One Ghost Per Serving (23 page)

“What in hell, Snackerge.” The normally-laconic though occasionally high-strung manager took a moment, ran a hand through his remaining hair then put his fingers on his temples like he was trying to perform telekinesis.

“You’re my most dependable employee,” he said. “What’s next, a hawk and a squirrel gettin’ married? Jesus H, Snackerge.”

“I’m sorry. But I’ll give you another week.”

The manager shut his eyes and waved. “Eric, you’ve worked here longer than any obviously intelligent man who has to wear suede short-shorts and antlers should – my wife’s decision, by the way, can’t talk her out of it – and you’ve never let me down. I reject your proposal.” He pushed the antlers back to Eric. “Go ahead and leave early. Monica can cover the rest of your shift.”

Eric let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I really appreciate it, sir.” Eric picked up the antlers.

“I want to see you tomorrow!” Jim yelled, and Eric waved a confirmation.

Eric wanted to see Willa, so he rode his bike to Jamesville Tech. He waited by her office door until she showed up.

“What are you doing here?” Willa said.

Eric felt unmoored, like he was on a tiny raft or an ice floe, and everyone he loved was on a brightly-lit ship, laughing, champagne flutes in hand, not even noticing that he was drifting away into the dark. His chest tightened with desperate longing.

She unlocked her door and put her bag on the desk to transfer some files out of it. The other instructor, Andy, was sitting at his desk, giant headphones on. Eric thought it was odd that the door was locked, but he imagined Andy wouldn’t want any visitors.

“Is that a new bag?” Eric managed to say, referring to the obviously expensive large leather satchel she was digging through.

“Yep,” she said.

“Did you get a raise?”

“No.”

“Did Mark buy it for you?”

She hesitated. “Yes.” Then, “You may as well sit, since you’re here.”

“No thanks.” Eric’s eyes darted over to the other instructor, who never seemed to leave the office unless Willa made him leave.

“Suit yourself,” Willa said, sitting and tending to paperwork.

“You like that he has money,” Eric said, leaning against the sofa arm. A statement, not a question.

Willa flicked up her eyes without moving her head. So did Andy, Eric noticed.

“It’s just a late birthday gift,” she said.

“Mark has that money because he’s an unethical sleazebag,” Eric said.

She straightened and held her pen like a palace guard would hold a rifle. “He’s a lawyer so he must be a sleazebag? Maybe you envy him because he didn’t screw up his life, or because he jumped through those hoops and you didn’t?” She was grading quizzes, making little checks or little X’s. Writing the occasional note.

Eric remembered a fairy tale his mother used to read him, something about a Frog King. She had a violent dislike for it, but was fond of certain parts. She liked the part about the servant, Iron Henry, who was so unhappy that he had iron bands laid around his heart.

“Mark
has
that money because he set me up to take the fall over that electronic signature scandal,” Eric said.

Willa shot him a sharp look.

“Do you remember that?” Eric asked.

After a moment, she flashed a skeptical smirk. “C’mon.”

“Right. Why would you believe me? I’m just your husband. You’ve only known me for more than a decade. We only raised a child together. Why should I think I’ve built up any trust or goodwill with you? Of course you would side with someone who has a stable, high-paying job – which he has because I helped him and then he
sabotaged me
.”

Willa arched a brow. “Why would he do that? You were best friends.”

Eric stood up again and paced over to Andy’s side of the room, and Andy, in what seemed like a defensive move, adjusted his humidifier. “Are you that naive, Willa? You don’t think that people you thought were on your side can stab you in the back?”

She put her elbow on the desk and rubbed a temple with the tip of a finger. “You’re envious that he became a lawyer and you’re jealous that he’s been spending time with me and Taffy. Plus, you’re just naturally suspicious.”

Eric stopped next to the sofa and put his hands on the windowsill that stretched across the back of the office. He watched the students cross the field. They looked so young. They
were
so young. He wished he were their age right now, but he wasn’t, and this was how his life was turning out: an ex-wife who moved away and took their daughter with her, a daughter he wouldn’t be able to maintain a connection to. Also a bus, a couple of low-paying service jobs, and a damn ghost. Maybe he and his parasitical ghost pal could drive around the country in the Princess, solving crimes with Rex’s invisibility and Eric’s talent of dread and fear.
Watch out, crime.

“Mark and I were both interns at Margot, Chicken,” Eric said, still staring out the window, his throat tightening as he wondered what he did to make things this way.

Willa rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to hear this story again.”

“It’s different this time. One of the partners – Chicken – asked us to get his computer system up to date. I suggested that he look into buying software for managing signatures and contract approvals, which, by the way, is a perfectly legitimate program that allows people to e-sign contracts. Cuts down on paper and mailing costs.”

“I don’t have time to hear this again,” Willa said. Eric glanced over at Andy.
He
looked like he had time to hear it.

At this point, Eric was speculating without proof, but he was almost certain he was right, that this was how it happened. “The partner bought the program, I helped install it. Soon after that, Mark went in and changed a setting that had the program sign everything automatically for the lawyer.”

Someone knocked on the door then opened it and poked his head in. “Professor Fellier, I have a question about the separation of Freon and water for the test tomorrow?”

“Come back later,” Willa said.

Eric walked over and pushed the student out the door. He scrawled CLOSED on a sticky note and slapped it on the other side of the door, then locked it behind him.

“Then Mark positions the change as a trick I thought of and shows the partners,” Eric continued. “The partners thought, ‘Hey, this is great, I don’t have to
read
anything.’ But then the robo-signing scandal fell on their heads, and people found out that the attorneys had automatically signed off on a massive pile of legal filings while attesting that they personally reviewed each one. And the partners pointed their skeletal fingers at me –”

Another knock.

“ – and claimed that their ethically-challenged intern made this change to the software without their knowledge or approval,” Eric said.

Eric opened the door and growled. The student ran down the hall and Eric shut the door again.

“Why would Mark do that on purpose?” Willa crossing her arms.

“Is it so hard to believe that
he
envied
me
?” Eric said.

Willa gave him a look that indicated it was.

“Stop thinking of me as your hapless shot boy husband you don’t want anymore,” Eric said, pacing in front of her desk. “Think of me as the man you met in school, the smart one with a bright future ahead of him. Can you do that for a whole minute?”

Willa considered this. “Wasn’t Mark the same way?”

Eric breathed out his nose in a scoff. “Mark didn’t do nearly as well as I did in school, on tests, at work, you name it. He was lazy but he wanted to look good for once.”

Willa stood and crossed her arms. “So you’re saying that Mark is responsible for you getting fired.”

“You’re going to stop there?” Eric said.

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you listen to me? Or don’t I get that much from you now?”

“Of course I listened,” Willa said. “Listen.”

“Then you would know that Mark is responsible for setting me up as the fall guy for a scandal, with the commensurate press coverage, and for getting me blacklisted from working in the legal field, and for getting my scholarship pulled.”

“So you’re blaming Mark for everything bad that happened to you,” Willa said.

“You’re not listening to me at all. You’re so intent on being with Mark that you’re not hearing what I’m telling you.”

Willa shook her head. “I don’t know what to believe – and I’m not
intent
on being with Mark.”

“Are you kidding me? You don’t know what to believe?”

“Well, do you have any proof of this?”

Eric rubbed his face and ran his hands over his head in frustration. “If you won’t believe me, then just ask him the right questions. That’s all you need to do. Unless he’s a sociopath, he’s got to be dealing with a guilty conscience.”

“Please. He’s the most confident man I –” she trailed off.

“The most confident man you know?” Eric scoffed and Andy looked over, slowly. “That confidence is built on
swampland
. He needs more reassurance than
I
do.” Eric leaned in to the side of Willa’s desk. “That’s not real confidence. It’s a facility for social interaction and changing whatever he needs to about himself to fit in.”

There was another knock on the door, then the door slowly creaked open and a head emerged. “Professor Fellier?”

“Can’t you read the sign on the door?” Eric said from the window.

“About the test tomorrow,” the student said. “I have a question about the Unilux boiler?”

“Come back in ten minutes, Larry.” Willa waited, then turned back to Eric once the door had closed. “Whatever you say about Mark, he’s good with Taffy.”

Eric laughed. “He’s good with Taffy? You think so?”

“Yes, of course.” Willa’s face tightened. She tried to smile but failed.

“He wanted to take her to a petting zoo, Taffy told me,” Eric said. “A petting zoo! Why not just cut out the middleman and give her a petri dish of lethal microbes?”

“He’ll learn. He even gave her a new microscope, which she loves.”

“Oh, that’s hard. Buying her affection.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” She raised a brow.

“Huh?”

“With this contest?”

“It’s not the same thing.” Eric sighed. He wanted to argue the point, but he was sad and tired and felt precariously worthless. So he looped back around. “He made her a sandwich with meat from the deli.”

“The monster,” she said.

“And he didn’t clean the counter first.”

“Let’s give him the needle.”

“You do realize that we’re still married.”

“Your point?”

“So maybe you shouldn’t be dating just quite yet.”

“Mark and I aren’t dating. He’s a family friend.”

At the sound of yet another knock on the door, Eric wanted to have a full-out tantrum. Willa called out and a kid with messy curly hair took a step in.

“Sorry, Professor Fellier,” Curly Hair said. “I cleared my work schedule, so I wanted to confirm I still can go on the site tour of the Mighty Ghost Slugs stadium.”

“Great, I’m glad you can make it after all.” Willa smiled. “The chilled water plant replacement is quite impressive; you’ll be glad you went.”

After the student left, Willa’s eyes brightened. “It’s going to be an exciting tour. The stadium just installed two 700-ton centrifugal chillers with variable frequency drives. And there are about a million other upgrades to look at. I’m sorry, where was I?” She leaned back. “Mark is a family friend. It’s perfectly reasonable that he would spend time with us.”

Eric took in a breath. His forehead was getting hot and he desperately wanted to be outside. “It should be pretty damn obvious by now that Mark is no friend of mine. And he just wants to get in your pants, so he’s no friend of yours. Taffy is a necessary add-on that he’ll probably try to put in boarding school somewhere in New Zealand once he’s got a ring on your finger, so he’s no friend of hers. And do you really want to be with someone named
Bollworm
?”

Willa glared. “Get out.”

“Think about what I said. Ask him the right questions.” Eric ripped the sticky note off the door and shut it behind him.