One Ghost Per Serving (4 page)

“I guess I did,” Eric replied.

The sad figure continued. “You went to a nightclub and danced on Christmas Eve. In the early hours of Christmas, you went to Pancakes Palace and had a large breakfast. Then you went home and fell asleep watching
Father Goose.
Though I can tell you about better Christmases.”

Rex raised his hand. “Yeah, that was me. My Christmas as Eric.”

He Who Cleans House opened his mouth and took in breath before he spoke again. “Was there anything good that came out of this?”

“I have a family now,” Eric said. “And if I had to go through all of that, lose all of that, to end up with Willa and Taffy, then yes, something did.”

The sprite cocked his head at Eric’s micro-expression. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Really?”

“Just –”

The caterpillar whistled in a way that clearly expressed his impatience.

“Willa and Taffy, they’re –”

“Wow,” Rex said. “What the tangible is trying to say –”

“Let’s use the term
corporeal being
,” the sprite said.

“What my stammering friend here is trying to say,” Rex said, “is that –”

“I’m not your friend,” Eric said.

“Like hell you’re not.” Rex stood up and his chair banged to the floor behind him, like he was competing with Eric for the loudest noise made by a chair. The spider jumped up about five feet. “What he’s trying to say is that he thinks he’s losing his family.”

“Is this true?” the sprite craned his neck forward an inch with interest.

“They’re probably completely fed up with his crippling self-doubt,” Rex said.

“Well.” He Who Cleans House looked at the others in the circle. “Let this be a lesson.”

“I’m not a lesson,” Eric said.

“All I meant was, the spirits in the group don’t believe in themselves enough to just be spirits, even though they can teleport, be invisible, possess material objects or people, shapeshift –”

“Okay, I get it. Look, I have to go, anyway,” Eric said. “Thanks for the, uh, tree bark, and for listening.” Eric grabbed his jacket and left.

“He liked the tree bark!” He Who Eats Mucous said, beaming. “That was
my
idea.”

Eric carefully eased open the door and peeked into the classroom just in time to watch
Willa dismiss her air conditioning technology class. Half of the all-male class gathered around the desk and podium, asking her questions, offering her gifts. Paying tribute. A tall, bear-like man with a semi-bearded moon-face gave Willa a piece of paper. Eric exhaled and shook his head. He hated this, but he waited inside the door.

“Professor Snackerge, Josh Konga,” he said, shy and eager at the same time. “I drive a forklift at the Quantity Market – well, mainly I’m a mechanic, but I have a forklift license –

and my band,
Olaf
, rented out the entire store after hours. We’d be psyched if you stopped by.”

‘What kind of music does your band play?” Willa listened to Duran Duran almost exclusively.

“Um, speed death metal. Or death speed metal, if you’d prefer.”

She laughed and Eric wanted to take her right there on the floor. After that initial surge of horniness, he felt terribly alone, like he had already lost her. Maybe it was appropriate that he go to a recovery meeting for spirits, since he barely felt corporeal. He was standing feet away from her at the door, but Willa seemed so far away. He looked down at his sneakers.

“That would be a little too intense for me, Josh.”

“But we only do covers. Like, we do the Golden Girls song,
Thank You for Being a Friend
.” His voice lilted up at the end, almost making it a question. “It’s really cool.”

“I’ll see,” Willa said. “But I’m pretty busy, and don’t tend to stay up late.”

Eric stifled a laugh. Willa was in bed by 9:00 every night.

A big smile crossed his face and he nodded enthusiastically. “Great!”

The others started up again. Willa cut off her students in the middle of whatever they were saying to usher them out the door. “I can’t stay here all day.” She pushed them out in front of her, gestured to Eric to follow, then locked the classroom door behind her. She looked him up and down. A wrinkle formed between her eyes then smoothed out. “You look like you emerged from a bog and were attacked by an eagle, which dragged you down a dirt road to eat you.”

He shrugged. “Long day.”

She pocketed her keys and approached him, hand reaching up to wipe something off his forehead. She was wearing the fabric bracelet Taffy had made for her months ago. “Come with me.” She started off down the hall to her office and they passed through a gauntlet of students who addressed her with reverence and completely ignored him.

“I spoke with Taffy.” Willa took out her key set and unlocked the door to her office, which she shared with another instructor, a quiet man with old-style engineer glasses.

The office was like Two-Face from Batman: the left half was Willa’s, and decorated in original, framed horror movie posters in French:
Slither
,
The Exorcist
, and
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
. She had bookshelves behind her desk stacked with manuals and textbooks and sheaths of print-outs. On her desk, haphazardly-stacked papers and plants selected for their easy-care and air purifying qualities were lit with the soft glow of an amber banker’s lamp. At the back of her side of the office was a loveseat, and above that, a window. The other instructor’s half was decorated with motivational posters –
Perseverance, Collaboration, Courage –
and was kept scrupulously neat. The other instructor was almost always there at his desk, adjusting a small humidifier and a portable radio, which he used with large headphones. Eric wondered if Willa’s office-mate still had a job at the school, or if he was just benefiting from slow paperwork.

Someone knocked on the door.

Willa went to the door, smoothing her skirt when she stood. “Come back during my office hours,” she told the visitor, probably a student. Then the phone rang. She held up a finger, mouthed ‘my assistant,’ then opened her schedule book. A few minutes later, she hung up.

“So. Did you bring the antlers?” Willa raised an eyebrow.

Eric looked at the ceiling and thought back to his shift at the restaurant. “No. Sorry.”

She exhaled and laced her fingers. “Eric.”

His stomach lurched. He knew that tone. He knew that gesture. He wondered how the day could get much worse.

“I’m selling the house and need you to move out as soon as possible,” Willa said in an even tone. “Tonight or tomorrow.”

Eric bolted upright. “Willa, what the hell?”
That
was how. Willa liked to jab that Bic right in the throat without letting the person know she was about to do an emergency tracheotomy. You were lucky to get an alcohol swab first.

“I’m up for a job as senior product leader, refrigeration systems, for a major climate technologies company based in California,” Willa said, “and for a consulting position at a college that wants to expand their air conditioning and refrigeration program. They’re both great opportunities.”

Eric put his elbows on his knees and cradled his faced in his hands.
This can’t be happening,
he thought.

“I want to start showing the house.”

Willa held the mortgage. He was just a tenant. Who had been evicted.

“I can’t – What are you –” He took a long breath. “Where are you and Taffy going to be?”

His breath had been knocked out of him, his heart raced, and he felt an almost irresistible urge to run out of the office and keep running until he just fell unconscious on the road, and it was all he could do to not hurl on the floor planks.

“My dad’s house.” Willa’s father, a legend in the HVAC field, had died a year ago, but Willa curated his legacy with a single-minded determination.

“And I can’t stay there?” Eric said.

She fixed him with a stare. “I want to separate for now.”

Eric sat up again, headache be damned. “Are you serious?”

“Someone is interested in the house, which is a miracle in this market, so I need to start showing it.”

He stared at a spot on the wall, eyes wide.

“Eric?”

He didn’t divert his gaze. It was like he physically couldn’t tear his eyes from that fascinating spot on the wall by the door. “Where am I going to stay? Do you even care?”

“Of course I care, don’t be stupid. You can stay in the Princess.”

He laughed. “The Princess?”

“Why not?” Willa said. “Doesn’t it have a bathroom and a bed?”

Eric leaned forward over his thighs. Emergency landing position. “I don’t even know if she –”

“She works fine. I already checked her last week.”

The other instructor shot over a confused and slightly disgusted look from his desk, where the humidifier steamed. Eric felt frozen in place. She had been planning this for at least a week. She had checked the oil and transmission fluid and whatever else while he was at work, and he never had a clue.

Willa gathered her schedule book and her folders and put them into her bag. “I have a department meeting.”

Eric supposed he’d have to ride back home, even though it felt like rigor mortis had set in. In the hallway, Willa fastened him again with her eyes. Even though she was so much shorter than him, shorter than many, she never had trouble staring people down.

“Remember when we first met?” Willa said. “You were sure of yourself.”

“I had good reason,” Eric said. He had a bright future. A scholarship. A job. He had her. He lost all three, but he got her back, didn’t he? Now he was losing her again.

“You still have good reason. But you never got that back. And it’s affecting all of us.”

He watched her go down the hall, skirt swinging out, low narrow heels clicking, blonde hair tied up. Eric started down the opposite end of the hall to get to his bike. Two young women passed him and giggled. He barely noticed. He headed toward his bike like a zombie, unlocked it, then walked it down the hill. Rex showed up beside him.

“I’m gonna get you a job,” Eric said.

“This is my job,” Rex said with a grin.

“Driving me crazy forever? And where have you been?”

“I drive you crazy but you missed me, is that what I’m hearing?”

Eric didn’t respond. He doubted he would have the strength or life force to respond to anyone again.

“I just wanted to say it was cool of you to show up at the meeting,” Rex said. “We’re all planning a special sponsor party, too.”

“Not going to be in a party mood for a while,” Eric said.

“Willa get on your case about Taffy, assign you to the couch tonight?”

Eric strapped on his helmet. “Sleeping in the Princess tonight, and for who knows how long. Willa told me to move out. She wants a job in California. She wants to separate, and probably divorce me, and she’s going to take Taffy away from me. And then – and then, he’d really have nothing.

“I have to live in the Princess.”

Rex did a fast cha-cha to get in front of the bike before Eric took off. He held the handlebars and stared Eric in the face. “You can’t let that happen.”

Eric laughed. “You think I have a choice? We’re talking about Willa. I changed the thermostat once, this
one
time, and it turned into an epic battle that made me miss dinner, even though I don’t remember even saying anything. When we were deciding between two different kinds of cereal to buy in bulk at Massive Food, I felt like Jack Nicholson on the stand in
A Few Good Men
. And when I confronted her once about staying out too late at a work event and not calling me, I wound up needing an emergency suffusion of electrolytes.” Eric waved his hand around. “I don’t know. Maybe later.”

“You dense, impossible schmoe,” Rex said. “Are you fate’s chew toy?”

“Yes, obviously.”

“You have choices,” Rex said. “Even with me, you made choices. You could have gone back to school. You could have fought me when I possessed you, but you didn’t.”

“That’s bullshit,” Eric said, waving it off. “I wasn’t even aware I existed while you were there.” He leaned the bike to the right side and put his other foot on the left pedal.

“Deep down, you wanted me to take over your life,” Rex said, standing in front of him. “You put on a good show in college, but you doubted yourself then and you doubt yourself now. It’s only gotten worse. No wonder that hot engineer put you in the bus!”

“As usual, you’re a ray of sunshine.” Eric maneuvered around Rex, though he could have just gone through him.

“You’re gonna just move into the Princess and let this happen?” Rex yelled as Eric rode off. “You have to fight for them, or you’ll keep losing.”

Eric always thought that was overly dramatic of Rex, since he was a spirit and could go anywhere. He could sit on the bike’s handlebars if he wanted. But he liked yelling from a distance.