He couldn’t take the dead girl home. He couldn’t think of how to explain it to his parents. No, no, no. He didn’t want to take her over to John’s house either. It was far too complicated. Not just the girl, but he was covered in dirt. John wouldn’t be able to keep his big mouth shut.
“Where are we going?” the dead girl said.
“I know a place,” Miles said. “Could you please not put your hands under my shirt? They’re really cold. And your fingernails are kind of sharp.”
“Sorry,” the dead girl said.
They rode along in silence until they were passing the 7-Eleven at the corner of Eighth and Walnut, and the dead girl said, “Could we stop for a minute? I’d like some beef jerky. And a Diet Coke.”
Miles braked. “Beef jerky?” he said. “Is that what dead people eat?”
“It’s the preservatives,” the dead girl said, somewhat obscurely.
Miles gave up. He steered the bike into the parking lot. “Let go, please,” he said. The dead girl let go. He got off the bike and turned around. He’d been wondering just exactly how she’d managed to sit behind him on the bike, and he saw that she was sitting above the rear tire on a cushion of her horrible, shiny hair. Her legs were stretched out on either side, toes in black combat boots floating just above the asphalt, and yet the bike didn’t fall over. It just hung there under her. For the first time in almost a month, Miles found himself thinking about Bethany as if she were still alive: Bethany is never going to believe this. But then, Bethany had never believed in anything like ghosts. She’d hardly believed in the school dress code. She definitely wouldn’t have believed in a dead girl who could float around on her hair like it was an anti-gravity device.
“I can also speak fluent Spanish,” Gloria Palnick said.
Miles reached into his back pocket for his wallet, and discovered that the pocket was full of dirt. “I can’t go in there,” he said.
“For one thing, I’m a kid and it’s five in the morning. Also I look like I just escaped from a gang of naked mole rats. I’m filthy.”
The dead girl just looked at him. He said, coaxingly, “You should go in. You’re older. I’ll give you all the money I’ve got. You go in and I’ll stay out here and work on the poem.”
“You’ll ride off and leave me here,” the dead girl said. She didn’t sound angry, just matter of fact. But her hair was beginning to float up. It lifted her up off Miles’s bike in a kind of hairy cloud and then plaited itself down her back in a long, business-like rope.
“I won’t,” Miles promised. “Here. Take this. Buy whatever you want.”
Gloria Palnick took the money. “How very generous of you,” she said.
“No problem,” Miles told her. “I’ll wait here.” And he did wait. He waited until Gloria Palnick went into the 7-Eleven. Then he counted to thirty, waited one second more, got back on his bike and rode away. By the time he’d made it to the meditation cabin in the woods back behind Bethany’s mother’s house, where he and Bethany had liked to sit and play Monopoly, Miles felt as if things were under control again, more or less. There is nothing so calming as a meditation cabin where long, boring games of Monopoly have taken place. He’d clean up in the cabin sink, and maybe take a nap. Bethany’s mother never went out there. Her ex-husband’s meditation clothes, his scratchy prayer mat, all his Buddhas and scrolls and incense holders and posters of Che Guevara were still out here. Miles had snuck into the cabin a few times since Bethany’s death, to sit in the dark and listen to the plink-plink of the meditation fountain and think about things. He was sure Bethany’s mother wouldn’t have minded if she knew, although he hadn’t ever asked, just in case. Which had been wise of him.
The key to the cabin was on the beam just above the door, but he didn’t need it after all. The door stood open. There was a smell of incense, and of other things: cherry ChapStick and dirt and beef jerky. There was a pair of black combat boots beside the door.