The Ghost in Love (3 page)

Before the bell rang, Ben had been thinking of the first time they ever made love. They were sitting next to each other on his bed undressing. She wore simple black underwear and didn't seem at all self-conscious about taking her clothes off. When she was down to her bra and panties, she stopped, grinned at him, and said in the sexiest, most deliciously inviting voice he had ever heard, “Wanna see more?”

The ghost heard the doorbell and immediately tensed up. Pilot looked at it and then toward Ben's bedroom. The kitchen table had been sumptuously set with gorgeous food and objects. In the middle of this spread was a full blooming stargazer lily placed inside an elegant faint lavender glass vase from Murano, Italy.

Nothing happened. No sound emanated from inside the bedroom. A minute later the doorbell rang a second time.

“Isn't he going to answer the door?”

Pilot shrugged.

The ghost crossed its arms and then uncrossed them. It made three different faces in the course of eight seconds and, finally unable to stand it anymore, walked out of the kitchen and over to the front door. Ben Gould finally emerged from his bedroom looking both sluggish and confrontational.

The ghost looked at the man in his underpants and glowered.
Again?
He was going to pull this sort of immature, retardo stunt with her again?

Gould rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, took a slow deep breath, and opened the front door. The ghost stood two feet behind him, holding a metal spatula in its right hand. It was so jumpy about seeing German that it wiggled the utensil upanddownandupanddown at an incredibly fast speed. Thank God neither person could see this.

“Hello.”

“Hey.”

Both said their single words in voices as void of emotion as they could muster.

“Is Pilot ready to go?” she asked carefully.

“Sure. Come on in.” Ben turned toward the kitchen and she followed. She looked at his nice butt in the wrinkled underpants and closed her eyes in despair. Why was he doing this? Was she supposed to be shocked or embarrassed to see him in his underwear? Had he forgotten that she had seen him naked, oh, several hundred times in their past? German knew what he smelled like clean and what he smelled like sweaty. She knew how he liked to be touched and the
most intimate sounds that he made. She knew how he cried and what made him laugh out loud. How he liked his tea and how he absolutely sparkled when, walking down a street together, she put her arm over his shoulder to proudly show the world she was his pal
and
tall lover.

Seeing where the two were going now, the ghost disappeared from its place by the front door and reappeared a second later in the kitchen. When they entered, its arms were tightly pressed against its sides in anticipation.

Everything one could imagine wanting to eat for breakfast was on that table: warm freshly baked scones, strawberry preserves from England, honey from Hawaii, Lavazza coffee (German's favorite brand), a plate laid with long shiny strips of northern Scottish salmon, one more heaped with perfectly prepared eggs Benedict (another love of hers). There were two other egg dishes as well. Mouthwatering fare covered and graced every part of that small round table. It looked like a cover of
Gourmet
magazine. Whenever Ben Gould watched a cooking show on television, the ghost watched, too, and often took notes. Any time German came by to get the dog, the ghost made one of these TV recipes or something else delectable from one of Ben's many cookbooks and had it on the table waiting for her when she arrived.

Of course, German couldn't see any of it. What she saw now was only a bare wooden table with a single spoon off to one side, exactly where Ben had left it the night before after using the spoon to stir sugar into a cup of weak herbal tea. She looked at that spoon a long time now before speaking. It broke her heart.

For those glorious few silent moments, the ghost pretended German Landis was staring in awe because she actually
could
see everything that it had prepared for her, because the ghost knew how much the woman enjoyed breakfast.

Her favorite meal of the day. She loved to buy it, prepare it, and eat it. She loved to shop for fresh croissants and
petit pain au chocolat
at the bakery two doors down from here. Every time she happily closed her eyes so as to concentrate on the heavenly smell of bitter fresh coffee when the owner of the local Italian market ground the beans while she waited. She loved grapefruit juice, ripe figs, bacon and eggs, hash brown potatoes with ketchup. She had grown up eating mammoth Minnesota breakfasts that buoyed anyone over the freezing temperatures and car-high snowdrifts outside. Like her mother, German Landis was a lousy cook but an enthusiastic one, especially when it came to breakfast. She was delighted when people ate as much as she did.

The ghost knew these things because it had sat in this very kitchen many times watching with pleasure and longing while the woman assembled the morning feast. It was one of the traditions German and Ben had established early in their relationship: she made breakfast while he prepared all the other meals.

“Have you been eating?”

“What?” Ben wasn't sure he had heard her right.

“Have you been
eating
?” German repeated more emphatically.

He was thrown off guard by her question. She hadn't said anything so intimate in a long time.

“Yes, I'm fine.”

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘What?'?”

German picked up the spoon and turned to Ben. While reaching for it, she put her hand right through the middle of the perfect seven-egg soufflé that the ghost had baked for her. It was a masterpiece. But German didn't see or feel it because ghosts make ghost food that exists only in the ghost world. Although the living sometimes sense that world, they can't occupy that dimension.

“What have you been eating?”

Ben looked at her and shrugged like a guilty child. “Stuff. Good stuff. Healthy things—you know . . .” His voice dribbled off. She knew he was lying. He never cooked anything for himself when he was alone. He ate junk food from circus-colored bags and drank tea.

Pilot got up from his bed and walked slowly over to the woman. He liked the feel of her big hand on his head. Her hands were always warm and loving.

“Hello, Mr. Dog. Are you ready to go?”

Suddenly and with close to a feeling of horror, Ben realized what it would be like in this apartment a few minutes from now when those two were gone and he was here alone with nothing to do. German probably had planned a nice long walk with the dog. When it was over, she would take Pilot to her place where they'd eat lunch together.

Ben had never been to her new apartment but could imagine what it was like. She had used her taste and humor to effortlessly make his home come alive with such things as witty color combinations and her collections of old postcards of magicians, circus performers, and ventriloquists, Matchbox toy Formula One racing cars, and Japanese sumo wrestler dolls on the shelves and window-sills. The rare silver Hetchins bicycle she'd bought for nothing at a local flea market, entirely restored by herself, and now rode everywhere would be placed somewhere prominently because she liked to look at it. That comfortable blue couch she'd bought when they were together and took when she moved out would be the center of her living room. In all likelihood the couch would be covered with large art books both open and closed. That image alone hurt Ben because it was so lovingly familiar to him. Pilot had his place on the couch next to her. The dog would not budge from there unless she
did. Her new apartment would have to be light and airy because she insisted on both. German always needed a lot of natural light wherever she lived.

She also liked to open windows even on the coldest days of the year to fill any room she occupied with fresh air. It drove Ben bonkers when they were living together, but now of course he missed that quirk as well as most of her other ones. Too often he remembered how in the middle of winter she would get out of bed in the morning, throw open the window, then run back to bed and wrap herself tightly around him. Then she would whisper in his ear until they both fell asleep again.

The other day, while sitting morosely over another cup of tea at this table and thinking about their time together, Ben had written her a note on a paper napkin from a take-out restaurant. Knowing she would never read it, he wrote what he honestly felt: “I miss you every day of my life and for that alone I will never forgive myself.”

“Well! I guess Pilot and I'd better be going.”

“All right.”

“I'll be back with him tomorrow. Is two o'clock okay?”

“Yes, that'll be fine.” He made to say something else but, catching himself, stopped, and walked instead to the other side of the kitchen to retrieve the dog leash hanging on a hook there.

German took the toy car out of her pocket, slipped it into the drawer in the kitchen table, and silently slid the drawer closed again. Ben didn't see a thing.

Unexpectedly a moment came when, handing over the leash, both people let their guards down. They looked at each other with a frank mixture of love, resentment, and yearning that was immense. Both of them turned quickly away.

At the table, the ghost observed all this. When it had sat down, it
had pulled the punched soufflé toward its chest with both hands, as if trying to protect the ruined beauty from any further damage.

Now, seeing this dramatic look rocket back and forth between them, the ghost slowly lowered its face into the middle of the soufflé right up to its ears and remained like that while good-byes were said and German left. It was still face-deep in the eggy mess when it heard the front door close.

Ben walked back into the kitchen, sat down across from the ghost, and stared directly at it. The ghost eventually lifted its head from the soufflé and saw that it was being stared at. Although it knew it was invisible, the intensity of the man's gaze was distressing.

Lifting the teaspoon off the table, Ben appeared to weigh it in his hand. In truth, what he was doing was testing to see if any of German's warmth remained in the metal.

Suddenly he flung the spoon with all his might against the far wall. It ricocheted loudly off several places before landing and scuddering across the floor.

The ghost lowered its face back into the soufflé.

The first time the ghost saw
German Landis was in a bathroom. Having met with the Angel of Death in Connecticut, the spirit agreed to return to Benjamin Gould's virus-extended life, but only for a thorough look around first. It wanted to scrutinize a number of things before deciding whether or not to accept the angel's extraordinary offer.

The ghost reconvened its ions in Ben's apartment six days after German had moved in there, three months after Gould had fallen down and was supposed to have died after hitting his head on the curb.

When it saw German for the first time, the woman was standing naked in front of a fogged mirror brushing her teeth. Although they were only three feet apart, she could not see the ghost. Its navigation was a bit off and, instead of landing in the living room as planned, it rematerialized standing on top of the lowered green toilet seat in Benjamin Gould's bathroom. Things were so steamy and uncomfortably hot in there that a few disoriented moments passed before the ghost fully realized where it was.

Standing nearby was a tall, athletic-looking woman with no
clothes on and a mouth covered in blue-white foam. She was humming one of her favorite Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes. The ghost assumed this was German Landis because it had been thoroughly briefed on the life of Benjamin Gould before coming here.

Standing on the toilet seat, the ghost examined this woman: bright clear eyes, small breasts, small hips, small nose, long legs and fingers. It couldn't tell what her mouth looked like because that was hidden in toothpaste foam. An attractive female but no more than that.

Then the ghost casually looked into the part of her brain that knew exactly how much longer her body was destined to live. German Landis had another forty-seven years to go. That is, unless she contracted a fatal disease or was struck down by another kind of computer virus from Hell.

Her most predominant characteristic was that she emanated a powerfully positive aura. Not special, but especially warmhearted and enthusiastic. German Landis
was
an optimist, a romantic, fully at ease in her skin because without reservation she considered life to be her friend.

The ghost, whose name was Ling, took note of all these things without emotion. It could just as well have been staring at a tiger in the zoo or bacteria under a microscope rather than the tall naked woman that first time.

A Chinese farmer invented the idea of ghosts three thousand years ago as a way of explaining to his precocious grandson what happens to people after they die. God thought it was such a novel and useful idea that He told his angels to make the concept real and allow it to flourish within the system. In honor of the inventor, ghosts always have Chinese names and this one was no exception. Ling was called Ling only because that was the next name on the list at the time it was created.

When a ghost first comes to earth, it is imbued with a wide variety of supernatural powers that can terrify the living. Ling had been told that it needed to test these powers immediately on arrival to make sure everything was in working order and to recalibrate whatever wasn't.

Looking around now, it saw the draining bathtub and summoned a sea serpent to fill it. Fortunately for German, the ghost called for the only kind of sea serpent it was acquainted with. That happened to be a
Liopleurodon
, a swimming reptile so huge that only a small part of the tip of its monstrously large tongue squeezed through the drain and completely filled Benjamin Gould's bathtub.

The woman's back was turned so she did not see the terrible tongue emerge in the place where she had been washing herself only minutes before. The ghost recognized its mistake instantly and made the tongue as well as the rest of the sea serpent disappear. Just in time, too, because right after that the bathroom door opened and Ben Gould entered.