Spooky Little Girl (22 page)

“Then, who would do it?” Jilly questioned. “Who else would set up some creepy thing like that for me to find except for the woman who kind of took over Lucy’s life here?”

“But why would she do it?” Marcia asked quietly.

Jilly shook her head. “Who knows?” she replied. “And you know what else? Who cares? Lucy was such a good friend to us that she took off, left her dog behind, and her stuff in my garage, and that’s it. That’s a really great friend, isn’t it?”

Lucy was quite taken aback.
That was some response
, she thought,
like I’d planned on getting killed that day. What a crappy thing to say
, she wanted to yell at Jilly.
Like this is my fault! Like I knew this was going to happen and left my stuff in your garage just to piss you off? Sorry to saddle you with your dead friend’s rocking chair and a box of books! What a hassle
. What was wrong with her?

Marianne looked down at the floor. “I haven’t heard from her either, Jilly,” she said simply.

What?
Lucy screamed in her head.
How were you supposed to hear from me? None of us were able to send any kind of message back once we were in school
. What did Marianne think, that there was a special ghost phone she could call on?
She’s dumber than she was the last time I saw her
.

Jilly shook her head disgustedly. “I don’t know what I did aside from being a good friend to that girl,” she said harshly. “I got her this job, nursed her through one heartache after another, and encouraged
her to stop being such a flake and get her shit together when she met Martin. But apparently, that’s not enough to give me a ring or drop me a line after she starts a new life wherever the hell she is. Nola said Martin got a letter from her, but me, no. Not a word. Not one single damn word.”

“I’m sorry, Jilly,” Marianne said.

“You know what the funny thing is?” Jilly said, biting her lip. “I miss her.
I miss her
. I thought I saw her in the hall, just now. How crazy is that? No matter what she’s done, no matter how much she doesn’t care about any of us, I still miss her. But the next time I see her, I am kicking her ass. I’m so tired of worrying about Lucy. I’ve spent years doing it.”

Naunie, who was crouched on the opposite side of the doorjamb after attacking Nola’s shoe, looked over and saw the jaw hanging open on her granddaughter’s stunned and dazed face.

“Lucy,” she said, not able to believe it herself, “they don’t know you’re dead.”

Lucy couldn’t stay at the office after that. She had too much to absorb. Despite her aversion to large city-run vehicles, she still remembered the bus route from all the times her truck had broken down and been in the shop. She and Naunie left the dentist’s office and headed back home. They found a quiet seat in the back and scooted in. They noticed there were several other ghosts riding the bus, too, evident by the shining that surrounded them, and they exchanged small, knowing nods with two old women both dressed as White Ladies, except both of them clutched their pocketbooks, terrified that even in their invisible, spectral form, they were still vulnerable while taking city transportation to getting mugged by some ruffian wayward youth.

“I don’t understand,” Lucy said for the fifth time after they
had been sitting for a while. “Why didn’t Alice tell anyone? Wasn’t it worth mentioning?”

“A fellow in my class at ghost school was dead for almost a year before anyone found him in his recliner, TV still on,” Naunie mentioned. “At least they found you.”

“Well, I don’t think that could have been helped,” Lucy replied. “I was kind of scattered all over an intersection.”

“All right, then, let’s think about this,” Naunie said. “How many of your friends did Alice know?”

Lucy thought for a moment. “Not many, but she certainly knew Jilly. They’ve met before, numerous times. I can’t understand why she wouldn’t tell her.”

“Maybe it’s not that she wouldn’t,” Naunie suggested. “Maybe it’s that she couldn’t. Did you have an address book, or somewhere that had all of the phone numbers of your friends?”

“An address book?” Lucy laughed. “I haven’t had an address book for years. Everything I needed was on my phone.”

“Okay. Did Alice know how to access those numbers, did she know that’s where everything was?” Naunie questioned. “Was the phone at Alice’s house?”

Lucy slowly shook her head. “No,” she finally answered. “It was with me the day I was killed. In my purse.”

“Oh.” Naunie understood. “Chances are it didn’t fare any better than you did. Well, there must have been other ways you kept in touch with people, right? Didn’t you write letters? Maybe you had some that had return addresses on them?”

“I’m sure I got a postcard here and there, but nothing that I held on to,” Lucy remembered.

“There has to be another way to find your friends,” Naunie insisted. “What about email?”

“Yes!” Lucy almost shouted. “I did email almost everyone I
knew, but when Martin kicked me out, I lost my primary account. Jilly set me up with a free one on my laptop before I left for Flagstaff, but I never really had a chance to use it, just gave a couple of people my new address. I never even turned the laptop on when I got to Alice’s. It was in my bag in a box with some other stuff.”

“Nothing else?” Naunie asked. “What about your work phone number?”

“Are you kidding?” Lucy laughed. “With Nola watching us like a hawk? No, if Alice wanted to get ahold of me, she’d call home or my cell. I don’t think I ever gave her my work number. And after the threat of a malpractice suit last year, Dr. Meadows changed the practice into a corporation to protect his personal assets. It’s listed under ‘The Molar System’ in the phone book now. I guess I didn’t leave her much to go on, did I? I don’t even think she knew Jilly’s new married name. I never thought that once my phone got creamed, I would become obsolete and lost to the ages. I never thought about leaving an ‘In the Event of My Death’ list of contacts. Was I really that easy to just wipe away? And no one came looking for me, either, I notice.”

“If people still wrote letters, this would never have happened, Lucy!” Naunie insisted. “Damn technology only lets you down when you need to send the most important message of all.”

“Well, apparently, I wrote a letter to Martin! Why would Nola make up such a stupid lie, except to create drama and to have one up on everyone else?” Lucy almost hissed. “Now instead of wondering what happened to me, my friends hate me. All I can tell you is that someone is going to get pinched tonight.”

The pair made it back to the house just in time for Lucy’s favorite activity of the day: mail delivery. Naunie was hoping that it was just what her granddaughter needed to cheer her up.

“Lucy!” Naunie screeched as she saw the mail carrier, a man close to retirement age with flushed red cheeks and a receding hairline typical of Franciscan monks, starting up the driveway to the house. The fatty skin above his knees jiggled recklessly with every step, and as Lucy ran into the living room in response to Naunie’s screech, she saw the mailman pass the living room picture window and looked into his eyes at the exact same moment he looked into hers.

He looked shocked, then furrowed his brow.

“You,”
he said as he pointed a finger at her, “did not fill out a change of address form! You have to do that, you know! You can’t just keep writing ‘Whereabouts Unknown’ on everything with your name on it and expect me to pick it back up again! You’ve had me carrying
pounds
of returned mail and
you are no longer on my route!”

Lucy couldn’t say anything; she just stood there with her mouth hanging open. He, clearly, could see her. Not just catching a glimpse like Jilly out of the corner of her eye, but he was talking to her as if she was really there.

“Lucy!” said Naunie, who had collapsed to the floor, which she was now desperately hugging to stay out of sight. “Walk over here! Give me your foot and transfer your energy to me!”

Lucy produced a huge, affable smile for the mailman and gave him a friendly wave.

“Too late,” she tried to say through her Cheshire cat grin. “He’s already seen me. He’s still looking at me … Still looking at me … Still looking at me. What if I start to fade? I’m beginning to get that not-so-fresh-feeling ….”

“Hang on,” Naunie instructed as she commando-crawled toward Lucy. Naunie grabbed Lucy’s ankle and then, with her foot, made contact with a power outlet on the closest wall.

Lucy felt the surge immediately, albeit thinly.

The mailman, who was still staring at Lucy, tucked the bundle of mail under his arm, knocked on the window with his postal knuckle, and gestured for her to come closer, or perhaps even outside.

Lucy shook her head and pointed to the mail slot in the door, and quickly thought to point to her back and grimace as if she was in sciatica pain.

Looking disgusted, the postman shook his head, reached into his mailbag, pulled a pad of pink paper from one of the pockets, and ripped the top sheet off. Then, as his fleshy knees trembled, he took several steps to the front door and aggressively shoved the mail through the slot. It landed on Lucy’s side with a mad thud. On his way back, he turned to give Lucy one last expression of loathing and disdain as he marched past the window and down the driveway.

“He’s gone!” Lucy whispered to Naunie, who released the death grip on Lucy’s ankle.

Lucy, in turn, dropped the grimace and looked down at her grandmother, who was still sprawled out on the carpet.

“You can get up now,” Lucy informed her. “I said he was gone.”

“I’m halfway charged,” Naunie protested. “What if he forgot something and comes back? And by the way, why were you charged when you ran in here? You have to be more careful than that!”

“I drained the batteries in Nola’s home electrolysis pen, and I was changing her alarm clock to the Mexican polka station,” Lucy explained.

“Good choice.” Naunie smiled admiringly as she got up cautiously, checking to see if the coast was indeed clear. “They have the commercials for the stereo store with the guy who screams
‘OCHO! OCHO! OCHO! CUATRO TRES UNO DOS!’
over and over and over.”

“The phone number to the stereo store,” Lucy confirmed wickedly.

“Nice move,” Naunie approved. “That’s my girl!”

Lucy walked over to the bundle of letters and flipped through it.

On top of the stack was the pink change of address form the mailman had torn off and left. Under that was a thick cushion mailer the size and width of a paperback book, and beneath that was a plain white envelope addressed in handwriting.

“Well, look at this,” she said as she picked it up, a substantial portion of her charge remaining. “What a coincidence. It looks like I’ve been writing letters to Martin again.”

“It would appear that way, wouldn’t it?” Naunie said, noticing the return address with “Fisher” written above it in black ink. “Except that this is not from you. This is from Alice.”

That night, Nola came home to a darkened house. When she turned the key in the lock, not even Tulip raised her head to welcome her. Nola was surprised that Martin wasn’t home yet; she had run some errands after work, and had thought for sure he would have beat her home. Instead, only Naunie and Lucy were there, peering out from the shadows, watching her flip the light switch on that was closest to the door as she struggled with her shopping bags, dropping one. Its contents—tape, some fancy paper, and what looked like scrapbooking supplies—shot over the floor in a long, straight line, like a streak. She bent down to pick them up, and came upon Alice’s letter instead.

When the letter had arrived, Lucy and Naunie had wanted to tear open the envelope and read the letter for themselves. Certainly, opening mail not addressed to them was not within their realm of ghostly objectives or duties, but still, they felt the letter more or less belonged to them, mainly because Alice belonged to them. If she’d taken the time to write it and mail it down here, it was something they wanted to read, and there lay the dilemma; Alice wanted to
tell Martin something, and that message had every right to get to him, regardless of what either Naunie or Lucy wanted. Opening the letter would have destroyed that possibility, and so they’d had no choice. Although each of them had taken turns holding the letter up to the sunlight and trying to read the scribble, eventually they’d put the letter back where it had fallen with a thud with the other mail.

Nola stared at the return address for a moment. Obviously, she thought she knew exactly what it was. Quickly, Nola stood up and marched down the hall. Lucy and Naunie suddenly heard a grinding mechanical noise—the sound of Martin’s shredder in the hobby room. “Goodbye again, Lucy,” they heard Nola say just before the mechanical sound turned muffled and ragged. “Get your own life, because you’re not getting this one back. You’ve never known when enough was enough.”

She then came back into the living room, scooped the scattered items off the floor, put them back into the bag, and then tossed the bag over onto the couch. She picked up the thick paperback-size bubble mailer that had also come in the mail and tossed it onto the couch as well, narrowly missing Naunie, who ducked. Her commando-like reflexes were becoming quite honed. From the bookcase next to where Lucy was standing and watching her, Nola pulled out a photo album. Lucy recognized it, since it was filled with pictures of past vacations and camping trips. Album in hand, Nola plopped down, nearly right on top of Naunie, who finally scurried away and found a safer place to observe from on the other side of the room.

Nola ripped open the small bubble mailer and pulled out a colorful envelope from inside it. She flipped the top of the envelope open and revealed a large stack of photos. She smiled as she went through them, her face softening on some, and she giggled at
others. This surprised Lucy—she had never seen Nola do anything much more than act irritated, bothered, and demanding when she wasn’t sobbing during makeover reality shows. Looking at the pictures made her seem content and calm, nearly gentle. When she was done flipping through all of them, she put them aside and then reached for the photo album, opened it, and turned to the first page, which Lucy could see was the camping trip she and Martin had taken to the Mogollon Rim.