Joplin's Ghost (23 page)

Finn shook his head, examining his thermometer. “Nothing yet.”

“I don’t think he’ll come for us,” Heather said, her smile turning sad. “I got that message for you, Phoenix, but…I think that’s all he has for me.”

“We can wait and keep trying,” Carlos said.

“No,” Heather said. “The best way I can put it, Phoenix, is that he wants to be with you.”

Maybe I remind him of his wife,
Phoenix thought, the theory she and Carlos had conceived in their long conversation last night, before she decided she was nervous enough to ask him to stay despite her vows not to. “I can’t see anything else from him,” Heather said, her envy obvious in her face. “But he has a beautiful spirit, I’ll say that. You would have liked him very much.”

Phoenix didn’t doubt a bit that she would have liked Scott Joplin. She just wasn’t sure how much she liked Scott Joplin now that he was dead.

“We should pack up, Finn.” Heather sighed.

“Are you
kidding
me?” Finn said, walking toward them. The motion detector chimed loudly, and Phoenix jumped. “I blew off an open call for this.”

Despite the way Finn grated Phoenix’s nerves, she had to agree, considering she’d skipped an appearance with Ronn. “I don’t mind if you stay,” she said.

“I know you don’t,” Heather said. “But he does.”

Heather’s eyes didn’t blink. She wasn’t kidding. Phoenix felt her limbs tense.
Yeah, and I bet nobody likes to piss off ghosts. I bet that’s a pretty bad idea.

“Let me at least leave the camera. Will you let it run tonight?” Finn asked Phoenix.

“I guess so. If you show me how.”

While Finn coached her and Carlos on the operation of the video camera—and the wireless monitor he’d set up in the bedroom—Heather packed his other things in his suitcase and gathered her knapsack, ready to go. She didn’t look frightened, but she moved quickly, eager to leave. When Finn and Carlos retreated to the bedroom for one last gadget-oriented detail Phoenix wanted nothing to do with, she walked up behind Heather, who was in the kitchen gazing at the refrigerator door, touching it lightly with one finger, the way her mother tested furniture for dust.

“Bet you wish you’d been here last night, huh?” Phoenix said.

Heather turned, startled. “Yes,” she said. “You’re a lucky girl.”

“It didn’t feel so damn lucky. I wish it had been you here instead, believe me.”

“Me, too,” Heather said, and Phoenix wondered if they were still talking about the ghost. Heather sighed, wiping a strand of hair from her forehead. “I’ve been wrestling with something, Phoenix, and I’ve decided to break one of my rules.”

“What rule?”

“Well…every once in a while, in the course of my spirit work, I come across messages, or knowledge, that might be unsettling. Warnings, you could call them. Usually it’s my policy not to scare people over vague messages I can’t help them interpret. When I was in college, one poor friend of mine hardly left her room for three months after I told her she might have an accident. As far as I know, she never did, so I scared her for nothing, maybe. I just don’t know. This isn’t a science, unfortunately. And I never like to share that kind of thing with clients unless it’s something like, ‘Stop smoking or you’ll get lung cancer.’ Not that you need a psychic for that.” She laughed, but the sound was more nervous than mirthful.

“What is it?” Phoenix said, her voice tight. She’d better ask now, or she wouldn’t want to hear it at all. “Something about the ghost?”

“I don’t…
think
so…” Heather said. “Please remember that most ghost encounters are positive, in my experience, or at least neutral. I’ve never come across a spirit I thought wanted to hurt someone, even when they had a good reason to. And this spirit specifically said he was
sorry
you’d been hurt, and he was adamant about it.” She sighed again, searching for words, blinking rapidly. She looked pained. “But there is something, Phoenix. How can I put this?”

Put it in English, and fast.
Phoenix was nearly as frightened as she’d been when her refrigerator slammed itself shut in the dark. Her taut bladder complained, throbbing.

“You’re not safe,” Heather said finally. “That comes across very strongly, and it did from the minute I saw you, especially when your father was here. This is a dangerous time. I won’t pretend I know it isn’t the ghost, but it’s probably something else, maybe something with your career. That
might
explain the father connection. Whatever it is, your life is at risk.”

There was loud laughter from the living room, Carlos and Finn sharing a joke, and their jocularity shook Phoenix from a leaden stupor that had crawled over her as the psychic spoke. Finn was saying he’d nicknamed the camera his
piece-o-shitcam
.

“What am I supposed to do?” Phoenix said, trying to keep calm.

Heather gave Phoenix a helpless look, her eyes motherly. “That’s the thing. I don’t know. I don’t even know what kind of danger it is. That’s why I almost didn’t tell you.”

Their conversation caught Carlos’s ear, and Phoenix saw him gazing over at them while Finn talked on. “In that case,” Phoenix said, “I wish you hadn’t told me.”

Heather wrapped her arm across Phoenix’s shoulder, resting their heads together. “I’m sorry. If anything else comes to me, I’ll contact you right away, through Carlos.”

“I’ll give you my cell number, too, just in case,” Phoenix said. Then, as an afterthought, she added, “Thanks for trying, anyway.”

She gave Heather a hug for good measure, in case that might give her a flash of insight like on
The Dead Zone,
but the psychic only told Finn she was ready to leave. Phoenix watched as Heather called Carlos
hon
again, and he gave her a Miami-style kiss on each cheek.

Then, they were gone.

“She left in a hurry,” Carlos observed.

“Yeah. Didn’t she?” What Heather had told her about the piano might have been information she learned from Carlos, or just a lucky guess. Most psychics were bullshit artists. Even Carlos had said that. “How well do you know her?”

“Very well,” Carlos said.

“Are you going out?”

That was the most polite term Phoenix knew for sleeping together. The question didn’t faze Carlos. He reclined across the futon, propping one leg on the pale wooden arm as he popped a nacho chip into his mouth. “We did. We’re not anymore.”

“And she’s probably not too happy about that. Right?”

Carlos smiled thinly. “Now who’s the psychic?” His smile irritated her. She hoped she would remember never to fall into bed with him, no matter how comforting his presence when their clothes were on.

“Well, she said I’m in danger, and I wonder if she just said that to freak me out. Jealous women are nothing to play with.”

At that, Carlos’s smile vanished, and he sat up straight. “Heather’s not that way. She would never say something like that to be spiteful. What kind of danger?”

“She didn’t know. Maybe the ghost, maybe my career. Something to do with my dad.”

“Maybe your father’ll kill you when he finds out you’re sneaking around with me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Phoenix said, with her own icy smile. “He’d kill you.”

“Ah. Good point. But I wouldn’t take Heather’s message lightly. Considering those shootings implicating G-Ronn right now, it’s not a big stretch. You told me about that panic in St. Louis. Remember? You had two thugs packing heat outside your door all night?”

Phoenix hated having her words parroted at her, especially when they were exaggerated. “They were guards. I didn’t say they were thugs. And Ronn’s not like people think.”

“None of us is like anyone thinks we are. But I’ve made my point about the current company you’re keeping, I hope.
Cuidado,
that’s all.”
Watch out.

“To tell you the truth, I’m more worried about the company in this room.”

“The ghost?”

“No,” she said. “You.”

He half smiled again. “I’m not dangerous.”

“Is that what Heather would say?”

Carlos’s eyes flitted away from hers. “I used to make the mistake of sleeping with my female friends, and when we weren’t friends anymore, I was baffled,” he said, returning her gaze. “Luckily, Heather is still a friend. She helped me grow up. She’s a wonderful lady, and I respect her. But she has two kids, and I wasn’t ready for that. Does that answer your questions?”

“But didn’t you know she had two kids before you hooked up?” Phoenix said, angry for Heather’s sake. She understood how much it hurt to lose Carlos Harris.

“She knew who I was,” he said. “I told her all along. She made the choice to go there.”

The angry feeling didn’t dissipate. It was her own anger, she realized. It had nothing to do with Heather Larrabee, a woman she didn’t know. Carlos was still too careless, showing glimpses of his marvelousness to women he had no intention of sharing it with. She could see that about him as clearly as she could smell his luxuriant cologne, which was now the strongest scent in her apartment, an old memory in her every breath. It was hard to be with him.

“Listen, Carlos…” Phoenix said, sighing. “I would appreciate it if you would stay here again tonight, just to make sure nothing else weird happens. I know you want to have more contact with this spirit, if that’s what it is, and that’s cool with me. But after that…”

He held up his hand before she could finish. “I understand,” he said. “You’re at an important crossroads in your career. You don’t have time for dating. It wouldn’t be fair to me.”

“Good. You’re a psychic, too.”

“Not at all,” he said, his voice as flat as glass. “That used to be my favorite speech.”

I
t didn’t take Phoenix long to understand that she had fallen into a dream.

She knew as soon as she saw she was sitting in her parents’ living room in Miami, on the walnut bench of the spinet piano from Grandpa Bud and Grandma Oprah. Mom was reading the Sunday
New York Times
at her reading table, while Sarge polished his trumpet on the leather sofa. The trumpet’s finish gleamed like precious ore beneath his loving hand. An old-fashioned clock with two trumpet-playing angels, a clock she had never noticed, ticked from the piano.

They were waiting.

“Whatever you do, Phoenix, remember to make the smart play,” Mom said, one of her favorite phrases. Mom peered at her over her purple reading glasses, the ones she only wore at home. Her hair was cut short in a way that made its silvery strands seem playful instead of tired. “This is the best thing for you. Think of how much you’ll learn from him, how much more you’ll understand the world outside these walls. What’s more important than that?”

Sarge grunted. “He’s so old,” he said. “She’ll be nursing him before long.”

“Stop exaggerating, Daddy. He’s not that old.” But maybe he was, she thought. Maybe.

Sarge didn’t argue further, glancing at the clock. When there was finally a knock at the door, three confident bangs, Sarge said, “Well, it’s about damn time.”

“Land sakes, mind your language,” Mom said, a series of words that had never emerged from her mother’s mouth. A reminder that Phoenix was dreaming.

Phoenix leaped to her feet, almost tripping over the many-layered white chiffon dress she hadn’t realized she was wearing. Sarge called her back and told her to sit down, setting his trumpet aside with unhurried care. “Don’t act so excited. It’s unseemly. I’ll answer it.”

The man they were waiting for stood on the doorstep, standing five or six inches shorter than Sarge. Phoenix heard his voice greeting Sarge in a polite, masculine rumble as soft as a kitten’s purr. Her heart quickened when she heard him. Leaning over to peek through the doorway, Phoenix saw a spotted horse tied to a magnificent canopied black surrey that shone in front of their house like the moonlight on the midnight ocean’s plane. The surrey was a few years out of date, but lovely nonetheless. He’d chosen it special to come see her.

Her suitor was wearing a black suit, high collared white shirt, and neatly knotted black tie, as perfect as a photograph. He walked inside with Sarge, holding a single red rose. After he had greeted Mom by kissing her hand, he finally stood before Phoenix. He smiled with a shyness that proved contagious, making her glance toward her folded hands. He held the rose to her, and she met his eyes again as its scent enthralled her senses.

“I hope you don’t mind a rose,” he said. “It’s too early for chrysanthemums.”

“Anyone would be crazy not to love a rose,” Phoenix said. “It’s perfect.”

Mom cleared her throat, gathering her newspaper. For the first time, Phoenix noticed that Mom was wearing a twilled sateen shirt waist with puff top sleeves and a high collar, one of the nicest spring outfights she owned, although Phoenix couldn’t remember ever seeing her in it. Mom had dressed for this visit, too. “Let them visit awhile, Marcus,” Mom said, lowering her chin until small folds of skin appeared at her tight collar.