Annie's Ghost By MOLLY MACMANAMY

Something happened to me on Christmas Eve a couple years ago that’s been playing heavy on my mind. I can’t tell anyone about it, and I can no longer hold it in if I am to go on with my life. The only cathartic way to appease this conundrum is by writing the story in my journal. But before I tell you what happened that Christmas Eve I gotta tell you about Michael.         I’ve been best friends with Cheryl Koehler since the seventh grade when we started junior high. She was in every class I had, and when band practice started we both showed up carrying an alto sax. When we both showed up for volleyball we decided we were destined to be friends so from that moment on we were.         We started hanging out after school and weekends. We liked the same books, movies, music, boys, boys, boys, and just about everything. We had been hanging out at my house because it was closer to school, and I had a good record collection and a shelf full of books. Cheryl liked rummaging through my books and stuff, so for the first two weeks we stayed at my house after school until she had to go home for supper.         On Saturday, the second week of school, I went over to her house to take a look at her stuff. When I walked into her living room I stopped dead in my tracks. My heart stopped too. A gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous guy about my age was sitting on the couch. I never thought of guys as being beautiful, but Michael was. On the couch beside him, shoulder pads—part of the equipment for playing football—shoes and a jersey were stuck in the trousers of a football uniform. He gripped a football in his right hand.         We stared at each other until Cheryl introduced us. He was her older brother. One year older and five foot nine inches tall, I found out through the careful manipulation of a conversation later that day. How lucky can one girl get? My new best friend had a brother only a year older than me and looked like he just descended from the heights of Mount Olympus.         I thought he was the shy type by the way he stared at me, but when he turned away his features became more set, more determined. He stood up and said, “Hi,” then said he had football practice and left. I just about cried. Cheryl asked me if I was interested and I said no. But I was. Very much so.         Cheryl and I stayed best friends from the seventh grade through the ninth. Michael was always nice when I was at Cheryl’s house. Sometimes I would look up or turn my head and he would be looking at me. He’d turn away and look at something else. Sometimes I thought he looked away too quickly, but Michael was too aloof, too mysterious (too beautiful) to care about me.         The first week or two after our junior year started, Cheryl and I were in her room reading and listening to a new singer by the name of Elvis Presley singing Heartbreak Hotel. I liked the song the first time I heard it, but once I saw a picture of the singer… Well, this is no place to discuss Elvis, so I’ll just say, “Wow.” Anyhow, Cheryl went downstairs to get us a couple of Cokes and I got up to change the record—even Elvis has his limit. I heard music playing, and it wasn’t popular music. I stuck my head out the door and saw Michael’s door open. I walked to his room and stopped outside the door. He was lying on his bed with his hand behind his head listening to a record I’d never heard before.         “What’s that?” I asked.         “Jazz Goes to College,” he said.         “Oh.”         He asked me if I liked jazz.         I said, “I don’t know.”         He said the “side” he was listening to was the Dave Brubeck Quartette.         I said, “Oh,” again.         Then I got bold and said, “I think I like it.”         He sat up and told me to come in and sit down. My heart jumped. I had been invited into Michael’s room to listen to music. That doesn’t sound like much, but to me it was a really big thing. I knew Michael liked jazz, but it never occurred to me to take an interest in it so we would have something to talk about.         He told me Dave Brubeck was his favorite. I decided Dave Brubeck was going to be my favorite too, even if I didn’t know the first thing about jazz. Cheryl stuck her unwanted head in the room and asked if I was going to stay there all day. I wanted to say, “Yes, for the rest of my life,” but I said I wanted to hear the rest of the record. Michael told her if she didn’t want to listen, to get out so Annie (that’s me) and he could. After the Dave Brubeck Quartette had finished their concert Michael put on a side (“side” means “record” to a jazz aficionado) by Jerry Mulligan and Chet Baker. I decided right there and then I was going to be a jazz lover. And not only because Michael liked jazz; I really like it and wondered why I didn’t dig jazz before. After the Jerry Mulligan side, Michael played Birth of the Cool by the incomparable Miles Davis. That’s how I talk now, but at the time all that I knew was I liked it.         After Birth of the Cool Cheryl stuck her head in Michael’s room again and asked if we were hungry; she had fixed sandwiches and said she didn’t want to eat them all herself. At the kitchen table I asked Michael how he got interested in jazz and he told me he was in a band, but then corrected himself and said he wasn’t really in the band but was their manager.         “Gofer,” Cheryl said and smirked.         The name of the band was Bohemia. I thought that was cool. Two of Michael’s best friends were in the band. At first he helped set up the equipment and take it down after the gigs. After a while the band decided Michael was the PR man, and he started scheduling the gigs and handling the money—what there was of it. He couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but he was pretty good with lyrics, so he helped with the songs the band composed. He said the band’s home base was a beatnik restaurant in South Bend where, when the band took five, the local poets read their poems, and guitar players sang Woody Guthrie songs or played in the background while someone read The Hollow Men or snippets from Howl or some far out poem.         Michael told me all about the band and restaurant and then he stared at me for the longest time. Then he asked me if I wanted to go to a gig with him and help set up the equipment and be his assistant. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and my skin tingled all over like Saint Elmo’s fire. “Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes,” my inter self shouted, but I said, “Yeah. I guess. If you want me to.”         When I got home I wasn’t in the house thirty seconds when the phone rang. “Do you like Michael?” Cheryl demanded without saying hi, hello or anything in the way of a greeting.         “Well, yeah, of course,” I said, “he’s cool.”         “How cool?” she asked and waited for me to answer. But I didn’t answer.         “I saw you, Annie,” she said in the tone a mother uses when she catches her child writing on the wall. “You just about fainted when he asked you to go to that gig.”         I must have turned a very deep shade of red ‘cause my face tingled and burned. “If you say one word to him, Cheryl Koehler, I’m going to kill you right on the spot. Don’t you dare say anything, not one word,” I said or something like that.         “Oh, my God,” Cheryl said and then she giggled. “I never in my life would have guessed.”         “Well, if you want to go on living you’d better keep your mouth shut.”         “Oh, my God,” she kept saying.         “If you say anything you’d better make funeral arrangements first,” I said and hung up.         Well, Cheryl didn’t have to say anything. I was all thumbs the night of the gig, and I kept stammering and stuttering and my face kept getting hot every time I said something. I wasn’t all thumbs because the things Michael told me to do were hard. Every time I looked at him he was looking at me. I thought for sure Michael hated me for being so dumb, but every time I goofed up he smiled and came over and helped me straighten out the cables that ran from the piano or some other instrument. When ever he got near me I froze up—or melted. All that night reality was out of focus.         When he stopped in front of my house later that night he didn’t turn his car off. He just sat there. I looked down at the two albums he gave me to listen to, and for some dumb reason I thought he was supposed to open the door for me. But we weren’t on a date. I sat there watching him out of the corner of my eye, hoping he would do something. It finally dawned on me that I was supposed to open the door myself. I put my hand on the door handle. When I did he reached over and touched my arm. I froze.         I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to kiss me so badly that all other thoughts faded away. The only thought left was of Michael. Now he touched me. My heart thumped hard and kept on thumping hard. I knew he was looking at me, but I couldn’t look back.         “Annie, could you…would you want to go out with me sometime?” he asked in a voice as soft as the fluttering of butterfly wings.         When he talked all my cognitive processes clicked to a stop, and for a moment I could hear only his voice. I was airborne. “Yes,” I said. I could have kicked myself for answering too fast, but if he had asked me to go on a mission of forlorn hope with him I would have said yes just as quickly.         “There’s a play. Don Juan in Hell. Do you want to go see it?”         “Yes.” I did it again.          “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at seven.”         “Okay,” I said. I wanted him to pull me back in the car and kiss me and keep kissing me until the sun came up. But I slid out the door and his hand slipped off my arm.         I thought I was the only one in school that read Shaw, and now Michael asked me if I wanted to go see one of his plays with him. Michael was so utterly perfect. If I couldn’t have him, life wouldn’t be worth living. In bed I curled up in a ball. The sun shone bright through the curtains before I settled down enough to sleep.

Although I had read Don Juan in Hell, I don’t remember much of the play. I sat there thinking of ways to let Michael know I wanted him to kiss me when we said goodnight, but when he tried I’d push him gently away. I'd tell him that even though we’ve known each other for years, I didn’t think it was proper to kiss on our first date. I came up with a pretty good spiel and sat memorizing it while I stared at the stage where the play was going on.         When we stopped in front of my house after the play he turned his car off and put his arm on the seat behind my head. I waited for him to try to kiss me so I could start my lecture on necking and petting.         “You’re so goddamn beautiful,” he said.         I wasn’t ready for that. I hadn’t prepared a defense for: “You’re so goddamn beautiful.” His words turned my insides to jelly, and as my mind whirled, trying to unravel the mess he made of it, he kissed me. I pushed him, but not hard enough to push him away. I wanted him to kiss me—more than anything—but he had shattered my savoir faire; my best laid plans had gone awry. When we separated I again tried to tell him about my ideas on necking and petting.         “Shh,” he whispered. “I’ve wanted to do that since that first day I saw you.”         My insides were total jelly now. “Why didn’t you?” I said, and as my mind clung precariously to what little sanity I had left, he kissed me again.         That’s it. If you can’t beat them…         I threw my arms around his neck and his tongue stayed in my mouth until one o’clock in the morning when a light in the living room went on. If that light hadn’t have gone on we’d have stayed there ‘til the sun came up.         I’m getting carried away with my story. I thought I could finish it in one setting, but it’s going to take more than that. I don’t care. Michael meant everything to me and even to this day—two years later and in my first year of college—my feelings for him haven’t abated one bit. I date once in a while, but most of the time I tell who ever asks me out that I have a paper to write, or I already have a date. I want to find someone, but every guy I’ve met since Michael seems wanting. I imagine—and hope—that some day someone will come along that I can love as much as I loved him. But so far no one has come close.         It’s been a couple days since I started this journal entry, but I’m back now. I had a term paper in psychology to write, and it took all my concentration. If you look at my GPA you’d think I’m pretty intelligent, but, actually I’m a compulsive over-achiever who spends a lot of time on her studies. Especially psychology since that’s my major.         I feel rather silly telling this story. I’m writing in the first person narrative and the “you” I’m telling my story to is also me. They put people in rubber rooms for talking to themselves. If by chance someone read my story they’ll be putting me in one too.         Be that as it may.         Michael and I didn’t go to many movies other than drive-ins, and the theaters in South Bend and Notre Dame didn’t put on that many plays. Whenever we were together we looked for a place to be alone. I live near the edge of a wooded area, so if our parents were home, which was most of the time, we headed for there. After dates we made out in his car.         The only time I felt like a whole person was when I was with him. I tried to keep things under control. I let him touch my breast and other places as long as he didn't try to undo my clothes or put his hand under them. It drove me nuts, but since his hand wasn't under my skirt, I let him touch me where ever he wanted when we were necking.         The day before Thanksgiving the band played at the restaurant. The guys thought there would be a crowd, but everyone must have stayed home to get ready for the holiday because the restaurant was almost empty. The band really jammed that night. They let it all hang out and we had a lot of fun. Joe--he’s the semi-cool drummer--sang My Funny Valentine. After the first few seconds everyone stopped talking and listen. When he finished his song no one applauded. You could hear a pin drop, if you’ll pardon the cliché. Everyone sat there in a state of awe until Michael started clapping and let out a loud whistle. Then everyone started clapping and talking about how good Joe sang. That was the first time Joe sang for the band, so everyone was surprised. After that I thought Joe was the coolest.         After we got all the equipment put away Michael and I parked beside his house. That was the best place to park because it was behind the garage, and bushes hid us from the street. Michael parked his car there all the time so no one paid any attention to it. Well, we got to necking really hard, and after making out for an hour or so I shifted my position, and when I did Michael put his leg between mine. I liked it. A few minutes later he reached around my waist, lifted me and twisted me around on my back. While I was trying to figure out what he was up to he maneuvered his way on top of me and forced my legs apart. Before I knew what was happening I was in a fornicating position, looking up at him. Letting him lay on me was breaking the rules, I think, but I didn’t care; I couldn’t bring myself to make him get off. Actually, I did object but only feebly. As I lay beneath him, kissing him and wondering if I was doing the right thing, he started moving like he was doing it. Confusion, want, desire, passion, guilt, and I don’t know what all, swirled around inside me. Slowly, the “no” side of the equation no longer existed. I floated in a vacuum free of thought. Far off a storm was brewing. I never thought there would be a moment that I would do anything that was asked of me, but at that moment “thou shall” and “thou shall not” did not exist. If Michael had only known, all he had to do was take off my panties and do it.         When the storm hit I was totally unprepared for that kind of emotion. I tried to muffle a whine, and a sob stuck in my throat. He kept pushing against me, and I wanted to dig my nails into his back and bite his neck, but instead I tried to make my breathing sound normal so he wouldn’t know what he was doing to me. Then Michael’s body stiffened, and he shuttered. I thought he must be cold. When I calmed down I felt ashamed because I was sure Michael knew I had an orgasm. After he had lain on me for several minutes I felt a wetness seep through my panties. I felt so naïve. He wasn’t cold; he shuttered like that because he couldn’t control himself either. I was so wrapped up in myself I didn’t realize what I was doing to him. That eased my embarrassment, and I felt better because he couldn’t control himself any more than I could.         He started to lift himself off me, but I hugged him tight and he fell back and relaxed. We didn’t kiss or anything after that. I stayed awake most of the night thinking of how I could get Michael to do it. It would be easy enough. He’s always trying, so all I’d have to do was stop stopping him and he would do the rest. Christmas Eve would be the perfect time. Only a month away. I hadn’t figured out all the details, but we were going to find a cozy place, maybe there where we were—there in the car beside Michael’s house. We would cuddle up nice and warm under a blanket and exchange gifts. I would give him me, and he would give me him.         I finally went to sleep and didn’t wake up until a sparrow on a branch outside the car began chirping. I was going to catch it.         Thanksgiving morning Michael, his father and two uncles went hunting. They flushed a pheasant. His Uncle Bill spun around, stumbled and pulled the trigger. The blast hit Michael in the back of his head.         Everyone says that high school romances are fleeting, infatuation, puppy love, but if all high school girls are like me, the love they feel is so real, so pure, and so beautiful that it’s cruel that God gave us the heart to feel so deeply.         I’m sorry but I have to lay down my pen now.         It’s been three months since I laid my pen down. I started my story in my dorm at the beginning of the semester, and now it is Christmas day, the semester is over, and I am in my room at home. What I have written up until now is totally normal boy/girl stuff, but some of what follows is going to sound unreal, supernatural. Some of it is psychologically sound, and some is totally with out rhyme or reason. Regardless, the need for making my peace with Michael is necessary now, and I must finish it.         I can’t remember much about Thanksgiving Day or the two days that followed. Mom, Dad and Cheryl had to fill me in on a lot of things. Anyhow, we ate Thanksgiving dinner around one o’clock and afterwards my father watched football while my mother and I cleaned up and did the dishes. I complained about Dad always hogging the TV and stomped upstairs to read. At around three o’clock Cheryl called and said, “Annie, Michael’s dead.”         Cheryl told me I didn’t say anything for a while. Then I said, “What’s the joke?” She started crying and then her mother came to the phone. “Annie, Michael was killed in a hunting accident this morning.”         I don’t remember dropping the phone, but I did. I don’t remember sitting on the couch either, but Mom and Dad said they sat with me, trying to console me. But I didn’t need consoling. I told them, “Enough is enough. You had your little joke now stop it,” I gave them a no nonsense glare and ran upstairs.         My parents came to my room and tried to reason with me, but I wouldn’t listen. “Stop it! Stop it!” I screamed at them, “It’s not even funny any more.”         My mother called the hospital. When a doctor finally came to the phone, he said I was hysterical, but I would probably come out of it the next day. If I didn’t she should take me to our family doctor.         The next day I became frantic and yelled at my parents. I told them I was sick of their lies and locked myself in my room. My dad called the police and the police brought along a doctor. The doctor turned out to be a psychiatrist. He talked to me for a while through the door and finally got me to open it. He shooed the police out of the house and after an hour or so, he talked me into going to the hospital. Mom and Dad stayed with me, trying to make small talk until visiting hours were over.         The next day I woke up, and for some reason God only knows, I thought I had mononucleosis. Mom and Dad came up after lunch and sat beside my bed. I had developed a selective memory and didn’t think it a bit unusual that I was in the hospital. I understand now that my mind was suppressing anything to do with Michael and creating fantasies in order for me to maintain my sanity.         Later in the afternoon Cheryl and her parents came to visit. “Why so glum?” I asked, smiling. Cheryl didn’t say a thing. She handed me a newspaper. “What did Michael do?” I said when I saw his picture on the front page. Everyone remained quiet as I began to read:         "Rites Tuesday For Victim Of Hunting Accident/ Funeral services for Michael Koehler, 18-year-old Elkhart High School senior who was killed Thanksgiving day in a hunting…"         The walls of hell fell in on me as I realized the truth. “No, no, no,” I screamed. Never in my life did I imagine anything could hurt so badly. I screamed, “No, no, no,” and rocked frantically back and forth until two nurses rushed in. One held me and the other gave me a shot. Slowly my vision dimmed; I stopped screaming and fell into unconsciousness.         When I woke the room was dark. My mind was sluggish. I had to think where I was and then why I was there. I had mononucleosis. Did I catch it from Michael? We’d have to be careful or he’d catch it. Was Michael dead? I pushed the thought from my mind; I didn’t want to think about it. I rang for the nurse and she gave me something to put me back to sleep.         I missed Michael’s funeral. I’m glad I did. If I had seen Michael lying in a casket I don’t think my mind could have taken it. I want to remember him like he was when we were making out in his car the night before Thanksgiving.         After five days in the hospital a psychiatrist gave me a prescription for lithium and released me. I still felt like crawling in a hole and pulling it in after me, but the shrink said the best medicine was to go back to school and resume my daily routine. My teachers were really nice when they found out Michael was my boyfriend, and that I had spent five days in the hospital grieving. When they saw my school work wasn’t up to par they asked if they could help. But how can anyone help? Time would have to do the heeling.         Things went along pretty good until three days before Christmas. That night I had trouble going to sleep. After a couple of hours I was lying there in a twilight zone, half thinking, half dreaming when a shadow passed over my face, darkening the backside of my eye lids. I opened my eyes. A figure of a man was silhouetted against the window. The moon was bright and snow on the ground provided good backlighting. Was it Michael? I watched for three or four minutes. He moved like a man waiting in line for a bus. Then he turned sideways, revealing the profile of its face. It was Michael. I sprang up and turned the light on, but no one was there. I got up and looked around the room and in the bathroom, but there was no sign of anything unusual. As I think back I should have been scared out of my wits, but I wasn’t. I was just saddened that Michael didn’t stay.         The next morning at breakfast I asked Daddy if ghosts were real. He said, no, that’s why they call them ghosts. I asked him if he had ever seen an unreal ghost. He said no and then laid down his paper. “Why do you ask?”         “I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eye,” I told him. “I thought maybe Michael was trying to come back to see me.”         “I really don’t think so, Baby. You just miss him and want him to come back. I was your age when my brother died. It took a while for the pain to go away. You’re hurting now, but eventually the pain will go away.”         Maybe Daddy was right.         The next night I couldn’t go to sleep, hoping Michael would show up again, but after an hour or so I did go to sleep. I was awakened when someone sat on my bed. When I opened my eyes Michael was looking down at me. I started to sit up, but he put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down. He bent down and kissed me. It was an “I love you” kiss not a “let’s make out kiss”. I put my arms around him but there was nothing there. He was gone.         When morning came I didn’t dally around. I jumped out of bed, took a shower, brush my hair and all that stuff. It was eight fifteen when I sat down at my desk and called Father Oechtering. He said he had an appointment at nine thirty, so if I wanted to talk I’d better get there as soon as I could. I told him I’d be there in twenty minutes. I asked Dad if I could borrow the car to go see Fr. Oechtering, and for the first time ever he gave me the keys without putting me through the third degree.         When I got there Fr. Oechtering was sitting in the front pew reading some papers. He said good morning, and after I returned his greeting he asked me a few perfunctory questions then said, “Well, what’s on your mind?”         I didn’t have time to be coy so I just said, “Are ghosts real?”         He laid the papers on the pew and looked curiously at me. “Does this have anything to do with Michael?” he asked.         “Well, yeah, I guess. I was at a party at Cheryl Koehler’s house last night and I thought I saw Michael. He was sitting on the couch just like he was the first time I saw him. People say they see ghost, but I always thought ghosts were a product of overactive imaginations.”         “Well, Annie, the stress of losing Michael could have brought on a hallucination.” He sat for a moment staring blankly at me then said, “There is mention of ghosts in the Bible. I’ve never seen one myself, but I have talked to people who claim they have. Among them a few priests. Are you bothered about what you saw?”         “I’m not scared or anything like that, but I keep thinking about it. I don’t know if I was seeing things or if it really was his ghost.”         “I can’t tell you one way or the other, but I can give you a list of passages from the Bible.”         We went to his library in the rectory where he copied a list of the passages he mentioned. He chucked and said, “Well, this is one way to get you to read your Bible.”         At home I ran upstairs and dusted off my Bible. I spent the rest of the morning reading what the Bible had to say about ghosts and spirits. They do talk about ghost in the Bible. In Samuel 28:7-12, Saul asked a medium to call up the spirit of Samuel. If Samuel’s spirit came back maybe Michael’s spirit came back too.         After reading everything in the Bible Fr. Oechtering told me to read I cleaned my room. I wanted to be able to see Michael, but I didn’t want the bright lights on, so I put an oil lamp we use when the electricity goes off on the table beside my bed.         That evening after a light dinner, I got antsy waiting for bedtime. Before Mom took the cake out of the oven, I had the dishes done and everything put away. Still it wasn’t time to go to bed so I vacuumed the carpets and dusted. Finally, it was time. I ran upstairs and took a shower, did my nails and put a little makeup on. I put on my red panties and bra and looked in the mirror. They were too “come-hither”. Michael wouldn’t like that, so I put on black panties and bra. He wouldn’t like them either, so I put on white ones. I looked in the mirror again. White was okay. I looked like the all-American girl in undies. I chose a nightgown that wasn’t too sexy and dabbed a little perfume on my neck. I lit the oil lamp, turned it down as low as I could, then I went to bed and prayed for the first time in years for Michael to come to me.         I heard Mom and Dad go to bed and lay there for hours it seemed, listening to the occasional car drive by, cracking the frozen snow and ice under its tires. I tried to stay awake so I wouldn’t miss Michael if he came, but I fell into a slumber. I dreamed Michael and I were on a beach. It was a cold, overcast day and the beach was barren with only small clumps of weeds here and there. I was cold and leaned against Michael for warmth. A girl a little older than me and dressed in a gym suit like we wore for phys ed came from in back of us and said, “I know a better place.” We followed her to the water’s edge. There she said, “Follow me and hold your breath. When you hear the sound of music we’ll be there.” We dove into the water and swam downward. After swimming downward for what seemed a long time I heard wind chimes. That surprised me; I expected to hear a saxophone. I vaguely remember waking up because I held my breath for so long and took a couple breaths. In any event, I went back to my dream right where I left it. Michael and I came up out of the water in a large, crystal clear pool in an underwater cavern. We pulled ourselves up on a beach of fine, golden sand that covered half the caves floor. Michael put his arm around me and said, “I love you,” and kissed me. His kiss was so real it woke me, and I opened my eyes. “Hello, Beautiful,” he said and kissed my nose.         “Hi,” I said, “I prayed you would come.” I put my hand on the back of his head and kissed him. “Where have you been?” He put his finger on my lips and whispered, “Shhh. I’m here now and I love you. That’s all that matters.”         I accepted this answer without a qualm. Not once all night did I think that Michael wasn’t real. He looked down at me with brown eyes as dark as my own, eyes my mother likened to burnt holes in a blanket when I was a baby. Michael’s eyes burnt holes in me.         He undid my bra and stared at my breasts. I watched him, wondering what he was going to do. He kissed my neck and kept kissing me as he worked his way down to my breast. My heart thumped wildly as he put his mouth over my nipple. He sucked on it hard and pulled on it tenderly with his lips. I let out a long whine when I felt his fingers first move across my navel and then move slowly inside my panties until his fingers just touched the hair there. God, I wanted him to put his hand all the way down, but he sat up and told me to take off my clothes. As I did he watched like a child watching a magician performing a phenomenal feat. When I took off my nightgown he reached out and cupped my breast in his hand like I was his to do with what he wanted. I was.         I must have looked the same when he took off his clothes. I marveled at how long and straight his thing was. Even when my only thought was to have it in me, it reminded me of Pinocchio’s nose, sticking out like it did.         When I lay down he put my breast in his mouth again. I felt his tongue circling my nipple and his teeth biting it ever so very gently. He moved his hand softly over the top of my leg until it touched the hair between them. He pushed his fingers between my legs and slipped two of them just inside me. He moved his fingers so gently, so very gently, I thought I’d go out of my mind. And then he told me to spread my legs, and I did. I can’t begin to describe the storm that raged inside me as he lifted himself on top of me and settled between them. It was really happening. I was actually lying beneath Michael. The world faded away as I looked up in awe of him. Ecstasy hardly describes what I felt as he entered me and then began pushing wave after wave of unbelievable pleasure into me.         We made love all night, stopping only long enough for Michael’s thing to get hard again. During those interludes we did things I thought I’d never do. I was clumsy, but Michael knew exactly what he was doing. I don’t know where he learned all that stuff. I asked Cheryl later if Michael had ever done it with anyone, and she said maybe with Sue Johnson, but he only dated her for a month. Maybe being a spirit he just knew things. I really don’t know.         I’ll admit things got a little surrealistic at times, but everything that happened that night really did happened. I know they did. If they didn’t happen, how could I know all these things? I didn’t even know people really did some of the things we did. If I told someone about that night they would say I was in bed with some other man. But I wasn’t. I was in bed with Michael, and I’ve never been with another man before or after. It’s terrible, having all this stuff bottled up inside me. I can’t tell anyone. I can’t talk to Michael about it, and if I told Cheryl she’d think I was crazy—again.         I had my head on Michael’s chest, listening to his heart when Mom knocked on the door. “Annie,” she said, “it’s seven o’clock. Better get up.”         I jumped out of bed and leaned against the door. “Okay, Mom, I’m up.”         “We’re gonna eat breakfast before we open presents, so you’d better hurry.”         “Okay, Mom, I’ll be down in a minute.”         I turned around, but Michael wasn’t there. I looked in the closet, the bathroom. He wasn’t there either. I threw the covers back. I looked under the bed. I looked out the window. I turned in circles, wondering where he had gone. I rocked back and forth on the bed and started screaming, and then I started banging my head against the wall. Daddy broke down my door and grabbed me. He held me as I kicked and flailed my arms around. Mom was frantic and had to dial the phone three times before she got the police. In the hospital I was still thrashing around and they had to sedate me.         I stayed in the hospital for two weeks where my grief turned to anger. I was convinced they were keeping Michael from me. I was destined for great things, and if I married Michael they thought he would hold me back. I wasn’t released until I told them I knew Michael was dead. But I knew he wasn’t. They were in cahoots, all of them. I knew that too. At home my parents kept a close eye on me. They love me, but they want me to stay away from Michael for my own good. Michael would only hold me back from the great things I was destined for. I didn’t want to do great things; I wanted Michael.         When I went back to school I started looking for clues to where Michael might be. I was suspicious of everyone. My biology teacher took a leave of absence my first day back to school. They couldn’t fool me. It wasn’t a coincidence that that Mr. Holtz had personal problems on my first day back. It became obvious that the substitute was in on it when her first lesson was on the anatomy of the brain. They wanted to know how I thought so they could control me. Her next lesson was on the anatomy of the reproductive organs. I didn’t know why she chose that particular subject, but I knew it had something to do with that Christmas Eve Michael and I spent together.         The school nurse was in on it too. Every time she saw me she asked how I was. What she really wanted was to find out how much I knew. And it wasn’t only the nurse. Every couple of weeks my counselor called me to his office, asking how things were going. It was obvious they were both part of the conspiracy to keep Michael away from me.         Even Cheryl collaborated with the enemy. She hung around all the time, talking about Michael, but I didn’t tell her anything. They must have had something on her, or she would never betray me. There were lots of other things too, but the aforementioned were the biggest clues. I was clever. I kept my mouth shut. I would find out where they were hiding Michael.         It all seems silly now, but at the time I actually believed the whole world had an elaborate plan to keep Michael from me. But even my unreasonable grief had its limits. Slowly, the delusions weakened, and by the time I went off to college I was pretty much my old self.         I’m majoring in psychology, which I guess I already mentioned, so I soon learned that the head of the psych department at Purdue is also a clinical psychologist. I made an appointment with him shortly after my first freshman semester began and asked him if people who have hallucinations think the hallucinations are real at the time they are having them. He told me they do. He said in their minds, the hallucinations are as real as the discussion we were having there in his office. I then asked him if it was true that hallucinations involve only one of the five senses. He said most of the time.         Well, Doctor, I got news for you: all five of my senses were fired up and burning bright that Christmas Eve. I heard Michael when he told me he loved me. I smelled him, tasted him, watched him as he took off his clothes and felt his body on mine and the orgasms he gave me. I know all these things, Doctor; Michael showed me.         It’s really hard carrying around something in your head you can’t discuss with another soul. I would like to tell the whole world that Michael loved me so much he found a way to come back to make love to me. But I can’t. If I utter one word about that night they’ll throw me in a rubber room and throw away the key.         I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what happen that night, and I think I finally figured it out. The Bible says that ghosts exist, and I believe they do. It’s common knowledge that schizophrenics have hallucinations, and I was schizophrenic (acutely so) at the time. I know what schizophrenia is, and I know what paranoia and hallucinations and delusions and persecution complexes are. I know it sounds far-out, but I believe with all my heart and soul that Michael knew I was desperate for him and used my weakened state and came to me through a hallucination. That is the only explanation I can think of, and I will believe that till the day I die.         I had to finish my story about Michael in an effort to come to terms with the very strong feelings I have for him. I have to free myself of his hold on me. Not that he’s at fault; he’s not; I am. But I had to settle things with him so I can tell you about something that happened to me yesterday.         Well now, there, then. Yesterday I was shopping at Ziesel’s, looking for a billfold for Dad when someone nudged my arm and said, “Hi, beautiful.” I looked up to see Joseph Cooper standing there smiling at me. He’s the guy I told you about who sang My Funny Valentine so beautifully.         “Oh, hi,” I said, “where’ve you been keeping yourself the past couple of years?”         “In school. I’m going to Indiana. How about you?”         “Purdue. Psyche major.”         “Hey, I’m going to Purdue next year. I’m changing my major to aeronautical engineering, and Purdue’s got a good engineering school.”         “Cool,” I said. “Look me up when you get there, and I’ll show you around.”         We talked, standing there in the men’s accessory department. He was taller than I remembered. And more handsome. I asked about the band and he said he didn’t play in the band anymore. He’d like to but all the guys were in different schools. He didn’t ask about Michael. I guess maybe he had heard I took his death pretty hard.         Finally, after talking for ten minutes I said I had more shopping to do, and he said he did too. We said goodbye, and I started for the cashier. I hadn’t gotten ten feet when he was beside me again. He nudged my arm and said, “I got more shopping to do too. If it’s okay, I’ll tag along with you.”         “Yeah, sure,” I said, “I’d like the company.”         After we finished shopping we went to the snack bar at the Hotel Elkhart and talked for an hour. He told me he was learning to fly and parachute out of airplanes. I told him he was crazy, and if he needed a good shrink, I was planning on becoming a psychologist. He was easy to talk to except every time I looked at him he was looking at me. That kept me fumbling for words I would normally have no trouble recalling. I also kept getting those little waves in my stomach I get when I find a guy attractive. That hadn’t happened since Michael.         When I got home I called Cheryl. She had called me that morning to invite me to her New Year’s Eve party. I said, no, I didn’t want to go, that I didn’t feel all that comfortable around large crowds. She knew I hadn’t been all that sociable since Michael’s death and didn’t get on me—much.         Well, when I called Cheryl after shopping I asked her if she had invited Joseph Cooper to her party. She said no, but she would if I want her to. I said I did. She wanted to know if I was interested in him. I said I was. Then she said she’d invite him on the condition that I’d go to her party even if Joseph didn’t. I said Okay.         She hung up and called back a half hour later. “Annie,” she said mildly excited, “Joe said he had another party to go to, but when I told him you’d be here, he changed his mind. He says he’d be here too.”         Cool.

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