I think a part of me was afraid that the more I admitted what happened, the more that this “Anonymous” person would come on the blog and comment on what a liar I was. Yep, I knew the hater I had was still lurking around on the internet somewhere, waiting for me to say the wrong thing. And this time, at least, I knew that others would agree with her (Dex seemed adamant that it was a female).

What happened to Dex and me on D’Arcy Island seemed like more than a bad dream. If I told anyone what actually happened, how a psychotic, cross-eyed midget from a 1900s mission turned me against Dex, how we were hunted down by zombie-like lepers, and how I nearly drowned saving a child who was already dead…well, it sounds so unbelievable even I think it over in my head. There was a reason why I blocked most of it out. Except for that second night, when we awoke to the wails of an insane ghost and my need for Dex overtook everything else. And when I say need, I mean lust. That was purely my fault.

I gave Matt a small smile, knowing the blush was deepening up to my hairline.

“A lot happened that I can’t even remember. I’ll tell you the rest one day.”

I shot a look at my parents, who were exchanging wry glances with each other. Well, let them think what they want. I was happy to know that at least the twins gave me more than the benefit of the doubt.

“Apparently, Perry thinks she needs to work out now to fight ghosts,” my mom said after she tore her eyes away from my dad’s increasingly red ones.

I bit my lip, not sure how to answer that without sounding like a loon. I knew from my mom’s voice that she was treating the whole thing like it was a joke.

“But if that gets your weight down, I’m all the more for it,” she had to add.

“So,” Al said, shooting my mother a wary look and then smiling at me as if he was apologizing on her behalf. He didn’t need to. I was used to that shit from my mom. It’s probably why my father and Ada didn’t even notice. “If you don’t mind me asking, how do you plan to defend yourself from…uh…ghosts?”

I knew Al didn’t believe in ghosts per se (though he did believe in “Evil”), hence the gentle yet skeptical tone he was using, but he still seemed sincere in his questioning. Marda was watching me expectantly too.

I tried to answer as diplomatically as possible. “I just think it’s good to be prepared. It’s not so much the ghosts as it is the situations we are in.”

“Is that how you got this?” Matt asked, pointing at the scar on my wrist that sat beneath the purple Silly Bandz bracelet.

“That…was a lively rose bush,” I said, knowing how stupid that sounded.

“So you’ve been going to the firing range so you can shoot gardens?” my dad scoffed. He had never been very supportive of the whole gun use thing. Not that I had a gun or ever planned to get one.

I stared him down. “As I said, dad, it’s good to be prepared.”

“How do you kill ghosts anyway? You obviously can’t shoot them,” Marda said, somehow managing not to sound the slightest bit patronizing.

I honestly didn’t know. I had always wondered that myself.

“I’m not really sure. I don’t think you can; I mean they are already dead and everything. I think you can trick them though.”

“How do you mean?” Tony asked, leaning forward past Matt so I could see him.

“Well,” I started and wondered how best to explain without sounding crazy. I decided I already sounded crazy and went on, keeping my eyes on the wax that was dripping off the candles in the center of the table.

“When we were on the island we had to escape this ghost named Mary. She had stolen one of Dex’s knives and was about to sever the rope that connected the sailboat to the shore.”

I looked around me to see how everyone was reacting so far. My dad rolled his eyes and got up, going to the washroom or perhaps outside to get fresh air and wonder where in God’s name his daughter came from. My mom was watching me with worried, fearful eyes. The rest, including Ada now, were glued to my every word.

“I didn’t know what to do,” I continued. “I didn’t even think. I just grabbed the flare gun out of Dex’s backpack and shot it at her.”

The twins hollered simultaneously.

“You’re fucking joking!” Matt cried out.

Even Al looked too flabbergasted to get mad at his son’s use of language at the dinner table.

“No, I wish I was. I just fired it. She was maybe only ten feet away.”

“And did that…kill her?” Marda asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She was already dead, so how could it? But what I think it did was trick her. My theory is that most ghosts don’t really accept the fact that they are dead. I think they spend most of their time wandering around in another dimension, living in denial. I don’t know. Anyway, I think all that did was make Mary think I killed her, at least long enough so that we could get away. It at least knocked her ass off the cliff and that’s all we needed.”

“Why the hell didn’t you write about this?” Matt said, shaking his head and reaching for his glass of wine.

I laughed.

“Why? Because...who the hell would believe me? I sound like a lunatic, I know I do.”

“You sound like your grandmother,” my mom said in the coldest tone I’d heard from her lips in a very long time.

Al gave her another look, this one fully loaded. Something was going on but I couldn’t read into it, not across the table in this busy Italian restaurant. My mother rarely spoke about my grandmother. She died when I was very young and I only saw my grandfather when we went on family trips to Sweden.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said to her, trying my hardest to not sound defensive.

My mother looked down at her manicured fingers for a second before taking a tepid sip of water. “Your grandmother lied a lot, that’s all.”

I smiled at her though there was nothing pretty about it.

“I’m not lying.”

She didn’t say anything else but she didn’t need to.

Trying to dissipate the tension, Tony spoke up. “Too bad you don’t have one of those boxes from Ghostbusters. You know, some way to contain them.”

“Yeah,” I agreed absently, still keeping my eyes on Al and my mother. “But we’re still trying to figure this whole thing out. Learning as we go.”

“You and this Dex fellow,” Al said, noticing my gaze, and for once I was glad to talk about Dex.

“Yup. Going up to Seattle on Monday to film the next episode at the Riverside Mental Hospital. Then on Friday there’s a Christmas party for work. ‘Tis the season.”

“And is your work going to be paying for your hotel this whole time or are we going to have to help out?” my dad asked, returning to the table just in time. It’s like he has some radar that alerts him when someone mentions anything money related. Or touches the thermostat.

“No.” I glared at him despite my promise to play nice because it was his birthday. “I’m staying with Dex and his girlfriend.”

It’s like a collective breath was held above the table. Everyone froze. Finally Ada started coughing on her water.

“Are you insane!?” she yelled and grabbed my hand. I pulled back, surprised at her outburst. Aside from when Al and Marda had asked her about Layton, she had been silent the entire dinner.

“Possibly?” I answered.

My mom reached over and tapped Marda on the arm gently. “She’s in love with her Dexter partner.”

Marda nodded knowingly while I exclaimed, “No I’m not!”

I swear everyone at the table rolled their eyes in unison.

“And his name isn’t Dexter!” I sat back further in my chair and crossed my arms. “Whatever, I’ll be fine. I have a date on Sunday night anyway. With another man. Who isn’t Dex.”

Another gasp at the table. This was the longest dinner ever.

“Don’t act so surprised,” I muttered.

“Who with?” Ada asked.

“My bootcamp trainer, Brock,” I said, ready for everyone to laugh the way Dex had. Surprisingly, everyone looked impressed.

Finally my mom said, “Now this guy sounds like a keeper. Imagine how skinny you’d get around him! Maybe then you could do a fitness show instead.”

There was no use in saying anything. I swallowed my indignation with the last few gulps of my wine and soon the conversation flowed to the local college basketball team and other things, leaving me locked in my head with thoughts that went nowhere.

CHAPTER FOUR

I’d like to say that I escaped my dad’s dinner the other night with no other humiliations or poignant conversations, but that wasn’t the case.

At the end of the night, when everyone had had too much wine and had stuffed themselves to the gills, I was accosted by Uncle Al as I was heading back from the bathroom.

“Perry,” he said, placing a gentle hand on my arm. “Could I have a word with you?”

I nodded quickly, knowing that there was something on Al’s mind for most of the dinner but not knowing what it was.

He led me past the kitchen and to the backdoor that let out into the staff parking lot, surrounded by overstuffed garbage cans and a few stray cats hanging around. I crossed my arms against the cold and watched as Al stuck a moldy doorstop into the door so it wouldn’t lock behind us.

“Are we allowed to be back here?” I asked, eyeing a tabby warily.

“This place is like a second home to me,” Al said jovially.

“Are you planning to off me?, I jokingly asked. “Because this is looking like a Sopranos set-up.”

“Nothing like that, I just wanted to give you some advice.” He walked forward a few feet and stopped. The yellow light above the door obscured his face, making him look more and more like a mobster. I knew he was just my Uncle Al but it frightened me how overactive my imagination was these days.

“Perry…” he started and then trailed off. I couldn’t see his expression in the dark but I could tell his eyes were probably closed and his forehead was scrunched up dramatically. “I worry about you.”

Oh, here we go again.

“Not in the way your mother worries about you,” he said quickly. “Just…in a fatherly way. I’m sure if Daniel” (my dad) “wasn’t tipsy right now, and wasn’t so bullheaded about you, he’d be telling you the same thing.”

I shivered against the chilly breeze and took a step away from the shadowy garbage bins. “Sorry, it’s freaking freezing out here.”

“I know, just give me a minute. Just…listen to me. I don’t want you to say anything until I’m done and then we can go inside. You can get all defensive in the warmth.”

I eyed him suspiciously, totally unsure of what he was going to say.

He reached over and pressed his finger into the space above my heart. I looked down at this finger and looked up at him, confused.

“I think you going to Seattle, you staying with Dex and his girlfriend, I think…”