2 The Ghosts Upstairs

by SUE FINEMAN

  He flipped open his cell phone. Punching the code for his father’s house, he waited for an answer.

  “Yeah, Kane here.” Dad’s voice sounded husky. He’d obviously been sleeping, and Billy felt bad about waking him.

  “Sorry, Dad. I didn’t look at the clock before I called.”

  “Okay. What’s up?”

  “Smoke, and a lot of it. Looks like it’s coming from the south, down by the river.”

  “Did you call the fire department?”

  “No, I imagine they’ve already got their hands full.”

  “I’ll call the chief and see what’s going on.”

  Minutes later, as Kayla showered and Billy gathered their clothes from the living room, Dad called back. “It’s the River Country Club. Looks like arson, but that’s not for public discussion.”

  Billy groaned. “My students were going to hold their prom there next weekend.”

  “They’ll have to have it somewhere else.”

  “Where? Everything is booked solid this time of year.”

  <>

  Saturday morning, while Billy and Donovan tore off the sun room, Kayla and Trevor painted the kitchen. There wasn’t much wall to paint, but it took a long time because they had to paint around the white cabinets. The breakfast room was almost as bad, because there were so many windows.

  Sounds of glass breaking came from the sun room. She had Buford locked inside the house, where he couldn’t step on the broken glass, but she worried about Billy and Donovan getting hit by flying glass. When they finished tearing the structure down, she breathed a big sigh of relief. They still had to clean up the mess, but at least glass wouldn’t rain down on them from the glass ceiling.

  Even though they’d used a primer, it soon became clear they’d need a second coat of red on the walls. Kayla’s arms ached, but they were a long way from finished. “I need to stop and rest.”

  “Then rest,” said Trevor.

  She and Billy had been up late last night, watching the local news. The fire at the country club consumed the entire building. There was a concern someone could be inside, but by one in the morning, everyone had been accounted for.

  “I heard you had some excitement here last night,” Trevor said.

  “Are you talking about the fire or our christening party in the living room?”

  He laughed a little. “Did I miss something naughty?

  “Naughty, but nice.”

  “In the living room?”

  She shrugged. “We wanted to christen the new rug.”

  Trevor laughed so hard he nearly fell off the ladder.

  “Well, it’s not that funny!”

  “It is to a guy who hasn’t had any for a couple years.”

  “Then you need to get a life.”

  “I sure do, and if I was ten years younger, I’d give Billy a run for his money.”

  She liked Trevor, but even without Billy in her life, she wasn’t interested in him that way. He was nice enough, and he was old enough that he wouldn’t expect kids, but she wasn’t attracted to him. Besides, what kind of man lived in his ex-wife’s attic?

  Billy broke up the glass so it would fit in the trash cans. While Dad shoveled it into the cans, Billy used the shop vac to vacuum up the tiny pieces.

  It took nearly as long to clean up the mess as it did to tear off the room. When they were finished, all that was left of the sun porch was the tile floor. He hosed it off, but it didn’t come clean, so he opened the door and called to Kayla. “Do we have some kind of cleaner that’ll take the stains off this floor?”

  She handed him a squirt bottle of something. “Spray it on and let it set for a few minutes before you wash it off.”

  He sprayed it all over the floor, giving the stains an extra squirt or two. While it soaked in, he and Dad loaded the trash cans in the back of the pickup. He’d made a bunch of trips to the dump in the last couple weeks.

  How much longer before this place was ready to put on the market?

  How long before Kayla left him?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Monday morning announcements at school brought astonishment and groans from the students. Unless they could find another location to hold the senior prom, it would be cancelled. Two girls in Billy’s first period class burst into tears.

  Billy thought about the room Kayla referred to as the ballroom and wondered if it would be big enough to hold everyone. There were forty seniors and forty-two juniors, plus dates and chaperones. Although the kids at the academy mostly dated each other, and they didn’t all attend the prom, it was still a lot of people. His house wasn’t as fancy as the country club, but it would be better than the gym, which was their only other choice. Nobody wanted to use the gym.

  After a quick call to Kayla to get her approval, Billy left his first period class with a writing assignment and jogged down to the principal’s office. “Would a private residence be an acceptable location for the prom?”

  “That depends on the house,” replied Principal Kathleen Packard.

  He told her about the house on Mansion Drive. As soon as the words left his lips, he had second thoughts, but he knew it might be the only way to give these kids a special night.

  Mrs. Packard scheduled an emergency meeting of the prom committee, and Billy got a substitute for the rest of the day. Four kids, Mrs. Packard, the faculty advisor, and Billy piled into one of the school vans, and Billy drove them to his house.

  Conner laughed. “Where’s the moat?”

  “You don’t like my castle?”

  “That door looks like a drawbridge.”

  “That’s probably what my great-grandparents intended. I plan to replace it, but not before Saturday.”

  Billy introduced everyone to Kayla, who was painting the second coat of red on the wall in the family room.

  “It’s nice to meet all of you. Billy, I forgot to get the piano tuned.”

  “How bad is it?”

  Kayla wiped her hands on her jeans, walked into the ballroom with the others, and sat down at the piano. She played up and down the keys and stopped. “This one is the worst, but there are several others that need tweaking.”

  “I don’t think anyone will notice,” said Caroline. “The band has a keyboard. They don’t have to use the piano.”

  “Okay, but it’s too big to move out of the way.”

  The kids didn’t seem to care if the walls needed paint or the piano was out of tune. Billy could almost taste their excitement.

  “Can we hang a banner on the wall?” Conner asked.

  Billy exchanged a smile with Kayla. “Sure. If you want to paint something on the long wall, that’s okay, too. Just make sure it’s something we can paint over.”

  The excitement kicked up a notch, and Billy knew he’d said the right thing. “We’ll need tables and chairs, and I have a few pieces of furniture upstairs we can use, if you’ll help me carry it down.”

  “What about breakfast?” Martha asked. “The country club was going to provide breakfast.”

  Billy put his hand on his chest. “You mean you’re staying all night?” he said, tongue in cheek.

  They all talked at once, and he laughed. He wasn’t that much older than these kids, and he vividly remembered the excitement of prom night, the pretty clothes, the decorations, breakfast at four in the morning. He had sex with his girlfriend that night, and some of these kids would be expecting to do the same thing. But not in his house. He didn’t need that kind of trouble.

  After making sure the school’s liability insurance covered him, Billy gave his final approval to the event. The kids helped him carry the blue velvet sofas and chairs downstairs, and they set up two sitting areas in the back of the ballroom.

  Martha, the most organized of the bunch, said, “We’ll need tables, chairs, tablecloths, flowers, food—”

  “And someone to cook it,” said Billy. He could send the kids to a restaurant to eat, but he didn’t especially want tired kids driving around in the middle of
the night. Besides, this kitchen had a six-burner range, and they could easily set up a buffet on the kitchen island. As long as they didn’t all intend to eat at the same time, they should be okay.

  “I’ll cook,” said Kayla.

  “No, you won’t. You’re going to be my date.”

  “But—”

  “We’ll find someone to cook, and we’ll furnish the food,” said the faculty advisor. “Mr. Kane is opening his house to us. We’ll take care of the rest, won’t we, kids?”

  They all spoke at once, but the answer was unanimous. They were so happy to be having a prom, they’d do whatever it took to pull it off.

  Kayla didn’t have anything to wear to a high school prom. She didn’t have but one dress with her, and it was a church dress, not a party dress. Shoot, this was why she didn’t go to her own prom. Granny couldn’t afford to buy her an expensive dress then any more than Kayla could afford to buy one now.

  Hannah called at one. “Billy wants me to take you shopping for a dress for Saturday night. Would tomorrow morning be okay?”

  “I can’t afford—”

  “He’ll pay for it, Kayla. I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty in the morning. Okay?”

  “Yes, okay. I don’t suppose you know a piano tuner who could come this week.”

  “I’ll find one if I have to turn this city upside-down.”

  “Hannah, I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Kayla. See you in the morning.”

  How she wished Billy would say those words, but she knew he wouldn’t say he loved her unless he meant it.

  <>

  Every afternoon that week, kids invaded the house. The decorating committee painted a mural of a castle on the long wall in the ballroom, and the kids responsible for supplying food brought cases of sparkling cider, soft drinks, juice, and bottles of water, and stacked them in the garage.

  Martha’s mother bought yards and yards of fabric in the school colors and made tablecloths. Conner’s dad rented tables and chairs and had them delivered. Flowers were ordered, and Billy wondered if they had enough dishes to serve breakfast to a hundred or so people. Kayla assured him they did, as long as they used all three sets of dishes or ran the dishwasher between servings.

  Mothers volunteered to cook breakfast or provide refreshments, and dads offered help with whatever the kids needed, but the kids were the ones who pulled it all together.

  The piano tuner came Friday morning, and the band the kids had hired came Saturday afternoon to set up.

  The food wouldn’t all fit in the refrigerator, so Billy plugged in the refrigerator behind the bar in the attic, and they put the rest of the food in there.

  In all the commotion, Billy hadn’t given any consideration to the ghosts, until Conner asked about the blonde babe in the blue dress upstairs.

  “That’s Maggie.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Nobody you’d want to know.” Billy walked away before the kid started asking more questions. What could he say? That Maggie was a ghost? That she was his mother? That she must be thinking that this was her party? He hoped she didn’t come downstairs tonight. They’d all put too much time and effort into this prom to have Maggie ruin it.

  Kayla called, “Billy, your father is here.”

  Billy found him out back, petting Buford. “Hannah sent me to pick up the dog. Ginny is puppy-sitting tonight. Before I forget, the boys wanted me to remind you they have a birthday in August.”

  “Let me guess. They want me to have a party for them?”

  “Charlie said a pool party, so the girls won’t be wearing much. He’s making a list of people he wants to invite. So far it’s three pages long and mostly girls. Andy’s list is only a page long, but they’re both still adding names.”

  Billy groaned. They didn’t want a simple birthday party. They wanted an event to remember. “I hope to have the house sold by August.”

  “And your brothers hope you don’t.” Dad looked down. “Buford, c’mon boy, let’s go see Ginny.”

  On the way to the car, he called, “Son, if you need me—”

  “I’ll call,” Billy said, hoping they wouldn’t need a cop at the party tonight.

  By dinner time, the tables were set up around the dance floor. Candles and fresh flowers decorated the tables, and little boxes of chocolates with red and gold ribbons were put at each place. Billy chased the kids home to have dinner and get ready for the dance, then he ordered Chinese food for himself and Kayla.

  They sat in the family room, feet propped on the coffee table, and sighed together. “I’m tired already and it hasn’t even started yet,” said Kayla. “Is it really going to last all night?”

  “Didn’t your prom last all night?”

  “I didn’t go. Jerry Morrison asked me, but I couldn’t afford a dress. Besides, I’d already dropped out of school by then.”

  “You didn’t finish high school?”

  “Granny broke her foot and couldn’t get to the church to work, so I got a job cleaning rooms at a motel. It didn’t pay a whole bunch, but we got by. By the time Granny’s cast came off, I’d been out of school long enough that I couldn’t catch up, so I didn’t go back. I felt real bad about it at the time, because I only had three months to go, but…” She shrugged. “They say everything happens for a reason.”

  “Were you a good student?”

  “Yes, I was. I got my GED, and a couple years later, I started taking classes at the junior college, but I could only take one class at a time and keep my job, so I’m still working on a degree.” She looked over at Billy. “I have a 3.96 grade point average. Two more classes and I’ll have an associate degree in business, with honors.”

  Billy ate another bite of sweet and sour pork, his favorite Chinese dish. “We have colleges in River Valley.”

  She swallowed. “Four-year or two-year?”

  “Both. Ohio State University has a campus here, and there are three junior colleges here in the city.”

  “Are you saying you want me to stay in River Valley?”

  Before he could answer, the phone rang. Billy said, “Let it ring.”

  “It could be important.” Kayla jumped up and answered the phone.

  “Kayla, I need to talk to you.”

  “What’s wrong, Norma?”

  “Ted is back in town. He wants me back, but he doesn’t want the baby. I don’t know what to do.”

  Kayla knew what she’d do. She’d tell Ted the Turd to take a hike. “What if you give up the baby for him and then he leaves you again? What then? Will you want the baby back?”

  “I’m thinking of giving it up anyway. I talked to a lawyer yesterday and he said he knew people who’d pay all my expenses if they could adopt my baby.”

  It was undoubtedly the best solution for the baby. Whether Ted took her back or not, Norma wasn’t any better equipped to be a mother now than she was at fifteen. “Have you met the people who want to adopt her?”

  “No. You think I should?”

  “If she was my baby, I’d want to make sure she had good parents. If you don’t like them, you still have time to find other people to adopt her.”

  “Yeah, I ’spose. Would you go back to Ted?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “Yeah, I’m asking you.”

  “I don’t have any respect for a guy who’d get a woman pregnant and then dump her. Norma, listen to me. Forget Ted for now. Decide whether you want to keep the baby before you make a decision about him. If you want her to have a stable home with two parents, then this might be a good option. She deserves a good home, with people who’ll love her and take care of her, but if you’re not sure, think about it some more. It’s a big decision. Think about what’s best for her.”

  “Okay.”

  “I have to go get ready for a party, so I’ll talk to you in a few days.” Kayla ended the call.

  Billy twisted around to face her. “Your friend is thinking about adoption?”

  “Yes, and I hope she
makes the right decision. The creep who got her pregnant wants her back, but he won’t take the baby. If I was her, I’d dump the creep and keep the baby, but this is Norma, who can barely take care of herself. She’d be a lousy mother. She had a cat once, and it nearly starved to death. She didn’t even clean the kitty litter unless someone complained about the smell.”

  She dropped onto the sofa beside Billy. “It’s so unfair. I want a baby, and she doesn’t, yet she’s the one who’s pregnant.”

  He pulled her close and kissed her. She rubbed his chest. “I always feel better when I’m with you, Billy.”

  He kissed her again, a long, slow kiss that told her how much he cared. “I’ll clean up the dinner mess. Go make yourself beautiful.”

  Who knew she’d be going to a high school prom with the man of her dreams.

  Kayla showered and blew her hair damp-dry. She could wear it up, but she knew Billy liked it down. Besides, it looked good that way with the dress she’d bought last Tuesday. Hannah assured her the shimmery brown dress was perfect for the prom. It skimmed her body like it was made for her and flared out at the bottom, swirling around her legs with every step.

  She finger-combed her hair and put on her makeup. It took several minutes to get it the way she wanted it to look.

  After slipping on the dress, she put on the strappy gold sandals with the three-inch heels and the serpentine gold bracelet on her upper arm. She didn’t own any fancy jewelry, not even a wedding ring. Leonard took it when she threw him out.

  Examining herself in the bathroom mirror, she turned one way and then the other, trying to see what she looked like. There was no full-length mirror in this part of the house. Eleanor had one behind the door of her closet, and Maggie had a three-way mirror in her room.

  She walked upstairs to look in Maggie’s mirror and couldn’t believe she was looking at herself. She’d never in her life owned a dress this pretty. Who knew a drab color like brown could look so sexy. “What do you think, Maggie? Do I look all right?”

  Maggie appeared beside the mirror and made the sign with her finger to turn around, so Kayla turned around. The ghost smiled and clapped, then she turned around herself. Maggie wore a pretty blue dress with a full skirt. “You look beautiful, Maggie.”