ONCE UPON ANOTHER TIME

by McQuestion, Rosary

  The night before when I passed out and thought I had missed grabbing onto the arm of my chair, well I didn’t. I had toppled it over onto myself, bruising my leg. The possibility of handling paranormal situations seemed as remote as transferring a Rembrandt onto the head of a dime.

  However, my connection with Matt seemed to be getting stronger. I took into consideration that perhaps he wasn’t quite up to speed. According to the research book I bought on ghosts, apparently it takes a lot of energy to materialize. It’s probably the reason why old or ancient dwellings as opposed to new buildings were haunted. Those ghosts obviously had decades to perfect their skills.

  Curious, though, was the book lying on the floor next to my desk. I’d never known Buster to scale the bookshelves or drag a book across the room. My first thought was that Matt had something to do with it. The title, “Love Spirit,” and the dogeared page about the house with the ghost aspect seemed more than coincidental. It was relative to what was happening in my life and books were always Matt’s thing.

  He was a serious collector of books. When I say serious, I mean he created an A to Z card catalog notating everything from the purchase date to the name of the person who sold him the book. A row of ancient Roman architecture books on the symmetry and geometry of hemispherical domes and niches was a Christmas gift from his father. The poetry by Conrad Aiken and Sandburg I’d given him on our fourth wedding anniversary, and Yeats, a gift from his professor at Rutgers. A first edition of Agatha Christie’s “Sparkling Cyanide” we’d found the day we stumbled upon a quaint little bookstore in the Village during our weekend getaway to Manhattan. And he practically camped out on our front porch waiting for UPS to deliver a Raymond Chandler novel he’d found online.

  All I could think about last night was that Matt was trying to tell me something by having me find that book. I fell asleep thinking about the years we were together, and about our house. It was cold that November day when we first viewed it with the realtor. The old English Tudor proudly dressed in white stucco and brick with decorative timbering, hugged the crescent-shaped coastline of Fogland Beach like lush green moss hugging the side of a canyon.

  The wind was strong that dreary afternoon, as I pushed against it to open the car door. My hair whipped at my face, as the three of us walked toward the house, pitching our bodies into the fierce wind as if we were leaning forward off the prow of a ship. Trudging through a side yard filled with the twisty skeletal remains of dried tomato plants, the neighbor’s dog welcomed us with a steamy deposit next to the rotted squash.

  The house had good bones, but the interior needed a good amount of updating. “What were we thinking?” I said to Matt that first cold December, as we ripped the old kitchen cabinets off the wall to the tune of Tori Amos singing “Have Yourself a Merry little Christmas.” In spring, we planted a Japanese maple in the center of a large square of bluegrass and slapped a new coat of white paint on the picket fence in the backyard. The next year we had an attached garage built on to the house.

  The elevator chimed and snapped me out of my thoughts. That’s it! I had to see Laura and tell her everything. I managed to elbow my way out of the iron box and made a beeline straight off to Laura’s office, barging in just as she put a spoonful of strawberry yogurt to her lips.

  “I have to talk to you--right now,” I said like a drill sergeant calling the troops to attention.

  Laura jabbed the spoon into the yogurt and placed the container on her desk.

  “If this is some kind delayed reaction from yesterday thinking I’m forcing you to go out with Jack, who by the way is obscenely wealthy, then fine, if you don’t want to date him, and I won’t say another word. I promise.”

  “No, it has nothing to do with that,” I said, as I collapsed onto the leather chair facing her. A large floral arrangement from David, sat on her desk. Equal in size to that of a small rhododendron bush, I jutted my head to one side to see around the grove of exotic wild orchids and bird of paradise. She pushed the arrangement to one side, unblocking my view of her.

  “So, what is it then?” she asked.

  My palms were sweaty as I cleared my throat. I was sure Laura could hear my heart beating like a jungle drum. And although I felt ridiculous, I had to try and explain what was going on with Matt, for fear of totally imploding. After all, what are best friends for? Yes, I know. I tried once and failed, but I just had to try again.

  “Okay,” I said and took a deep breath. “I’m going to warn you that what I’m about to say might seem a little off-the-wall.”

  “And this should surprise me?”

  “I’m serious,” I said, as I set my briefcase on the floor next to the chair. “Do you remember when we were in high school and my parents talked about solar activity, lunar cycles, geomagnetic activity, and, well…parallel universes being on different planes and frequencies?”

  Laura gave me a questioning stare. “I love your parents dearly, so forgive me when I say I thought that was rather strange.”

  I tried to speak again but my mouth felt too dry. My tongue lay there like a slug. If she thought those things were strange, after what I had to tell her, she’d think I was insane. After all, my parents never once claimed to have seen a ghost. Suddenly, I panicked searching for a way out. I’d never had a “shrinking violet” type of personality. Bold, bordering on offensive maybe but I was beginning to feel like a wimp!

  “Well?” she asked.

  Oh, for pity’s sake just spit it out.

  I cleared my throat, straightened my shoulders, and looked at Laura with a steady stare. “Do you think it’s possible--or rather do you believe in--?” I just couldn’t find the right words. My eyes rolled upward toward the ceiling, as if the words were written somewhere overhead. “Okay, here’s my question. What exactly are your thoughts on parallel universes and ghostly beings? You know like spirits returning to people they love--like on those paranormal reality TV shows.”

  Laura gave me a deadpan stare.

  Anyway,” I said shifting my weight. “I happened to be thinking about spirits crossing over into the world of the living and wanted to know your thoughts on the subject? I mean, anything’s possible, right?”

  I couldn’t decide if pity was what I saw in Laura’s eyes, or if she was just deep in thought trying to figure out a way to sneak off and phone my therapist. Perhaps my timing still wasn’t right. However, would there really have been a right time?

  “Aubrey? You know most of that stuff on TV isn’t real, it’s just entertainment.”

  “I know, but this is about Matt.”

  She leaned forward and placed her palms flat on the desk. “Uh-huh. Well, he’s dead.” She whispered this as if she was afraid of waking Matt up out of the grave.

  “Yeah but look at all the people who say they have seen ghosts. They can’t all be crazy. Besides, there are research books and documentaries that prove ghosts do exist.”

  “There’s no scientific proof,” said Laura.

  “There’s no scientific proof that heaven and hell exist either, but you and I and just about the entire world believe they do--right?”

  Laura shook her head, looking like she was bored with the conversation.

  “Think back to our quantum physics class. Remember Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It postulates an infinite number of alternate realities and many other things that most people don't believe in either. But the scientific community accepts them, largely in part because many elements of his theory have been proven to be correct by scientific experiments. One of his famous quotes was, ‘Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.’ So even after a person dies, technically, they still live on. Matt really believed in that theory.”

  “So, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that if physics tells us that energy never dies, then the soul or spirit never dies, which means maybe people live on in a different form. Like ghosts.”

  “Sorry, I just don’t see the p
oint to all this,” she said wanly.

  I stood and paced back and forth in front of the window feeling frustrated and not at all qualified in claiming people can come back from the dead in an altered state. I stopped and looked down at the streets below. The train of cars jammed up at Kennedy Plaza seemed reminiscent of the congestion in my mind as I wondered how I was going to explain Matt being in this living and breathing world of ours.

  Left with no choice, I chose not to go any further in telling her about Matt. Not because I wimped out, but truth is if I hadn’t seen him for myself, I would never have believed such things were possible. So, how could I ever expect Laura to believe that Matt was trying to tell me something and that I felt it was something really important?

  I looked over my shoulder to see her rummaging through her desk drawer, when it dawned on me that she’d become complacent with my never-ending idiosyncrasies. My talk of ghosts hadn’t even fazed her. Not surprising, considering my OCD. One time while staying at a luxury hotel on business, I felt compelled to record the thread count of the sheets and the number of chocolates on the pillows. Even I found that odd.

  Perhaps subconsciously, my need for perfection was just an attempt to fix myself. It was easier to center on what I could control, a diversion for what I couldn’t face. Like accepting that I was lonely and that if it weren’t for me, my husband would still be alive.

  Matt used to compare me with a Jane Austen heroine, exacting social standards, exhibiting stubborn gustiness, stanch loyalty, and facing life’s daunting challenges and turning them into conquests. And there I was traipsing about the wild kingdom hoping to prove his ghostly existence.

  Folding my arms, I turned back toward the window contemplating how I was ever going to get back to the person I used to be. In college I was the one who had given the valedictorian commencement speech, while Laura fussed with the tassel on her cap and complained endlessly about her gown not flattering her figure. How had it all switched around? How in God’s name did Laura become the Jane Austen heroine?

  “Okay,” Laura said, “if there’s no point to all this, I really have to get over to the courthouse.”

  I looked skyward. “No, it was just something that happened to pop into my head,” I said. I turned to see Laura stuff a file folder into the briefcase on the credenza. Her back was to me when a watery image of Matt appeared beside her.

  He wore a thoughtful smile that reminded me of one day in particular. We were sipping espressos at an outdoor café in historical Federal Hill, known as Little Italy. A flock of skinny fashionistas in Dolce & Gabbana, sophisticated beauties with the world at their Gucci heels, sat one table over, openly flirting with Matt. He looked at me with that same judicious smile on his face, as if to say, “I have nothing to do with any of this.”

  His voice came through in my head, loud and clear, “Aubrey, find me.”

  I hurried toward him when his image disappeared like the burst of a bubble.

  “No! Don’t go!” I blurted out.

  Laura snapped her briefcase shut and swung around to look at me. “I thought we were done talking?”

  “No, that’s not what I--I mean yes, go.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Everything’s fine. Sorry I bothered you with something so silly.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Hey, about yesterday, I didn’t mean to be harsh when I accused you of obsessing over Matt, but enough years have passed. You need to let go once and for all. I’m just trying to help.”

  “I know,” I said quietly as I left her office. I just couldn’t understand why Matt kept telling me to find him. Find him where?

  I felt a little like I was out at sea, as if I just couldn’t find the balance in my life. I couldn’t even tell my best friend what was happening. Nor did I know how to connect with Matt or when I’d see him next, which really spun my psychological issues out of control. Total control was the key to my existence, without it, I didn’t know what would happen.

  As soon as I stepped into my office, the phone rang. The call was to inform me that Judge Trudy Lopez would be hearing my next case. It concerned my client, Mr. Peters, whose former employee had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him.

  Lopez, an inviolable woman, had actually once proclaimed, “I have faith that there’s a little Loraine Bobbit in every woman.”

  I braced myself for another challenging day.

  * * * *

  As the long hand of the clock inched its way toward six p.m., my mind crashed into sheer exhaustion, which had nothing to do with the pile of work on my desk. I’d spent the day thinking about Matt, worried that he was lost between two worlds for almost seven years. My theory was he needed my help, maybe in guiding him toward the light, like on that TV program where the young woman speaks to ghosts and helps them. However, it didn’t make sense that he’d wait so long.

  While straightening the clutter on my desk, lack of maternal responsibilities tugged at my heart. Calling Mother earlier that day to ask if Nicholas could spend the night was difficult. I didn’t like when my job kept me from tucking my son into bed. It was difficult enough for him growing up without a father. However, I did try to keep life for Nicholas as normal as possible, knowing full well the effects of growing up in a less than normal environment.

  As flower children, my parents were free spirits who lived with the rhythms of the earth, until their spirits one day guided them to open a tiny shop that sold lava lamps, incense, and Patchouli candles. Teaching me about purity of the universe, my parents took me on long nature walks, and taught me how to make soap, candles, and rose petal jam, while discussing cumulus clouds, mackerel skies, and universal peace.

  Mother had always been ubiquitous with boundless energy. She had fluttered happily through life barefoot in frayed-edged bellbottoms with a dog-eared first edition of “This Season’s People” cradled to her chest. However, not even as a child was there any indication of me having a free spirit. With my Judith Martin persona, wheeling one’s free spirit meant mastering my first well-crafted, passive-aggressive letter to a boy who had jilted me.

  I’ll admit that stringing colorful beads for my closet doorway and painting my bedroom with big rainbows and psychedelic designs that sometimes made me dizzy, was fun. Nevertheless, I had craved structure, neatness, and McDonald’s! Instead, I helped my parents scavenge landfills for automobile tires to make sandals, dined on tofu casseroles, and had to explain to my friends why a life-sized Jerry Garcia statue-slash-fountain stood in our front yard.

  However, Nicholas adored his grandparents and loved spending time with them at their gift shop helping them with little chores. The shop, unlike my parents who hadn’t evolved much over the years, boasted expensive gift items and paintings from local artists.

  I shook my head as my eyes traveled over the legal paperwork on my desk while thinking how different I was from my parents. Like my Cher-look-alike mother, my father had always maintained his gentle seventies spirit. He was a well-respected businessman who subconsciously still bucked the establishment. He never saw the need to chop off his Willie Nelson-like hair or turn the volume down on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” that he’d blare from his backyard speakers.

  A sudden knock on the office wall of glass startled me. I looked to see Laura, decked out in her pink Nuala sports top, matching Capri sweat pants, and Marc Jacobs yoga matt rolled up under her arm march into my office.

  “Aubrey, you haven’t even changed your clothes yet. Come on, I don’t want to walk into class late again.”

  “Sorry, you’re going to have to go to yoga without me tonight. I’ve got far too much work to catch up on.”

  Her eyes gravitated toward the stacks of file folders on my desk. “Okay, but try not to stay too late,” she said, as she turned to leave and smacked right into Mr. Davis, the superintendent/maintenance man.

  “Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Davis. I wasn’t watching where I w
as going.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, in a voice that sounded identical to the smooth baritone of James Earl Jones.

  Other than my father, Mr. Davis was the kindest man I’d ever known. At sixty-seven years old, with skin the color of dark rich coffee and gentle eyes, he always seemed to have a warm glow around him.

  We’d gotten to know each other well during the five years he worked in the building. His wife had died in childbirth when he was just twenty-eight years old. His baby died in his arms six hours later, a little girl he named Coco Rose for the delicate color of her skin and the sweet fragrance of her tiny body. It was sad he never remarried. He was like a kindred spirit, the only person who could truly relate to the pain I had felt when Matt died.

  Mr. Davis walked toward my desk shaking his head disapprovingly. “Working late again?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Hmm,” he muttered, as he pulled at his chin. “Did your mama tell you I stopped by the gift shop a couple of days ago?”

  “She did. She said you decided on those beautiful silver candlesticks with the Mother of Pearl detailing. That’ll make a great wedding gift for your niece. She’ll love them.”

  “I’m sure she will. By the way, saw Nicholas, too. That boy’s all legs.”

  “I know. I have a feeling he’s going to grow up tall like my father.”

  “For sure. And speaking about Nicholas, you gonna make it home in time to read him a bedtime story?”

  “No,” I said, casting my eyes down at the desk and picking up a pen. “He’s staying with my parents tonight.”

  “Hmm, don’t mean to preach, but you have to slow down Ms. Aubrey. A boy needs his mama, and you need to learn to relax a bit. Like my mama used to say to me while sipping from a mason jar of sweet cider, ‘Life is not going to catch up to you; you have to catch up with it.’”