"Sorry," I say "I can get you another one."

"No, thank you," she says. "I prefer this one." She kisses the p.r.o.ngs and sets the fork down on the napkin.

I look at her place setting and notice I've given her three extra spoons. I'm tempted to take them back, but maybe she won't notice. Maybe she'll even need three extra. I review all the spoonable items on the menu-soup, pudding, coffee, tea, grapefruit ...

"Well?" she says.

"Well what?"

"Do you have a menu? I might like to order some food items."

"Right." I try to laugh it off and hand her one of the clean, laminated ones from under the counter. I don't know why I'm so nervous; usually I'm able to keep it cool around girls. I mean, I've been with a lot of girls before.

"How are you feeling today?" she asks.

Do I look sick? "Fine, and you?"

"So good." She swivels her seat back and forth, like the stool's a carnival ride or something, then makes one full spin around.

"We have some specials today." I flip to a fresh page in my order pad, trying my best to get my fingers to work right. I press the pencil point into the paper to stop the shaking, and look at her, and now she's the one staring at me. "What can I get you?" I ask.

"What were those specials again?"

Oh, yeah, the specials.

She lets out this girl-giggle, like it's no secret I'm completely sweatin' her. I can feel my face get all hot and red, and I'm trying my best not to laugh at myself.

"BLT with french fries and cole slaw for five fifty," I say, conscious that my eyes are welded to the G.o.dd.a.m.ned ceiling. "Meat loaf with gravy, corn, and mashed for five ninety-nine. And spaghetti with meat sauce and meatb.a.l.l.s for five twenty-five."

"Hmm ..." She makes a face, like nothing I've told her sounds appetizing. "I might need a short interval to decide."

"Okay ... sure." I turn around and face the cash register, pretend to type something in, feel stupid doing it, but end up ringing up a fried fish sandwich and a chocolate milk shake for the h.e.l.l of it, then voiding it all out. My mother yells over to me, asks me what I'm doing, and suddenly I wish I was the one getting fried.

Calm down, I tell myself. Just talk to her. Just be cool.

I take a deep breath, tell my mom I'm all set, turn back around, and the girl is standing up, slinging that huge-a.s.s purse over her shoulder, readying herself to leave. She smiles at me as she slides the menu between the salt and sugar shakers. But then this guy walks in, this Sean-guy from school, who, coincidentally, is now the boyfriend of that Kelly-girl I went to the party with. He comes up to the counter, and her eyes are all over him.

"Your aura has a murky haze," she says, grabbing at the crystal thing that hangs around her neck-this sticklike piece with points at both ends.

Sean gives her a weird look like he has no clue what she's talking about, grabs a bunch of napkins from the dispenser, and blots them into the gash in his hand. Heinous.

"You're bleeding," she says, like it isn't completely obvious. She opens that big-mother purse of hers and takes out a long scarf.

"I'm all set," he says.

But she wraps the scarf around his palm anyway, changing the b.l.o.o.d.y napkins first, even getting some blood on her fingers.

What the h.e.l.l was he thinking by coming in here? This isn't some drop-in clinic.

"Hey, Sean," I say. "I got a first-aid kit in the back. You wanna take it into the bathroom?"

But he ignores me, no surprise. The guy totally despises me. There was some stuff that went around after that party. Stuff about me and Kelly. Basically, I tagged her that night and she ended up wanting more. Like, relationship-more. I didn't want one then, but I wouldn't mind it now. Especially with this chick.

She finishes dressing the wound like she's Clara-f.u.c.kin'-Barton or something, and then cleans off her hand with a napkin and some ice water. "You'll have lunch with me, won't you?" she asks him. "I want to hear how you wounded yourself. How your aura got so murky." She holds on to the scarf-covered hand like she doesn't want to let him go, plops down on a stool, and signals for me to come and wait on her. "I'll have the garden salad with pocket bread," she says. "And an iced tea with lemon and honey."

"What can I get you, Sean?" I ask.

He ignores me again and turns to her. "Thanks for the scarf," he says, "but I gotta go. I gotta flat tire waiting for me outside."

"So, you don't want anything?" I say.

"You're a quick one," he says to me.

f.u.c.k you, I smile, since the girl is here. I slap her order up on the turnstile, send it for a spin, and then go to make her drink. I slice a nice thick wedge of lemon, just the way I like it, stab it to the rim of her gla.s.s, and place her drink down in front of her.

It's been weird between me and Sean ever since he and Kelly started going out. We were never great friends, but at least we could talk every once and a while. I've wanted to say stuff to him about it, even tell him that I feel sort of bad about what happened.

Sean pitches a wad of napkins and then leaves. And the girl looks like she could cry.

"Thanks for helping him out," I say.

"He needs more help than a scarf."

No s.h.i.t.

"Order up," my father calls from behind the grill. He pokes one of those plastic sword toothpicks into her pocket salad to make it look pretty, and then adds a sprig of parsley to the coleslaw. My dad knows me so well.

I decide to follow his lead. Decide I'm going to cheer this girl up, give her the complete LaPointe charm. This is my family's diner, for G.o.d's sake. I've got the home-court advantage. I can surprise her with dessert and fresh coffee, and even throw away the bill at the end. I take the plate and set it in front of her. "Anything else I can get for you?" I ask.

"No thanks, this looks delectable."

"So, do you go to school around here?" I ask.

"Yeah," she says. "The School of Mearl, ever hear of it?"

I shake my head.

"It's the one where you can sleep all day, slam poetry all night, howl at the moon, dance under the stars, feast on sweet conversation and a spicy ocean breeze-and bathing and clothing are optional." She takes the lemon wedge and sucks it like a tequila lime. "Wanna join?"

"Sign me up."

"Hi," she says, sticking her hand out. "I'm Mearl. That's pearl with an M." Then she laughs, withdraws her hand before I can shake it.

"Derik," I say.

"It's superb to meet you, Derik."

Superb. This girl is cool.

Aside from the few people that sit at my station, it's a pretty slow afternoon, and me and Mearl end up talking all through her lunch and through the Grape-Nuts custard I make her try.

"So you wanna set time together?" she asks me.

"Set time?"

"Yeah, you know ... hang out for a while."

"Definitely." I give my dad the heads-up about what's going on. He doesn't care that I take off for a while. I think he's actually glad to let me go for the cause. He knows it's been kind of dry for me lately.

I ask her where she wants to go, and she tells me Danvers State. As in the hospital. As in the asylum.

"Why would you want to go there?"

"Because I want to see what it's like," she says. "Experience that s.p.a.ce and all the old souls."

"You know it's closed."

"I know. I've researched."

"So no one's there anymore."

"Of course they're there. Just because there aren't actual physical people there doesn't mean the souls don't linger."

I know that I should run the other way. That in normal circ.u.mstances I would label her a freak and move on to the next, but these are no normal circ.u.mstances and this is no ordinary girl.

"Have you ever visited?" she asks.

"Yeah," I say. "I've been there once or twice. My friends and I broke in a couple times last year-to drink and hang out. Stupid stuff."

"Will you take me there?" she asks. And she's looking at me, into my eyes, like she really cares what I have to say. So how can I say no?

We hop into my truck, and we're talking and laughing about favorite superheroes and Cheez Whiz versus string cheese. And she's asking me questions and laughing at my jokes, like she really means it. Like she's really into me.

"Have you lived in Salem all your life?" she asks.

"Yeah. Pretty lame, huh?"

"Why is it lame?"

"I don't know. You've probably traveled around to some really great places."

"Yeah, but it isn't the same. I mean, growing up here, living in a city where the people have known you since forever ... I think it's pretty luminous."

"Luminous?"

She nods like I get what she's saying.

"I don't know." I shrug. "I guess it's different if you've always been stuck here, you know, kind of boring."

"You're interesting, Derik." She licks the seal of a bubble gum cigarette and taps along the length to make sure it's closed.

"You're the one who's interesting." I position the rearview mirror to watch her. She pops the end of the cigarette into her mouth and blows, sending a puff of sugar smoke out the tip. The cigarette looks so good between her teeth, between those pale pink lips.

"How can a city with so many spirits be boring? I may have traveled around a bit, but I haven't truly ever rooted, you know?"

"Is that what you want to do? Root?"

I have no idea what I'm saying, and I'm pretty sure she knows it, too. She giggles at my lame response, scoots herself in toward me, and rests her head on my shoulder. She smells like cheese danish topped with coffee and whipped cream. And I just want to do everything right, more than I've ever wanted to do anything right in my life.

Fifteen minutes later, we're there. The abandoned hospital sits up on the hill, looking down at us. I pull around to the back so no one will see us, wondering where all the security guys are. But the place seems completely vacant today. As soon as the truck's in PARK, Mearl jumps out and starts running toward the cl.u.s.ter of brick buildings.

"Come on!" she shouts.

I sit there a moment, just looking at it and taking it in. It looks so different in the daytime. An abandoned hospital that doesn't quite know what it wants to be-an asylum, a gothic church, a school, someone's estate.

I get out and run toward her, up to the rear entrance. But for some reason, none of this feels right. It's different when you're drunk and stupid, and it's after two in the morning, and you can only see as far as your flashlight will let you. When your buddies tell you you're gonna find some pretty cool s.h.i.t. But now, in the daylight, the sun shines on everything, and I'm forced to take it all in. The broken windows from angry fists. The overgrown brush crawling up the side like an escape route out, and the rusted bars and screens that keep you in.

She yanks on a side door, but it's locked. "How do we get in?"

I'm tempted to tell her I was too drunk at the time to remember, but before I can say anything, she takes my hands, kisses me on the mouth, and thanks me for bringing her here.

"Can't you feel it?" she whispers. "The energy? There's so much sadness here, but you and I ... we can fix it." She smiles at me and studies my face, then kisses me again and pulls me close.

The next thing I know, I'm climbing up that ladder of overgrowth on one of the smaller buildings.

"Be careful!" Mearl shouts up to me.

I peek inside one of the windows near the top. The floor is littered with broken beer bottles, cigarette b.u.t.ts, and snack trash from late-night parties. I hoist myself up on the roof, thinking how much harder it is this time without extra hands to help pull me up. The vent we need to enter from is over to the left. I lay the grille to the side and slide down the duct.

It's dark inside, but light enough to see. I run through a connecting tunnel, toward the larger building. The stench of dank and dampness makes me want to hurl. When I finally make it to the other side, I take a wrong turn and end up in one of the patients' rooms. The walls are stained with red paint, splotched on to look like blood. And there's a graffiti sign over it all that says the room was painted with the blood of Mary Driscoll, some patient who lived here.

I kick through the debris. There are used condoms on the floor and pairs of dirty underwear, a whole heap. There's a Ken doll hanging from a noose in the center of the room and naked baby doll parts strewn everywhere-some with needles poked into the eyes and scalp; others with their dirty, rubbery arms and legs all knotted and mangled.

I look across the hallway into another room. I remember carving my initials into a wooden support beam in there, how me and Tom splashed yellow and green paint on the walls to make it look like lobotomy juice, and how me and Tammy Come-do-me, some freshman-wannabe-senior, made it all the way to third base in the hallway closet, and then to home plate in the parking lot.

It makes me wonder how the place looked the next day, in the light. If it looked like this. If Tammy woke up feeling like a senior.

I make my way into the hallway, hurry down a staircase to unlock a back door, and let Mearl in.

"Thank you, Derik," she says, looking around.

The main room is big and dirty, and there are torn pages strewn all over the place, but I don't feel like reading them or seeing any more. Kevin, this kid from school, found an old patient's notebook in here one time and actually took it. He brought it to school and pa.s.sed it around. It had all this f.u.c.ked-up s.h.i.t in it. There was this one entry in there about this woman, sitting in the audience on amateur night at this place, smiling like it was her freakin' birthday, but with blood pouring from her wrists, down the aisles. According to the notebook entry, one of the windows had broken and the orderlies hurried to pick up all the gla.s.s. They had put it together on a table like a puzzle, to make sure they got every piece. They didn't.

"This isn't right." Mearl is sweeping her arms through the air, pushing away the empty s.p.a.ce around her, like she can see something I can't. "The spirits don't want me here. I'm sorry, Derik, but I don't feel right about this."

No s.h.i.t. I take her hand and we leave, and head back to the truck. But, before I can haul a.s.s out of there, the cemetery catches her eye and she has to experience that s.p.a.ce, too. She makes me pull over so that we can see the graves. They're simply posts in the ground, marked with numbers.

"Do you see what happens when you have no roots, Derik?" she asks, thumbing over the point of her crystal pendant. "You have no ident.i.ty. You become just a number. How can all these souls rest when they have no one to claim them?"