Kelly Link - Get in Trouble - Stories

She tells her parents she’s been invited to dinner at Ainslie’s house. She gets a ride from her dad. Her mother might have waited around until someone opened the front door, but that’s why she asked her dad.

She waves— go, it’s okay, just go —and he drives away. Then she lets herself into Ainslie’s house. She stands in the hallway and says, “Hello? Mint? Hello?”

It’s early evening. Ainslie’s house is stuffed with shadows. Immy can’t decide whether or not to turn on the lights. She’s made peace with what she’s doing, it’s for a good cause. But turning on the lights? That would be making herself at home.

She looks up at the ceiling, because she can’t help it. She goes into the kitchen, and crouches down to look under the table, and is, despite herself, somehow relieved when Mint isn’t there, either.

It gets darker second by second. Really, she needs to turn on the lights. She goes into room after room, turns on lights, goes on. She has the sense that Mint is there ahead of her, leaving each room as she enters it.

She finds him finally — or does he find her? They find each other — in the rec room. One minute Immy is alone, and the next Mint is there, standing so close that she takes a step back without meaning to.

Mint disappears. Then reappears. Standing even closer than before. They’re nose to nose. Well, nose to chin. He’s not much taller than she is. But she can see through him: the couch, the exercise bike, and the sewing table. He shouldn’t stand so close, she thinks. But she shouldn’t be here.

None of this is okay. But it’s not real. So it’s okay.

“It’s me,” Immy says unnecessarily. “I, uh, I wanted to see if you were, um. If you were okay.” He blinks. Smiles. Points at her, then extends his arm, so that it goes right through her middle. She sucks in her tummy. He disappears. She turns around, and there he is again, standing in front of the closet.

He disappears again when she reaches out to open the closet. Is there, inside the closet, standing in front of his coffin. Is gone again. She opens the lid, and there is his body. It’s pretty clear, now, what he wants her to do. So she reaches into his hair, finds that button.

She’s still standing there like a freak with her fingers in his hair when his eyes open. And this is the first thing Ainslie’s Ghost Boyfriend, Mint, ever says to Immy: “You,” he says.

“Me?” Immy says.

“You’re here,” Mint says.

“I had to see you,” Immy says. She backs out of the closet in a hurry, because she doesn’t want to have a conversation in a closet with Ainslie’s Ghost Boyfriend, standing next to the coffins of Ainslie’s Vampire Boyfriend and Ainslie’s Werewolf Boyfriend. Mint follows. He stretches, arms above his head, flexing his neck, the way Boyfriends do — as if they are real boys who have, regrettably, spent too much time stored in coffins.

“I did something to you,” Immy says. “The ring.”

Mint puts his fingers up to his lips. Opens his mouth in a wide yawn. Can he feel it in there, the hair ring? The thought makes Immy gag. “You did this,” he agrees.

Immy has to sit down. She says, “Okay, I did something. I wanted to do something, because, well, because Ainslie. I meant to do something. But what did I do?”

“I’m here,” Mint says. “We’re here. We’re here together.”

He says, “We shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not? Because you belong to Ainslie?” Immy says. “Or do you mean we shouldn’t be here here ? In this house? Or do you mean you shouldn’t be here at all? Because you’re a ghost. A real ghost?”

Mint just looks at her. A real ghost in a fake boy? She did this? That look in his eyes, is that something real? He has the most beautiful eyes Immy’s ever seen. And, okay, so they’re molded out of silicone or they’re bags full of colored gel and microelectronic components, but so what? How is that really any different from vitreous humors and lenses and rods and cone cells?

Boyfriends can even cry, if you want them to.

Immy wants to believe so badly. More than she’s ever wanted anything. She says, “Who are you? What do you want?”

“We shouldn’t be here,” Mint says again. “We should be together.” He touches his mouth. “I belong with you.”

“Oh,” Immy says. “Wait. Wait.” Now she’s sure that someone is playing a trick on her. Maybe Ainslie knew, somehow, that she was coming? Maybe she booby-trapped Mint, told him to say all of this, is hiding somewhere with Elin and Sky. They’re watching all of this, watching Immy make a fool out of herself. Aren’t they?

“I love you,” Mint says. And then, as if he’s agreeing with himself. “I love you. I belong with you. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me here alone with her.”

Everyone who is alive has a ghost inside them, don’t they? So why can’t there be a real ghost in a fake boy? Why can’t a real ghost in a fake boy fall in love with Immy? Justin did. Why can’t Immy get what she wants, just for once?

Why can’t Mint get what he wants?

Immy comes up with her plan sitting on the couch with Mint, so close that they’re practically touching. Immy can hardly breathe. She studies Mint’s fingers, those half moons at the base of his fingernails, the ridges on the tips of his fingers. The creases in his palms. The way his chest rises and falls when he breathes. It would be creepy, staring at a real boy like this, the way Immy stares at Mint. A real boy would want to know why you were staring at him.

She wants to ask Mint so many questions. Who are you? How did you die? What’s your real name? What is it that made you love me?

She wants to tell him so many things.

They’ll have time for all of that later on.

Her dad texts to say that he’s about two minutes from Ainslie’s house. No time now. When Mint gets back in his coffin, and Immy is about to put him back in Spectral Mode, she can’t wait any longer. She kisses him and presses that button. It’s her first real kiss, really. She doesn’t count Justin. Lip-wrestling doesn’t count.

She kisses Mint right on the lips. His lips are dry and soft and cool. It’s everything she ever wanted a kiss to be.

Her dad’s car is pulling up in the driveway as she comes up the stairs, and before she reaches the door, Mint is there again in front of her in the dark hallway, a ghost this time. This time he kisses her. It’s the ghost of a kiss. And even if she can’t feel anything this time, this kiss, too, is everything she’s ever wanted.

On the ride home, her dad says, “How’s Ainslie?”

“Ainslie’s Ainslie ,” Immy says. “You know.”

“It would be pretty strange if she wasn’t,” her dad says. “Is she still big on those Loverboy things?”

“Boyfriends,” Immy says. “She got a new one for her birthday. I don’t know. Maybe not so much anymore.”

Her dad says, “How about you? Any boyfriends? Real ones?”

“I don’t know,” Immy says. “There was this guy Justin, but, uh, that was a while ago. He was, you know. It wasn’t serious. Like, we hung out some. Then we broke up.”

“True love, huh?”

The way he says it, jokingly, makes Immy so mad she wants to scream. She pinches her arm, turns and leans her forehead against the cool dark of the car window. Shivers and it’s all okay again. “Dad? Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Never seen one,” he says. “Don’t really want to see one, either. I’d like to think that we don’t just hang around here after, you know, we’re dead. I’d like to think we get to do something new. Go places.”

“Can I ask another question? How do you know? If it’s love, I mean.”