‘Cause it’s all right, all right to see your ghost.

 

She comes to my door and knocks, my new neighbor. I’m not dressed so I make her wait while I hunt for a t-shirt, and finding only a mangy one, throw it on and answer the door. Bread is burning in the toaster and the washing machine rumbles angrily in the closet. The stereo is on at top volume. She looks confused and looks past me, down the hallway. So much ruckus for one little person, yes, I know.

She grins and her gums are big and distinct; they are like the fleshy pink gates to her throat.

Hi, she says cheerily. You’re –

Right, and you’re Polly. I remember. Hi.

Hi! Soooo, I wanted to let you know that we’re going to be building a few cabinets upstairs, so it might be a little loud.

That’s totally fine, I say. How’s it going up there…you and Ed, right?

Right! We’re good, it’s good!

She keeps looking behind me and down the hallway. It takes all of my restraint to not say, No, just me in here. It’s just me.

We chat a bit and she suggests we share wireless internet, split the bill. I imagine Polly and Ed carefully counting out seven pounds and sliding the fat coins under my door on the first of the month. I imagine myself sitting on the couch alone and hearing the coins scratching along the hardwood, all seven of them, jingle-jangling against one another. I feel backed into a corner, because while it feels silly to accept seven pounds from a neighbor every month, it feels sillier to say no.

Maybe we could go grab a drink sometime, she suggests.

Polly, I would really like that, I say.

–

I knew they wanted to be my friend. When I met them, she stood on the balcony above and he came walking down the street with a box. Their big day, moving day. I’d already lived here two weeks, so I’m just the girl downstairs, the sweet one who joked about not having a cup of sugar to lend, and both their sets of parents laughed and smiled. The goofy singleton downstairs, that’s me. 

–

Tonight, she stands in my doorframe and I ask, So…are you guys married?

And then she laughs. She laughs and shakes her head like I’ve just said the most disarming, cutest, sweetest,  kindest thing in the world. A big, gummy, happy and embarrassed laugh. 

I think, Oh shit. Oh, sweetie. I know that laugh. 

–

That laugh, it’s the laugh of a girl in love and is living with her lover, so certain that it’s only the beginning. A girl who recognizes that the world recognizes her love. It’s the laugh of someone who is so thick with love and sex and lust that it just takes over everything else like a sugary glaze. It’s the laugh of someone who thinks she’s about to get married. Maybe not tomorrow or next month, but soon. Very soon indeed.

I’ve been you, Polly. Fuck, who am I kidding? I’ve been you twice. The first time, three years. Didn’t work out. The second, a year and a half. Didn’t work out.

I know that laugh so well. I’ve laughed that laugh. The fake modesty and the self-assuredness of it all. I’ve heard it spill forth from the mouths of my friends and that’s when I knew they were in love and that’s also when I felt most afraid because we were all about to lose one another and we were about to lose ourselves.

Some of us did lose ourselves. Be honest. I count myself among them, too.

–

I have not kissed. I have not fucked. I have not held hands, or been on a date. I have not let go of the idea that, in the eyes of God, we are perfect. The prophet said so, but only I listened.

–

You call and we talk. It’s been a month or so. Now, on the phone, you’re good at being what you’re not – confident and settled and concerned. My stomach turns to knots and I wonder if it was better when we weren’t talking. I squint into the sun, feeling wrinkles forming in the corners of my eyes, and holding the phone to my ear, I suddenly I feel old. I feel tired. I feel like giving you one-to-three word answers, and so I do.