Raj notices I’m staring into space and asks what’s up. He’s got big friendly eyes and a wide pouty mouth, and hair like a single blue flame. He touches my left palm with his right index finger and I kind of melt. I tell him nothing’s up, I’m just thinking about the big presentation at work which, since we’re both living off my income, is kind of a thing. He kisses me—hot butterflies!—and tells me to knock ‘em dead.
My ghost has a seat in the back of the conference room for my presentation, where I yak about some of the challenges in our next code push. I mostly love being a project manager, except my company keeps changing its business model. This month, we’re making an app to help people use their Spotify playlists to get laid, I am not even kidding. It’s called Remixr. I’m doing a pretty solid job of talking through the workflow issues we’ve been having. Except one of the coders named Mickey keeps engaging in microaggresions: spreading his legs real wide in his chair, throwing paper balls at the trash right next to where I’m standing (his aim sucks), and yawn–laughing while I’m talking. Everyone else is just bored, probably playing Candy Crush under the chrome table.
Over by the window, my ghost is staring out at the Shake Shack across the street, as if she could really go for an extra–large chocolate shake and fries right now. She’s wearing sweatpants in a professional office setting. Her expression plainly says that being a ghost has certain perks and giving zero fucks about stupid product meetings is one of them.
I breathe and look away from the ghost, but I keep snagging her in my peripheral vision. The thought that’s always in the back of my mind surges forward: You’re going to lose your mind, it’s in the cards. The corner of my eye has become my whole field of vision, putting my ghost front and center. I start mumbling and repeating myself until the bun–haired VP of product, Marcia, thanks me for my efforts and says we should move on.
In my dreams, I’m a semi–famous turbo–geek who rocks the comedy scene every night. I have this fantasy of going to some city to give a TEDx talk, where I somehow make everybody laugh and rethink their whole way of looking at everything, and then since I’m already in town, I might as well just go perform at the local comedy spot that’s been begging me to show up. I actually enjoy the whole process of making things happen, helping code come together, and putting out products that enrich people’s lives. (Even when it’s something like Remixr.) I like the problem–solving, and I feel like I’m good at making smart people pull their heads out of their butts. Usually.
A few hours after the big presentation, I stumble into one of the 100 company chatrooms and notice a couple of the C–level execs talking about the upcoming workforce reduction—and then they notice that I’m lurking, and immediately bail and delete their own conversation. I look up from the screen, where the words “possible strategic layoffs” are fading to white, and see my ghost. She’s closer to me than ever—just peering over my cubicle wall—and I can hardly see through her at all.
3. Family
My mom and her new bride take me to brunch at a Moroccan diner, and I’m scared Mom is going to ask me to give her away. Cassie, my soon–to–be stepmom, is pale and skinny with random tufts of platinum hair coming out of her shaved head. Glam Tank Girl. Her skin is amazing, like she must just have microdermabrasion all over her entire body once a day or something. My ghost is sitting at the next table in a sundress, drinking a mimosa. My mom is telling me how she and Cassie are going to be married by a gay Buddhist who turns your sexual guilt into a stuffed animal as part of the ceremony.
I grew up in a really strict religious household, in a plantation house whose dark wood foundations were being slowly devoured by termites. My mom was raised Presbyterian in Mexico City, and she married this WASPy charismatic preacher who is just a grabby pair of callused hands and a red face in my memories. Before he met my mom, I heard my dad might’ve done snake–handling, which I wish I’d gotten to see, because fuck yeah snakes. The one time I made the mistake of telling my dad I thought I saw a ghost, he and a few of his deacons prayed over me for a full twelve hours, not letting me sleep. One of the deacons had breath that smelled like sour milk and I started to lose my mind. My mom’s family might at least have accepted a ghost as normal and just told me to visit some graveyards, pay some respect.
My parents were neo–Calvinists, which means they believed in predestination, kinda sorta, and the idea that your fate after death is sealed while you’re still alive. My mother used to tuck me in every night and tell me that she was afraid my soul was already damned. Now, Mom’s telling me that she and Cassie have written their own vows, and there’s a lot of stuff about giving yourself permission to love without expectations. My mom’s family is not coming to the wedding, except for Crazy Aunt Letitia, who was cut off before I was even born. My mom has kind of a butch haircut that makes her face look a lot squarer, and she’s wearing suspenders over a T–shirt. She looks really good. She looks younger than I feel. She keeps laughing, which is a sound I never even heard until a few years ago. Gloria, she tells me, I really want this day to be special for you as well as us, I want you to feel free.
When I was a teenager, sneaking out after curfew, going to smoke in the woods with the other dead–end kids, my ghost egged me on. My parents locked me in, my ghost let me out. My parents yelled at me, my ghost stood in the corner, arms folded, and glared at them. Jesus has a plan for you, you need to surrender, my mother pleaded, while my ghost studied her hands. Back then, I didn’t even recognize myself in her—I just thought she was some random ghost, haunting this old South Carolina house. That place was a natural ghost habitat, with so many gloomy corners and moldy back rooms full of barbed rust.
Cassie is saying she wants us to be friends, something she’s said before, and holding my mother’s hand across the table in front of me. She’s got movie–star blue eyes and she really seems to be crazy about Mom.
They are waiting for me to say something. Something like, I feel super lucky that we have this second chance as a family. Something like, I’m so happy for the two of you. Those are things I absolutely do feel, though I can tell without looking that my ghost is annoyed by all this hippie–dippie nonsense. My ghost is not okay with this midlife reinvention on the part of the woman who spent so many years telling me I had no choices.
I look at the fried eggs and hummus on my plate, breathe, and say the best thing I can think of: I’m glad you finally figured out your deal. Wish you could have found yourself sooner, but maybe you guys can have a new baby with a turkey baster and give it the perfect childhood, with Montessori and organic candy and no judgment, it’s never too late, amirite? When I look up, I see that my comments did not land the way I hoped—my mom looks crushed, actually weeping for fuck’s sake, and Cassie is comforting her. My ghost, though, has scooted her chair closer, and is practically part of our party.
4. Therapy
Dr. Jane can kind of tell from my gaze that my ghost is standing right behind her chair. She keeps twitching, as if her office furnishings will fly through the air any minute. She’s a frumpy fifty–something lady in a giant cat sweater, and I think I respond to her partly because she’s so unlike my mother. She smiles in a distant but nurturing way and asks me what the week brought me. Like the week is a hunting dog that drops rabbits at my feet, or something.
I’m freaking out, I say. The toolkit broke.
What broke the toolkit? she asks.
Everything. Everything broke the toolkit. My ghost is 100 percent not ignorable any longer. My ghost is right up in my business. All of the coping mechanisms are kaput because the ghost jams them up. All that stuff about connecting with Dia de los Muertos and remembering that the dead are part of life, it didn’t work. You try telling jokes with your own ghost sitting right there with a dead grimace on her face. You try leading a meeting. You try having an honest–to–god processing conversation with your adorable boyfriend, who keeps trying to claim he’s a feminist because he’s letting you support him financially. Just try it.
Your ghost only has the power you give it, says Dr. Jane. She doesn’t believe that any more than I do—she’s the one who had to invest in all new office furniture—but she probably thinks that’s a good therapist–y thing to say. Goddamn positive thinking. She’s the only one but me who’s ever seen my ghost in action and the only one I’ve told since I was a kid.
You’re doing so well, Dr. Jane says. You’ve gotten a promotion at work. You’re in a position of authority over people. You’ve been getting better comedy bookings, at bigger venues. You’ve got a boyfriend whom you adore. You’ve been rebuilding your relationship with your mother. Just think how much better your life is than when you were first coming to see me.
I don’t know, I say. I don’t know if any of that is true.
That’s how it sounds to me, from the outside looking in. It sounds like you’re being a successful grown–up, which is pretty much never fun for anybody, says Dr. Jane. And your ghost? Your ghost was really useful when you were a teenager trying to break out of a bad situation, but now she’s just in your way.
I glance up at my ghost, who is looking at my therapist’s hand puppets on the shelf, apparently not listening to any of this. I can never tell how much language she understands—like, does everything just sound garbled and weird to her? I’ve asked her yes–or–no questions, point blank, and she never nodded or shook her head or anything.
I don’t feel like my ghost is helpful or unhelpful, I say. I feel like she’s waiting. I feel like, every time I fail at something, she gets stronger. Every setback, I see her more clearly. Like, she’s getting power from my screw–ups. Or like I’m getting closer to turning into her.
Maybe—and here, Dr. Jane looks nervous, because she’s afraid the ghost will start trashing her office again—maybe it’s partly just in your mind. Maybe you just think the ghost is getting closer and more solid. I can’t see what you see, so I can’t tell for myself.
I don’t know. I have a strong sense that my ghost is feeding off my self–destruction. I need a new toolkit.
There’s no new toolkit. Dr. Jane scrunches her big brow. There’s just the coping mechanisms I already taught you. Don’t try to figure out what your ghost’s agenda is, or what your ghost wants. Try to figure out what you really want. What do you actually care about?
Pffft. As if I could possibly know that.