I'm on Fire

Club Elysium was nearly empty on a Tuesday night, so from his seat in the gloom in a back corner of the bar, Seth Darrow had a clear view of the front door. Except for an empty (but not clean) glass ashtray, the scratched wooden surface of the table in front of him was barren. Seth hunched over it, leaning on his elbows, gazing at the club’s entrance with a look of feverish anticipation on his face. The light of the setting sun shone through the dingy panes of the tall, wide windows on either side of the glass plate door, bathing the worn wood of the tables and booths around him in a gentle pink glow.

For a moment he was distracted by the first few chords of some pop song he didn’t recognize blaring from a cell phone at a table beside him. The solitary girl who was sitting there snatched it up and leaned her head sideways to slide the phone under her long strands of blonde hair. “Where are you?” she said by way of greeting, in a voice that radiated impatience.

When Seth looked back towards the door, Melanie was there, standing before him, looking down at him with an expression that was a mix of confusion and amusement. Seth hadn’t heard the front door open or shut, but he hadn’t expected to. Melanie’s lips curled into one of those cynical half-smiles that had always driven him crazy. “Hiya,” she said.

“Mel,” he whispered, standing up awkwardly and stepping out from behind the table. He reached out his hands to her and embraced her, burying his face in the long brown curls of her hair. “You came.”

“I said I would, didn’t I?” she replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

Seth squeezed her ever tighter, as if assuring himself that she was real. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long. I was beginning to think I’d never see you again.”

Melanie pulled away from him just enough to smile wryly up at him. “Everyone dies, hon’.”

“Yeah, but I mean… You could have gone anywhere. I know you said you’d meet me here, but…”

“We made a vow.” Her smile faded slightly. “And unlike you, I keep mine.”

Seth released her from his embrace but still held onto her arms. The look of joy on his face faltered. “Honey, I—”

“Oh, let’s not talk about it,” said Melanie with a forced smile and a quick shake of her head. “I’m sorry for bringing it up.” She grasped the lapels of his denim jacket and pulled him close again. “I won’t spoil this moment by bringing up ancient history. Nobody’s perfect, Seth. That’s something I’ve learned through the years. And since this morning,” she smirked, “it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”

“You look exactly like you did the last time we were here.”

“As do you.”

“Do I?” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t see my reflection in anything, so I have no idea how I look.”

“Well, trust me, you do.” She pulled open his jean jacket to reveal a black Bon Jovi T-shirt. “You’re even wearing the same clothes.”

“So are you,” he said, grinning down at her acid-washed miniskirt beneath an oversized, one-shoulder bearing sweatshirt splattered with Japanese characters. “You look like Pat Benatar. But taller.”

Melanie pulled away from him gently and slid down the bench behind the table at which he’d been sitting. He sat down beside her. “I’d sit across from you so I could get a better look at you,” he said apologetically, “but some asshole pushed the chairs in.”

She leaned into him. “I don’t mind. I’d rather sit next to you.”

Seth put his arm around her and pulled her close. For a while they just sat there like that, while Melanie looked around at the nearly vacant club. “This place has changed a lot since the last time we were here,” she said.

He nodded. “Yeah. It used to have a jukebox, remember?”

“How could I forget? We were the only two people dancing in the entire place.”

He laughed. “To ‘Careless Whispers’ by Wham.”

“And then you got down on one knee, in front of the whole place, and asked me to be your wife. It was the most spontaneous thing you ever did. The guy who wouldn’t even hold my hand in public.”

“I didn’t care how ridiculous I looked that night. I was in love.”

She chuckled. “You were drunk.”

“I was drunk in love.”

“God, you look so young,” she said, and her hand went up to caress his face. “I can’t get over it.”

“We were sitting at this very table,” he said. “I’ve been saving it for us. Waiting for you to show up.”

“How does a ghost reserve a table?”

“Just by being here, really. When somebody tries to sit here, it isn’t long before they feel a chill and get the feeling they’re being watched. They usually get up and leave unless they’re drunk or the club is full.”

“So,” she said with an impish grin. “All this time you’ve just been sitting here, chilling.”

He laughed. “Literally.”

They were silent for a few moments as they stared into each other’s eyes. “Can I kiss you?” Seth asked suddenly and awkwardly.

Melanie smiled. “You have to ask?”

“It’s just… After all this time.”

She leaned into him and pressed her lips against his. His hands reached up to gently touch her face. When she pulled away he noticed her face was flushed and wondered how a ghost could do that, and whether it was his own imagination that made her look that way. Were their appearances real or fabricated from each other’s memories?

“Jesus,” she said in a voice that was soft as a sigh. “I forgot what a good kisser you were.”

“I was a good kisser?” he asked, wondering if his face was flushing as well. It felt like it was.

“The best. Why do you think I married you?”

“I always wondered,” he said. “I didn’t have anything going for me when we met. You were in college and I was working at a fucking K-Mart.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, but you had potential. I knew eventually you’d find your way.” Her smile disappeared suddenly as a thought passed visibly over her face, and she looked down at the tabletop. “Look, it’s still here,” she said, pointing the neon pink lacquered nail of her index finger at a crudely carved heart with “M+S” etched inside it.

“I know,” said Seth, smiling. “Can you believe it, after all these years?”

“The owners of this dump really need to renovate.”

“At least they cleaned the blood up.”

Melanie laughed. “That was so macabre. Our blood oath. I couldn’t believe it when you pulled out that switchblade and cut your palm open.”

“It wasn’t a switchblade, honey. You’re thinking of West Side Story. It was a butterfly knife.”

“You remember West Side? That was so long ago.”

“How could I forget? You were playing Maria. I watched it four times. And I hate musicals. You were the whitest Puerto Rican I’d ever seen.”

She laughed. “And Riff was played by that German exchange student. ‘Ven you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all zee vaaay!’”

“So gay,” said Seth, chuckling.

“So what possessed you to do that, anyway? It was so not you.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

“I was like, Why does he have a knife on him in the first place?”

“This was Miami in the late eighties. Haven’t you ever seen Scarface? The place was crawling with Cuban immigrants. You might not remember, ‘cause we only came her once and only for a few days. But this was a rough neighborhood back then. It’s been yuppied up a lot since. It’s all hip and fashionable now. Jews everywhere. On Friday nights it looks like an episode of Friends up in here. I wanted to protect you.” He took her hand and pressed her palm against his cheek. “I was surprised when you let me cut yours.”

“I thought it was romantic. Excruciatingly painful, but romantic. Suddenly you were talking about letting our blood run together, and swearing that when we died, wherever we were, we’d come back and meet here, at the place where you got down on one knee and proposed to me. How could I resist? I was crazy about you. I still wear the scar. After all these years, it never healed. Every time I look at it I think of you.” She pulled her palm from his face and looked at it. Her brow furrowed in consternation. “It’s gone.”

“So is mine,” he said, holding up his hand to show her. “I guess money’s not the only thing you can’t take with you when you go.”

“Well, all that matters is that it worked. We’re both here.”

He took her hand back and smiled. “So you meant it.”

“Yes, at that moment I did. I was a different person back then. And so were you.” She reached her free hand up and ruffled his hair. “How does it feel to have hair again? You finally get your hair back and nobody can see it.”

“You can see it. That’s all that matters.”

“You’ve been dead a long time now. I suppose you’re used to being invisible.”

“Time works a little differently on this side of the grave. You’ll see what I mean.”

“I suppose I will.”

“I’ve sat here for almost twenty years, waiting for you. Sometimes it seemed like only a few days had passed, and sometimes it felt like a thousand years. I never left this place because I was so scared you might come and I wouldn’t be here. Then you might go out looking for me and we’d never find each other. Even after closing time, I’ve stayed here. Unless, you know, there’s a really good movie playing at the theater down the street. I figured I could sneak out for a couple hours at a time. I’ve watched a million movies, I swear.”

“You must have been so bored.”

“Not always. Sometimes,” he said with a mischievous grin, “after the bartender closes the place? He gets it on with his girlfriend right over there.” He pointed to a plush booth in the opposite corner.

Melanie laughed. “And you watch?”

He shrugged. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Melanie was silent for a moment, looking at the blonde girl with the phone, who during their conversation had been joined by a handsome but nervous-looking young man. Without looking at Seth, she asked him, “Aren’t you going to ask me how I got here?”

“I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

“You’re going to laugh.”

“When you tell me how you died? I strongly doubt that.”

“No, you’re gonna. It’s ridiculous.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense, Mel. You’re the one who brought it up.”

“Oh, okay. Remember Max?”

Seth’s smile disappeared. “What, Mad Max? That crazy mechanic?”

“He’s not crazy, honey. He’s a schizophrenic.”

Seth looked at her incredulously. “He talks to himself.”

Melanie shrugged. “Well, that’s just what schizophrenics do.”

“So what about Mad Max?” An expression of disgust was distorting his features.

“Well, after you died in the car wreck… After you and Amy died… Can I talk about this without you getting jealous? I haven’t seen you in nineteen years and it seems kind of awkward to talk about this now.”

“You wanted to tell me this,” said Seth, anger now creeping into his voice. “So tell me.”

Melanie nervously brushed her hairsprayed bangs out of her eyes. “Well, after you died, Max was there for me. He was the only one of our high school crowd that still hung out with me, after you scared all my other friends off.”

“Oh, please, Mel. Don’t start in with that ‘you were such an alcoholic’ routine again.”

“But you were, Seth,” retorted Melanie, her face darkening. “You were such an alcoholic.”

“I liked a drink every once in awhile.” Seth eyed the bar with a tormented look. “God knows I could use one right about now.”

“And besides being an alcoholic, you were jealous. I lost a lot of my friends because of you.”

“But all of your friends were guys,” Seth said in an exasperated tone. “And they all wanted you.”

“I was in the drama club, Seth. Of course all my friends were boys. And no, they didn’t want me. That was all in your imagination. Your alcoholic, jealous imagination.”

“Even after all these years, you still don’t understand how a man’s mind works.”

“Not all men are like you, Seth. Not all men look at women as conquests.”

“Oh my God,” said Seth in a voice so loud that heads would have turned if he’d been alive. “Can we just drop this and get to the part where you die?”

Melanie continued as if she’d never stopped her narrative. “Max took care of me after the funeral, always dropping by to see how I was doing and running errands for me, and… Well, he and I ended up getting married.”

“The fuck?” spat Seth. “You married Mumbling Max?”

“He was there for me, Seth. You were gone.”

“Well of course he was. He was always fucking obsessed with you, and don’t pretend you didn’t know. Even someone as deluded as you must have sensed that. He probably popped a boner the moment he heard I was dead.”

“Seth, don’t talk like that.”

“Did he show up at my funeral?”

“Well… yes. Didn’t you know that?”

“How could I know that? I wasn’t there. I was here, just like I said I’d be.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“But why was he there?”

“He was showing his respects.”

“He was swooping in like some… grease monkey vulture, to take my girl. Did he show up in overalls?”

“Oh, Seth.”

“Don’t ‘Oh Seth’ me, Mel. And don’t play stupid. You know that creep was hot for you. Ever since high school. Why you think I was so upset when you started taking your car to him for servicing?”

“Why would I take it to someone I didn’t know when I could support a friend’s business? Besides,” she smiled conspiratorially, “he gave me a discount. ‘Friend pricing’ he called it.”

Seth shook his head, grimacing. “I knew that motor-headed asshole had it in for you. Always lurking about in his oily overalls, like Bruce Springsteen in that one video.”

Melanie chuckled. “The one with Christie Brinkley?”

“No, that was Billy Joel. Jesus Mel, for someone who fancied herself an artist you never knew shit about music. No, I’m talking about the video where Springsteen’s a mechanic and the rich guy’s wife brings her car in to him for servicing, and then he sings about how he wants to fuck the rich guy’s wife for like three minutes.”

“‘I’m on Fire’,” she replied. “Good song.”

“Oh, you like that song?”

“Of course, it’s The Boss.”

“Did you used to think about Max servicing you when you heard it?”

Melanie laughed boisterously. “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Jesus, Seth I’m dead. Can we put the jealousy thing to bed? Please? I don’t want to spend my afterlife arguing with you. Anyway, the husband in that video was rich. His wife drove a sports car. I drive a Volvo. Drove.”

“I might not have been rich, but I was on my way to becoming respectable,” Seth retorted in a defensive tone. “If it hadn’t been for the accident I would have made head manager at the K-mart and retired by now.”

With the look of someone reluctantly imparting bad news, Melanie touched Seth’s arm gently and said, “Your K-Mart got shut down, honey.”

Seth looked surprised and crestfallen at once. “What?”

“Yeah, along with a few hundred other ones. The whole corporation is kind of on the ropes.”

“What the hell happened to it? We were America’s Shop Your Way store.”

“Walmart happened, among other things. But let me get back to what I was saying.”

“Please do. This bar is starting to feel like purgatory.”

“Max murdered me. That’s how I died. So… yeah. Funny, right?”

Seth’s face remained blank as he surveyed hers. “What?”

“He killed me this morning.”

“So, wait a sec,” said Seth, a note of anger in his voice. “Max… Your husband Max… murdered you? And just a minute ago you were defending him, saying that he isn’t crazy?”

Melanie shrugged. “Well, I guess he’s like, homicidal crazy, but not, you know, talking-to-himself crazy.”

“Psshhh.” Seth sat back in the bench, crossing his arms. “You always stick up for the worst people, honey. Always. You just have to see the good in everyone, no matter how badly they treat you.”

Melanie unconsciously made herself into a mirror image of Seth, leaning back away from him and crossing her arms. “Well, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have stayed with you for as long as I did. I mean I stayed with you as long as you lived, right?”

Seth seemed to ignore her statement. “So how did he—”

“He strangled me at the breakfast table.”

“Jesus. Why?”

She shrugged again, shaking her head. “His schizophrenia had been getting progressively worse over the last month or so. Maybe longer. I don’t think I noticed at first. I mean, you remember how he was back in high school, always talking to himself. Everyone used to make fun of him.”

“I didn’t make fun of him.”

“No, you didn’t, honey. And that was something I always liked about you.”

“I hated him because he was a cockblocker, not because he was crazy.”

“Well, when we first got married he explained to me that when he’d get those spells he’d actually see people who weren’t really there, and that sometimes they’d even talk to him.”

“What did they look like?” Seth asked, seemingly interested in spite of himself.

“He couldn’t really make them out. They were kind of… like murky. Gray. But he could hear their voices in his head. He said he’d always been like that, for as long as he could remember. It was really hard on him. Over the years, I knew he’d be hearing the voices and seeing things, but he’d do his best to hide it from me and act like nothing was wrong, just to keep me from worrying about him. But in the last few weeks, I’d constantly be walking into rooms and catching him talking to someone who wasn’t there, saying things like ‘Leave me alone,’ and ‘Shut the hell up’. ‘Go away,’ stuff like that. It was scary and sad, and I really felt sorry for him. He was often angry and he’d direct his anger at me since I was the only one there. We never had children,” she added quietly, looking nervously at Seth. “The ovarian cancer that went into remission before you died came back a few years later, and I had to have them both removed.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” said Seth, though he sounded anything but.

She shrugged, and Seth could see ghostly silver tears welling in her brown eyes. “I never got to have a baby. The one thing I wanted more than you.”

Seth put his arm around her and pulled her to his side. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“Why did we wait so long to try for one?” she asked bitterly. Now the tears were running down her cheeks.

“We thought we were being responsible.”

“Look where our responsibility got us.”

“We don’t have to talk about this any more,” he said, kissing her forehead. Her bangs made a slight crunching sound and tickled his chin and nostrils.

“When Max would get really bad, he’d sometimes go out for long drives, I don’t know where, just out, and when he’d come back he would be in a slightly better mood. But anyway, this morning I made him breakfast like usual before he went to work—he’s got his own garage now—and he was sitting at the table, just sitting there, not even touching the food, and he had this angry look on his face, like furious. I asked him what was wrong, and without saying a word he jumped up and put his hands around my throat and…”

“Jesus,” said Seth in a whisper, pulling her head down to the hollow beneath his chin.

“I tried to get away, to fight him off, but you know what a big man he was. He choked me until everything went black, and then I was falling through darkness. After awhile I saw a tunnel, and it was full of light, and I fell—or flew—through it, I don’t know which. When I came out of the other side, I found myself here, standing in front of you.”

“I’m so sorry you had to experience that, honey,” said Seth, softly stroking her back.

She smiled up at him knowingly through her crumpled bangs. “No you’re not.”

“Okay, I’m not sorry that you’re dead, but I am sorry that you had to get murdered by that asshole.” He took her hand. “We don’t need to talk about the past anymore, alright? You’re with me now. That’s all that matters.”

Melanie regarded him closely as if she was peering into him. “But you know… The strangest thing.”

“What?”

“While Max was strangling me, he said something.”

“What did he say?” There was a break in Seth’s voice as he asked.

“It didn’t occur to me until just now when I was thinking about him doing it to me. No, I did think it was odd at the time, but the pain and the terror drove it out of my mind.”

Seth looked at her nervously.

“As he was strangling me… God, that word sounds so horrible, doesn’t it? ‘Strangling.’ But as he was doing that, he said ‘Go to hell, Mel.’”

“That is a pretty awful thing to say.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t what he said, it was the name he used. ‘Mel?’ In all the years he’d known me, including the eighteen years we were married, he’d never called me that. In fact,” she looked at Seth with a piercing gaze. “You were the only guy who ever called me that. I told you that I hated it but you never stopped.”

“That is odd.” Seth kept his eyes focused on a spot on the table. “Maybe he thought it sounded cooler to say Mel because it rhymed with hell.”

Melanie watched Seth silently for a few moments as he looked nervously around the club. The front door made a heavy creaking sound and the din of auto traffic momentarily broke the silence.

“Seth, can I ask you something?” she asked.

“Shoot,” he replied in a choked voice.

“Just be honest with me, okay?”

“I’m always honest with you.”

“Except when you’re fucking a teenaged cashier behind my back.”

“That was years ago, honey. I’m dead now anyway. What do I have to hide from you?”

“Did you have something to do with this?”

“With what?”

“With my murder, Seth. Don’t play stupid with me, I hate it when you do that.”

Seth gripped his arms and leaned back against the back of the bench. His eyes were downcast.

“Just tell me. Come on, just because we’re here forever doesn’t mean I need to wait that long for an answer.”

When Seth finally replied it was in an exasperated voice. “I’ve been waiting for you for nineteen years, Mel. Nineteen years. Do you know what that was like? And you just weren’t dying.”

“I’m only fifty, Seth.”

“Yeah, but the cancer. When it came back, I thought for sure you’d be coming to me soon. But you fucking beat it. Again!”

“Wait, you knew about that?”

Seth grasped his arms tighter to himself and looked down at the table.

“Were you watching me, Seth? You just told me you were waiting here the whole time.”

“I was. I stayed here as long as I could. But after what seemed like and eternity had passed, I just couldn’t sit here anymore. I had to get up and do something. I had to find you, to know how you were doing. To see your face again. So I got up from this table and walked home.”

She looked at him incredulously. “You walked from Miami to Portland?”

“Yeah. It was ridiculous. It took me forever. There are so many ghosts lurking the interstate, you have no idea. And they’re all lost; useless for directions. When I finally got to our house, you were gone. Another family was living there. There was a little boy swinging in that rusty old swing set we bought for the kid we never… I went to your mother’s house and hung around there for awhile but you never came by.”

“My mother and I don’t get along. You know that.”

“Yeah, but I’d hoped my death might have reconciled you somewhat. You know, ‘cause both your husbands were dead I thought you’d finally have something in common. But after her birthday came and went and you only sent a card, it became obvious you’d never show up there. She cried by the way, in case you care. I tried to figure out where you might have gone, and that’s when I thought of Max. He was one of the few people both of us had known since high school, and I knew he worked on your car. I went to the garage he was working at and got into his car. When we drove us to his house, you were sitting there on his front porch, reading a magazine. I couldn’t fucking believe it. I mean for a second I was insanely happy. I couldn’t believe I had finally found you. But then when he kissed you, I realized what had happened. I lost my mind; I wanted to burn the house down.”

“You were there?” Melanie almost shouted, a look of shock and disgust on her face. “How long did you stay there? How long were you watching us?”

“For a few months. I’m sorry. I know it was wrong. But I wanted so desperately to be close to you.”

“You know, I did get the feeling I was being watched every once in awhile. I thought it was just my imagination.”

“Max felt it too.”

“How do you know that? He never mentioned anything to me.”

“What man would tell his wife he feels like someone’s watching him? Especially if he has a history of being a nutjob.”

“I feel the urge to defend him when you talk about him like that, but since he killed me I’m feeling kind of conflicted. How do you know he sensed you?”

“He didn’t know it was me. But he knew someone was there. And he could see me, too. Like you said, how he’d see gray, blurry shapes? I knew it must have been something like that, because sometimes when I was in the same room with him, he’d stop what he was doing and look straight at me. He’d squint his eyes as if he was trying to get me into focus. Hell, even that first day I visited, when I was sitting in the back of his car, he kept looking over his shoulder at me. That was the first time I got the idea that he could see our kind. And whenever I talked to him, he always heard me. See,” he said as he leaned sideways with his elbow on the table, “all these years, all his life, everyone thought Max was schizophrenic. I’m sure the doctors who analyzed him came to that conclusion because they didn’t have any information to go on besides what they’d learned in their doctor mills. But Max isn’t really schizophrenic. He’s just sensitive to the spiritual plane. He sees ghosts. And hears them. He sometimes would actually respond to things I’d say to him.”

Melanie sat in dumbfounded silence for a while, staring off into the club, which while they’d been talking had gained some occupants. “That’s so fucked up,” she finally said, looking back at him. “So how long did you stay with us?”

“I stayed there for a few months, until it got too much for me to take, between watching Max climb all over you and seeing you sitting in front of the TV six hours a day.”

“Wait a minute. You watched us having sex?”

“No,” said Seth, in an uncertain voice.

“That was so, so wrong.”

“Yeah, well one day it just got to much for me. You were watching The Young and the Restless like you did every day, and the story had just gotten so ridiculous but you were still fucking into it. I couldn’t believe the girl I met in high school who was so full of fire and dreams, who wanted to be an artist or an actress, who actually could fucking act, was wasting her life in front of a television watching other people’s lives that weren’t even real or written well.”

“Well how do you think I felt, watching the boy who used to write me poems and stories, who was going to become a novelist, turn into a man who spent half his day in a grocery store? You think I’m the only one who failed at life?”

“I didn’t fail at life, Mel. I just had responsibilities. Bills had to be paid. Your fucking hospital bills among others.”

“Oh, blame me for your failures, that’s it.”

“Anyway, one day I just couldn’t take being in that house anymore, watching you waste what was left of your life, and that’s when I suddenly found myself here again. Just like after I died, I showed up here in the blink of an eye. And later, when I started missing you again and wanted to see how you were doing, all I had to do was think of you and suddenly I was there by your side. I guess once I’d made the connection, we were inseparable.”

“So I guess the question of the day is… did you have something to do with Max murdering me?”

Seth hesitated a few moments. “I gave him a push.”

“Did you talk him into it?”

“There was nothing in his head anyway, so I put something in there. Listen, don’t look at me like that. I know it was wrong; I know it was a bad thing to do to you. But I didn’t do it just because I missed you and wanted you to see me again. To talk to me again. It was also because it was like you were already dead. Sitting there on that couch, drinking your wine coolers, reading your celebrity magazines and watching TV. Married to a man you didn’t love, just so you wouldn’t have to be alone. I wanted to save you. You were already dead. I figured you might as well be dead with me.”

Melanie didn’t reply. She just stared toward the front door as if she was contemplating walking away from him.

After awhile, Seth said, “Not that I’m complaining, but you don’t seem as angry as I thought you’d be.”

To his surprise, Melanie exhaled a silent laugh. “We really do deserve each other.”

“Well, I hope so,” he replied. “Wait. What do you mean?”

She grinned and shook her head slightly. Seth noticed that her hair didn’t move. “Remember the car crash you and Amy died in?”

“Well, seeing it was kind of a life-ending event, I’d say yeah, it’s kind of burned into my memory.”

“Remember how you took your car to the garage Max used to work at and got it serviced the day before the accident?”

Seth thought for a moment. “No, I never really thought about it, but now that you mention it, yeah, I did take it in. I remember I was kind of mad about it because I wanted to take it in to the Toyota place I usually took it to, but you kept insisting I take it to Max.”

“The reason I insisted you take your car to Max was because I’d told him to slice your brake lines.”

Seth froze and stared at Melanie.

“I didn’t want you to die, honey,” she said with an apologetic look. “I just wanted you to get hurt. And you can’t really blame me for being upset. If Max hadn’t seen you and Amy together at the Lloyd Center, I wouldn’t have even known about you two.”

“I’ve always wondered what the fuck Max was doing in the Sears lingerie department. Did you ever stop to wonder about that?”

“After I confronted you about it, you swore you’d never go out with her again. You didn’t fire her like I asked, but at least you swore that.”

“I couldn’t fire her, honey. That would have been unethical.”

“Unethical? Hardy-har, Seth. That’s rich.”

“She had a toddler to take care of, Mel. You might not know this, because you’ve never had a job, but a cashier doesn’t make that much money. She had to waitress part time at an Olive Garden just to make ends meet.”

“But then, two months after you swore to me that you’d stopped seeing her, I found out that every Friday night you said you were working late, you were actually driving that bitch home.”

“Why would you think something like that?”

“I don’t think, Seth, I know. Because I followed you once. I had Max drive me to the K-mart and we waited in the parking lot. When you came out with her and she got into your car, we followed you to that shitty little house she lived in.”

“Okay,” said Seth with a note of finality, “I’m just going to interject something right here. Regardless of how this conversation ends, I swear on my own grave that I am going to walk from sea to shining fucking sea and go up into Max’s house, and I am going to haunt his ass until he puts a gun in his mouth. I fucking swear that.”

“Don’t blame him for what you did,” said Melanie in a pedantic voice. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“She didn’t have a car. I was her manager. What was I supposed to do, let her walk all the way to Northeast Portland?”

“There’s a million reasons why you shouldn’t have been giving her a ride home, Seth. But the real question is, why did you go into her house and not come out for a half hour?”

Seth didn’t say anything. He seemed to be shrinking into the shadows.

“I was so furious,” said Melanie. “You can’t even imagine. I asked Max if there was a way he could fix your brakes so they’d give out, and he said there was a way to cut the front and back brake lines just enough that the brake fluid gradually drained out. I asked him to do it.”

“That fucking cockblocker.”

“I figured when the brakes went out you’d just swerve off to the side of the road and hit something to stop. I know it was stupid, and maybe I overreacted a little; I don’t know. But you can hardly blame me for being upset. The girl was a lot younger than me, and the fact that she had a child and I didn’t, and the reason I didn’t have a child was because you wanted me to wait… It was all a little too much for me to take.” She took both of his hands into hers. “I was so sorry you died, honey, really I was. I swear I never meant for that to happen. Okay, I was kind of glad that Amy died; I mean that was the only good thing that came out of it, but… The moment the police officer told me what had happened, I…” Tears were running down her cheeks again. Seth reached up to brush them away. They felt like sea foam dissolving on his fingers. “I think I actually died right then. At least, the only part of me that mattered.”

Seth raised her hands to his lips and kissed them. “I’m sorry I lied to you, honey. And I’m sorry for messing around. I don’t even know why I did it. You were everything I ever wanted. We just both… changed. So much. I didn’t even recognize you anymore. I guess I forgot who I was, too.”

Melanie wiped the tears from her face and looked into Seth’s eyes. “Want to start over?”

“Yes,” he replied, smiling. As he looked at her his smile turned into a laugh. “You’re a psychotic bitch, you know that?”

“Guilty,” she said, throwing up her hands in mock surrender.

He held her close to him. “See, I told you that night, here at this table. We were meant to be together forever. Was I right, or was I right?”

She kissed him, and he felt her ghostly tears, cool and tingling like static electricity against his cheek. “It was the only thing you were ever right about.”

“Want to go for a walk? The ocean’s beautiful this time of night. You can’t watch the sun sinking into it like you can back in Oregon, but there’s just enough pollution and Freon in the air to give the cityscape a beautiful pink glow.”

“Sure,” she said, getting up. “Then maybe tomorrow we could take a walk over to Max’s house and talk him into killing himself.”

Seth laughed heartily. “That’s my girl.” He gave her a loving kiss on the top of her head. “Sounds like a date.”

“He doesn’t have a gun, though, so you we might have to think of another way than the one you mentioned.”

“Actually, he does. He keeps a Glock 19 in one of the drawers in his garage. He used to take it out and clean it every once in awhile.”

She looked slightly surprised. “What is it with you men and your secrets?”

“I tried to talk him into shooting you in the back of the head with it. I thought that would be the most painless way to die.”

She smiled up at him. “Awww. How considerate of you.”

“I don’t know why he ended up strangling you. What a dick move.” Seth took Melanie’s hand and she leaned into him as they walked to the door. “I know it’s not chivalrous to not open the door for you, but…” They walked through the plate glass and passed out under the neon lights of the Club Elysium and down the street to where the pavement became sand, down to the ocean where the waves sighed as they died upon the shore.