The Ghost Runner Read online

  But as I begin to walk home, I realize I’m not alone on these dark streets.

  Roman calls out to me. “Katherine, please wait a moment.”

  I turn and wait. When he approaches, I only stare at him. I’ve already broken my promise to stay away from him, and I don’t want to break another one by talking to him.

  “I miss you,” he says.

  I don’t answer.

  “Katherine, please.”

  “Is that all?” I tap my left foot as if I’m waiting for him to finish.

  “No. I can’t stop thinking about you. Every morning, your face is all I see. At night, if I can sleep, it’s only because I imagine you there, with me. When will you forgive me?”

  “I’ll never forgive you. You took Stacey from me. And my mother.”

  “I did not kill your mother.”

  “Oh? Then who did?”

  He says nothing.

  “I figured as much,” I say. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m with Alex now.”

  I watch his eyes glow red, like smoldering embers hit by the wind. And I don’t care if he’s angry. I want him to hurt. I want him to feel what I’ve been feeling.

  “Alex is a good man,” he says.

  I look at him closely. Not what I expected him to say. Perhaps he’s trying a different tack.

  “He’ll take care of you.”

  “I don’t need taking care of,” I say.

  “Everybody needs someone to watch over them. I was hoping that person would be me. Katherine, I’ll ask you one more time—what else can I do?”

  “You already know the answer to that question.”

  He’s quiet for a moment. “I see,” he says. “You want me to be like Alex.”

  “I want you to stop the killing.”

  “In other words, you want me to be someone else.”

  “I want you to be better.”

  “You want me to change.”

  “Yes.”

  “Katherine, you don’t understand. I can’t change.”

  “Then I can’t be with you, Roman. Not ever.”

  The words fall hard upon him. I swear I can see his shoulders slump as if they’re exerting pressure on him. And I almost feel guilty, despite everything he’s done to me, to this town, to my mother. Despite all the violence, intentional or not, I still feel guilty—because I’m hurting him. Inflicting pain of a different sort.

  I walk past him, my arm brushing his sleeve, the same arm that rested next to his for three hours, and I expect him to reach out. To swing me around and kiss me, embrace me, beg me not to leave.

  Instead, he lets me pass. And I keep walking until I have nearly turned the corner.

  “Katherine, there’s something you should know about your mother.”

  I stop and turn. “What? What do I need to know anymore?”

  His lips are open, his face strained, as if he’s trying to speak but can’t. He almost looks helpless standing there.

  “What is it, Roman?”

  “I’m sorry you lost her,” he says. “I’m so very sorry. Nobody will ever be able to give you back that lost time.”

  “I know that. Is that your idea of an apology?”

  “I won’t bother you again,” he says. Then he walks back toward the park, and I watch him until he is out of sight. For once, I believe him.

  ~

  Over the next week, I find myself waiting—though I don’t even know what it is I’m waiting for. Another ticket to arrive. Roman’s face in the window of the store. His voice calling out to me in the street. But there’s nothing.

  I don’t see or hear from him at all.

  I should feel relieved, but instead I feel unsettled; then I scold myself for feeling that way. This is what you wanted, I remind myself. He’s leaving you alone, just like you wanted.

  Then I realize what it is. I haven’t seen him in days—but it’s not only that I haven’t seen him in person. I haven’t seen his face posted on buses or in shop windows either.

  He’s disappeared.

  I’m working at the store when this hits me, and at lunch I wander through town, my eyes searching for a poster with his face on it. The Othello posters are gone. There is no evidence that Roman ever existed at all.

  I begin to wonder if the previous months, if Roman himself, could be nothing more than some sort of dream.

  When I return to Lithia Runners, I decide to ask David. “I noticed that there aren’t as many theater posters around as usual,” I say, as casually as possible.

  “You didn’t hear?” he says.

  “Hear what?”

  “Roman quit the theater.”

  “He what?”

  “Quit. Just like that. No advance notice. No nothing. Just packed up and left town.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I was. He really stuck it to the theater. You don’t just do that sort of thing. They’ve been scrambling to get his understudy up to speed, and then they need to shift the other understudies around—it’s a logistical nightmare. Some people come from miles around just to see him. No one’s happy about it, that’s for sure.”

  “So that’s why the posters are gone.”

  “I took ours down this morning. Theater called and told me they’re printing up a new batch, sans Roman.”

  “Did he tell anyone where he was going?” I ask.

  “Nope. He just vanished. I hear that he left during the night and taped his resignation letter to the door of the theater. It’s odd. He’s been in Lithia for years. Everyone thought he was happy here. It’s bad news for us, too. As a runner, he was one of our best customers.”

  I say nothing. What can I say? That I might be the reason he’s gone? That Roman took my mother from me, took David’s fiancée from him, has been secretly terrorizing this town for years, even decades? What can be said anymore? None of those who were taken can be brought back. And now Roman himself is gone. Maybe this is how it’s meant to be.

  “When was the last time you saw Roman?” David asks.

  “I—I can’t remember,” I say.

  “Oh, well, it’s a shame. Just do me a favor. If and when you ever decide to leave Lithia Runners, give me two weeks’ notice, okay?” He grins.

  “Okay.” I smile back.

  The rest of the day is a blur of shoe boxes and fittings and receipts. All the while I feel a hole inside me filling with guilt and anger and regret. This is not how I wanted things to end with Roman—I wanted him to leave me alone, not leave town. Or maybe I’m just flattering myself. Maybe it has nothing to do with me at all.

  Still, I can’t help but think that it does.

  That evening, after David is gone and the store is locked, I vacuum the carpets. The peace and quiet, normally something I welcome, torments me. I think of that last evening at the theater, over and over again. What else could I have done? Should I have agreed to forgive him, if for nothing else but to save the theater season? But I couldn’t have known he’d leave—it doesn’t make sense. Roman is not one to give up, not usually. But now, it appears he has.

  I empty the trash behind the counter and pause by the recycle bin in the back room. In it, torn in half, is the Othello poster with Roman’s face on it. I fish it out of the can and take it home. I tape it back together, then wonder what I’m doing.

  I roll the poster up and stuff it into my sock drawer. I feel better with it hidden away, but I’m bothered by what compelled me to salvage it. Maybe I just need to remind myself of everything that happened.

  Or maybe I miss him.

  Three

  The earth will defend itself,” says the man standing at the front of the room. His name is Professor Lindquist, and I’m sitting here in his classroom—I am actually a student, something I haven’t been in a long time.

  Finally—a student again.

  I don’t care that it’s 8:15 on a Monday morning and that most of the other fifteen students are straining to keep their eyes open. I don’t care that the room is as drab as
a prison, with cinderblock walls painted an uninspiring off-white.

  I don’t care. I’m wide awake. I’m taking notes. I’m thrilled to be a student again. What these yawning, sprawling bodies seated around me don’t realize is how fortunate they are to be here. Back in Houston, I had to drop out of community college when my savings dried up and my dad said hell would freeze over before he would help.

  I finally saved enough to head back to the college, working nights at a bar, juggling homework with real work like everyone else. It wasn’t easy, and lots of us came and went—it was hard to make friends because no one had any time outside of school, and you never knew when you’d see your classmates again. Sometimes they’d have to quit school to get another job, as I did, or maybe they couldn’t get anyone to watch their kids, or their boyfriend would get a job and they’d have to move. We all juggled a lot, all the time—but even then I knew I was luckier than most.

  I thought I’d be able to make it work, to get my associate’s degree, apply to a four-year college—until that night. My father, drunk and waving that handgun around. Me, having no choice but to grab it from him. The way he lunged at me, the way the gun went off, the way my dad lay sprawled flat on our living room floor.

  I don’t think I’ll ever get past the terror of that moment.

  And I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for what happened next.

  My father wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing—he was dead. I didn’t even know which one of us had pulled the trigger, but there were two things I did know. I knew I’d acted in self-defense, and I knew that no one would believe me. So I ran.

  And college became just a memory, the very least of my worries.

  But here in Lithia, everything changed. Things seemed to get better—almost normal, for a while there—and then they changed again. But a few things stayed the same: I have a job. I have a home. And I have a new father figure in David, who says he doesn’t want me “shoveling shoes” for the rest of my life. He offered to pay for this class—even though he runs the store now, he’d already made his fortune in software—and then allow me to increase my class load each semester and cut back on my hours at the store, as long as I didn’t get any grade lower than a B. I promised him I wouldn’t.

  He knows all about my father—what happened that night in Houston, the fact that an investigator claiming to work for my dad showed up here in Lithia last fall. Roman had threatened the guy, and he’d gone away. I’ve heard nothing since.

  I wondered for a while whether it was possible my father was still alive—after all, I’d never received word that he was dead, and despite checking the papers along my journey to Lithia, I didn’t see any reports. But the deaths of people like my dad often go unnoticed—few friends, no family—and by the time I got to Lithia, I figured I was safe.

  I told Alex about everything, too, and, like David, he made me feel better. After all, it’s been months since Roman chased that investigator out of town—months since I’ve heard anything at all related to my father.

  And, as usual, I don’t know whether to feel guilty or relieved.

  But David says I have a right to move on with my life, and that is what I’m trying to do. It’s July, so I’m in summer school—a good way to begin for someone with only a few community college credits under her belt. Lithia College is a small liberal arts school on a leafy campus close to downtown. I don’t feel as though I fit in here—I’m two weeks into this class and haven’t yet raised my hand, haven’t yet gotten to know the other students. They seem to know each other already, from the regular school year. Because I’m still working at Lithia Runners, I know I’m missing out on living in the dorms and eating in the cafeterias and hanging out in the student union—all opportunities to bond with the other students. But to be honest, I’m more focused on the class than making friends. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

  In truth, I’m nervous. It’s a humbling experience to be at a new school, to have to ask directions, to know nobody at all. I’ve always been a loner, but schools have a way of making me feel just plain lonely. Maybe it’s the way the students roam around in packs. I suppose that, deep down, they’re just as insecure as I am, but it doesn’t show on them the way I’m certain it does on my own face. When I was in high school, I imagined that college would be a whole new world—a grown-up world. In reality, it’s still a lot like high school, only everyone is a little bit older and there are no bells between periods. Fewer rules and more homework. But the fear of not fitting in is exactly the same.

  Professor Lindquist looks like an ex-hippie: a graying ponytail nearly down to his waist, a loose-fitting hemp shirt, sandals. He wears metal-rimmed glasses that hang, just barely, onto the tip of his nose, and he likes to pace back and forth, working himself up into various states of fervor. One moment, it’s the oil industry that sets him off; the next moment, it’s the factory farms.

  “The earth will defend itself,” he says again. “Who here has heard of Gaia?”

  Nobody raises a hand.

  “The Gaia hypothesis says that the earth is self-regulating, very much like our bodies. And if there is a threat to the body, such as a virus, that threat will be eliminated. And if that threat just happens to be humans … anybody?” He looks around the room for someone to fill in the blank.

  A hand goes up across the room—a guy with a nose ring and a black T-shirt. “So that means, like, humans are a virus?”

  “According to this theory, possibly,” says Professor Lindquist. “If humans hurt the planet, the planet will defend itself. Let’s take global warming. Humans heat up the planet, which in turn leads to more severe storms, which in turn kill humans.”

  I raise my hand and wait for him to notice it.

  “Yes?”

  “But humans aren’t just warming the planet,” I say. “They’re killing wildlife, destroying forests, you name it.”

  “True.” Lindquist scratches his beard as if he’s thinking. “But Gaia isn’t just about the earth defending itself—it’s also about humans defending the earth. The many organizations that work to protect animals, save the forests—they, too, may be considered an extension of Gaia.”

  Another hand in the back. “I took Greek mythology last semester,” a girl says. “Isn’t Gaia a goddess, too?”

  Professor Lindquist is nodding. “Very good,” he says. “Also known as Mother Earth. So on one hand you’ve got the spiritual”—he holds up his hands, palms up, as if he’s balancing the two on a scale—“and on the other you’ve got the scientific. The one thing these two communities agree on is that the planet is undergoing tremendous change right now. The why and the how and what to do about it is another story.”

  “What if it’s too late?” I ask.

  “Too late for what?”

  “Too late for the planet? Too late to save the polar bears and the sea turtles and the spotted owls?”

  His eyes seem to cloud over a bit. Maybe he’d done a bit too good a job of trying to scare us.

  “Perhaps it is too late,” he admits. “For some creatures, we already know this—but that’s why you’re here in this class right now. To learn how to do your best to save the ones still around.”

  “What if we can’t?”

  “The planet was around for billions of years before humans came to be,” Professor Lindquist says. “It will be around for millions of years after humans are gone. But let’s consider the next ten years, the next fifty, the next hundred.” He looks around the room. “Anyone know what an Amur leopard is?”

  I glance around, too—blank faces everywhere.

  “It’s an endangered leopard that lives in eastern Russia,” he continues. “There are maybe forty of them left in the world. And it’s all because of humans: We’ve destroyed their habitat through logging, building roads, poaching—and, of course, there’s climate change. Is this what will happen to the polar bear? Or the humpback whale? That’s why I’m here teaching this class. Because I believe there’s still time
to change our ways.” He pauses. “And I hope that’s why you’re taking this class, too. Because we need people to believe in change. If everyone believes it is too late—then yes, it is too late.”

  He stops, looks around for another moment, then proceeds to assign the class homework for Wednesday, as if the whole conversation has made him angry and he wants to punish someone—a ten-page essay on the most important risk to this planet and what we plan to do about it.

  I hear a murmur of protest throughout the room—and even though it’s a topic I’m interested in, I’m wondering myself how I’ll ever get this done by Wednesday—and then a loud sigh punctuates all the protests, putting a cross look on Professor Lindquist’s face.

  I turn my head, following the sigh. It came from a girl dressed head to toe in black, with pink hair, a series of rings in the curve of her upper ear, and a large hoop in her lip.

  “Professor Lindquist,” she says, “that’s only two days from now.”

  “Very observant of you.”

  “I mean, that’s not much time.”

  “This planet doesn’t have much time either, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Sure, I guess, but—”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” He smiles, and when I look back, I catch the girl rolling her eyes.

  “See you all Wednesday,” Lindquist says, and the class stampedes toward the door.

  I gather my things and step out into the hall, where the pink-haired girl is scrolling through her phone. I’m watching her, taking in all the jewelry, thinking of my own bare neck, wrists, and earlobes, when she looks up and catches me staring.

  She glares, then actually takes a step toward me, asking, “Is there a problem?”

  “No,” I say quickly. I resist the urge to step back, away from her, but I’m glad that I’m wearing my running shoes—the only shoes I have—just in case I need them in another second or two.

  She looks me up and down. “Go save the whales or something,” she mutters with a sneer, then turns away.

  Suddenly I’m angry—what have I done to deserve that comment, except ask a couple of questions in class? She’s already walking away, but I don’t let it go. “At least my hair’s not an endangered species,” I say to her back.