Ghosts and Other Lovers (30 page)

I got up. "Do you mind if I look?" I was already walking away from her as I spoke. I didn't want her to see the tears which had sprung to my eyes at the thought of poor Hutch dying all alone in that cramped space while his killer sprinted out the front door to safety.

It was a tiny little room, all right, tightly packed with a big washing machine and even bigger dryer; cupboards overhead held the usual sorts of cleaning stuffs. I tried with all my might to get some sense of Hutch, some lingering trace of his personality, in that little room, but there was nothing. Maybe the Feng Shui had got rid of his hungry ghost. . . . Or, more likely, what Hutch had always believed was true, and there was nothing left of us after death; ghosts were just vibrations aided by imagination and the hope that springs eternal. . . .

I got myself under control and returned to the kitchen, where Melanie was starting to get our dinner together.

The evening dragged on. I'd never realized how exhausting it could be to be constantly "on," always on my guard, like a spy, having to pretend to like someone I would rather have hated. Not that I did hate her, actually, because I understood too well that, in similar circumstances, under siege in my own home, I would have done my best to kill my stalker. What difference would it have made to me to be told that he was somebody else's beloved friend? At least I didn't have to pretend to be interested in her. I did, genuinely, want to know everything there was to know about her. Somewhere in that mass of personal detail must be the answer to what had happened to Hutch. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I was determined to find it.

Yet somehow, the more I knew about her, the less I understood. Melanie was becoming deeply familiar to me, almost a part of myself. Not like the friends we make by choice, but like the playmates forced on children by proximity or family. I thought she was like the boring cousin, a year younger than me, I'd had to play with whenever my mother or my aunt wanted a day off. I knew every detail of her life, knew her room and her toys almost as well as my own, and yet I knew nothing at all about her. When, halfway through college, she dropped out and became a Moonie, I couldn't say I'd seen it coming, but neither could I be genuinely shocked, because, after all, why shouldn't she? I had no idea who she was inside.

Was Hutch as mystified as me, or would being in Melanie's presence have given him what he needed, answered all his questions? As she chatted on, I tuned out, my thoughts drifting back to Hutch, the pain of his loss, the endless regrets. . . .

"Becky, what's wrong?"

She reached across the table to touch my hand and I jerked away, spattering fresh tomato sauce all down my shirt.

We both cried out in dismay.

"Oh, gosh," Melanie said, jumping up as I began to dab at myself with my napkin. "No, don't do that! You'll set the stain -- the best thing is to take it off right away and put it under cold, running water. Take if off, take it off now."

I looked up at her and she blushed. She turned away. "I'll go get you something else to put on, of course," she said in a strained voice. "Put it straight into the sink, put the cold water hard on it, you hear?" She kept her back to me as she spoke, and hurried out of the room.

By the time she got back I had remembered: there are no coincidences in this life. Every action is meaningful. Suddenly it made sense to me: I had been thinking about Hutch. This might be a way of getting closer to him, of finding out more. . . .

"Could I wash this? Really wash it in the machine, I mean?"

"Uh, if you want . . . sure. There's a couple of towels in it now, they'll be OK with it--" She held out her hand but I kept a grip on my dripping shirt.

"I can do it. Just tell me where the soap is."

"Oh, well . . . if you look in the cupboard just above the machine -- are you sure? OK, then, put it on half-load."

I performed the simple actions slowly, like a ritual. The little room was like a chapel, high ceilinged, bare, stone floor. . . . My naked arms goose-pimpled. I'd been over-warm in the kitchen, but it was freezing out here.

"Are you OK?" I'd taken too long, and she'd come to check on me.

"Sure, I'm fine." I managed a smile, took the T-shirt she offered, followed her back to the table.

About twenty minutes later, as we were still sitting there, sipping wine, I felt it: a sort of low rumble like an approaching storm, and the fine hairs on my arms prickled with electricity. There was a high-pitched whine like a plane taking off.

"Oh, that
machine
," Melanie said crossly. "You can't hear yourself
think
."

As she got up and walked toward the laundry room door -- which I'd left open -- I followed her. I wanted to get back into the little room, sure that he would be there, invoked by the nearly palpable noise.

But I didn't get in, because of course Melanie wasn't going in, she'd only gone to close the door, and I was behind her. When she stopped, I ran smack into her.

We were there on the threshold between the two rooms, possibly on the very spot where he'd been shot. I felt a presence, unmistakable, absolutely electric, as we collided. She gasped, and then gave a sort of helpless little moan and turned around -- a tight little turn, more a rotation, which kept her pressed against me, only now it was her breasts I felt, soft and firm against mine.

An absolute imperative brought our lips together. I'd never been attracted to a woman before in this way, but I didn't question it. I couldn't. It was the most natural and necessary thing in the world to kiss her. And as I did, I knew that this was what Hutch had wanted. And now it was what I wanted. In this feeling between us was all that was left of him.

If he'd been alive, Hutch would have been horrified, I'll bet, by my ignorance in thinking that an ordinary domestic washing machine could produce infrasound waves powerful and concentrated enough to haunt a room. But he'd never shared the specifications of his ghost-machine with me, so why shouldn't I think it?

I still thought it as, still kissing her, I pushed Melanie through the doorway, against the vibrating machine, and moved slowly down her body, kissing her through her clothes and then beneath them. I think I imagined that I was doing this for Hutch, or that he was working through me. . . .

But he'd been just as ignorant, just as foolish, in imagining that he could solve the mystery that was Melanie by pursuing her, and forcing himself on her.

I know otherwise now.

She's still a mystery to me, although I know her better, inside and out, than I've ever known anyone before. And she knows me, even about my connection to Hutch. I've told her everything. And yet the mystery remains, which I think we'll forever try, and probably fail, to solve. It's called love.

1-930815-29-8

Ghosts and Other Lovers

Lisa Tuttle

10/8/01

eBook edition copyright (c) 2001 by ElectricStory.com, Inc. All rights reserved.

ElectricStory.com, Inc.

Fantasy