The Ghost in Love (11 page)

“Something else? What
else
can you tell me?”

“There's a ghost standing behind you.
Your
ghost: the ghost of you.” In a very human gesture, Pilot nodded in Ling's direction.

Ben turned but saw nothing. The ghost looked at the dog as if it had gone mad.

“Show yourself, Ling.”

Shocked, the ghost adamantly shook its head no and crossed its arms over its chest for emphasis. The dog had no authority to order it to do this, even if the animal did have the ability to speak to humans now.

“I'm not asking, Ling. I'm
telling
you; it's an order. Show yourself.” Pilot's voice was querulous and demanding. He spoke in English, so Ben understood everything that was going on.

The ghost thought, All right, if the dog wants to play things this way, then I can too.

Behind Ben, a new voice spoke from the darkness. “And who gave you the authority, Pilot? I'm supposed to show myself, which breaks every rule in the book, because a
dog
tells me to?” Whoever was in that darkness spoke clearly, their words precise and un-emotional.

How often do we recognize our own voice when we hear it
played back to us on a tape recorder? Too high or too low, it's almost never the familiar one we hear from inside when we speak. This happened to Ben Gould now on hearing the ghost speak in his own voice. He simply did not recognize it.

Pilot looked at Ben, waiting for a reaction. But after a few moments it was obvious that he didn't recognize the voice. The dog turned back to the ghost and said to it, “Stanley gave me the authority.”

Whoever was in the dark gasped and then said, “
Stanley
told you that I should show myself? You actually met Stanley?”

“That's right, Ling. So please come out now.”

Ben closed his eyes
and slowly slid a forkful of egg into his mouth. Tasting it with eyes closed, paying attention to nothing else in the world but what had just arrived on his tongue, was the only possible way to do this food the justice it deserved. Because without question he had just placed another morsel of masterpiece into his grateful mouth. These were the greatest scrambled eggs he had ever eaten in his life. They were so transcendently good that they almost made him quiver with delight, despite the fact that Benjamin Gould had tasted many scrambled eggs in his life. Maybe they were so good because a ghost had made them for him. This female ghost, named Ling, had asked if he was hungry after telling him who she was and why she was there. She thought it was a good way to calm things down before continuing.

Chewing slowly, he again savored the rich and subtle flavors that somehow swirled and danced into every corner of his mouth. How on earth could a dish this simple taste so spectacular?

When this “Ling” put the first serving of scrambled eggs down in front of him—he was now well into his second and thinking seriously about having a third—he had been more interested in her than the food. But a single whiff of that hot food forced him to lower his
eyes to the plate. He made a mental note to get back to her as soon as he had investigated this most remarkable aroma.

That was half an hour ago, and the eggs still held him in their thrall. Although tempted, he hadn't asked for either the ingredients or how she had prepared them. You did not ask a master magician how they performed an astounding trick. That was one of the things Ben loved most about food and cooking: with creativity and imaginative combinations, a masterful cook could make new worlds every time they prepared a meal. Or they could wholly reinvent something as simple as a plate of scrambled eggs.

“It's called Ofi.”

Ben was in such a state of bliss that he didn't realize she was addressing him. His eyes remained closed as he chewed. If he'd been a cat he would have been purring.

She waited a few beats and then repeated what she'd said, only this time a bit more forcefully. “It's
called
Ofi.”

She'd said the odd word twice now. Both times it sounded so silly that, out of curiosity, Ben opened his eyes to see what she was talking about. Directly across the table she stared at him.

“
Ofi
? What's Ofi?”

“The ingredient that makes those eggs taste so good. You were wondering—”

Straightening his back, Ben asked, “How did you know what I was wondering?”

From down on the floor Pilot said in an annoyed voice, “Because she's a ghost. How many times do you need to be told that?”

Ben dropped the fork loudly onto the plate—threw it down really. A clatter rang off every wall of that three-in-the-morning room. Aggrieved, he protested, “Excuse me! I would like to repeat one more time that everything I ever believed in my whole life has
either been destroyed or hijacked tonight, okay? Every single thing.
Tutti
. And you, Pilot, are one of the hijackers. So if I'm not quite up to
speed
yet with female ghosts, being dead, talking dogs, and Ofi, then you'll just have to be a little more patient with me, okay? Okeydoke?”

“
Ofi
doke,” Pilot said in a smart-ass voice, and then tried to catch Ling's eye. But the ghost was embarrassed by the man's rant and wouldn't make eye contact.

Ben had had enough. “What? What did you say?” Despite the heavenly meal, he was about to explode with frustration. The tone of his voice announced that loud and clear.

“I said
all right
, Ben, we'll go more slowly.”

The air in the kitchen felt like the air in August just before a ripping thunderstorm: electric, loaded, and physically heavy. None of them wanted to speak first after that exchange between the man and the dog.

Eventually, Ling said gently, “You don't remember Ofi?”

Ben's eyes flicked over to the woman to see if she meant her question seriously. She almost flinched at the hostility in his eyes.

“No, I don't remember
Ofi
.”

Looking at her hands, Ling thought, How do I say this without making things worse?

Ben watched her but kept an eye on Pilot, too, just in case the mutt had another trick up his sleeve.

“Do you remember Gina Kyte?”

“Yes, of course.” Ben did not ask how this stranger knew about Gina Kyte, his first great love in nursery school. He could almost hear the dog say in a mocking voice, “She knows because she's a
ghost
.”

“Well, then, do you remember when you used to pretend to
hand food back and forth to each other when you were playing on the swings?”

Ben remembered those swings. He remembered the park they were in and the tall chestnut trees that brushed them over and over with summer shadows while they played together. He distinctly remembered the blue cartoon lambs on Gina's white sneakers and how her mother used to give them M&M's candies out of a big black-and-white bag. He remembered a lot about Gina Kyte and their many dazzling days together, but not this pretend-food part.

After he remained silent awhile Ling said, “Gina used to give you Ofi.”

“What are you talking about?”

Down on the floor, curled around himself the way dogs do when they settle in to sleep, Pilot went
tsk
. How long was this going to take? Luckily the man was too focused to hear the dog's grumblings.

“Ofi was Gina's magical meal only for you. You know the way children play at things. Whenever you two played husband and wife or kitchen together, she made Ofi for you.”

“What does that have to do with this?” Ben asked while pointing to his plate.

“You like those eggs so much because I put Ofi on them.”

“But I don't understand what
Ofi
is!”

Ling said, “It's love and magic; it's a kid's imagination made real. Gina Kyte loved you and made up a name for her love: Ofi. Whenever she pretended to feed you something, she said it was called Ofi. You loved her, too, which is why you pretended to eat it.

“So I went back into your past, found her love, made it real, and sprinkled it over those eggs.
That's
why you like them so much—because you taste Gina Kyte's love again. Nothing is more delicious than childhood love.”

Like a generous summer breeze that appears out of nowhere, cools for a few seconds, and then is gone, Ben had a moment's vivid memory of the blue lambs on Gina's favorite sneakers as they flew back and forth together on swings. Both kids were pretending to put food in their mouths and chew it. Gina reached over and snatched at Ben's imaginary food. He turned quickly away as if to guard it; his gesture made them both laugh.

When the memory ended, he said “Ofi” again. Picking up the fork, he touched it to the eggs left on the plate. “I don't remember that word, but I believe you. Gina was always making up crazy words for things. I remember that about her.” Lost in a memory of lost times, Ben stared at the plate and didn't look up. He could not resist saying “Ofi” again under his breath. He blew slowly through his lips as if having just completed either a difficult task or a sad one.

Placing the fork gently and silently on the table, he looked up at Ling and asked, “Why are you both here? What is this all about?”

“What do you see?”
The woman asked the man as they stood side by side on the edge of the playground, watching the many children inside the enclosed area having loud fun. Two large chestnut trees in full summer bloom, planted long ago in the middle of the space, swayed luxuriantly overhead in the wind.

Off to one side was a set of swings, two of which were occupied by a little girl and boy.

The man watched them intently, but the expression on his face was neutral. “Are we allowed to get any closer?”

“No, this is it. No farther. You cannot have contact with them. It's not possible.”

He accepted this and said no more. He was fascinated particularly
with the little girl's shoes, which were covered in blue cartoon lambs. His mind tried to bring it all back into focus: what he was seeing, what he remembered, what he had been told.

The first thing that surprised, then amused, but finally touched him the most was how homely Gina Kyte was. Her large face did not have one distinguishing or attractive feature on it. A nose too flat, a weak chin, and eyes that were about as distinctive as two thumbtacks in a corkboard. You would not have looked twice at this girl if you saw her on the street. No admiring glances would ever have tagged along behind her as she walked through her young life. No one would ever say about her, “Wow,
that
little girl is going to be a knockout when she grows up.” If anything, they would look at her plain puss and think, She'll probably look exactly the same when she's forty. And they'd be right.

Perhaps even worse was her voice. Although the two adults were standing at least twenty feet away from the kids, they could still hear the shrill semi-whine of Gina's voice whenever she bossed little Ben Gould around, which was most of the time. Do this. Don't do that. Give me that—it's mine . . . Her voice was all orders and gripe.

When Ling had pointed out the children and they had watched them awhile, adult Ben transfixed, he had twice asked if that really was the Gina he had known. He simply could not believe what he was seeing.
That
child over there was the little girl who had owned his heart so completely for years? It had been almost an entire lifetime since he last saw her, granted, and he knew any memory of a childhood crush was always backlit by time in loving colors. But, still, this little bossy shrieker was the one?

Surprisingly it was seeing Gina's mother, Mrs. Kyte, sitting on a park bench a few feet away from the children, that had convinced
him it was true. Simply because Mrs. Kyte looked almost exactly as he remembered her. Was that how memory worked? The bit players in your life you remember as clearly as if they were figures in a photograph. But the main characters, the ones closest or most important to your soul, are frequently smudged or distorted by time and experience? How strange and wrong that was if it was the truth.

In a downcast voice he mumbled, “She was so pretty. I remember Gina as being so pretty.” Ben turned to Ling while he spoke, as if it were imperative that she hear him say this.

The ghost hesitated and looked away in sympathy but did not respond. She could have. She could have said things that would have instantly lifted ten veils from in front of both his eyes and his understanding, allowing him to see a hundred miles into the distance. But she did not do that. She did not tell him those things. Ben had to figure everything out for himself or else it would be like breaking open an eggshell to help the chick inside get out. You could do that easily, but it did more harm than good.

“What do you see, Ben?”

“You asked that before. What am I
supposed
to see?” His voice was tight with frustration. If it had been a hand, it would have been a fist now.

Ling ignored the tone of his voice and spoke evenly. “Just tell me what you see.”

“A playground. Kids. A park. Me and Gina Kyte as kids. Am I missing something?”

“Look some more.”

“ ‘Look some more.' She tells me to look some more. Gina loved licorice. How's that? I just remembered it.”

Ling didn't respond. Ben was stalling for time and both of them knew it.

He crossed his arms. “All right, so what am I supposed to be looking
for
? Is there any one special direction I should be looking in?”

Ling smiled mysteriously, signifying who knows what. Without another word she walked away from him and sat down on a bench.

Ben didn't know what to make of this woman but he sure wasn't going to make her angry. God only knew what ghosts did when they were mad at you. What he couldn't get over was how nondescript she was. All of his life he had passed women like Ling on the street and never given them a second glance. Why should he? She was mid-everything. Five foot three or four, mid-length hair the color of an old brown wallet, brown eyes that gave no sign of anything special behind them, and a body that had a few curves but nothing wowie. The only amazing thing about her was how well she could cook.
This
was a ghost? This was
his
ghost? This is what populated the Afterlife?