Beloved

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Buy Emily's Ghost or turn the page to read Chapter 2.

  Emily's Ghost Sample Chapter 2

  "Whoops. Well! Senator!" Emily scrambled to her feet and extended her hand to him, but her hand was full of silk petals. She hurled them into her bag; half of them fell back to the floor. "I'm Emily Bowditch."

  He took her hand in a warm and easy grip. "Lee Alden; pleased to meet you," he said in an electric baritone. "Jim Whitewood tells me you're looking for some information; suppose you tell me about it."

  The senator. Himself. She'd never seen him up close before. On CNN and Local News, sure. In the papers and in the magazines, lots of times. It was quite well documented: Senator Alden was a heartthrob. Six-two, blue eyes, square jaw, thick hair, great bloodline, lots of money -- a man made for the media. But the media came nowhere near capturing his sheer, knock-down presence.

  "You have a fabulous aura, Senator," Emily blurted, much to her own astonishment.

  The senator grinned. "Is that a professional evaluation? Jim says you have psychic ability. Please. Have a seat."

  He dropped into one of the wing chairs; Emily sat in the other.

  "I'd like to find out whether I have it or not," she murmured, but her voice suddenly lacked conviction. It was one thing to take on a con-man that she felt instinctively superior to; it was another thing altogether to take on a demigod. Her confidence was slipping fast.

  "You're not in Washington," she added with something like reproach.

  "No. There was a family emergency last night -- thank God, a false alarm. I'm only passing through the office this morning on my way back to the Senate. My time is a little short ...," he said, glancing first at his watch and then at her, expectantly.

  "Yes. I understand completely. Well, I won't keep you, Senator," she said, lifting from her chair like a dove in flight. Suddenly she wanted out.

  If he was surprised by her change of heart, he didn't show it, needless to say; politicians were a cool and collected lot.

  "Miss Bowditch, this power you claim to have --"

  He stood up, towering over her, and slid his hands into the pockets of his Brooks Brothers suit. "We're talking about the power of the press, are we not?"

  "Press?" she repeated in a very small voice, fastening her gaze on his wing-tipped shoes.

  "Press. As in Boston Journal."

  She winced. "You know?"

  "That you're an investigative reporter for the Journal? Yes. We know."

  She raised her dark eyes to meet his look. "How did you recognize my name? I haven't been with the paper long enough to rate a by-line."

  "My secretary looked you up in the Media Directory. You were behaving a little ... oddly. She guessed you might be from the press." His expression was bland but his eyes were dancing.

  That got her dander up. That, and the thought of the three of them having a good laugh over her. "I was behaving a little oddly? Has it occurred to you, Senator, that people who believe that other people can levitate, bend spoons, and talk to aliens through the fillings in their teeth -- that those people are the ones who are a wee bit odd?" She didn't bother hiding the contempt in her voice.

  The senator was rocking a little on his feet; she might have been a pesky lobbyist bending his ear. His expression was still bland, but the light in his eyes seemed to have gone out.

  "That, I take it, is the gist of the exposé you'd like to write about me?"

  "Do you deny that you wrote the NSF a letter urging that they spend more on interstellar communication and psychic research?" She whipped out her steno pad, ready to take down his "No comment."

  Instead he said quietly, "Do you really believe that a silver filling and the Arecibo Radiotelescope are on a par with one another?"

  "Yes or no, Senator. Did you send the letter?" she demanded crisply, Bic pen poised.

  "Oh, for --" He shook his head, exasperated, and said, "This Palmist getup and so-called search for a master to teach you -- is this all with your paper's sanction?"

  Her eyes were slightly lowered. "Yes."

  "I don't believe it."

  "Well they didn't tell me not to do it."

  "Ah." He glanced at his watch again and made an impatient sound. "Look, I've got a plane to catch. If you wanted to know how I feel about psi, why didn't you just ask me?" He waved his hand up and down over her clothes. "Why put yourself through all this embarrassment?"

  "I am not embarrassed," she said, embarrassed. "But I do know one thing: among all the cabinet members, congressmen, senators and ambassadors who fervently believe in psychic phenomena, only a handful have come out of the closet. And you're not one of them," she said, not quite truthfully.

  "I've never tried to hide my beliefs; they're a matter of public record."

  "Public record! Every once in a while you throw a bone to some obscure little magazine like Etheric, and that's supposed to update the voters. Why not come clean in the Journal, Senator? That's what real people read around here."

  What am I doing? she thought wildly. I'm standing here trading punches with a United States Senator! In her seven years as a reporter Emily had gone after landlords and lawyers, developers and diet centers -- but never had she taken on someone with so much power, so much prestige.

  "All right," the senator said after a moment.

  "Pardon me?"

  "I said, 'all right,' Miss Bowditch. You have your wish. See Mrs. Cusack and she'll set up a time. I'm afraid it can't be right away."

  "Pardon me?"

  He flashed her a sudden, good-natured grin -- and a heck of a vote-getter it was -- and said, "There's an old Chinese curse: 'May your most fervent wish come true'." Then he glanced at his Rolex again and said, "My car's waiting; I have to run. You have a good day, Miss Bowditch."

  He left Emily in a state bordering on shock.

  So. The way to land an exclusive interview with an important man on a controversial subject was to wear a dumb hat. A slow, wicked, utterly jubilant smile transformed her face.

  "I knew that."

  ****

  When Emily popped out of the senator's office, it was still only mid-morning; the day, which Emily had asked to take as a vacation day, was still very much her own. She was in a jump-for-joy mood and wanted to share it with someone, so she called her friend Cara.

  Cara Miles was the Pisces to her Virgo, a woman she'd met one summer in New Hampshire where Cara had retreated to do some painting -- "and/or," she'd said, "get in touch with my inner self." In every way they were cheerful opposites. Emily was a small-town girl from a big blue-collar family; Cara was a Boston-bred Only Child whose forebears apparently owned the Mayflower. Emily had worked nights and weekends to put herself through community college; Cara was a Vassar girl. Emily had scrimped and saved for years and only just managed to close on a one-bedroom condo in an iffy neighborhood of Boston; Cara owned -- free and clear -- a four-level townhouse in the Back Bay. Emily paid her taxes; Cara paid her accountant. Emily favored shirts and jeans. Cara draped herself in hand-printed silk. Emily trekked. Cara flowed.

  But they both loved New Hampshire, and to shop. Emily had taken Cara around to every antique shop in the Manchester area, and to a few attics that weren't in the Yellow Pages. Cara had reciprocated when Emily moved to Boston. To Emily the secret to their friendship was obvious: they'd never yet both desired the same antique. They came close once -- an oak pharmaceutical cabinet for seventy-four dollars -- but after a few minutes Emily gave up wanting it. She had no place to put it. And anyway, she didn't believe in bric-a-brac; what would she have kept in it?

  When Cara arrived at the small Spanish café tucked in one of the step-downs on Newbury Street, Emily was waiting for her. She was still dressed like a frilly peasant gypsy, and Cara nearly passed her by.

  "Emily!" she said, doing a double take. "I love you in that. It's a whole new look."

  "-- but the same old me; don't get your hopes up," Emily said, laughing.

  "Well, you ought to give in to that si
de of yourself more often; you'd meet more men. So. What's the occasion?"

  "I was on a job assignment, and it turned out well. I'm celebrating," she said, holding up a glass of sangria. "Can you join me?"

  "Ooh, that could be dangerous -- antiquing under the influence." Cara slid into the chair opposite the tiny table and tossed back a mane of softly curled brown hair. "I don't dare buy anything more -- I've been sending things off to Sotheby's for auction as it is. I'm trying to clear space for a studio." She motioned for a waiter.

  "Cara! You've gone back to painting."

  "Mmmm, not painting. Painting didn't really express ... wasn't really the -- couldn't -- well, I've taken up sculpture. It's so much more, I don't know, essential as an art form."

  While she was ordering, Emily thought, Oh, yes. I can see why I wanted to be with her right now. She's another one of those types who forever struggle with the mystical essences of things.

  Not for the first time, Emily wondered why she herself did not. Life seemed to Emily a pretty straightforward affair. In general her mother was right: You were born, you worked, and then you died. If you were lucky you fell in love with a great guy and had a couple of kids. So far she hadn't been so lucky.

  Which brought her back to her original view: you were born, you worked, and then you died. It was very important to be kind and fair -- it was almost an obsession with Emily. But for the life of her, she could not understand why some people had to have a mystical experience every time they ate a cheese sandwich.

  "So tell me about your assignment," Cara said as she plucked the cherry out of her sangria. "What poor crook have you set your sights on this time?"

  "He's not exactly a crook," Emily answered with a wry smile. "He's just hopelessly misguided -- and you wouldn't even think he was that."

  "Something to do with the astral plane?"

  Cara had tossed the question off casually as she eyed the plate of crispy shrimp rissoles that was being placed between them. But she'd hit a bull's eye, and Emily was extremely impressed. Stan Cooper was right: Cara probably was the telepathic one.

  "Not even close," Emily lied, a little shaken. "And anyway, I can't talk about it until after the interview in a couple of weeks."

  "Fine with me." Cara bit into the hot fried appetizer and went into a swoon of pleasure. "These are out of this world," she cried, and then: "Okay, let's talk about men. You first. Find any?"

  Emily's mouth was full. She shook her head.

  "I did. A doozy." Cara rolled her eyes and tossed off the rest of her sangria. "I met him at one of daddy's bank things. From across the room I thought he was the most handsome man I'd ever seen. From a foot away he was even better. Snappy dresser; sexy drawl; bluer eyes than mine. There was only one little hitch ...."

  "He was married?"

  "He was investigating daddy's bank." Cara dropped her head into her hands, then looked up with a hopeless, tragic smile and motioned for a refill on her wine.

  By the time they left two hours later, Emily and Cara were both convinced that for a tragic situation, Cara's dilemma was pretty darn funny. Feeling mellow and amused, they wandered aimlessly and contentedly through the lineup of exquisite shops on Newbury Street. They paused to stroke a fine Italian handbag here, an Inuit soapstone carving there. They stared in the window of a florist for a full ten minutes, choosing the flowers for their wedding bouquets, just in case. Cara tried on an Australian outback coat and a pair of lizard boots, bought them, and arranged to have them delivered. The bill came to $3,l37.40. She wrote a check.

  Emily didn't mind. She figured that in Boston she could get along pretty well without either an outback coat or lizard boots. In general she felt pretty immune to impulse buying. She tried on a handmade sweater from Ireland, for example, but convinced herself that it was too scratchy. She picked up a stoneware mug from Scotland and walked around with it for a while, but then she put it back on its shelf. It wasn't hard: in every shop, thoughts of her mortgage hovered sadistically overhead.

  Until she ambled up to the window of a shop called, with charming understatement, "Something Old." The shop specialized in estate jewelry, and the window display was enchanting. Scattered on a bed of deep maroon velvet were a dozen pieces of antique jewelry, mostly of diamonds and pearls. Their owners were there too, in sepia photographs whose edges were curled with age--grand ladies in fin de siècle ball gowns, their throats ringed in thick chokers of pearls, their tiny waists encircled with diamonds. There were tools of their trade as well: a mother-of-pearl hairbrush and a silver comb, and an intricate, hand-painted fan of ebony. In every fold of velvet a random treasure lay partly hidden: a ruby hat-pin; a set of pearl tear-drop earrings; a tortoiseshell button-hook.

  Emily was charmed by all of it, from the tiara to the button-hook. But it was a necklace of pale pink stone that cast a spell over her and held her fast. It was not a magnificent piece, or even an elegant piece. It was -- an odd piece. The big rectangular stone, set in delicate gold filigree but hung on an extremely heavy chain, was like nothing else in the window. Emily couldn't imagine a woman of either taste or wealth having adorned herself with it, and yet it was undeniably old. Something about it -- the way the track lighting bounced off its facets, or the gypsy look of it -- made her want to know more.

  From over her shoulder she heard Cara say, "What a funky piece. I like it."

  The words struck dread in Emily's heart. Until this moment she had not known she wanted the necklace. "I like it, too," she said, a little fiercely.

  "Let's go in and try it on, then," said Cara, oblivious to the fact that there were two of them and only one of it. She looped her arm through Emily's and tugged. "Maybe it's some rare and exotic stone."

  "You mean rare and expensive stone," Emily said wryly. This is going to be it, she thought. The thing that finally does in this screwy, illogical friendship. But she went in with Cara anyway, trying desperately not to resent her money.

  The saleswoman, a Coco Chanel lookalike, passed immediately over Emily to focus on the Possible Sale. "May I help you?" she asked Cara in a cultivated voice.

  "Yes, that funny pink-stone necklace in the window," said Cara. "We'd like to see it."

  The saleswoman wasn't quick enough to hide her surprise and -- Emily thought -- disappointment. "Oh. That one. Certainly."

  By the time she laid it out carefully on a swatch of black velvet, though, the woman was back in business. "It's a charming little trinket, don't you think? It's turned quite a few heads. Very unusual."

  Cara lifted it from it from the velvet and said, "Heavy; is the chain solid gold?"

  Emily's hopes sank.

  "Oh, no," said the saleswoman, releasing a tiny smile. "Some sort of plating. The stone is possibly rose quartz, or maybe pink tourmaline. It's costume, which is why the price is so reasonable."

  Emily's hopes rose.

  Cara turned over the tiny white stringed tag. "Five hundred dollars?"

  Emily's hopes sank.

  "It really is just costume, then," Cara said, disappointed.

  Emily's hopes rose.

  Why, why, why, you dopey fool! You don't keep five hundred dollars in your sugar bowl; Cara does.

  Cara held the necklace up around her throat and gazed at herself in a gilded mirror on the wall. "Pretty," she said musingly.

  "Your color sets it off well," said Ms. Chanel, tilting her head and touching one red fingernail to her chin.

  Emily thought she might possibly explode. "May I?" she asked through clenched teeth. Never had she wanted to possess the way she was wanting now.

  Cara smiled and handed it over with an "I can't decide, I really can't." Clearly she did not consider that Emily was in the competition for the purchase.

  Emily felt the sheer weight of the necklace in her hand, held it up before her, stared at the odd shafts of light in the pinkish crystal. Her hand was trembling.

  "Oh, look, the stone is chipped!" cried Cara. "On the back. How really too bad!"

 
"Well, of course it isn't a diamond. And it's old," said the saleswoman, a little irritated. "But if you were really interested," she said to Cara, still pitching to her alone, "I suppose I could --"

  "I want it," Emily said suddenly. "I want the necklace."

  "You do! Oh, I'm so glad," Cara said, breaking into a surprised and beautiful smile. "It suits what you're wearing so well."

  "Cara, these are not my normal --" Emily began, and then gave it up. It didn't matter to her whether the necklace suited or not. It didn't matter whether it was chipped or not. It almost didn't matter whether it cost five hundred dollars or not. It only mattered that when she held it in her hand, she felt completely, bizarrely satisfied.

  "And how will you be paying for that?" asked the saleswoman politely. She had dropped all mention of what she could or could not do, seeing as it was chipped and all, but Emily did not dare or even want to re-negotiate the price.

  "VISA," she answered faintly, handing over her card.

  "Let's put it on you," said Cara excitedly as the clerk wrote up the sale.

  She undid the heavy clasp and lifted the chain over Emily's head. Emily watched the big pink stone pass in front of her and come to rest on her breastbone. The necklace felt heavy and icy cold. She caught her breath -- she couldn't breathe -- and let out a sharp, frightened cry.

  "Oh, sorry; did I catch your hair?" asked Cara off-handedly as she struggled to close the lock. "This clasp is a wicked thing to work."

  "No ... no, it surprised me ... with its weight, that's all."

  "Okay, turn around and let's see what we've got," said Cara, ready to be amused. Emily did so, and Cara said in an altogether different voice, "Emily. It's wonderful on you -- strange, and overwrought, and --wonderful. I can't get over the change it makes in you," she said, sounding puzzled. "It makes your cheeks glow, your eyes shine --"

  "Embarrassment is making my cheeks glow, Cara; stop it," Emily murmured as she eyed the saleswoman approaching with a tissue slip for signing. "It's just a piece of jewelry. Nothing more. Nothing less."