Chapter 4: Growing Up

Europe, September 1992

Lydia Deetz was eighteen-years old, and for once in her life, felt pretty much complete. She had graduated from high school in Winter River, Connecticut, with high honors, and had decided to take some time to travel through Europe with a couple of her, well, okay, she could admit it, her only close friends, Bertha and Prudence before they did the whole college/university thing. Her father, albeit nervously (but when was her poor Dad not nervous?) paid for the three of them to go abroad for several months as a graduation gift after Delia had unbelievably sided with Lydia that it was "the thing to do" and nagged her father into it. The girls had been delighted, and Lydia had to admit that although she missed her entire family, she really needed to get out and see the big world outside of the City and Winter River.

Bertha and Prudence had never really been outside of Winter River before, not counting a couple of weekend and day trips into the City for the usual museum and shopping trips, and even then, their eyes had always been as big as saucers, staring at all the people that ranged from the "normal" (at least for the City) to the ones that dressed so outlandishly, even Lydia had had to stop a few times and assess whether they were alive or an eccentric ghost, like... Beetlejuice.

Lydia spun the gold ring around on her finger like she always did when she thought of the crazy ghost. She had gotten over the whole incident rather quickly. Being who she was, she took the strange and unusual in stride. Alright, she could admit he was more "strange and unusual" than even the oddest unusual entity, but she had somehow never really felt truly threatened by the ghost. Yes, he was disgusting with his mannerisms and mold, and yes, he had coerced her into an "marriage of convenience" by taking advantage of a traumatic situation. She was being forced to watch as her friends the Maitlands got horribly exorcised by one of Otho's patented bumbling and big mistakes.

She had balked at the "altar", of course, she had been fifteen for gods sakes and didn't know which way her head was pointed at that moment, literally. One second she was in her usual baggy, black clothes, the next she was in a garish red tutu-like wedding dress being pulled across the living room floor by an unseen force and grabbed by the eager ghost, being hauled up to a warped looking dwarf and having to hear her own voice come out of said ghost's grungy mouth, saying things she was certain that she wasn't certain that she wanted to say, deal or no deal.

One of the things that had always bothered her about the whole ordeal ironically was did he want to marry her just because he saw her as a way "Out", or was it because he possibly actually liked her a bit, too? And the other thing that had bothered her... Why in the hell did she even care enough to bother to wonder?

Granted, the entire space of their interaction up to the point of the debacle of a wedding was two ten-minutes-or-so conversations, so it was a bit hard to be able to decide if one actually liked someone, let alone would be a suitable marriage partner, but she had actually felt that he actually was someone who could have understood her.

When she had told him that she wanted "In", thinking that maybe, possibly, she could find her mother where ever he was from for one brief and, admittedly idiotic, moment, (in retrospect, she highly doubted her mother was anywhere within several light years of the wacky ghost) he had dropped his hokey con act and actually looked at her like she was a person, something no one else had done in as long as she could remember. When he had asked her 'Why?', that simple, one syllable word had sounded like a bit of a lifeline at that particularly admittedly angsty teenage moment in her life.

He had looked at her as if she wasn't some little kid, like her parents and the Maitlands treated her, or a like a freak the kids at school looked at her with with their thinly veiled disgust and sometimes outright disdain. No, Beetlejuice had looked at her like she was a person, a person with wants and needs that needed to be addressed and recognized just like anyone else.

In retrospect at her ripe old wizened age of eighteen, that was pretty pathetically angsty, if anything ever was. She chuckled to herself in her mind.

Her father and Delia had certainly tried, and they let her do her own thing, to the point of sometimes she felt they just didn't want to bother to try to understand her. But then, they weren't the most "normal" of parents, or people, themselves. I mean, Lydia mused to herself, those in glass houses should never cast that first proverbial stone. Delia's art was darker than just about anything the Maitlands had ever witnessed on their brief visits to the Neitherworld, and they made Lydia's macabre photography look like tourists shots taken at Disney World. And her Dad...well, her Dad was her Dad, as much as she loved him, hell, as much as she loved both of them, when she could now admit that Delia had always tried to be the most supportive she could be when first faced with a rather odd ten-year-old girl who had lost her mother and said she could see ghosts and loving a more than slightly neurotic man enough to marry into their quirky little family.

The Maitlands were wonderful and doting and just what she needed, even if they were dead. But even so, they were completely normal.

Which Lydia always had known, since she was a little girl, that she wasn't exactly normal, she was different. She had seen ghosts since her mother had died. Her mother had been the first ghost she had seen.

Since then, she had seen ghosts here and there. Some looked just like regular people, and she had to look twice before she knew what state they were in. Some were really icky, but they couldn't help that. It all depended on how they died, and what frame of mind they were in when they passed. The Maitlands threw her a bit, she didn't know why they hadn't gone on to whatever World her mother had gone to, but then, her mother had been like her and been able to see and talk with ghosts, and she knew about the afterlife. Lydia didn't know how much her mother had known, but she knew that she had known some things about what happened after your soul left it's used up corporeal shell .

She had never forgotten their last conversation in the cold hospital waiting room when she had been five.

Perhaps it was because the Maitlands didn't know about the afterlife and hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about it, or perhaps the fates had deemed them needed where they were, but, even though Lydia felt bad that they were stuck in the house for another

one-hundred-and-twenty-one years or so, she still felt glad that they were there with her and her father and stepmother; they were like another set of parents to her.

She sighed as she went back to spinning the ring as she looked out the train window as it sped along, trying to ignore the sound of Bertha's loud snoring as she slept in the seat across from her. Prudence had her nose stuck in a book and was in her own world, much like Lydia.

Again, her thoughts trailed traitorously back to the striped chaos that almost wound up being her husband. She looked down at the old, gold ring, ostentatious, but somehow, her. She didn't wear any other jewelry besides the ring. She slid it down past her knuckle, but didn't take it completely off her finger. It just felt...wrong. She had thought about taking it off hundreds of times over the past three years since he had forced the ring on her finger, and had gotten to the point of it hitting her fingernail, before she always slid it right back up to where it just seemed to belong.

Maybe it was cursed, like his name, or something. She just knew it felt wrong to take it off. She told her family that it wouldn't come off, and, luckily, they had believed her and left it be, rather than try to get it off themselves. Barbara had tried to get her to let her try a few times, but Lydia had stuck to her guns and just told her she'd have to cut her finger off to get it off, and that's probably why Beetlejuice had had it on that disembodied finger before he gave it to her. If possible, Barbara had paled even more than her usual ashen shade and let it be, but not before admonishing Lydia not to say his name.

If he didn't like her at all, he just would have dragged her up to that... preacher... and gotten it over with immediately. Maybe it was just his personality, he definitely seemed to be the showy sort, maybe that's why he had gone through the, okay, millisecond time frame of trouble to conjure up that garish tux and her damn tutu. But, he did do it.

She sighed. She did always feel bad, in a way, how he got...eaten by that worm thing. He had dropped her father on his head, but still, he had saved the Maitlands, and she had made a deal with him. She couldn't take it back now, though... Or could she still call him? She didn't think that he was dead, well, deader, after the snake-worm thing, but, you never knew, he seemed like the type that would have come skulking back around after he got out of the situation that she and her family had put him in and would be either looking to finish the deal or at least get a little revenge, or both. As of yet, she hadn't seen any miniscule Beetle ghost, and as of yet, she hadn't been brave enough to try to say his name the three times to call him again either.

She stopped her fiddling with the ring and looked out the window once more. Beautiful scenery of farmland and fields flew by, looking much like the fields back home in the States in New England.

She and the girls were now in France, after spending over a month in London and trekking around to all the relevant tourist spots throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland for the past three months. Stonehenge and Wiltshire had been a bit touristy, but still impressive and filled with mystery and energies that Lydia had felt coursing through her body. There were many other ancient and mysterious sites scattered over the English countryside.

There was just so much to see, to do, the days just seemed to fly by. It had taken them a whole week to just get through the Victoria and Albert museum, and the B.M.? My god, it was like its own metropolis with its awe-inspiring atrium built around the old Victorian building, and then wing after wing added. She had never wanted to leave the Egyptian wing, and she had spent over and hour sketching and photographing the Rosetta Stone, much to Bertha's annoyance. Prudence had been with her the whole time though, her nose stuck in one of her ever present books, reading out loud about the history and theories behind the stone.

Then there had been the Tower. Lydia had been disappointed by all the modern buildings surrounding such a historic spot, taking away from it's ambiance. And yes, she had hoped in her own twisted way to see Anne Boleyn scurrying down a hall with her head tucked under her arm and to be able to ask her how much of a pompous asshole King Henry the VIII had really been, but, alas, all the resident ghosts had long since passed their mandatory haunting time frame. And a group of German tourists had drove her batty complaining about the lack of...ESCALATORS or LIFTS as they climbed up and down the narrow, winding stone stairwells built to defend the tower against any enemy intruder. Oh. My. God. And it was a shame that they couldn't see the Crown Jewels. She had read stories of a ghost BEAR in the tower that supposedly defended the Jewels...that would have been deadly vou.

After France, they were going to go to Italy and Rome for a bit, and then home to the States for the holidays, none of them wanting to be away from their families for that. As it was, it was the longest any of the girls had been away from home, but, they were all adjusting nicely, as they were now officially adults.

Lydia chuckled to herself, thinking about how Bertha had completely come out of her shell and was Miss Adventurous and Daring now, always wanting to go clubbing and meet guys. She had grown up out of her gangly awkward mid-teens stage, just as Lydia and Prudence had. They were both good-looking girls now, but, well, Lydia… Lydia couldn't always see it herself, but she was something else.

Lydia wasn't totally blind to her reflection in the mirror, and she wasn't blind to the stares that people gave her, both men and women, some with envy, some with obvious lust, some with just stares of surprise. She had always been a bit sensitive to people staring at her, but as she grew older and her body blossomed and grew, she grew into her body, and became more comfortable in it. She never flaunted herself, though, or called attention to herself anymore than her looks already did. She could look in the mirror and admit to herself that she was good-looking, (she was most definitely underestimating herself) and she liked her hair now that she had grown out of the mega-goth look and let it grow out of the chopped-up bangs and spikes and let it grow long and natural, and she knew her eyes always drew people's compliments. She was happy with herself, but she was still quiet and introspective, and wasn't flamboyant. Her wardrobe still consisted of all dark hues, but it was more tailored and conservative. And thanks to Delia's expensive label-conscientious tastes, it was high class, yet still subdued. To the knowing eye, with the well cut and luxurious fabrics draping a figure that would make an hourglass turn green with envy, and with her own natural beauty, outward and inward, she was a stunner.

Bertha, on the other hand, was the flamboyant one of the three. She still hadn't become comfortable with herself enough yet to just be herself. Whenever they went to a even somewhat metropolitan city, she would bust out with her "club gear" and insist that Lydia and Prudence "go with", and would lend them more provocative clothes and coax them into them to go "bar hopping" with her. Although clubbing was fun sometimes for Lydia, as she liked to dance, there was a point of when enough was enough, and poor Prudence acted like a martyr going to the burning before she walked into whatever place Bertha had found for them to "investigate".

Bertha loved to get attention from men, never having gotten any while they were growing up and in school. She used her looks that she had admittedly gotten quite a bit of like a new toy, and her outgoing and gregarious personality complimented them perfectly. She worried Lydia, though, as Bertha was still pretty innocent and wouldn't really know what to do if one of her admirers got too pushy. Luckily, they had all just had fun so far, but still, Lydia worried. There had been a few times that she and Pru had had to drag a madly giggling and drunk Bertha away from a gaggle of admirers, both Bertha's, Lydia's, and even Prudence's. (Lydia's looks always attracted men to her like a moth to a flame, even though she sent out every possible signal to "back off", and Pru's sitting in a corner with a book seemed to give some men a feeling of a challenge.)

In Sussex, seemingly a sleepy little suburb, it became quickly apparent that it hid a crazy nightlife, being close to a couple of universities, and being so close via train to London. As soon as they opened their mouths, the men flocked to the "American Girls". Lydia and Pru would have to snag Bertha and climb into a cab to go back to whatever hotel or inn they were staying at so she could sleep it off. So far, they had been lucky, but if anything ever was to happen... It wasn't as if any of them were experienced in how to stave off the advances of a drunken and adamant paramour.

Again, Lydia wondered if she was ever in truly serious trouble, if she would call back the ghost that she had left at the altar. Would he even come? Would he be able to? Would he even want to? And if he did, how did she know he wouldn't just lend a helping hand to whomever or whatever problem Lydia had found herself in, theoretically, mind you.

She sighed aloud again, and Pru looked up from her book. A quick glance at the cover showed it was Fodor's Guide To Paris and France. It figured, Prudence was nothing but prepared.

"Well, of course, as we discussed, we most certainly will have to go to the Louvre. I expect it will take us at least four days to properly see it all. Then, of course, there will be the delightful Parisian nightlife..." She sighed, looking over at the still sleeping Bertha meaningfully and looking back at Lydia.

"Oh god, yeah, I know. At least we talked her out of Amsterdam or Berlin, for god's sakes."

Both Prudence and Lydia laughed. Lydia looked out the train window again.

"We'll be pulling into Le Grande Paris in about twenty minutes, by my calculations. The trains do run quite on schedule here." Prudence's matter-of-fact way of speaking was always a secret amusement, in a fond way, to Lydia.

"Well, let's wake up sleeping beauty now. Don't want her to have her batteries too charged for tonight. She'll have us in every damn club in Paris before our first night is through."

Prudence laughed as she reached over and put her thick traveler's guide under Bertha's nose and snapped it shut with a loud bang.

"What? What? We here yet?"

Lydia and Prudence laughed, and Bertha good naturally joined in.