.
“It’s me,” Immy says unnecessarily. “I, uh, I wanted to see if you were, um. If you were okay.” He blinks. Smiles. Points at her, then extends his arm, so that it goes right through her middle. She sucks in her tummy. He disappears. She turns around, and there he is again, standing in front of the closet.
He disappears again when she reaches out to open the closet. Is there, inside the closet, standing in front of his coffin. Is gone again. She opens the lid, and there is his body. It’s pretty clear, now, what he wants her to do. So she reaches into his hair, finds that button.
She’s still standing there like a freak with her fingers in his hair when his eyes open. And this is the first thing Ainslie’s Ghost Boyfriend, Mint, ever says to Immy: “You,” he says.
“Me?” Immy says.
“You’re here,” Mint says.
“I had to see you,” Immy says. She backs out of the closet in a hurry, because she doesn’t want to have a conversation in a closet with Ainslie’s Ghost Boyfriend, standing next to the coffins of Ainslie’s Vampire Boyfriend and Ainslie’s Werewolf Boyfriend. Mint follows. He stretches, arms above his head, flexing his neck, the way Boyfriends do—as if they are real boys who have, regrettably, spent too much time stored in coffins.
“I did something to you,” Immy says. “The ring.”
Mint puts his fingers up to his lips. Opens his mouth in a wide yawn. Can he feel it in there, the hair ring? The thought makes Immy gag. “You did this,” he agrees.
Immy has to sit down. She says, “Okay, I did something. I wanted to do something, because, well, because Ainslie. I meant to do something. But what did I do?”
“I’m here,” Mint says. “We’re here. We’re here together.”
He says, “We shouldn’t be here.”
“Why not? Because you belong to Ainslie?” Immy says. “Or do you mean we shouldn’t be here here? In this house? Or do you mean you shouldn’t be here at all? Because you’re a ghost. A real ghost?”
Mint just looks at her. A real ghost in a fake boy? She did this? That look in his eyes, is that something real? He has the most beautiful eyes Immy’s ever seen. And, okay, so they’re molded out of silicone or they’re bags full of colored gel and microelectronic components, but so what? How is that really any different from vitreous humors and lenses and rods and cone cells?
Boyfriends can even cry, if you want them to.
Immy wants to believe so badly. More than she’s ever wanted anything. She says, “Who are you? What do you want?”
“We shouldn’t be here,” Mint says again. “We should be together.” He touches his mouth. “I belong with you.”
“Oh,” Immy says. “Wait. Wait.” Now she’s sure that someone is playing a trick on her. Maybe Ainslie knew, somehow, that she was coming? Maybe she booby-trapped Mint, told him to say all of this, is hiding somewhere with Elin and Sky. They’re watching all of this, watching Immy make a fool out of herself. Aren’t they?
“I love you,” Mint says. And then, as if he’s agreeing with himself. “I love you. I belong with you. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me here alone with her.”
Everyone who is alive has a ghost inside them, don’t they? So why can’t there be a real ghost in a fake boy? Why can’t a real ghost in a fake boy fall in love with Immy? Justin did. Why can’t Immy get what she wants, just for once?
Why can’t Mint get what he wants?
Immy comes up with her plan sitting on the couch with Mint, so close that they’re practically touching. Immy can hardly breathe. She studies Mint’s fingers, those half moons at the base of his fingernails, the ridges on the tips of his fingers. The creases in his palms. The way his chest rises and falls when he breathes. It would be creepy, staring at a real boy like this, the way Immy stares at Mint. A real boy would want to know why you were staring at him.
She wants to ask Mint so many questions. Who are you? How did you die? What’s your real name? What is it that made you love me?
She wants to tell him so many things.
They’ll have time for all of that later on.
Her dad texts to say that he’s about two minutes from Ainslie’s house. No time now. When Mint gets back in his coffin, and Immy is about to put him back in Spectral Mode, she can’t wait any longer. She kisses him and presses that button. It’s her first real kiss, really. She doesn’t count Justin. Lip-wrestling doesn’t count.
She kisses Mint right on the lips. His lips are dry and soft and cool. It’s everything she ever wanted a kiss to be.
Her dad’s car is pulling up in the driveway as she comes up the stairs, and before she reaches the door, Mint is there again in front of her in the dark hallway, a ghost this time. This time he kisses her. It’s the ghost of a kiss. And even if she can’t feel anything this time, this kiss, too, is everything she’s ever wanted.
On the ride home, her dad says, “How’s Ainslie?”
“Ainslie’s Ainslie,” Immy says. “You know.”
“It would be pretty strange if she wasn’t,” her dad says. “Is she still big on those Loverboy things?”
“Boyfriends,” Immy says. “She got a new one for her birthday. I don’t know. Maybe not so much anymore.”
Her dad says, “How about you? Any boyfriends? Real ones?”
“I don’t know,” Immy says. “There was this guy Justin, but, uh, that was a while ago. He was, you know. It wasn’t serious. Like, we hung out some. Then we broke up.”
“True love, huh?”
The way he says it, jokingly, makes Immy so mad she wants to scream. She pinches her arm, turns and leans her forehead against the cool dark of the car window. Shivers and it’s all okay again. “Dad? Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Never seen one,” he says. “Don’t really want to see one, either. I’d like to think that we don’t just hang around here after, you know, we’re dead. I’d like to think we get to do something new. Go places.”
“Can I ask another question? How do you know? If it’s love, I mean.”
Her dad turns to look at her, then nods as if she’s just told him something she didn’t even realize she was saying. He looks back at the road. “That kind of night? Who’s thinking the big thoughts about love and death? You or Ainslie?”
“Me. I guess.”
“You know what love is, Immy.”
“I do?”
“Of course you do. You love your mom, you love me and your mom, right? You love Ainslie. You love your friends.”
“Sometimes I love my friends,” Immy says. “But that’s not the kind of love I mean. I mean, you know, boys. I mean love, like the way love is in books or movies. The kind of love that makes you want to die. That makes you stay up all night, that makes you feel sick to your stomach, the kind of love that makes everything else not matter.”
