Acquainted With Grief

Art by Nicky Gabriel

 

Acquainted With Grief

by Verlaine

The summer I turned twelve, three pretty sick things happened to me, one right after the other. I had my first period, my sperm donor got shanked in the slam, and I started to see ghosts.

My Abuela Mila says I should be more respectful about my father, but hey, if he’d had any respect for me he might have tried to, you know, actually be a father, so I figure what goes around comes around. Not like I remember anything about him anyway; he got his third strike when I was eight months old, and I never saw him again. About a year later, my mom figured she needed a new man, one who wasn’t doing life plus forever in maximum security. Problem was, the new man didn’t want the old rug rat, so mom dropped me off at Abuela Mila’s one day, and that was the end of that.

It all worked out for the best, that’s what I say. Abuela Mila was fifty-four the year I landed on her doorstep with nothing but a shopping bag of clothes and a bad case of diaper rash. She could have said, “Hey, whaddaya mean, take care of your kid? At my age? I’m heading for Palm Springs to play golf and go to the casino, not wipe her snotty nose and make finger paints.”

Instead, she took me in, raised me as her own, and never lets a day go by without letting me know she loves me, even if some days that means grounding me or smacking me on the ass with a kitchen spoon.

The day this shit all started, I was outside in the yard, mowing the lawn. Not that I knew what was going to happen–I’d have been scooting like a scared puppy if I’d had any idea what was going down. I’d just gotten my period, but it wasn’t too bad, a little crampy, just like the health teacher said it would be, but nothing I couldn’t handle. (A couple of girls in my class were all ‘ooohh, I can’t do gym, I can’t do this, I can’t do that’, but that’s not how I roll. Latina women are tougher than that.) I was kinda nervous–what if I leaked? Or somebody smelled me, or something? But Abuela Mila said getting fresh air and exercise was the best thing for cramps. She said when she first got her period, her mother made her stay in a dark room and wouldn’t let her eat meat or take hot baths. I mean, eeuwww!

It was a nice warm day, the middle of May, so I put on my cut-offs and bikini top so I could catch some rays. It really made me wish I had a tattoo I could show off. My bestie TaNisha got a cool little butterfly on her hip last year, but Abuela Mila freaked when she first saw it. I guess I’ll wait a while, and I’ll put mine somewhere where I don’t shove it in her face, but hey, a girl’s gotta get a life sometime, right?

I’d just finished the front yard, and was getting ready to drag the mower around to the back when a rattly white Toyota pick-up pulled in at the curb. The panels were rusty and the back loaded down with junk–bags of potting soil, a couple of old tires, all kinds of worn out tools. Looked like a garbage dump on wheels.

When the old dude climbed down, I kinda waved at him, but didn’t go over to talk. The guy’s name was Hutchinson. My abuela knew him for a long time, since my sperm donor was a kid. Abeula Mila said he’d been the s.d.’s Big Brother for a few years, and he’d tried hard at first to keep him on the straight and narrow. Kinda made me side-eye him, because he’d done a pretty shitty job of it, and I wondered sometimes if ol’ Hutchie had been a little too interested in the s.d. I didn’t really believe that, because Abuela Mila would’ve stomped him like a cockroach if she even thought he’d been kiddy diddling. But sometimes I just wanna blame somebody, even if deep down I know it’s nobody’s fault. I’ve said some pretty nasty things to Abuela Mila a few times too, but it always makes me feel even worse, so I’ve tried to stop doing that.

Abuela Mila’s got a couple pictures of Hutchinson and his partner, from back when he was the s.d.’s Big Brother. He used to be a tall skinny guy, real blond, with long legs and a sweet smile. Looked like he could’ve been some kind of a movie star, if you like pretty blonds. (For me, it’s all about Michael Trevino: I even follow him on Twitter, though I feel kinda stupid, like me and about a million other girls.)

There wasn’t much left of that pretty blond about forty years later. He’d put on a gut, and leaned hard on a cane as he stumped up the walk. He wore a big floppy straw hat, with some greasy grey hair straggling out from under it, and a loose blue-green Hawaiian shirt, and those greenish old-guy pants that sag in the ass and knees.

“Hey there, Lottie,” he called, and waved his cane in my direction.

The name on my birth certificate is Chelsea, but the year before I started to call myself Carlotta. Soon as I get old enough, I’m going to get it changed legally. I mean, really, Chelsea? Do I look like some dippy rich white chick?

“Hi.” I give him a little half-wave back. I oughta be pissed at the way he always calls me Lottie like I was still six, but I really like that fierce chick in the F&F movies, and so I let it go.

“Is your grandma home?”

“Maybe.” I mean, geez, he could see the car in the drive, right?

Hutchinson looked at me, looked over at the car and back at me. “Want to try that with a little less bitch?”

“Bite me,” I snapped.

He raised his eyebrows at me, and I felt myself get a little red in the face. Abuela Mila brought me up better than that. She always said if you take the high road, you never have to apologize to the people who want to drag you down. Then she’d give me a little grin and say, “And that drives them loco.”

I figured he was gonna lecture at me some more, but Hutchinson surprised me. He grinned, and then actually laughed, a big open laugh that let me see a bunch of big yellow teeth.

“Nobody’s ever gonna walk on you, are they, kiddo?”

I shook my head.

He wiped his eyes. “You know, you remind me–”

“Of Pete. You say that every time.”

Hutchinson got a real funny look on his face. “Pete?” He rubbed at his forehead. “Pete?” he said again. “I don’t know any…ah, yeah, Molly.”

A long time ago, Abuela Mila took in this Molly, whose old man got murdered. From the stories she tells, it sounds like the girl really kicked butt. There’s a couple of pictures of her with my s.d., and it looks like they were pretty tight. I think Abuela Mila wanted to adopt her, but in those days the CPS wasn’t gonna hand over a white girl to a single Latina woman, even if she would’ve been real good for her.

Too bad, ’cause it might have been cool having an aunt, especially one who’d mixed it up with killers and gamblers and shit like that. It sounded like she could’ve kept the s.d. on the straight and narrow.

“Molly.” Hutchinson rubbed his forehead again. “Did Molly come home?”

“Her name was Pete.” Because of the hassle I got with the whole Chelsea/Carlotta deal, I’m pretty tough on calling people what they want to be called. Too bad if I sounded a little grumpy.

“Pete.” Hutchinson said, a little smile suddenly lighting up his face. “Did I ever tell you about Starsky–”

He stopped dead, like somebody pulled the plug on him. The smile dropped off his face, and his shoulders drooped down under a load too heavy for an old man. Without even looking at me again, he turned and plodded up to the front door.

Before he got his hand up to knock, Abuela Mila opened up, smiling and reaching out her arms to him.

“Hutch!” Her accent always made his name sound softer, longer.

“Hello, Emmy.” There weren’t many people who didn’t use her full name, and it bothered me that he was one of them, like he knew a secret he shouldn’t. He put an arm around her and hugged her back, and that bothered me too.

“Come in, come in. I’ve made some lemon coconut loaf, and the coffee is hot.” She looked over at me. “Do you want a slice, Carlotta? Some juice?”

I shook my head. “Gonna finish the lawn.” I didn’t want to sit down with them, and listen to all the talk about “the good old days”.

See, knowing Hutchinson and Abuela Mila were old friends didn’t make me like him any better, and I really wished she wouldn’t let him hang out as much as he did. He’d been through three or four wives–one even got murdered, long time ago–and it always seemed to me he was still looking for somebody to take him in and look after him. Not like I really thought my abuela would; she’s way too smart to fall for some line of bullshit, but I could see how it could happen, and I was always just a little worried when he came by. Like maybe this time, Abuela Mila was gonna call me in and say I’ve got a new step-grandpa, and isn’t it great how we’ll all be happy together?

Not.

I tried real hard not to think about how sometimes they might have had sex. Not ’cause there’s anything wrong with sex, even for old people, but something about Hutch wasn’t quite right. Oh, he put on a good act. He and Abuela Mila would sit and talk, and he smiled in all the right places, and said nice things about her tostadas and almond flan, but it never seemed like he was all there. It seemed like a big part of him listened for something the rest of us couldn’t hear, looked for something nobody could see.

Total spaz.

I tried once to tell Abuela Mila that just ’cause she felt sorry for him, she didn’t need to let him hang around so much. She doesn’t get mad at me a lot, and then only if I’d done something really bad, but that day she really blew. Yelled at me in Spanish and everything. It kinda hurt me, ’cause I thought it was crappy she’d be taking his side when I was just worried that he might be trying to scam her or something.

She said I was too young to understand what was going on between them. That most people talked about right and wrong and being good people, but Hutch really had done it, and paid for it the rest of his life.

I didn’t get it. I mean, I knew he used to be a cop, and from some stuff I googled on him, it was dangerous as shit. Hard to picture him being the kind of guy who could run half-way across the city with a bag of ransom money, or bring down some multi-gazillionaire who owned half the country, the way the stuff on Wikipedia makes it sound. He got shot once, got stabbed by some stalker, got infected with the plague of all the crazy things, nearly lost his leg when he got run off the road by some bad guy. I guess that’s why he limped, and wheezed like a broken fan just walking up the stairs.

Reading between the lines, it sounded like he got into a lot of stuff back then that nowadays would get his ass thrown off the force for brutality and sexism and all kinds of other stuff. He cut corners and took stupid chances and a bunch of people got hurt or killed who didn’t really need to.

I watched Abuela Mila lead him into the house, still smiling up at him and holding onto his arm. Suddenly I felt cold all over, rubbing at the little goosebumps coming out all over my shoulders and arms, wishing I had a shirt to put on. I had a really bad feeling that today was gonna be the day things changed.

What I did next was kinda dumb, but I couldn’t help it. I left the lawnmower where it was and snuck around the side of the house to where the kitchen window was open. I’d found out when I was a kid if I leaned up against the wall and kept really quiet, I could hear people talking at the kitchen table, as long as there wasn’t too much noise from the street.

At first, I couldn’t hear anything, and for a second I thought maybe they’d gone to Abuela Mila’s bedroom. That made me shiver a little more, but not because I was cold. Then I heard a slow thumping noise getting closer. I couldn’t figure it out, and then I realized it was Hutchinson’s cane hitting the floor as a he limped along. There was a scraping noise as a chair got pulled away from the table, and then clinking sounds, like plates and forks being put down.

“One slice or two, Hutch?”

That’s my abuela, always trying to get people to eat. She always said that what the world needed more of wasn’t doctors or shrinks, but more people to sit and have a nice slice of cake with.

“Thanks, Emilia, but my stomach’s a little off today. You maybe have some of that green tea I got for you?”

“You’re not feeling well?” From zero to mother-hen in two seconds flat.

“No, no, just a little indigestion.” I heard a dry cackle. “Shouldn’t have had the tequila last night.”

“Ah, Hutch.”

“Please, no lectures, okay, Emmy? My stomach’s saying it all.”

“It’s May, mi hermano.” Her voice was very gentle. “I know how hard it is for you.”

I heard a loud thump, like he’d banged his cane down on the floor as hard as he could. “That’s the thing, Emmy. Why? After all these fucking years–

“I mean, Jesus, I’ve been married four times, and I’ve had two wives die on me. Now, with Vanessa, I could maybe see it. We’d been divorced for years, and it was hell on wheels for a while at the end. But you know what? When they finally let me back into Venice Place I slept in the bed she’d spent the night in, and I didn’t even think twice. Kate was a damn good woman, and I thought the world of her, but six weeks after the cancer took her I was down in Huggy’s place trying to make time with some school teacher from San Diego who was in town looking for a no-strings-attached fling.

“But Starsky? Christ, I couldn’t even go into his apartment for months. If Dobey hadn’t called in favors from practically everybody he knew, IA would have busted me out of the department inside of a year. I went through so many p-partners–”

His voice choked off, and then I heard a gagging noise, like he was gonna barf.

It sounded so gross it scared me. Part of me wanted to run down the street with my hands over my ears and not come back until I was sure he’d left. But even worse was the thought of leaving Abuela Mila alone with him. He sounded awful.

I swallowed real hard–I was worried I might barf myself–and snuck up to the back door. We always left the back door open when it was warm, and I could see them through the screen. Abuela Mila had her arms around Hutchinson and was rocking him back and forth, stroking his head and murmuring softly in Spanish. He had his face kind of squashed against her side, and he was still making really gross noises, but I saw he was crying.

I remember thinking I’d never seen a grown man cry before, not really just break down and let it all out. Even at the funeral for Mr. Garcia’s son, he just kept wiping his eyes with his handkerchief and twisting it back and forth in his hands like he wanted to rip it in half.

I didn’t think I made a noise, but Abuela Mila looked up and saw me. She never stopped petting him or crooning, but she shook her head at me, hard, and then pointed her chin out at the yard.

For once, I didn’t even think about arguing. Usually I hated it when she said something was for grown-ups, or I’d understand when I’m older or shit like that. This time I was glad I was too young. I so didn’t want to think about what Hutchinson was going through.

I jumped off the back step and ran like a chickenshit until I was back out in the front yard. Those goosebumps were back, and I felt dizzy and queasy, like I needed a glass of ginger ale or something.

I didn’t want to feel sorry for Hutchinson. I didn’t want to understand him, or sympathize with him, or give him any excuse to push his way in any more than he already did.

Because he’d been around my father and look where that got us.

It was only then I noticed I’d been walking round and round the lawn, stamping my feet like a kid having a tantrum and swearing.

Huh. Angry much, Carlotta Ramos?

Guess I wasn’t as cool with life as I thought I was.

I made myself stop and STFU and take a deep breath. Getting angry about stuff that happened before I was even born wasn’t going to help Abuela Mila–or me–deal with Hutchinson one way or the other. I wanted to show Abuela Mila I was ready to play in the big girls’ sandbox? Then I had to get a grip.

I took another deep breath, and rubbed at my arms again. I couldn’t figure out why I still felt so cold. I’d been stomping around enough I should have been sweating like a pig, but I couldn’t stop shivering.

And then things got worse.

It felt like somebody was watching me, that funny little prickly feeling you get in your back when somebody’s staring at you. Only this was stronger, like whoever was looking at me actually was touching me, pulling on my arm to get my attention. I half-turned, and looked out at the road.

Across the street, a guy was leaning against a car, yep, watching me. He looked like he might be in his thirties, kinda cute in a retro sort of way, with all that fluffy curly hair and a bad-ass leather jacket. The car was retro too, some big old American hot-rod thing, with a funky red and white paint job.

He saw that I’d noticed him, and winked at me. He wasn’t the first old guy who’d perved on me, and I gave him the finger.

And then I freaked right the fuck out because I suddenly noticed I could see through the car. The red and white paint made a transparent car-shaped glaze over Mr. Rodriguez’s avocado tree and a section of the white stone wall beside his gate.

And I was seeing through the guy too.

I stumbled back a step or two and sat down hard on the grass. It’s funny what can hit you in a crisis: the front part of my mind felt like a big bubble, all white and empty and floating, but at the back, I was bitching at myself about getting grass stains on my cut-offs and having to do laundry again. I thought for a second I was screaming, and then realized I was only gasping for breath, making lots of weird noises but not loud ones.

Maybe if I’d been older, I would’ve thought I was hallucinating or going crazy or something, but I was twelve. I was seeing a ghost and I knew it. Scared the crap out of me, but I didn’t think for a minute it wasn’t really there.

As I sat there gaping at him, the ghost started across the street toward me. It didn’t float or ooze or anything like that, just walked like a regular guy. Even the feet touched the ground, just like they would if a ghost needed gravity. Even freaking out, a little part of me noticed it was a sexy walk, almost a swagger. In life, this was a guy who’d looked good and kicked ass, and he knew it.

I crossed myself, and started on the Hail Mary, but it didn’t make any difference. He just kept walking right towards me, all calm and normal, just like he wasn’t transparent.

Like he wasn’t dead.

See, I recognized the guy. Curly hair, leather jacket, killer car–it was the guy who was always beside Hutchinson in the pictures Abuela Mila had. Dave Starsky, his name had been.

And he’d been dead since 1979.

He stopped just past the sidewalk and crouched down so he was level with me.

“You can see me.” He sounded stunned. “Hot damn, you can see me!”

I gulped real hard, and tried to get some spit back in my mouth. It didn’t work too well, so I just nodded.

“Thank God. I thought I’d blown it for a while.” He didn’t sound like anybody I knew, more like those tough guys in the old gangster movies Abuela Mila sometimes liked to watch on Turner Movies.

I swallowed again and managed to get my mouth to work. “Who are you here for?” I croaked.

I was scared enough I was worried I’d piss my panties, but ghost or no ghost, if he’d come to take Abuela Mila, he’d have to get through me first.

His smile was a little sweet and a little sexy and a little mocking all the same time, but mainly sad, like he was smiling at me to keep from crying.

“Who do you think, schweetheart?”

I looked at him for a long minute, and then it clicked. “He doesn’t have indigestion, does he?”

Starsky shook his head. “All those years he bugged me about eating healthy, trying to get me into goats’ milk and wheat germ pie, and it’s gonna be a heart attack after all.”

“I gotta–” I started to scramble up, thinking of 911 and all that.

“No.” Starsky’s hand wasn’t much more than a butterfly touch on my arm, but it stopped me in my tracks. “It’s time for me n’ Hutch to go for a ride.” He nodded over at the ghost car in the road. “Let’s you and me just hang out here in the sun for a while. We’ll give him some time to say good-bye to your grandma first.”

Starsky turned and settled on the grass beside me, leaning back on his elbows, legs stretched out easy and graceful as a big cat, face turned up like he really could feel the sun. For a second, I thought I was gonna start up that weird giggling noise crazy people make in the movies. Hey, look at me and the ghost, hanging out on the lawn on a nice spring afternoon! Maybe I should go get us some of that coconut loaf.

“She still makes that? Damn, I wish I could eat. Your grandma was always a great baker.”

“You can read my mind?” I squeaked out.

“Not exactly. But we’ve got a connection, so I can kinda feel what you’re thinking.”

My mind was so full of questions it felt like my brain would burst. What’s it like being dead? Is there a heaven? Does everybody turn into a ghost? Why can I see you? (Because it was obvious nobody else could: Mrs. Rodriguez was just coming back from the store, and she and her two bags of groceries walked right through the hood of that car without even a flinch.) Why me? Why you? Why now?

But what came out of my mouth was: “Did you know my father?”

I slapped a hand over my face. Of all the dumb baby things to say. Like I cared about the s.d.

Starsky smiled that half-sad smile again. “Listen, kid, it doesn’t do any good to hate the dead. And your pop, he gave up on life a long time before that shiv got him. Let what is, be.”

I just looked at him. “That’s the best you got? Some phony zen?”

“Me? I’m not the one that was into meditation and biorhythms.”

He could read my mind? Well, take that then! I concentrated and pushed a picture of my father at him, hard as I could.

“Ow!” Starsky rubbed the side of his head. “Easy on the brain stuff, kiddo.” He gave me stern look. “I mean it. You don’t wanna give yourself a hemorrhage.

“Kiko.” He sighed, and got a far-away look in his eyes. “He started out a good kid. And your grandma and Hutch, they tried. Swear to God, Carlotta, they tried. But it always bothered Kiko being poor. And the older he got, the more it bothered him. When he looked at this house, he didn’t see all the work and love and time your grandpa and grandma put into it. All he saw was that it was kinda run-down and in the wrong part of town. When he looked at her, he didn’t see how strong she was, or everything it took for her to make a life after your grandpa died. All he saw was a wetback in a sweatshop who couldn’t speak much English. He was ashamed of his life, and he hated being poor.”

“Prick,” I said savagely, and swiped at my eyes. I damn well wasn’t crying about him. Not after twelve years of nothing.

“Don’t,” Starsky said. “After my pop died, I hated him too, for a while. He left us so fast and life got so crazy, it took a long time for me to remember the good stuff again. That made it harder for me than it needed to be. And I know he never would have wanted that. Kiko either.”

“Yeah, right.” I rolled my eyes just like one of those prima donnas on TV.

Starsky sat up straight, and those deep blue eyes of his burned right into me. “You want advice? Okay, here it is. I played football, back in high school–”

“Yeah, yeah, and you walked six miles to school, uphill both ways, through ten foot snowdrifts. Why do grown-ups always think–”

I stopped. Starsky was laughing at me, a real solid belly laugh, and suddenly that connection we had was wide open. This guy had been alive. Pictures went tumbling through my head: a pretty girl with brown hair in a hospital bed Terry a skinny black guy in a pink suit Huggy an old guy with a mustache Uncle Joe two guys dancing at a disco Nicky a grey-haired woman holding a bunch of flowers Ma a tough-looking guy flashing a badge Johnny…

It was like I could remember his life more than my own.

Most of the pictures though were Hutchinson. Two young guys at a big building that I knew was the police academy; the same guys a little older in uniform; playing pick-up basketball; going fishing; going to Vegas; watching each other on the street; holding each other and crying beside a woman’s body; sitting in room full of plants playing chess; pats on the stomach, the arm, the butt; a hospital room with a name scrawled in lipstick across a window.

I started to feel all dizzy and weird again, and lay back on the grass, my hands over my eyes. Everything swirled around me so much I almost wondered if I was going to get tossed back in time about thirty years and end up living their lives all over again.

“Oops.” Starsky’s voice seemed to come from a long way off, but suddenly the pictures stopped and I was back in my own head, my own life.

I cracked my eyes open a little, and saw nothing but sky overhead. When I raised my head, Starsky was looking at me all worried.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“You love him.” My voice was back to a croak. “Were you two hooked up?”

He went bright red, and I really did do some crazy-sounding giggling. Ghosts blush. Who knew?

“No!” he said sharply, and then looked ashamed. “If you’re asking, did we have sex, no, we didn’t. Maybe if we were that age now, we would be. But back then, guys just didn’t. At least not guys from Brooklyn and Duluth, Minnesota. Weren’t raised that way, didn’t know any better, and if we ever thought about it, pushed it right back down where it never saw the light of day.

“If you’re asking, did we love each other? Yeah. More than either of us loved anybody else, that’s for damn sure.”

The way he said it was more than vow, it was like one of the realities of the universe, like gravity or something.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

“Don’t be.” He looked over my shoulder, and this time his smile was something incandescent. “Better get ready. He’s coming.”

I looked back as I scrambled up. Hutchinson was limping down the walk to the street, and he looked terrible. His face was more grey than white, and he moved like he was pushing his way through knee-deep water. I couldn’t believe Abuela Mila let him out of the house.

“Hutch!” Starsky called. “Hutch! Over here!”

But Hutchinson just kept plodding down the walk, his eyes fixed on his truck. Death march, I thought, and suddenly I knew we were out of time.

“Come on!”

I grabbed Starsky by the hand and started running.

Our lawn isn’t much bigger than a good-sized parking space, but it felt like I was running through one of those slo-mo special effects in a movie. I had to get to Hutchinson, had to, and it took so long I was convinced something had completely screwed up reality and I’d just be moving my legs forever and not getting anywhere.

And then I was there, right beside him, and everything went back into normal time so hard I felt it snap. My ears rang and there was an ache at the back of my neck like whiplash, and the hand I had hold of Starsky with was so cold.

“Hutch!” It was the first time I’d ever called him that.

His eyes drifted toward me, but I could tell he didn’t really see me. Problem was, he didn’t see Starsky either. He took a stumbling step and dropped his cane, his hand going up to rub at his chest.

I grabbed Hutchinson by the arm, and tightened my hold on Starsky’s hand. It felt like I had jumped into a swimming pool full of ice cubes, but I didn’t let go. This, right here, right now, was the only thing that mattered in the world, and I hung onto both of them just as hard as I could.

Hutchinson jerked, and his eyes went really big, staring at the space just by my right shoulder.

“Starsky?” he whispered.

The look on his face was like a kid who’d always been told there was no Santa Claus coming down to find a room full of presents Christmas morning. It hit me as if somebody had reached in and twisted my heart. The loneliness, God, all this time, aching as if something had been cut out of him and never healed up. I felt my throat clog up and my eyes prickle, but I shoved it back down as hard as I could. I could get stupid later.

“Starsky,” he said again, and he sounded so relieved.

I felt his arm go slack under my hand, felt him start to sag as his knees let go.

It was weird, like another one of those CGI effects in a movie. I could see two Hutchinsons, in the same place, kinda layered over each other. One was the old guy I knew, and he just slid out from under my hand, like a balloon deflating, and sprawled on the grass in front of me. The other–

The other was the young guy in Abuela Mila’s pictures. Straight and thin, a full head of blond hair, eyes glowing blue as sapphire as he looked at his partner.

He stepped forward, pulling away from me as if I didn’t exist, and wrapped himself around Starsky. The two of them clutched onto each other, and I knew nothing short of God himself could get them apart right then.

Not that I’d ever thought about it before, but I hadn’t expected a ghost to be able to cry.

My legs kind of gave out, and I sprawled back on the grass for about the third time that day. My cut-offs were gonna be ruined, but I didn’t care. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had a feeling I might be going into shock, but I didn’t much care about that either. Just watching Starsky and Hutch holding each other made me feel like something in the world that had been knocked off-balance had been made right again.

When they finally let go, and started wiping their faces and looking a little embarrassed, I straightened up and tried to get my shit back together.

Hutch leaned down and took my hand and kissed it. “Thank you, Lottie,” he said.

“Are you okay, kiddo?” Starsky asked.

“A little shaky,” I said, “and my hands are numb. Does it always do that?” I gave Starsky the hard eye.

He shrugged. “How should I know?”

“You’re the ghost!”

“Hey, you’re the one who sees ghosts. Me, I’m just the guy who gets seen.”

“Speaking of seeing–” Hutch spun around, flapping one arm at the houses around us “–why isn’t anybody noticing this?”

“Nobody can see you. And for a couple of minutes, we’re all not really here.” I didn’t know how I knew that, but I was rock-solid sure of that. “But it won’t last long.”

“Will you be all right?” That was Hutch.

“Will you be able to get back?” Starsky looked worried.

“I…I am back. And I’ll be all right. Different, but all right.” And I was rock-solid sure of that too.

“Lottie.” Hutch frowned down at me. “You’re going to have to be careful. Don’t tell anybody–”

“Do I look like I want to be Thorazined?” I cut in. “Not this girl, no way. Nobody’s gonna hear about this from me.”

“Good. You’ve seen the X-Files, right? There are people out there who wouldn’t have any problem doing some awful things to you.”

“Starsky, don’t scare the girl,” Hutch scolded. “She’s been through enough today.”

“Does she look like somebody who scares easy, huh?” Starsky grinned. “Reminds me of Linda Baylor–all tits and attitude.”

“Starsky!” Hutchinson looked horrified. “You can’t say stuff like that to girls any more!”

“Hey, I’m dead. Who’s gonna stop me?” He wiggled an eyebrow at me. “You don’t mind, do you, schweetheart?”

I thought about for a second. ‘All tits and attitude’. “Put the attitude first and I’m good.”

“See?” Starsky poked Hutchinson lightly in the ribs. “C’mon, babe, let’s hit the road.”

Even as we’d been talking, I’d noticed both of them starting to fade a little at the edges. I could still see them, but I was having to concentrate to do it.

“Goodbye.” Hutchinson reached his hand out, and this time I flinched back. They were moving away from my world, and I had a feeling it might not be good for me to reach out this time.

Starsky took his arm and turned him around. “Let’s go, hotshot.”

“Sorry. Look–yeah, Starsk, I’m coming–thanks again.” Hutchinson was calling back over his shoulder. “Take care of your grandma, okay?”

Starsky tugged at his arm again, pulling him out into the road, toward the car. They were getting harder to see, and the car was just a faint red smudge against the white stone.

It made me blink a little when they opened the car doors, instead of just sort of drifting inside, but then I thought, the car was real for them. Why wouldn’t they open the doors? Starsky was behind the wheel, and I could hear faintly, as if from a long way off, an engine revving. A real muscle car sound.

I waved a little, even though I could hardly see the car anymore, and something told me they weren’t paying attention to me anyway. The red smudge moved along the road a few feet and then sort of flickered and was gone.

I kept looking down the road for another minute or so, and then struggled up onto my knees. Hutchinson–old Hutchinson–was dead. I didn’t even bother feeling for a pulse or any of that stuff they do on TV. I straightened his legs, and folded his hands over his chest, and tried to smooth down his hair a little. He didn’t look any better dead than he had alive, but now I knew why, and I felt sorta bad for all the nasty stuff I’d thought about him.

As I walked to the house to tell Abuela Mila to call for an ambulance, I thought I heard a car rev up through the gears, all growly and tough and fast as greased lightning.

I turned and waved again, just in case. But I was pretty sure they couldn’t see me any more.