I’m inclined to agree. Plus I’m jealous at the way the swear words can simply flow off his tongue, like it’s no effort to produce them.

“Hey, Lex, I think I’ve found something for you to punch,” Sadie replies fondly.

“I could tell you a ghost story better than anything you’d see on TV,” Seth boasts.

Sadie scoffs. “Okay, smart guy. Go ahead. Tell us a ghost story.”

“Are you sure you want to hear it?”

“Oh, we’re sure.”

He looks at me. I nod. “Okay.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and puts on a serious expression. “A few years ago I worked at Circuit City on O Street.”

I almost laugh. Somehow when I heard the words ghost story my mind didn’t jump straight to Circuit City on O Street.

“It’s closed down now, but I worked there for like a year. It was a pretty normal job. A slacker job.” He smirks at Sadie. “Mostly I hung out in the DVD section and tried to keep the punks from shoplifting movies. They always stole weird stuff, too, like The Notebook and Mary Poppins and shit.”

“Ooh, terrifying,” Sadie mocks.

He ignores her. “So one night after we’d closed up, I went into the back office to get some receipt paper to restock my register, and I got this weird feeling.”

“A weird feeling?” Sadie’s skeptical. “Like maybe the feeling that you should get a real job?”

He looks at me again. His eyes are the same cool blue I remember. “A feeling like there was someone watching me. At first I thought maybe someone was in the room with me, like a customer or a burglar or somebody. I said, ‘Who’s there?’ and I picked up the baseball bat that my boss kept in the corner of the office. I went into the back room, and I turned on the lights and checked all the corners and stuff, but there was nobody. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling.”

I wait for Sadie to make another snarky comment, but she doesn’t. She’s leaning forward, waiting to hear the end of the story. So am I.

“So I put the bat away and turned to go back out on the floor, and that’s when I noticed it.” He leans back, clearly enjoying the fact that we’re so interested. “The shadow.”

I can’t help it; a chill goes down my spine. I shiver.

“Shadow?” Sadie repeats hoarsely.

“On the wall, there was a shadow of a man. And then I like whipped around to see what was casting the shadow, and I saw this dude standing there, just looking at me. He was an Indian. He was wearing the buckskins and moccasins and the feather in his hair and the whole Native American ensemble, which was weird enough, but what was weirder was that I could sort of see through him, to that sign on the wall that counted how many days since the last accident.”

It’s quiet for several seconds. Sadie and I are holding our breaths.

“So, go on,” Sadie prompts. “What did you do?”

“I took a couple quick steps back,” Seth says.

“And what did he do?” I want to know.

“He nodded, all solemn, and then he lifted his hand up like this.” Seth raises his palm. “And then he said, ‘How.’”

“‘How’?” I repeat. “‘How’ what?”

“Like, ‘How, white man. I come in peace.’ And after that we were totally friends, me and Tonto, and every night after work we’d knock back a beer.”

He starts laughing.

Sadie smacks him on the shoulder. “You doofus!” she cries. “God, can’t you be serious for two seconds?”

He keeps laughing. I sink back into the cushions, part relieved, part disappointed, while Sadie chews him out.

Doofus, she called him. I swallow.

“But seriously, though,” he says, catching Sadie’s wrists when she tries to pummel him. “That Circuit City was built on an old Indian burial ground. Look it up on the internet if you don’t believe me. And sometimes, for real, we’d hear footsteps or things would be moved in different places when we left the room. Seriously.”

“Come on, Lex,” Sadie says, disgusted, jumping up. “Let’s get away from this loser.”

“Love you too, baby sis,” he calls after us, grinning wickedly. “You should have seen your faces. Priceless.”

She takes my hand and tows me toward the stairs. When we get to the kitchen she gets out two paper plates, unwraps two frozen burritos out of the freezer, microwaves them for two minutes, and then scoops one up with a spatula and sets it in front of me.

Plop.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she says. “Dinner is served.”

Mom’s still up when I come in a few hours later.

“How’s Jill?” She’s sitting at the kitchen counter flipping through a Better Homes and Gardens magazine and sipping a glass of white wine. “Did you have a nice time?” she asks.

“Actually, I was hanging out with Sadie McIntyre,” I confess.

A mix of surprise and disapproval crosses her face—Sadie’s not what she would think of as a “good influence”—but she covers it up quickly. “What brought that about?” she asks, keeping her voice light. “I didn’t think you and Sadie had much in common anymore.”

“We have more in common lately.”

Comprehension dawns in her eyes. My mom has no trouble remembering that Sadie’s dad died. Mom’s a decent human being.