“Now, your dress makes an interesting statement,” he teased.
I sniffed, trying not to feel wounded. “So, let me get this straight: I have a pretty mouth and an ugly dress? I’ll tell you what—if you can find me the ghosts of someone’s tank top and cutoffs, I’ll get right into them, I swear.”
Joshua grinned wider and shook his head. “No, the dress isn’t ugly.” He gave my figure a quick scan of appraisal and then added, “Far from it, actually.”
“Oh,” I said again. My eyes dropped right back down to my dress. Once more I wished it covered a bit more of my skin. I wondered what kind of girl I’d been to pick out a showy outfit like this: someone bold and confident; someone flashy and mean?
Joshua, however, obviously wasn’t as bothered by my clothing as I was. He chuckled quietly and leaned back against the table with his arms folded across his chest. We sat that way for a while, him in a casually amused pose and me with my eyes glued once more to my skirt. The issue of whether or not I wore a sexy dress was the least of our worries, and I knew it.
Eventually, Joshua leaned forward again.
“So what else should I know about you?”
I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away from my skirt. “Well, how about this: I can’t feel anything I touch. Except you, apparently.”
“What? You can’t feel anything?”
“Nope. Not this bench, those trees—nothing. I can’t even open doors.”
“But what about people? I mean, you and I obviously—”
“I know,” I interrupted. “I have no idea how to explain what just happened between us. You’re the first person I’ve ever tried to touch, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to feel anyone else. Not like … well, you and me, anyway.”
“Any guesses as to why that is?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s like what I said earlier, about you being able to see me. Since you were dead for a little while, maybe you can see ghosts and you can sort of touch them. And maybe a connection like that can wake up a ghost’s senses, too. At least a little.”
“Maybe,” he mused. After a few seconds he added, “That’s kind of a sad statement on the afterlife, though, isn’t it? That you can’t feel anything unless someone else dies, too?”
I nodded vigorously, still staring at my dress. Once again Joshua didn’t respond but instead fell into a thoughtful silence. Eventually, I peeked up at him, just in time to see what I thought might be a rare dark look pass over his face. It stung me, that look—as if Joshua might have finally reached the crucial moment when he realized how crazy all of this really was. But instead, he just shook his head and gave me a sympathetic smile.
“You know, Amelia, being dead must really … suck.”
I barked out a surprised laugh. “Yes, Joshua. It does, in fact, suck.”
We chuckled together. In our laughs, I could hear the strange mix of relief and tension. Then Joshua furrowed his eyebrows and rubbed his hands together.
“So ….”
He dragged the word out awkwardly. He sounded cautious now, maybe even afraid to continue. From the tone of his voice, it seemed as though he wanted to ask me something but wasn’t sure how to go about it. I met his eyes and nodded in encouragement.
“Whatever you want to say, Joshua, just say it.”
He cleared his throat and then blurted out the question. “How long have you been dead?”
I frowned, trying to form an explanation that wasn’t scary. “I’m not sure about that one, either. A while, I think. There was a lot of aimless wandering for an awfully long time. I’ve found it pretty hard to keep track. I’d have to guess it’s been … years? At the very least.”
Letting out a low whistle, Joshua muttered the word “years” under his breath.
“At the very least,” I repeated.
“And you really can’t remember anything?” He sounded skeptical again.
“Nope. Well, nothing but my name.”
“Not where you grew up? Not who you parents were?”
“No.”
My voice cracked a little with that answer. I hadn’t thought about that until now—the fact that I’d probably had a family, once. A family I’d loved, or one I didn’t even want to remember? Maybe, like the information on my tombstone, the details of my former home life were better left a mystery?
Luckily, Joshua didn’t seem to notice anything unusual in my response, because his questions kept coming. And soon they drew me out of my dark thoughts with surprising ease.
We went on like that for a while, him as interviewer and me as interviewee. Some of his questions were serious and sad (did I remember my childhood home), and some were pleasantly inane (did I ever own a pet iguana, because his sister did, for about two weeks before their parents made her get rid of it). My response to every question was inevitably negative, mostly because I didn’t remember the answer.
But strangely, each question made me less depressed about my lack of memory. I began to feel as if I said the word “no,” not because I’d lived the sad life of the waking dead, but as part of some verbal game I was playing with him; as if I would only provide him a “yes” when he asked the right question.
With each question my smile began to grow. Before long Joshua’s face reflected mine, as if my enthusiasm for this game was infectious.
“Do you remember which flavor ice cream you liked best?”
“No.” I laughed. “I don’t remember if I even liked ice cream.”
He prepped for his next question by frowning and resting his chin on one fist for dramatic effect. “Do you remember your school mascot?”
“Nope. I don’t remember school at all. So there is something positive about being dead, right?”
He started to chuckle, then abruptly jerked upright as though he’d been pinched. Checking his watch, he swore under his breath. He jumped off the park bench and began to run toward the parking lot. If I weren’t so confused by his sudden behavior, I might have laughed when he skidded to a stop and spun around to face me again, kicking up a dramatic cloud of red dirt.
“Come on,” he yelled, and turned to run back to his father’s car. Without thinking, I obeyed the order and ran after him.
As he fumbled to unlock the driver’s side door, I cleared my throat.
“Um, Joshua? What’s wrong?”
“We’re going to be late.”
“For what?”
He ignored my question. “Lunch is over in about ten minutes.”
“And?” I asked, growing a little frustrated with the mystery.
“And we’re going to have to break about forty-seven traffic laws to get there on time.”
“To get where?” I threw my hands in the air, completely baffled.
“Class.”
The word was muffled as he ducked into the driver’s seat. Within seconds he threw open the passenger side door in front of me and leaned out.
“Come on,” he repeated.
“Come … to school? With you?”
“Of course.”
The