The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks by Josh Lanyon Page A

since e-mailing that apologetic farewell. How could he have been so wrong about Marcel? He had believed they truly knew each other, believed that they might even know each other better because their exchanges were unencumbered by anything physical.
    Their communications were the open, honest outpourings of mind and heart. For months they had shared everything -- from the most mundane things to the most deeply personal.
    He knew that Marcel felt that he was being sexually discriminated against at work and that he disliked his female “harridan” boss; that he was allergic to shellfish and ragweed; that he loved the apple-raisin bagels at the bakery around the corner but didn’t eat them often because he gained weight easily; that he had been seventeen the first time he’d had sex with a man.
    Perry was an expert in all things Marcel. But he hadn’t known the most important thing: that Marcel was still in love with Gerry.

    The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks
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    It wasn’t just the embarrassment of all the things he had revealed to Marcel -- all those confidences made in the belief that they shared an intimacy unique to them. He had told Marcel things he hadn’t shared with anyone before. Nor was it the realization that he had been a fool -- though that hurt plenty.
    He was grieving -- truly grieving -- for the death of that dream. Sometimes holding fast to that dream had been all that kept him afloat. And now it was gone: that foolish little fantasy of cozy domesticity, himself and Marcel living together. It was almost too painful to contemplate now, those snapshots that had previously brought such comfort and joy: grocery shopping together at Whole Foods, brushing against each other in their too-small kitchen as they prepared their wonderful gourmet meals, waking up together…smiling into each other’s eyes as they turned to make love…
    He had known from the photos that Marcel would be good-looking, and he was. Tall and boyish, maybe a little plump -- but in a cute way -- unruly brown hair. True, his hair was thinner in real life, and Marcel had been a little bit older than his photo. He had bright blue eyes -- a very different blue from the somber blue of Nick Reno’s. Perry had known he was going to love Marcel from the minute he saw him waiting at the gate looking apologetic and sheepish, in his own good-looking rumpled way.
    Perry stared at the Armando Drechsler posters of Mayan princesses and tribal dancers on Watson’s bedroom wall. In the moonlight they looked like giant tarot cards, or travel posters to a mysterious unknown.
    It was over now. And though he knew it was silly and melodramatic, Perry felt like his life was over too. He was never going to find anyone. He would live out his days at the Alston Estate just like little Miss Dembecki, until he became one of its ghosts too.

    * * * * *
Click. Click. The alarm clock turned over the glowing green numerals of 12:01 a.m.
    Perry opened his eyes.
    Where was he? And then he remembered. He was staying in Mr. Watson’s apartment.
    He was drowsily taking stock, deciding if he needed to pee badly enough to make that trip across the unheated room, when he heard it: a low moan.
    What the…?
    He had to have misheard. Or imagined it entirely. His ears strained the silence.
    Nothing but the beat of blood rushing in his ears.
    He continued to listen alertly.
    He wished he hadn’t awakened. Now he was alive to the sounds of the house: the strange squeaks like floorboards under uncertain feet, the sigh of the wind down the chimney like a whispering voice.

    62 Josh Lanyon
    He could imagine what Nick would say of such imaginings. The thought of Nick
    bolstered his sagging courage. Nick did not believe in ghosts and neither did Perry.
    Of course, if some human agent was standing outside his room making spooky noises, it wasn’t so reassuring. Was someone trying to scare him into leaving the Alston Estate?
    All they had to do was ask.
    Well, not really. He didn’t have