Sherry Ficklin - Losing Logan

“I’ve been thinking about Logan.”

He looks surprised. Pulling off his grey canvas jacket he scoots down beside me.

“I thought you didn’t care about all that.”

I shrug.

“I don’t. It’s just… I dunno. Maybe it’s bringing up old feelings…of when dad died.”

Carlos lays a hand on my knee sympathetically. He came into my life just a few months after Dad’s funeral. He moved in down the block and my mom made me take over a welcome to the neighborhood pie. I remember how scared he was, how freaked out about being in a new town, at a new school. But Carlos is braver than me. He stepped in on day one and made himself known. He never hid who he was or what he wanted. I wish I had that kind of courage.

I take another drink. My head is writhing with questions, questions I know Carlos can’t answer.

His face lights up, “I know what you need.”

Yeah, a nice long vacation somewhere with padded rooms and happy pills.

“That makes one of us,” I mumble.

“How about we take a drive up Skyline, have a picnic, then go down to the Tea Room?”

I feel the sides of my mouth turn up slowly. “That actually sounds really nice.”

He grins, looking quite pleased with himself. “I know.” Then he lowers his gaze at me, pointing up and down. “But first you shower and change. I’m not taking you anywhere looking like that.”

I agree and he goes off to the kitchen to scavenge some food for our picnic. Knowing what’s in my cabinets, we might be dining on mustard and old soda crackers.

Forty five minutes later I’m clean and dressed in my soft tan cargo pants and a black tank top and Carlos has plaited my hair into a long French braid.

The drive up Skyline is a soothing one, even with Carlos’s indie rock blasting through the speakers of his dad’s Four Runner. The sky is clear and blue—the shade of blue you can’t find anywhere else on earth—and the sun is bright and warm on my arm as it dangles out the window. We drive until we hit the very top of the mountain, a place called the Garden of the Gods. It’s a large field filled with trees as big around as a truck. I spread out a plaid blanket while he retrieves the picnic basket and a bottle of sparkling wine from his trunk.

“Fancy,” I say realizing that this day’s events weren’t as spur of the moment as he’d led me to believe.

“It’s a celebration. To the first day of the rest of our lives.”

He twists off the top and bubbles ooze out, sliding down the side of the bottle, which he hands me. “Sorry, I forgot to pack glasses.”

I shrug and take a small sip. It’s smooth and tastes vaguely like apples. “Not bad.”

He winks and takes the bottle from me.

“You sure you should be drinking?” I ask, knowing that the drive down will be a windy one.

“I’ll just have a touch. Besides, I’m used to it.” He takes a small sip and hands it back to me before opening the basket. His family is one of those European types who have wine with every meal, even the kids, so his tolerance is pretty high.

As it turns out, he was able to make quite a little feast with leftovers and creativity. By the time the food was gone we’d drank about a third of the bottle and were lying back, relaxing in the sun.

“Do you think people can haunt you?” I ask quietly.

Carlos rolls onto his side, propping his head on his elbow so he’s practically pressed against me. With anyone else the closeness would feel intimate, but with Carlos it just feels comforting.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Really?”

“Sure. I think sometimes we hold onto people so tightly, we can feel them around us all the time.”

I sigh. That’s not quite what I meant.

“What about, like ghosts?”

“Ghosts?” his tone is concerned.

Ah, crap.

“Yeah, I mean, do you think that sometimes when people die, they can just, sort of…I dunno. Still be here?”

He rolls onto his back, clasping his hands behind his head.

“If the Sci-fi channel has taught us anything, it’s that ghosts are everywhere.” He chuckles. “All those poor souls and their unfinished business.”

I look over at him. “Unfinished business?”

“Yeah, that’s what keeps them here, at least according those guys on the ghost hunting show. They have stuff they still need to do or something.”

“I didn’t know you watched that crap,” I joke lightly, letting his words roll around in my head.

“Don’t judge me.” He chuckles. “Why do you ask anyway? You feeling haunted?”

I decide to be as honest as I can. “I feel like, sometimes, I can still hear him. Logan I mean. Or I see him out the corner of my eye.”

“I was that way when my little brother died. For the first little while, it was like I could feel him in the house. Every once in a while, I was sure I’d seen him, but it was always just my mind playing tricks.”

I remember the feeling. That had happened when my dad died too. Rolling over I nuzzle my head into his chest and let him rub my back until I fall asleep.

I’m dreaming of the cemetery, of Logan’s face as I screamed at him. Behind him, one of the stone angels was walking forward, sword in hand. She stopped behind him and lifted the sword over his head like she was going to cut him in half.

The crash of thunder wakes me an instant before the now dark sky opens up and begins to pour. I grab the basket as Carlos grabs the blanket and we race for the car, laughing. As soon as I’m in and buckled I look out the window and see Logan standing on the side of the road, staring at me. The smile falls off my face.

By the time we make it to the Tea Room I’m mostly dry. We pull into the narrow lot and park. Carlos reaches into the back seat and pulls out his guitar.

“Open mic?” I ask hopefully.

He smiles widely.

Inside, beyond the initial sitting room that’s all decked out in long red velvet couches and high backed Victorian chairs, the space opens into an area stuffed with small round bistro tables. The walls are covered in gold and bronze gilded mirrors and shelves that are overflowing with ornate vases, candle sticks, and other antiques. I head straight for the table in the back corner, the dimmest corner of the room. On the table, a single candle flickers in a frosted glass mason jar. Out of nowhere Lana ,the owner and resident tea expert, appears. Lana is about four and a half feet tall, with her long raven hair rolled along her hairline in a 1950’s style wave. Her skin is creased with age, her eyes narrow and warm brown. She throws her arms around me—something she does to all the regulars—and the smell of her thick lavender perfume sticks to me even after she moves on to embrace Carlos.

“I’m so glad to see you!” she says warmly, just a hint of a Korean accent in her voice. “Sit, sit.”

We slide into our chairs and she gently takes the guitar out of Carlos’s hand.

“I’ll put this by the stage for you.”

Taking her free hand to her chin she squints at me.

“You’ll try the mango ginger tonight, I think. And you, raspberry and honey?”

We both nod and smile. The first time we came I made the mistake of asking for a menu and she just rambled off about fifty teas before telling me what I would have. Since then we never actually get to order for ourselves, she just sort of chooses for us. I don’t really mind. Three years of coming here and she has yet to serve me something I don’t like.

Carlos watches her carefully lean his guitar next to the old jukebox near the stage. The stage is little more than a four foot square of tile with a microphone plugged into an old amp and a faded red stool on it. But this is Carlos’s favorite place to play. It’s quiet and intimate and the acoustics are somehow perfect.