George stacked the empty crates back in the truck and hopped off the bed.
“George! Your joints.” Charla chastised.
“Like Lacrosse doesn’t do any worse.” He rolled his eyes.
“You’d think teenagers have a eye-rolling quota the way you act.” She quipped.
Charla watched over her perusing customers for a moment before turning back to him, “The Carlyle ladies are packing up, you want to see if they have any sweets they don’t want to take with them?”
He huffed, but agreed. Not taking his eyes off the quickly disassembling table, he didn’t see Abigail until she was upon him.
“George!” She swung an arm around his neck and kissed him. “Guess who I’m excited about seeing later.”
“Um,” he watched the checkered sheet being wrapped up, “I don’t know, Alexis?”
“Why, what? I saw Alexis last night. Oh! You mean the new Alexis, the other Alexis. Right.” She paused, and the table was collapsed. “No, you silly! Why—”
“Excuse me for just a second.” George untangled himself and rushed over to the nuns. “Ladies.”
“How do you know where she lives anyway?”
“Texting is a thing.” Abigail looked up as they passed a small side road, “Google Maps help.”
“We’re on Google maps? Creepy.”
“Get over it, NSA know everything already.”
“That’s not funny.”
Abigail grinned. “Oh you know I just like making you jumpy.” She unbuckled and climbed into the back with Clara.
“What are you doing?” George hit a pothole and Abigails behind hit the rearview mirror.
“I’m only being a gracious host. No girl wants to sit back here.” Abigail landed on a something that crunched like waxed paper and squeaked like plastic.
“Uh,” Clara said.
“You’re room is worse than George’s car. I’m sure Alexis is a neat freak.”
“So, where does she live.”
“Coming up… here.” She leaned forward, “perfect timing.”
“Did you text her?”
“I told her you would.”
“Why,” George turned around, “I don’t share any classes with her. I’m not in her grade. And. I don’t have her number.”
“Sent.”
Alexis was out the door in less than a minute.
“Oh, am I sitting in front?” She peered into the dim back.
“I couldn’t subject you to the horrors back here.”
“Um,” Clara said.
“Right.” She tucked her hair behind an ear and landed in the depressed passenger seat. “Hi George. Thanks for picking me up.”
“What, of course.” He turned to her. “There is nothing I enjoy more than playing chauffeur to my girlfriend and her friends.” He put the car into reverse, and laid an arm behind the headrest. Alexis flinched. “Did I hit you?”
She shook her head.
“I miss the days of Jennifer Aniston.” Alexis was saying.
“She still does stuff.” George had been fighting to throw out the stale popcorn Clara had been protecting while Abigail was in the bathroom.
“Jennifer Aniston was boring.” Abigail tossed the popcorn.
Alexis gasped. “Tell me you didn’t love Friends.”
“I didn’t love Friends.” Abigail said heartlessly.
Alexis grabbed George and Clara by the elbows to hold them back.
“How are you friends with her?” She asked.
“We don’t talk about Jennifer Aniston.”
“Bye Alexis!” Abigail climbed out of the back and hugged Alexis goodbye before sitting down in the passenger seat.
“George. Thanks for the ride.” Alexis was leaning in the driver’s window.
“Your welcome.” He smiled at her, and she soaked it in.
November 4th, a school day once more.
“Hey Jonah!”
“What.” Jonah stopped in the middle of the hallway.
“I saw that car you’re driving.” Cole nodding in a significant way.
“What are you getting at.”
“When did you do driver’s ed?”
“A while ago.”
Cole continued to nod.
“Just be sure you don’t kill anybody.”
He continued to stand in the hallway as the bell rang and everyone moved on.
October was laying behind the cafeteria, in the sun, but still pretty chilly. Benedict Arnold was leaning against a brick wall.
“I’m pretty sure you could talk to me about it.”
“Why are you here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you talking to me right now.”
“I’ve heard enough of the inane things that school girls prattle to each other, I figure I could help you with… whatever it is that ails you.”
“What do you think ails me.”
“Most girls have boy problems.”
“This is really weird.”
“I’m really good at listening,” Benedict offered.
“Oh my god!” She sat up, not caring if the art class was leaning out the windows staring at her right now. “Shut up!”
“Well, maybe you need to wear less sunscreen. I hear pale isn’t ‘in’ anymore.”
She got up and stomped to the stairs that lead to the library.
“Hey, hey, you’re the only one who can see me…” He followed her.
“Not my problem.” October entered the library and was immediately under suspect by a little girl with pigtails who had just cracked open The Goblet of Fire. “Sorry,” she whispered.
“October.” The Librarian had no fear of the library-voice-rule. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class.”
“I was on my way.” She headed to the front desk.
“You’re twenty minutes late.”
“It was a long walk.”
“You’re not allowed to use the garden door. It’s a safety risk.”
“Then it should be locked.” October left.
The little pig-tailed girl frowned into her book.
“Oh, my dear, what’s wrong?” Mrs. White said as October entered the room.
“Nothing,” she deadpanned.
“Then you have no reason to be 20 minutes late to my class.”
October groaned and landed in the empty seat beside the door with a skidding thud.
“I’ve already marked you as absent. You can make up the assignment after school, during lunch or another free period.”
George leaned across his desk toward her, “Where were you, Toby?”
“None of your beeswax.”
He shook his head.
“Laney! I haven’t heard from you in weeks, are you okay?” Alexis stood at the edge of the soccer field and turned away from the practicing girls.
“I could say the same. A Junior with a girlfriend?”
In front of her the boys were getting off the bus, George waved to Abigail.
“It’s just a crush,” she whispered.
“You’re a teenage girl, it’s never just a crush while you’re in it’s grip.”
“Laney, you’re not one to talk. You broke up Jaz and Ray last year, just before homecoming game.”
“We grow each and every day and I was hoping you would listen to me for just a moment. I can’t talk long.”
“What, why?”
“Just listen!” Lana’s voice broke. “You need to refocus, find a new object for your affections.”
“You do realize this isn’t PS Hicksville, this is a super tiny school! There are only a handful of date-able boys—”
“Find one who isn’t dating your new friend. Friendships last longer, and are easier to maintain. Who knows, she could be your maid of honor at your next three weddings!”
“Lana Barretso. I think you have changed.” Alexis shifted weight and turned away from the fields. “Are you in rehab?”
“I’ll call when I can. Love you, Lex!” The line went dead.
“Hey! Lexus!”
“Excuse me?” Alexis put down the ball bag and gave him a withering look, “No one calls me a car.”
“It’s a luxury vehicle.”
“Then call me Lambo.”
“It’s much less girly don’t you think?”
“What do you want, who are you anyway?”
“Jay, from Algebra. Math class.”
“Thanks.” Alexis took the proffered soccer ball and tied the bag shut, slinging it over her shoulder.
“Hey, you asked me a question.”
“Right. I’m not very patient with people who call me cars.”
“Lambo, right?”
“What do you want, Ray?”
They stood in front of the open bus doors.
“It’s Jay.”
She made a motion like it didn’t matter.
“You looked good in practice, I’m glad your playing on Thursday.” He kicked off and ran to the other bus, “See ya.”
There came raucous noises from the back of the boys bus. “Oooooooh.” A blonde curly haired boy hung out of a window.
“Leave her alone, Kenzie.” Abigail came and took the bag from Alexis. “Come on.”
October slammed the door and collided with her bed face first.
“Tough day at school?”
Claude was hovering about bed height but above the carpet at the door to the garden.
“Benedict Arnold is back.”
“That traitor. I’m glad he’s never comes here.”
“Good thing you can’t leave.”
Claude floated up to the ceiling and rolled onto his stomach, resting his back on water damaged paint job.
October propped herself up and supported her head on a hand. “Are you ever going to be ready to talk about it?”
“Talk about what.” He was staring into space.
“Dying. Why you’re here.”
“Did I say you understood?” He began to melt through the ceiling, rising into the rafters, to the attic above.
“Claude. I’m worried, is all. What will you do when I’m gone?”
Just before he vanished, Claude made eye contact, “maybe I’ll figure out a way to go with you.” He was gone.
“I hope so.” October sighed and closed her eyes.
The cemetery didn’t have any gate, there was a nice wall running along the North-Western perimeter, but the Southern side ended in an upward slope, and was flanked by a young pine and oak forest on the open sides, bordering with private land. It was very common for there to be someone in the gatehouse the night of major occasions in the calender, like Hallowe’en, or a planned event, like a funeral, but most nights it was locked around ten and the cemetery was left untended.
October wasn’t the only one who had ever come here. She’d run into a secretive man whom she was sure she’d never recognize on the street, who had set up several voodoo rituals on what seemed to be random days, or at least followed a guideline she couldn’t figure out. He was regular in some ways. But aside from him, the teenagers used the peace benches very rarely for making out, certainly not this late in the year.
And October didn’t spend time in the cemetery unless she had a good reason. Company was her most frequent excuse. Mrs. Johnson wasn’t bad company when Claude was not talkative, and a few other ghosts didn’t mind her.
Jonah was a recent addition. After coming from a summer elsewhere, he had begun to do odd jobs in town, and lawn work and keeping an occasional eye on the grounds seemed to fall under that heading. When October left home at dusk, walking through the forest, as far as she could get from the homes on whose property she was trespassing, she found Jonah sitting on one of the memorial benches which couldn’t actually support much weight.
“You spend an awful lot of time here.” He remarked when he saw her.
October had to tune Mrs. Johnson out just to respond, “I heard you don’t have a learner’s permit.”
“You’ve never taken an interest in my personal life before, no need for you to start now, Toby.”
“My name is October.” She tipped the bench over with an easy push by her foot and left him sprawled in the muddy grass.
“What did I ever do to you?” He complained from his duff.
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