Ghost Times Two (3 page)

“Oh,” he said, sounding pleased with himself, “I planned it. If you'd turned on iTunes that's what you would have got. I had the song ready to play. See”—and now his voice drooped—“I figured he'd want to kiss you and when he tried . . .”

“Oh, Jimmy, what am I going to do about you?”

“I have your best interests at heart.”

“You sound like my friend Janey.
Megan, don't you think you could do better? After all, he isn't very handsome.
” Clearly she was quoting.

“There's an astute woman. I heard the rest of it, too.” His voice oozed satisfaction.
“Jimmy was sooo good-looking.”
Clearly he was also quoting.

She gave a reluctant laugh. “Self-esteem chugging right along? Okay, you were the handsomest guy in the room.”

“She said I looked like Ansel Elgort.”

“You did.” She sighed. “But you're gone. At least you're supposed to be gone. Why are you still here?”

“I can't go yet. The thing about it is, I don't want you to marry a guy with a chin that juts. By the time he's fifty, he'll be a clone to George on Mount Rushmore.”

“Blaine has a perfectly decent chin.” Her voice was hot.

“He's a suit.”

“Of course he's a suit. He's a lawyer.”

“Most lawyers swank around in dressy casual. What's with him and a suit? Does he think he's Clarence Darrow? Besides, his suits never fit him, the sleeves are too short, and the pants too long. The next thing you know he'll drape his Phi Beta Kappa key on a watch chain.”

“Jealous,” she taunted.

“There's more to life than grades. I had a great future at the
Gazette
.”

“A great future . . .” Her voice trailed off.

The leaves in a nearby cottonwood rustled in the hot late-afternoon breeze. A scent of new-mown grass mingled with the sweetness of honeysuckle. A mourning dove's haunting cry sounded once, twice, again.

Abruptly, she whirled. Head down, she hurried toward the little red car.

Again a male voice called after her, “Hey, Megan, don't go away mad.”

M
egan again drove fast, small hands clamped on the steering wheel.

I nodded approval at pink nail polish that matched her suit. An eye for detail distinguishes those who dress well. Her suit made me feel festive. I know what I'm wearing even when I'm not visible. I changed to an adorable rosebud print silk polyester dress, the rosebud pattern enhanced by a deeper rose band a few inches above the short hemline. The finishing touch was rose high-heel pumps with ankle straps.

Megan stared straight ahead. “I'll be graceful, say all the right things, such a splendid experience to be at Layton, Graham, Morse and Morse, but here's a chance to go out on my own.” Her smile was huge. “The icing on the cake is being with Blaine! Maybe Jimmy will leave me alone. Maybe I'll stop hearing his voice. Maybe I can leave Layton, Graham, Morse and Morse behind forever. Or stop feeling like I'm in a twilight zone instead of a law firm. Or am I
nuts about all of that, too? Mr. Layton and Doug never talk to each other. They pass in the hall and don't say a word. Sure, they have their own clients, but it's something more than that. Ginny and Carl are really nice but I never work with them. And ever since last winter, they treat Mr. Layton politely but look at him with about as much warmth as two boa constrictors. And maybe Sharon's having a midlife crisis even if she is only in her thirties. Sometimes when she comes out of Doug's office, she looks drained and sad. I mean, the man can make anyone mad, but sad? She needs some of Geraldine's spunk. But if she had Geraldine's sex appeal maybe she wouldn't mope around. And if Nancy tells me again how she lusts for a Porsche like Doug's I'll lose my control and tell her wanting what we can never afford is terminally stupid. Even sweet Lou, who never says an unkind word about anyone, has eyes like ice when she looks at Doug. And poor Anita! I hate to leave Anita. I've covered for her as much as I can, but if I don't get out of there I'll go crazy. Or maybe I'm already crazy. Maybe I'm imagining the gloom I sense around me. I didn't used to talk to myself. Now I can match Hamlet for soliloquies. Maybe that's why I keep imagining Jimmy. Maybe I shouldn't go with Blaine. He doesn't need a nutty partner.” Her voice held despair.

“Of course you should go with Blaine.” I spoke with the authority of a lifetime lived. Carpe diem is trite because it's true.

“No, she shouldn't.” The young male voice was equally adamant.

Megan jammed on the brakes, swerved to the shoulder of the road. Her head jerked toward the passenger seat.

I wasn't buckled. Not that I am one to flout rules. I do my best with the Precepts, but even a most abstracted driver might wonder
if the belt in an apparently vacant seat slid into its slot and clicked. So I was riding untethered. The abrupt halt flung me forward along with Megan's tote bag.

“Ouch.” Fortunately, in my invisible state I am not subject to injury although I'd come up hard against the dashboard. I grabbed the bag from the floor, returned it to the seat, squeezed in next to it.

Megan stared at her striped tote, apparently rising of its own accord to nestle beside the console. Her dark curls windblown, her smoky gray eyes strained, Megan had the look of a stricken creature. “Jimmy, it's bad enough when it's you, but it's weird if you sound like a woman. You say I should go with Blaine, then you say I shouldn't. And keep your hands off my tote.”

“Oh heavens.” I'd blown my cover. Metaphorically speaking. “Megan, I'm not Jimmy.”

“She sure isn't.” The tenor from the backseat sounded bemused. “Who the hell are you?”

I was chiding. “Hell is not to be lightly invoked.” However, this wasn't the moment for an exposition on Heavenly attitudes. “Suffice to say—”

Megan turned the motor off, stared at the empty passenger seat, flung a harried glance at the equally untenanted backseat. “I . . . have . . . lost . . . my . . . mind.” The halting words signaled defeat. She lifted a trembling hand to her cheek. “Jimmy's dead. I keep hearing him. Weird things happen, the music in my iPhone, my favorite chocolate on my pillow—”

I spoke to the backseat. “Jimmy, that is truly sweet.”

“Hey, thanks. She loves Dove chocolate bars. I figured the corner drugstore wouldn't mind if I filched a few. I drank their mud
for coffee and paid a buck and a half a cup. And last night I swept out the storeroom, saved somebody a job this morning. But who the hell are you and where are you?”

“I'm Bailey Ruth Raeburn and I'm here for Megan.”

Megan scrunched farther down in the seat, gazed in the direction of my voice. “I'll go home, call a doctor. Or go to the emergency room. What will I say? I'm hearing voices and will you please—”

I reached out, patted her arm.

She went rigid.

“You poor child.” I looked at the backseat. Now I spoke with the authority honed by teaching English to high school football players. “James, return to the cemetery. Immediately.”

“Aw . . .” He sounded very young.

“It is imperative I have a moment alone with Megan.”

A masculine sigh. “You sound like my Aunt Harriet. Aunt Harriet could have been a Marine DI. Maybe she was. I'll have to ask some—”

“James, now.”

Megan closed her eyes, muttered, “If I hear two voices, why not three? We can play bridge. That would be fun. A deck of cards, me holding mine and three bunches of cards floating in the air. Would they float? Maybe they'd hover. Maybe the get-back-to-the-cemetery voice is my feeble mind's last desperate ploy to get rid of Jimmy. Maybe if I think really, really hard, there aren't any voices, I didn't feel a touch on my arm, maybe—”

“Megan”—I hoped my cheery tone was reassuring—“all is well. I'm sure Jimmy has departed for the moment.” Now to business. I asked sharply, “You've heard Jimmy speak, have you seen him?”

Her eyes flared. “Is that the next stage? Voices in my head first,
then visions? Progressing from minor hallucinations to full-fledged over the edge? I haven't seen him. Is that a good sign? Maybe I'm just slightly hysterical and this new voice I'm imagining is going to turn the tide, right the ship. Now I'm not only nuts, I'm trite. Mrs. Carey, she was my high school English teacher, had a thing about triteness. Swim like a duck, bring it on, I'm just saying, in for a penny . . .” Megan's voice trailed off. She pressed against the driver's door, watched colors swirling in the passenger seat.

I took a moment to smooth the skirt of my dress. Perhaps the deep rose wasn't best for a redhead. Something cool. Oh, perfect! A pale blue sleeveless scoop-necked midcalf linen dress enhanced by an enchanting lace hem. I flipped down the visor, looked in the mirror. Too plain? I nodded approval at a necklace with chunky white stones on a silk cord and a gold medallion drop. I smoothed back a red curl to admire golden wire hoop earrings. Feeling at my best, I turned to Megan. “Good for Mrs. Carey. I asked about seeing Jimmy because it's best if he doesn't know he can appear.”

She sagged against the seat. “Why did I do this to myself? Voices were bad enough, but imagining a gorgeous redhead—”

I gave her an appreciative smile.

“—is completely nuts. Redheads are always trouble. There was Gussie Hodges in third grade. She persuaded me to tell Mrs. Bacon she smelled like breakfast, and I had to write
Rude girls are an abomination
on the blackboard one hundred times. I'd better check in at the ER. Do they take people who are seeing things?”

I reached out and took her hand.

She shuddered and pressed as far back against the driver's door as possible.

“Breathe deeply, Megan. Everything is all ri—”

“Oh sure. Right as rain. Steady as she goes. Hunky-dory. Easy as pie. Where do you suppose that one came from? Pies are hell to make and my crust always tastes like foam.”

“I'm here to help.” Succinctly, I described the Department of Good Intentions. “It's time for Jimmy to come to Heaven. I will persuade him.”

Megan's quick breaths slowly eased. She looked at me with a probing gaze. “Let me see if I get this right. You're a ghost—”

“Emissary.” In case Wiggins was nearby.

“—and you're here to corral Jimmy. Do you think you can?” She gave a violent head shake. “I'm going from bad to worse. I hear Jimmy and now to yank him out of my head I've invented this redhead from Heaven—”

“Redhead from Heaven,” I murmured. How nice. It would have been a lovely title for a movie starring Myrna Loy.

“I said it. I don't need an imaginary ghost to repeat what I said.”

I opened the passenger door.

She gripped the steering wheel so tightly her fingers turned white as her eyes followed the opening door.

I yanked the door shut with a decisive slam. “I am here.”

She loosened her grip on the wheel, sagged against the seat. “Please go away. Go to the cemetery and talk to Jimmy. You have a lot in common.”

“Jimmy,” I replied with certainty, “will be at your house.”

“Apartment,” she corrected.

“Shall we go and see?”

“Damn. Damn. Damn.” She reached out, turned the key. The car jolted forward. To hush the seat belt signal, I pushed the
connector into its slot. “We drove for years without seat belts,” I remarked conversationally.

Megan stared straight ahead. Her profile was appealing, springy dark hair, fine features, firmly set small chin. I admire determination.

“You're driving rather fast.”

“You concentrate on Jimmy, I'll take care of my driving.”

“So you're a lawyer.”

No reply. The Dodge swerved out of the cemetery, picked up speed.

“Are you excited about joining Blaine?” And what is it that you hate about your current job? Was
hate
too strong a word? Somehow I didn't think so.

“I'll meditate. Push out extraneous thoughts, become one with the universe.”

“If you keep going this fast, you may become one with the universe before—”

A siren wailed.

Megan looked in the rearview mirror, checked the speedometer. “Uh-oh.” She gradually slowed.

I twisted to see. Flashing red lights atop a cruiser came nearer and nearer.

Megan eased the Dodge off the road onto the shoulder, rolled down the window.

The cruiser pulled up behind. The driver's door opened.

It was dusk now, the soft shadowy beginning of sunset. The road from the cemetery into Adelaide wasn't well traveled. There was a sense of summery peace, birds settling into trees, their chitter intense. I've often wondered at the content of that loud prelude to
darkness. Perhaps mama birds murmuring,
Good night, sleep tight
. Or strutting males focused on what mattered.
Did you see that hot chick by the pond this morning?

The officer came nearer. Now it was my turn. “Uh-oh,” I murmured. I swirled away.

Megan was absorbed in opening her purse. She fished for her billfold, lowered the window, and turned to look up into the face of a young officer I knew well. She offered her license. “I'm sorry, Officer. I was so involved in conversation I wasn't paying attention to my speed.”

Johnny Cain was classically handsome, thick brown hair, strong features. Even better, he was kind and brave. I will always remember when he faced death for the woman he loved.

I popped out to look over Johnny's shoulder, scanned the license, noted the address on Magnolia, apartment 6, returned to the passenger seat.

“Seventy-four miles an hour in a fifty-five-mile-an-hour zone.” His familiar voice was disapproving. He held a tablet, glanced down, likely checking the car license for violations.

“I've never had a ticket. Truly, we were just so excited—”

“We?” He bent to look inside the car, scanned the backseat.

Megan looked around, stiffened. She stared at the empty passenger seat. “She—” Megan hunched in the driver's seat, abruptly lurched out a hand and grabbed.

An interesting aspect of being an emissary is physicality. When I appear, I am there. Or here, if you prefer, all five feet five inches of me with curly red hair, green eyes, freckles, and my twenty-seven-year-old svelte self. When I swirl away, I am not visible and
I can pass through any physical substance but I am still, so to speak, here. Megan's lunge and grasp caught my arm in a tight vise. I used my free hand to touch a finger firmly on her lips.

To her credit, she understood.

Her grip eased. Numbly, she turned to Johnny. “I . . . I mean . . .”

I leaned close, whispered in her ear. “Working on a script.”

“. . . I've been working on a script. Sometimes I get carried away. I didn't mean to speed.” Her voice trembled.

Johnny Cain's eyes squinted in remembrance. “I might not have understood, but we had an incident at the inn recently. A bunch of writers.” His voice was bemused. “I interviewed some of them.”

The encounters had obviously made an impression on Johnny.

His voice had an uneasy tone. “They talk about characters in books like they're real.”

Megan looked at him gratefully. “Thank you for understanding. I—we—it was a conversation and I was thinking and I just didn't know how fast I was going.” There was a depth of sincerity in the last statement.

Johnny nodded. “Try to keep your mind on your driving. No ticket. This time.” He turned away.

Megan remained stationary, hands gripping the wheel.

The cruiser pulled onto the road, reached the crest of a hill, was out of sight.

“You can drive on now.” I remained unseen.

“Will you go away?”

“For the moment.” Not only would Wiggins frown upon continued interaction, Megan needed a respite from emotion. I knew where to find her.