Spooky Little Girl (17 page)

I just can’t believe it
, Lucy thought, and snickered sarcastically, feeling astoundingly betrayed.
What the hell am I doing here? I’m supposed to be doing
good
here? For Martin?
Martin, the most reliable,
sensible, plainspoken man on the face of the earth? Martin, who’d never needed a helping hand from anyone the entire time she had known him? Martin, Mr. Point A to Point B? Martin, who had kicked her out of their house without one single word of explanation? You mean the man who hadn’t bothered to even show his face at her funeral?

“This is just a nightmare,” Lucy spat angrily at no one. She was gritting her teeth together when she heard a spastic snore erupt from the other end of the couch. Looking toward the sound, she couldn’t help but instantly smile when she heard another snort and saw Tulip, who lay curled up and snoozing at her feet.

“Tulip,” Lucy whispered. “Tulip!”

The sleeping dog twitched a little, and Lucy hoped that Ruby was right—that some animals could sense, see, and hear spirits. She reached over and tickled the bottom of Tulip’s hind paw, and the dog automatically flinched and pulled it back. Lucy smiled again, knowing Tulip had felt her. Lucy scratched the dog’s belly lightly, just enough to touch the dog’s fur without pressing too hard and falling through. Within several moments, Tulip’s eyes began to flutter and she opened them slowly, glancing over at the owner of the wonderful hand that was delivering such a delightful belly rub. She raised her head slightly, simply peering over, and then in one sudden, momentous movement, she was leaping toward Lucy with tail wagging and excited, happy pants.

“Oh, my sweet girl,” Lucy said as she scratched both sides of Tulip’s face, trying to be careful. With a sudden jerk, the dog passed right through her arm and then pounced through Lucy’s torso.

“You goofball!” Lucy laughed, gloriously happy to see her best friend again. “I have missed you so much! So much! Have you been a good girl? Huh? Huh? You’re always a good girl, my little sweetheart. How I have missed you!”

By Tulip’s exuberant response of licks meant for Lucy’s face that passed into thin air, and her continued prancing, Lucy knew that Tulip had missed her, too. It seemed like a thousand years had passed since she had said goodbye to her friend through the plate glass window of the living room as the sun was setting and it was getting dark.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to get you,” Lucy apologized. The smile in the dog’s eyes made Lucy want to melt. “But I told you I’d come back, and see? I did!”

Lucy swore that Tulip was smiling. The dog tried to lick her face again, and got even more excited when Lucy laughed.

“Tulip! What’s going on in there?” Lucy heard someone call from the kitchen. “Come on, girl. You need to go outside?”

It was Martin. Lucy had hoped he wouldn’t be awake yet so she would have just a little bit of time to get a handle on being back in this house before she had to see him. It was still somewhat dark. Only slivers of sunlight had begun to break through the windows.

With the promise of a venture outside, Tulip leapt off the couch and headed for the hallway, then stopped and looked behind her, just to make sure Lucy was coming, too.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Lucy reassured her as she got up from the couch, half expecting to hear the spring pop back up, and a little surprised when she didn’t. She suddenly realized she smelled coffee; it had been such a long time since she had even thought about coffee, let alone smelled it. Used to be every morning she wouldn’t even be able to speak until she’d had at least half a cup, infused with two teaspoons of sugar and a huge gulp of vanilla Coffee-mate. Now the smell of coffee was familiar but distant, almost like a waft of cigarette smoke to someone who had kicked the habit.

Lucy padded into the hallway after her dog until Tulip was a step
away from the entryway of the kitchen and stopped. Again, Tulip turned around to make sure Lucy was behind her, and when she saw Lucy still in the hallway, she gave a tiny whine.

“All right, all right,” Martin said, and Lucy heard the scrape of his chair scooting back along the linoleum floor. “Hang on, Miss Tulip. I’m comin’.”

And then, suddenly, there was Martin as he passed right before Lucy to let Tulip out the back door, his closely cropped flattop still neatly buzzed, his ruddy cheeks still rosy and vibrant. He was wearing the robe Lucy had bought him for Christmas the year before, a blue and cream plaid flannel with navy piping. Lucy had always thought it looked nice on him, and she saw that it still did. It made him look warm and dependable, like the Martin she thought she had known.

Coffee cup in hand, Martin shuffled to the back door and opened it for Tulip, who kept hesitating and looking back. She would start to go through the door, then pull back, looking to see if Lucy was coming, too.

“Go on,”
Lucy whispered, waving her fingertips forward in an effort to let the dog know she was okay.

“Go on, Tulip,” Martin said, half laughing. “In or out? What are you looking at? Did you forget a bone back there?”

Martin turned and headed down the hall, and within three steps, he was there, right next to Lucy, who had pressed herself up against the wall.

“I don’t see anything,” he concluded as he searched the floor with his eyes, then flipped on the hall light. Lucy winced, convinced he could see her. “Nope. There’s nothing here, Tuly.”

He turned the light off, headed back to the kitchen, and gently scooted the dog outside with his hand on her fanny. “Just go potty and you can come right back in,” he coaxed. Tulip obliged, and with
one final look back, she went out the back door, which Martin then closed.

Still in the hall, Lucy leaned against the wall as she watched him refill his coffee from a coffeemaker she had bought on sale at Penney’s right after they had moved in together. It made terrible coffee, and the handle had broken off from the lip of the glass pot within a week of her buying it. By then, she had lost the receipt, couldn’t return it, and was stuck with it. Which was fine. Martin didn’t mind. He’d just click it back into place and watch it spring off midway as he was pouring, which would leave a little coffee spill every time.

Martin shuffled over to the kitchen table and sat back down in the aluminum chair, made to look like a vintage fifties diner set with curved corners and red plastic upholstery that boasted glitter in it if you looked hard enough. Lucy moved to the opposite wall of the hallway so she could see him.

He looked fine, she noticed. He looked regular. He still looked just like Martin. Nothing had changed about him, not one thing. Everything about Lucy had changed, including her “alive” status, but Martin, he was a constant. He did not look like a man who had thrown his wife-to-be out of the house without explanation, and he certainly did not look like a man who had thrown his wife-to-be out of the house without explanation and had then heard that she’d been shoved by the hand of destiny into a smack down with a stupid city bus.

Not at all.

Maybe it was in his eyes, Lucy thought. Maybe that’s where his regrets lived. That’s where they had to be. She decided she needed to see his face close-up, and when she did, it would all make sense to her. She would suddenly understand why Martin had made the decision that he had and that had led to Lucy becoming a Casper, and if it even mattered to him at all.

Lucy stepped from the hallway into the kitchen, stood in front of the stove for a moment, and then saw her move. She slipped into the diner chair next to Martin at the table, where he was reading the morning newspaper.

She cupped her hands underneath her chin and waited for him to notice her, notice anything, to even feel the slightest bit of something. But he didn’t. He went on reading the paper, his eyes focused on the print, not even remotely aware that dead Lucy was mere inches from him and wanting to communicate from beyond the grave, or urn, or mayonnaise jar, or whatever.

“Martin,” she said aloud.

Nothing. No response. He kept reading, uninterrupted, then turned the page.

“MARTIN,” she said louder, but again, there was no answer, not a hint of indication that he’d heard anything.

She raised her hand up and flicked the corner of his paper, which did bend and tremble, but nothing more, and with a response flick of the paper, he straightened it back out again. Then Lucy took a deep breath and blew, blew straight at him, straight at his face, determined to get him to look at her.

She could see by a slight startle that he had felt it, and he shuddered slightly. He put the paper down, got up from his chair, and walked over to the back door, which he found completely closed. He glanced back over to the kitchen table with a somewhat puzzled look on his face, and a moment later heard Tulip scratching the other side of the door.

“MARTIN!”
Lucy yelled as loudly as she could this time, and as Tulip trotted into the house, he looked back toward the living room and replied, “YES?”

He’d heard her. He’d actually heard her. And had answered her.

Lucy giggled with delight. Maybe this wasn’t going to be that
bad of a gig after all. This could actually turn out to be a lot of fun, haunting the crap out of Martin, especially now that she knew he would reply to phantom voices.
Poor Martin
, Lucy thought, still giggling,
he’s been living alone for too long
.

He paused for a moment, listened intently, then asked, “YES?” again, this time louder.

“What?” another voice called out from another part of the house. “Did you say something?”

Another voice. A female voice. A voice Lucy swore she knew. Perhaps it was Martin’s mother or sister who might be visiting, helping him through this difficult time. Of course he couldn’t be alone, Lucy realized. That would be really hard after what had happened. Hopefully. After she’d gone, after she’d died. Lucy was sure Martin had to feel terrible about it. Who wouldn’t? It made sense to her that he would have someone come and stay with him until time got around to healing things, and Lucy found herself almost feeling bad for him. She was feeling a bit sorry she had doubted his ability to mourn. No one would want to do that alone.
Look at him
, she said to herself.
He’s wearing the robe I bought him. It must be symbolic. He’s holding on to the pieces of me that he has left
.

Tulip padded over and sat next to Lucy, and she gently patted the dog’s head.

“Did you say something?” Lucy heard again, this time much clearer and louder, and then suddenly another figure was in the kitchen, the figure of a woman in a white, fluffy robe and wearing matching fluffy slippers. Lucy saw only the back of her.

In the dimly lit kitchen, she saw the figure reach over and put her arms around Martin’s neck, and then kiss him on the cheek.

“Why are you wearing that old thing?” the woman said, picking up the collar of the blue plaid robe. “I thought you got rid of this.”

“Nah, nah,” Martin replied, shaking his head. “It’s a good robe,
nice and not too warm. Comes in handy, especially on a morning like this when it’s starting to get warm. I felt a chill this morning, gave me goose bumps. I thought I had left the door open, but I guess it’s just the cold weather coming in.”

Warm weather? Lucy was puzzled. Spring right around the corner? When Lucy had walked out in front of the bus, it had already been spring. It had been a beautiful, brilliant day. How much time had gone by, she wondered. Just how long had she been dead?

“Oh, just toss it,” the woman said, kissing Martin again. “I’ll buy you a new one. And then it will be from me, and not
her.”

That’s a lot of kissing for a sister
, Lucy thought.
That’s a lot of kissing even for a mother. Kind of gross for either one, to tell the truth. And what’s this “her” business? Let him remember me the way he wants to remember me, for crying out loud. No need to get pushy. And let the man go
, she wanted to shout.
You’re hanging off him like an orangutan! Sister, mother, whomever. He’s a man, not a jungle gym
.

And, as if on command, the woman dropped her arms and grabbed an empty coffee mug from the cabinet. She poured herself a cup from Lucy’s broken coffeemaker, spilled a little onto the countertop, and began walking toward the table. Lucy quickly scrambled up out of the seat and wedged herself next to the refrigerator to get out of the way.

And as the woman neared the kitchen table and the light hanging over it, Lucy saw that she was not Martin’s sister.

It was not Martin’s mother.

About to sit down in Lucy’s seat next to Lucy’s dog and drink coffee from what was probably Lucy’s mug, was Nola.

Nola liked stupid TV.

For two days, Lucy had been anchored on the itchy sofa with the office manager who had gotten her fired and was now living in Lucy’s house. They sat watching mind-numbing television shows full of people getting makeovers, getting face-lifts, or having their homes redone or renovated as a result of social mockery, having a crush on a guy at work who didn’t notice, or having a medical malady that was so serious that only a grand piano and some framed posters could fix it. Nola especially liked the episodes in which women got dental work or were awarded some sort of facial implant for their suffering. Episodes in which, upon the big reveal, the accountant, who’d never noticed the victim before, now suddenly did, thus guaranteeing courtship, marriage, and a litter of offspring with unfortunate bone structure. What Nola couldn’t watch on live television she recorded, and was able to bring up with the push of
a couple of buttons on the remote. Mr. Basic Cable, it seemed, had upgraded his viewing possibilities to the status of infinite.

It’s not that Lucy was surprised that Nola was a champion of causes such as buckteeth or chipped teeth, weak chins, and scoliosis, but what was amazing was just how much of the schlock she could watch while still craving more.

When it came to the plight of the orally malformed or spinally challenged, Nola was insatiable, especially if they were getting their makeup professionally done or were on the receiving end of a new house with angel wallpaper and a hot tub.