Kelly Link - Get in Trouble - Stories

Creatures of the night in silly hats, Vampire Boyfriend (Oliver) and Werewolf Boyfriend (Alan) lounge on candy-striped settees and gaze with identical longing at their girlfriend, Ainslie. Immy decides against having a second piece of cake. One piece of cake really ought to be enough for anyone.

And yet, there on the floor, right under the cake (plenty left, Immy, why not have another piece, really?) and the candelabras, right there under everyone’s noses, the new Boyfriend has been waiting all this time. Immy knew, right away, as soon as she came into the sunroom, exactly which Boyfriend it would be.

It’s dark inside the box, of course. Night wrapped up in pink paper. Are his eyes open or closed? Can he hear them talking? Love will wake him.

Love, oh love. Terrible, wonderful love.

Ainslie lifts the lid of the coffin, and white rose petals spill out, all over the floor, and—“Oh,” Sky says. “He’s, um, he’s gorgeous.”

Real rose petals, real and crushed and bruised. Probably not the best packing material, but oh, what a smell is filling the room.

Not night, after all.

The Boyfriend’s eyes are closed. His arms are folded across his chest, but his palms are open and full of rose petals. His hair is dark. His face is very young. Maybe a little surprised; his lips parted, just a little, like he has just been kissed.

“Which one is he?” Elin says.

“The Ghost one,” Immy says.

Ainslie reaches out, touches the Ghost Boyfriend’s face, brushes a piece of hair back from his eyes. “So soft,” she says. “So weird. Fake Boyfriend, real hair.”

“I thought they weren’t selling those anymore?” Elin says.

“They’re not,” Immy says. Her chest feels very tight, as if she’s suddenly full of poison. You have to keep it all inside. Like throwing yourself on a bomb to save everyone else. Except you’re the bomb.

Why does Ainslie always get what she wants? Why does Ainslie always get what Immy wants? She says, “They don’t. You can’t get them now.”

“Not unless you’re Ainslie, right?” Sky says without a trace of discernible malice. She scoops out handfuls of petals, throws them at Ainslie. They all throw rose petals. When Immy reaches into the coffin, she tries very hard not to let her hand brush against Ainslie’s Ghost Boyfriend.

“What are you going to call him?” Elin says.

“Don’t know,” Ainslie says. She’s reading the instructions. “So there are two modes, apparently. Embodied or Spectral. Embodied is just, you know, the usual thing.” She waves a hand in the direction of her Vampire Boyfriend, Oliver. He waves back. “In Spectral Mode it’s like a movie projection and he floats around. You can hang out with him like that, but it’s random or something. Like, he comes and goes.”

“Huh,” Sky says. “So you can’t see him all the time, but maybe he’s watching you? What if you’re getting dressed or on the toilet or something and all of a sudden he’s there?”

“Maybe that’s why they did the recall,” Elin says. She is tearing a white petal into littler and littler pieces, and smiling, like that’s her idea of fun.

“You can customize him,” Ainslie says. “If you have a thing that belonged to somebody who died. There’s a compartment somewhere. Ew. Inside his mouth. You put something in it. I don’t know. That part seems kind of dumb. Like, you’re really supposed to believe in ghosts or something.”

“That’s not supposed to be a good idea,” Immy says. “That’s the reason they did the recall, remember? There were a lot of stories.”

“People are so impressionable ,” Ainslie says.

“So turn him on already,” Elin says. “No pun intended.”

“What’s the rush?” Ainslie says. “We have to come up with a name first.”

They debate names for the new Boyfriend while Ainslie opens friend presents. They take more pictures. Ainslie holding the bottle of absinthe that Sky made from a recipe online. They throw rose petals at her, and so there are petals caught in her hair. It’s very pretty.

Oliver and Alan in their hats, Ainslie sitting on Oliver’s lap. They change out Alan’s boy head for his wolf head. He can’t talk with the wolf head on, but he’s still very cute in his tuxedo. Cuter than most real boys.

More pictures. The new Boyfriend in his box, Ainslie leaning over to kiss him. Ainslie wearing the red suede boots her grandmother sent. Ainslie holding up the tickets that Elin got her to some show by some band they’re both into. Two tickets, one for Ainslie and the other for Elin, of course.

Immy isn’t really into music. Sky isn’t really into music, either. Music is Elin and Ainslie’s thing. Whatever.

Immy’s present for Ainslie is a beaded choker with an antique locket to sit right over the hollow of Ainslie’s white throat.

The beads are cut glass and jet.

There’s a secret in the locket.

The choker is in a little box in a pocket in Immy’s purse, and she doesn’t take it out. She pretends to search for it and then she says to Ainslie, “Uh oh. I think I left your present at home, maybe?”

Ainslie says, “Whatever, Immy. Give it to me at school on Monday.”

She passes around the homemade absinthe and they all drink straight from the bottle. That way, Immy figures, it’s harder for everyone else to tell if you’re only taking little sips or even only pretending. It’s a little bit herbal and a little like toothpaste.

“You could call him Vincent,” Sky says. She’s looking at baby names on her phone. “Or Bran? Banquo? Tor. Foster, um, maybe not Foster. But it ought to be something old-fashioned, ghost names ought to be old-fashioned.”

“Because nowadays no one ever dies,” Ainslie says, and swigs from the absinthe bottle.

Fake swigs, bets Immy. Let’s all get fake drunk and have fake fun with Ainslie and her fake Boyfriends. Because she’s fairly sure that all of this is fake, this whole night, the way she finds herself acting around Ainslie and Elin and Sky tonight, maybe this whole year. And if it’s not fake, if it’s all real, this fun, these friends, this life, then that’s even worse, isn’t it?

Immy has no idea why she’s in such a horrible mood. Except wait, no. Let’s be honest. She knows. She’s in a horrible mood because she’s a horrible friend who wants everything that belongs to Ainslie. Except maybe Ainslie’s mother. Ainslie can keep her mother.

Immy has wanted a Boyfriend ever since they came out, even before Ainslie knew about them. Immy was the one who told Ainslie about them. And then Ainslie had Oliver and Alan, and then you could buy the limited edition Ghost Boyfriend, and then there was the recall and you couldn’t get a Ghost Boyfriend anymore, and so that was okay, because then even if Immy couldn’t have a Ghost Boyfriend, Ainslie couldn’t have one, either. Except now she does have one.

Immy wants a Ghost Boyfriend more than she’s ever wanted anything.

“What about Quentin? That’s a good name,” Sky says.

“What about Justin?” Elin says.

Then they are all looking at Immy. She stares right back at Elin, who says, “Oops.” And shrugs and smiles.

“Ainslie can call Ainslie’s Ghost Boyfriend whatever she wants,” Immy says. She knows what kind of friends she is with Elin. Sometimes a friendship is more like a war.

Ainslie can keep Elin, too.

Anyway, Immy is the one who broke up with Justin. And Justin is the one who can’t get over it, and anyway anyway , Elin is the one who still has a thing for him.

Immy’s been there, done that.

Ainslie says, “I’m going to call him Mint.”

They all laugh and Ainslie says, “No. Really. His name is Mint. He’s my Ghost Boyfriend, I can call him whatever I want.”