Chapter 14

“I don’t know what lies ahead for me besides Death. Even though I’ve spent the past year mentally preparing I’m suddenly scared. Death is a chasm bigger than the Grand Canyon but instead of being filled with beauty it’s filled only with darkness. Death is a black void stretching out before me. I’m at the edge now and about to step off into the abyss. Will there be a bottom? Will there be another side?

“Is there a soul after Death? I hope certainly hope so because I want to keep watch over you. If I can I’ll come back and haunt you, but in a nice way. I’ll come to you in your dreams and fuck your brains out. I swear I will.” Her lower lip was trembling now. With a shaky voice she finished with, “Goodbye, Lucas. I love you.”

The video ended. I closed the lid of the laptop, pulled the USB stick out and hugged it to my chest. I curled up on my bed and wept for a very long time.

At the end of August I was back on campus sitting on a low brick wall outside a modest apartment building. It was only ten in the morning but the sun was already beating down and baking the pavement. I sat in the shade of a maple tree and waited. Eventually Kelly emerged from the building wearing a white t-shirt and bright orange shorts. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her summer tan gave her a healthy glow. She was as lovely as I remembered.

When she saw me she did a double take and a smile broke out on her face. “Hey, Lucas. Good to see you. What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you, actually.” Her smile grew. “Do you have a minute? I need to tell you something.” She sat next to me on the wall, her thigh lightly touching mine.

“I don’t know if you heard but Zara passed away this summer.”

Kelly’s face clouded and she nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know. Brain tumor.”

“How well did you know her?”

“I guess about as well as anybody did, outside of her family. We lived together the past two years. She was my best friend.”

I blinked in surprise and took a moment to digest that. “You were best friends and lived together at Mary Hall?”

“Our first year, yeah. That’s how we met. We rented an apartment last year. That’s where you and I met.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and thought about how much I didn’t know about Zara. Finally I said, “Zara told me she lived at Mother Mary.”

“Um, yeah, that was so that guys couldn’t find her after, you know.”

“Were there many guys?” I asked quietly.

Kelly shook her head emphatically. “No, only you. It’s funny: She claimed she wanted to sleep around a bit but she never did. Meeting you screwed that up, but in a good way. How did you hear about Zara’s passing?”

I stared down at my hands, shook my head and sighed. “She sent me a video.”

“She wanted to write you but couldn’t hold a pen. I offered to write it for her, like dictation, but she said it was only for you.” Kelly hooked an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “So I suggested she record a video. Zara liked the idea that she could speak directly to you but hated that you would be able to see what she was going through.”

“Actually, seeing that made me understand where she was coming from,” I admitted. “It somehow made it more real. Were you with her at the end?”

Kelly nodded. “I saw her about a week before she died. It was so hard saying goodbye to her, not knowing if I was going to see her again.”

I asked the question that had been gnawing at me the past couple of weeks. “The Zara in the video seemed very different from the Zara I knew. Which one is the real her?”

Kelly exhaled slowly and looked around. “I would have to say both complete the picture. The Zara you saw in the video is likely the Zarale I knew our first year at school. She was funny and smart but modest and reserved when it came to guys. Zarale was interested in guys and guys were interested in her but she never dated or hooked up with anyone. That spring she started getting these blinding headaches and would have fits of swearing, as if she had developed Tourette’s. That’s when the tumor was found. She also became impulsive, getting tattoos and piercings over the summer. When Zara came back the following fall she was a different person, much more grim.”

“Knowing you’re going to die soon will do that to a person,” I offered.

“True, but it was more than that. I honestly think the tumor pressing on her brain changed her personality. She said horrible and wildly inappropriate things at times. She had dyed her hair and changed how she dressed and wanted to be called ‘Zara.’ I was afraid she was becoming more violent and bent on self-destruction. Maybe the piercings and the tattoos were an outlet for that.” Kelly paused and shook her head. “I feared I was going to lose her even before she died. But then the most amazing thing happened.” Kelly looked at me and smiled. “She met you and that somehow righted her ship. The old Zarale would come out after she had seen you and when she talked about you.”

“How much did she tell you?”

“A lot. She told me about how you’re quiet, caring, considerate, and intelligent, and about your anxiety issues.” Kelly paused and blushed. “Zara also told me about what you did together. I had a boyfriend I was sleeping with but we didn’t do anything like you and Zara did. I was a bit green with envy of you two.”

My anxiety cranked up another notch and part of my mind began counting sidewalk panels. “Did she tell you everything? Did she tell you about her project to get me out into the world?”

“Yeah. Zara ran the idea by me first but I thought it was ridiculous and risky. I tried to talk her out of it but it was no use. That whole thing was so unlike her, I sometimes wonder if that also was the tumor.”

We sat for a minute in silence. “So, you know I was a gigolo.”

“No, you weren’t. You’re a nice guy who did what Zara told him.”

Another question gnawed on my conscience. “How did you become a client?”

Kelly raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. “My boyfriend dumped me in February. He said I was getting too clingy and too fat. Turns out he had been cheating on me with some skinny-ass sorority girl for a few weeks before he got up the nerve to break up with me. The punch line is that she dumped him a month later. Then he started coming around, trying to patch things up but I refused. By spring, though, my resolve was almost gone and I asked Zara what I should do. She told me I should spend an evening with you and then I would know how much of a louse my ex is.”

“Zara told you to have sex with me?”

“God, no! That was something that just happened. Zara wanted me to see what it could be like to spend time with someone who was gentle and caring. I was so nervous at first I didn’t want to do anything. But sitting and talking with you was great and then we spent that hour simply kissing. By then I knew I wanted to experience more of you and you were so tender and loving when we were on the floor. I couldn’t help myself. I had to have you.”

“Was she there that night? I dreamt she was watching us sleep.”

“No, she had a really bad episode earlier that week and was back home being cared for by her parents.”

Silence fell over us as waves of heat radiated from every direction. There was so much I wanted to ask Kelly I didn’t know where to begin. It was evident it would take time to hear the full story about Zara. I took seven deep breaths and plunged in. “Listen, I don’t want to keep you from wherever you’re going but I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me some time.”

Kelly smiled. “What did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know, dinner maybe, perhaps this weekend.”

“Tell you what. I’m on my way to buy my textbooks. If you don’t have plans, why don’t you come with me. We can go to lunch afterwards, and then…” She let the sentence trail off.

“And then what?”

She shrugged. “Then we’ll see.”

That was a year and a half ago. Kelly and I have been living together for the past year and we’re graduating this spring. Kelly’s been accepted at State for their Veterinarian Medicine program and I have a job lined up with their Computing Resources Department. We plan on getting married next summer. I’ve never been happier.

Zara has stayed with me, haunting my memories. She did come to me in my dreams once and did as she promised. When I awoke I was making love to Kelly. I don’t know if that really was Zara’s ghost or just the memory of her, but quite frankly, it doesn’t matter to me.

All I know is, I owe her so much.