No Return: A Contemporary Phantom Tale (13 page)

“Who else hates Carrie Gustafson?” A pause. “Maybe that should have been, ‘who
doesn’t
hate Carrie Gustafson?’”
 

“Oh, come on, Randall. Not everyone hates her.”

“Uh-huh.” He sounded unconvinced.

“Okay, I’ll admit that she doesn’t do much to make herself popular. But she’s got friends, and while she’s irritating, this was a pretty drastic sort of revenge for someone who’s just irritating, don’t you think?”

“True. Unfortunately, you’re the only person I can think of who has a real reason to do something like that. Of course you didn’t do it—but I’m glad that only you, Meg, and I know about the whole Long Beach Opera fiasco.”

I hoped that was everyone who knew about it. I’d sworn Meg to secrecy, of course, but Meg had a tendency to run off at the mouth in the heat of the moment. All I could do was hope she was distracted by something else and wouldn’t mention it to anyone.

“Maybe you have a guardian angel.”

“An avenging guardian angel?” I retorted. “Nice try.”

He laughed. “Okay, that was a long shot, I admit.” Then he continued, “I’ve got a good alibi, anyway. I was at a studio session until past midnight. Seen by tons of people, with audio evidence to back me up.”

“How’s that going, anyway?”

So we drifted off into talk about his budding career as a studio musician until I absolutely had to hang up and run, knowing that I would probably be late for work even as it was.

Still, the thought nagged me as I jumped into my car and sped off to work, praying that the god of street lights would at least grant me decent through-put so I’d only be five minutes late to work instead of ten. If it wasn’t Randall who had put the hair remover in Carrie’s shampoo, then who? More importantly,
why
?

And if I really had a guardian angel, as Randall had joked, it was definitely an angel of the Old Testament sort—vengeful, righteous, and dangerous. All I could hope was that, if he really did exist, there would be no more reasons for anyone else to call down his wrath.

Chapter 10

I still couldn’t shake that feeling of being watched, and more than once found myself pausing in odd places—the grocery store, the school parking lot, even my own front porch—and stopping to glance over my shoulder. Invariably there was no one, nothing that should have caused my disquiet, but it remained, a faint ghost of doubt that seemed to follow me wherever I went.

Otherwise, the days slipped by, a blur of classes, work, and far too infrequent dates with Randall. He managed to keep a good face on the situation, even joking that two people with schedules as crazy as ours had no right to be seeing one another, but we both kept at it, unable to deny the attraction. Better to have a few stolen hours together here and there than nothing at all.
 

Carrie Gustafson had withdrawn from classes for the rest of the semester, and her house mate Jessica seemed fairly sure she wouldn’t be back for the rest of the year.

“It’s kind of awful,” she said one day, only a few days before Thanksgiving. She and Meg and I had managed to get together at lunch for a sandwich and some Starbucks.
 

I sipped at my guilty pleasure, a chai latte, and wrapped my hands around the cup for warmth. Whoever said California didn’t have any seasons had obviously never lived here. Most of November had been chilly and damp, one storm after another pushing in off the Pacific.
 

Meg took a sip of her own coffee. She prided herself on drinking only the real thing—no frou-frou cappuccinos or mocha lattes for her. Today it was a double shot of espresso. “So she really moved out?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jessica shook her head. Like Meg, she was darkly pretty, an exotic blend of Spanish blood and Native American genes. “Thank God her parents were nice enough to pay her part of the rent through the end of the year or we would really have been stuck. There’s no way we could have found someone to rent the bottom flat so close to the end of the semester.”

Regular classes ended the week after Thanksgiving, and I had to say I was looking forward to the Christmas break. Not the holiday so much—that had been pretty bleak the last few years—but at least the prospect of having some time off was exciting.

“Her hair just isn’t growing back very well,” Jessica continued. “You know how those hair removers advertise that the new hair will grow in sparser and lighter? Well, that’s exactly what’s happening to Carrie’s head.”

Both Meg and I flinched, and I put up a protective hand to my own hair. As much as the unruly curls might drive me crazy from time to time—especially now, when straight, sleek hair was the style of choice—the thought of it being completely gone made me appreciate it all the more. At least it was long and thick and healthy.

“So now they’re on to Rogaine. Carrie might be back next semester, but I wouldn’t count on it. Her parents told Lisa and me to go ahead and rent out the bottom flat.”

Meg turned to me, the gleam in her eyes telling me she had just had what she considered a brilliant idea. “Why don’t
you
rent out the bottom flat, Christine?”

I gave her a sour look even as Jessica said, “Hey, that’s a great idea!”

“What’s it going for?” I asked in quelling tones.

“Eight-fifty.”

Ouch. My own rent in Pasadena was only six hundred. “Too rich for my blood,” I said, taking a sip from my latte.

“Well, you could always get another roommate,” Meg said. “Carrie had it to herself because no one could stand to live with her in such close quarters.”

“It would make more sense for you to live closer to campus,” Jessica added.

“
And
you’d be closer to Randall,” Meg chimed in.

I put up my hands in mock defense. “Was this premeditated?” I wouldn’t put it past Meg to get wind of the opening in Jessica’s house and arrange for us all to have lunch together.

“No,” they both said simultaneously, and then started to laugh.

“Well, as much as I’d like the two of you to arrange everything for me so neatly, I really like it where I am. Besides, I’d have to get another job if I moved down here.” Despite its inconveniences, Pasadena was safe, Pasadena was
home
—I’d lived there all my life and didn’t feel like uprooting myself in the middle of my senior year, even though there was a pretty good chance I’d be going on to graduate school at USC.

“Well, Christine, as much as George loves you, I’m pretty sure
L’Opera
would survive if you left.” Meg gave me a considering look. “But I can see you’ve got that so-attractive stubborn-mule look going right now, so I’ll shut up.”

“Thank you.” I took a bite of my sandwich. “I hope you’re not offended, Jess.”

“No prob. I’ve got three people interested in it—I just thought I’d give you the first shot in case you wanted to move.” She drained the last of her frappuccino and said, “Well, gotta run. Dr. Leinert has been on the rampage lately—if I’m late I might get my head nailed to the wall. See ya.”

Meg and I both waved, then settled back in to finish the rest of our lunch, since our next class didn’t start until two.

“So what’s the deal with you, anyway?” Meg asked.

I blinked. “What?”

“I thought you’d jump at the chance to dump that crappy commute—and be closer to Randall. Or is that not working out?”

“It’s ‘working out’ as much as it can right now. I work nights, he’s working more and more nights with all this studio stuff he’s doing—plus squeezing in a little something called a master’s thesis on the side.”
 

Not for the first time, I found myself wondering exactly how Randall viewed our relationship. I assumed he considered me his girlfriend, for lack of a better word, but we hadn’t made it much past the dinner-and-a-movie stage, aside from a couple of fairly intense make-out sessions on his couch. We’d both emerged from them strangely satisfied yet hungering for more, but I still wasn’t ready to go on from there. My lack of experience frustrated Randall, I knew, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. As much as I enjoyed our physical contact and the time we spent together, I couldn’t help but be nagged by a sense that I should be feeling more. Maybe it was just me. I’d never been in love before—what exactly
was
it supposed to feel like, anyway?

Meg sat for a moment, watching me carefully. Sometimes one could forget the sharp intelligence she hid behind the run-on chatter and trendy clothes, but it was always there. She didn’t miss much. “Okay, you like Randall a lot, but you’re not really sure he’s Mr. Wonderful. Something like that?”

“Maybe.” I sipped my latte, then said, “Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s Mr. Wonderful. I’m just not sure if I’m
Ms.
Wonderful.”

“Well...” She gave a very Latin shrug. “There’s no law against just having fun. It’s not as if you have much basis of comparison, right?”

“Absolutely none.” I laughed. “Pretty pathetic, huh?”

She smiled at that. “I’ve seen worse.” Then she sobered a little and said, “There’s something else, though. Something’s bothering you.”

I tried to look nonchalant. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You just seem...jumpy. Always looking over your shoulder.”

Caught, I said, choosing my words with care, “I don’t know, Meg. It’s just kind of a feeling, an uneasiness. Like someone is watching me, but when I turn around, there’s no one there.” I shivered a little and pulled my jacket closer around me. “I’m probably just getting paranoid in my old age.”

She frowned. “I don’t know. You never struck me as the paranoid type. If anything, I’d say you were too trusting.”

I would have said the same thing about myself a few months ago. I said, picking my way through the words as if I were negotiating a mine field, “This whole thing with Carrie—”

“Do you know something?” she asked, leaning forward eagerly.

“That’s the whole point! I don’t
know
anything. But I can’t help feeling as if somehow it was connected with me. Everyone agrees that Carrie was an annoying bitch, but no one had any real reason to do something that horrible to her. No one except me, that is.”
 

“But you didn’t do it.”

“But I didn’t do it. Exactly. So what if someone decided to enact the revenge I wouldn’t take myself?”

She slumped back in her seat, absently biting her lower lip. “Maybe that’s true. But who?”

“How would I know? I don’t know many people who can break into an occupied house, mess around in a bathroom, and then slip back out without being caught or leaving any sign of forced entry, do you?”
 

“Not too many, no.”

“So there we are.” I shook my head. “Maybe I’m just being egocentric. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with me at all. But it just keeps bothering me, nibbling at the back of my mind.” I shut my eyes for a moment, thinking. “And then there was that guy at the autumn recital—”

“
What
guy?” She sat up then and leaned her elbows on the table, fixing me with a stern gaze. “You didn’t say anything to me about any guy at the recital.”

“Because it was so
stupid
, Meg!” Frustrated, I pushed the remains of my sandwich away and met her stare. “There was this guy at the back of the audience at the recital, you know, standing in the back with everyone else who was there to tape their kid’s performance. But he wasn’t taping anyone. He was just standing there, waiting. Like he was waiting for me, since I was on last.”

Meg sat very still, watching me. She obviously could tell there was more.

“If that had been the first time I’d seen him, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. But I literally bumped into him a week or so before as I was leaving class. He was reading the poster for the
recital
, for Chrissake!” I shook my head. “I thought it was sort of weird at the time, because he looked out of place, but I didn’t think much about it until later, at the recital, when I saw him again.”

Meg frowned. “What did he look like?”

“God, I don’t re—” I began, and then, catching Meg’s glare, amended what I had been about to say. The truth was, I did remember, or could if I tried. “Okay, probably late thirties or early forties. Brown hair. He was wearing sunglasses the first time I saw him, and it was too dark in the recital hall for me to tell then what color his eyes were. Not tall or short. Nice build—he looked like he might work out. And fairly nice-looking. Not drop-dead or anything. But—” I paused.

“But you wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers,” she said, and at that I had to smile.

“Something like that.”

“Well, as stalkers go, you could do worse. At least he’s not a gargoyle.”

I gave her a pained look. “Meg, that’s not even remotely funny.”

“Sorry.” She actually did look somewhat contrite.

“Besides, he could be anybody. He didn’t look old enough to be a parent, but he could be a brother or uncle, or a grad student from another school...who knows? I just thought that it was a strange coincidence.”

Tapping a manicured fingernail on the table top, Meg was quiet for a moment, thinking. “It’s not much,” she admitted, “but I’m glad you told me. I’ll keep an eye out, too.” Then she looked past my shoulder, smiled and waved, and said, “Here’s Randall. Probably time for me to duck out.”

“You don’t have to go—”

“No, it’s cool.” She grinned. “Got to keep watching for your mysterious stalker. And if he’s as cute as he sounds, maybe I’ll just ask
him
out!”

She bounced away from the table before I could say anything in protest. I sat there, shaking my head, even as Randall came around the table and pulled out the chair Meg had just vacated.

“You look like a gaffed fish,” he said amiably. “Meg up to her usual tricks?”

“You have no idea,” I replied. Just when I thought she couldn’t shock me anymore—

“I’m glad I found you,” he continued. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Immediately I sat up a little straighter. His tone was serious, his hazel eyes intent.

“Don’t look so worried.” He grinned. “I just wanted to see if you would come with me to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner.”