Page 75 of The Ghostwriter

“Hi, Mr. Taylor.”

“Are you staying for dinner, or are you going to the party next door? Looks like every kid in town is over there.”

“I need to be getting home,” Lydia says. I can feel her glancing at me, though I keep my eyes trained on the floor in front of me. “My mother’s expecting me.”

“Give her my regards,” he says.

Lydia moves in for a hug, but I sidestep around her, opening the door and holding it for her.

“What’s the matter with you?” she whispers.

“You should get home,” I say.

Pain and confusion flicker across her face, but she tucks her hair behind her ear and descends the stairs slowly, as if hoping I’ll call her back. Fat chance. Not after what she’s done.

I’ve been picturing it on a loop in my mind. Lydia walking into the clinic, Mr. Stewart holding her purse while she went into the back. I’m not great at math, but I can add and subtract. And I know she got pregnant after we started dating because I also sat through that mandatory health class last year. The one where Nurse Monahan told us twelve weeks wasthe cutoff for a safe abortion, but abstinence was the safest choice. The only one Lydia’s abstained from is me.

The party next door is in full swing, kids spilling over to the front yard. A pile of skateboards have been abandoned next to the driveway, and two senior girls sit on Mr. Stewart’s front steps, smoking, while Clapton plays in the background. All the windows are open, and I can see a few kids in his living room, lounging on his couch.

Back inside, my father is saying, “Let’s go to Ventura on Friday night. Catch a movie and miss the first night madness of the carnival.”

I wander into my room and shut the door, sitting at my desk, thinking of the way Danny and Poppy came crashing into the house yesterday. The urgent whispers behind Danny’s closed door. The way Poppy could barely look at me afterward, as if she didn’t want me to see how pathetic she thought I was.

I stare at my notebook, willing myself to open it. Trying not to imagine Lydia circling the block and returning to Mr. Stewart’s party. Cracking open a beer and watching as Mr. Stewart flips burgers on the grill and pretends there isn’t something more between them.

Poppy

June 11, 1975

I’ve never been drunk before. Sure, I’ve stolen some sips of my father’s watered-down gin and tonic when it’s my turn to do the dishes. But I’ve never been spinning, lurching drunk. Until tonight.

Margot had finally convinced me to go to Mr. Stewart’s party, and I decided the only way I could get through it was to numb myself with beer. Mr. Stewart wasn’t even watching as I opened up the cooler and bypassed the sodas, grabbing a Coors instead. It was gross, but as soon as I finished one, I started another.

I can see now why Danny likes to drink. It gives you a floaty, buzzy feeling that makes all your worries seem far away and blurry. Like you can almost not see them anymore.

I stand in the backyard off to the side and watch, my hands missing the weight of my camera. The safety I had behind the lens. I can still feel it, twisting out of my fingers, my elbows bruised from where I hit theground. I’d told Margot I’d lost it, which is technically true because when I went back to get it, it was gone.

There are about fifty kids scattered in groups talking and laughing. Some middle school boys are roughhousing with each other, and another one is dancing in a circle, holding his soda high over his head. Mr. Stewart stands at the grill flipping burgers, his hi-fi system blasting “Shining Star” by Earth, Wind & Fire through the open windows.

“The next batch of burgers will be done in five,” he calls out to the crowd.

I turn to say something to Margot, but she’s disappeared into the house somewhere. I glance again at Mr. Stewart before edging along the side of the yard and heading up the back steps into the kitchen. I stumble at the doorway and catch myself, dropping my nearly empty beer can into the grass before entering. A group of girls are gathered, talking to Mr. Stewart’s girlfriend, Amelia, who is arranging cut vegetables on a tray. “Hi there, Poppy,” she says, smiling.

I ignore her, trying to walk a straight line through the kitchen and into the living room, where Margot is seated on the couch talking to a boy from my English class. Steve? Sam? I spot an open beer on the coffee table and grab it, slugging down the warm dregs before anyone can stop me. I need to maintain my distance.

Margot gives me a worried look and says, “Check out these photo albums, Poppy. Here’s one of Danny when he was in Mr. Stewart’s outdoor group.”

I step forward and look down, the photograph black and white behind the plastic. A group of boys, some without shirts, stand in front of a tent. Mr. Stewart is in the back, Danny on the end, a half smile on his face. I struggle to focus my eyes, the image wobbling, making me feel seasick.

One of the girls on the couch says, “I wish he’d do a girls’ trip into the woods. I wouldn’t mind being in a tent with Mr. Stewart.”

The others laugh. I look up at the group of them, lounging in Mr.Stewart’s living room, feet up on Mr. Stewart’s coffee table. One girl smokes a cigarette and blows her smoke out the open window. I give a sharp laugh that sounds more like a sob. “Why are you all here?” I ask, but when I turn to find Margot, I lose my balance. I sit down hard on a chair and close my eyes. But that makes the room spin even more so I open them again.

Margot has disappeared. I look around, peering down the dark hallway that must lead to Mr. Stewart’s bedroom. His bathroom. Two closed doors but no Margot.

I push myself to standing and walk over to a wall of photographs. Mr. Stewart in college, wearing a track jersey. Mr. Stewart and Amelia on a beach somewhere. Mr. Stewart and a man I don’t recognize, arms slung around each other at the Eiffel Tower.

Margot appears again next to me and says, “I think you should go home.”

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