The White Night

by Desmond Doane

  Could be purple, could be black, but not that I care because her butt is amazing.

  I wonder how much she squats?

  Shit. I’m an asshole.

  Or am I human?

  Frustrated, I grind my teeth and look out the bay window. Whitecaps cover most of the angry ocean. It’s mental behavior like this that sent my relationship with Melanie hurtling and flaming toward the ground like a meteorite. It landed hard. That’s for damn sure, and it left a huge crater in my heart.

  Why do I do this?

  My therapist says I shouldn’t punish myself for my intrinsic male tendencies. Everybody looks, he says, because it’s biology. The difference is, you gotta have the common friggin’ courtesy to not act on your animalistic impulses. Your partner—the person you love for many reasons other than sex—deserves that respect.

  I’m working on it.

  Lauren’s shenanigans, unintentional or not, and my reaction to them, makes me think of Melanie. I feel regret bubbling and growing warm in my stomach like a simmering pot. One day, it’ll boil over, and I’ll either drink a million gallons of beer to dull the memory or carry my heart up to her front door and beg forgiveness.

  Jeff from the control room be damned. I’m pretty motivated when I need to be.

  If she’ll have me. I’ve learned that’s another aspect of common courtesy in a relationship. Respecting the needs of others.

  See?

  I might get a boner if the wind blows the right direction, but I’m trying to keep the train on the tracks.

  In the kitchen, the dryer door slams and I hear Lauren call out, “Coming through.” I close my eyes—out of respect for Melanie, not Lauren—and hear my counterpart scamper from the kitchen, through the living room, and down the hallway. A bedroom door screeches shut and a moment later, she emerges wearing, yet again, a new pair of form-fitting jeans and a hoodie.

  “How many sweatshirts did you bring?” I ask.

  “I pack comfy,” Lauren answers. “And you’ve seen the weather here, haven’t you? Pouring rain, hoods. No brainer.” She pulls her hair back tight against her scalp, deftly twirls it into a bun, and straps it down with a hair band. Then she rolls up her sleeves and snorts, a mama tiger prepped and ready for battle, ready to protect her territory.

  Speaking of battle, I ask, “Do you have anything here we can use as a weapon? Golf clubs? A baseball bat? Anything you can swing?”

  “When was the last time you swung either of those?”

  “Last… decade. But it’s better than nothing.”

  “Fair enough.” Lauren twists at the waist, hands on her hips, chewing the side of her lip while she evaluates our options. “Not that I can think of. Grandma’s blind. She doesn’t need much.” She holds up an index finger. “Oh, hang on a sec.”

  Back down the hallway she goes, this time to a different bedroom, and returns carrying a small, green lockbox, roughly the size of a paperback copy of War & Peace.

  I remember seeing that book on the shelves earlier. Who has the time? Maybe that’s why Ellen went blind. Trying to read that brick would do it, no offense to Tolstoy.

  “What’s this?”

  “A .22 pistol. Belonged to my grandpa.”

  “Uh, yeah… no.”

  “What? Why?” she asks, incredulous.

  “Not my thing, guns.”

  “You’ll beat some paranormal creature thing over the head with a baseball bat, but you won’t shoot it?”

  “Bats or clubs can’t accidentally go off and shoot someone in the foot. Or the face, or the head, or the chest, or—”

  “Or the nose, or the knees, or the ears, I get it, but can’t we—”

  “Not a chance, no.” I take the lockbox from her, step over, and place it in the middle of the bookshelf. My eye goes up to the video camera. It’s still hidden well, yet I catch the tiniest glimpse of the little red light blinking. I can’t risk an attempt to hide it more, so I try out some misdirection. “It’s a thing I have. With guns, I mean. You’ve kept up with what I’m doing now, right? The whole paranormal private investigator gig?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Just, you know, wondering what you thought about it.”

  “It might come as a shock that I don’t think about you all the time.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I don’t have an opinion.”

  “But what do you think?”

  “You’re being weird, but fine.” Looking past my shoulder, she longingly eyes the lockbox on the shelf, and I’m afraid she’ll look up and see the camera. I nudge sideways and block her view as she says, “I’ve heard some stuff. Let me guess. You’re greasing the gears for a shot at another show?”

  “The thought crossed my mind, but that’s not entirely the reason, no. Just helping out, working on a little soul redemption. After Chelsea, I mean.” It occurs to me that I’ve gotten exactly what I wished for earlier this morning. I haven’t thought about Chelsea, the documentary, or Carla Hancock in hours.

  You can’t miss Lauren’s eyeroll. It’s the stuff of television legend, and part of her signature persona on Weekend Report. I’m on the receiving end of it as she says, “Whatever.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Uh-huh. Anyway, what’s it got to do with you and no guns?”

  Here’s where the full misdirection lie comes in: “One of the first official investigations I did was with this detective down in New Orleans”—I pronounce it Naw’lins to give it some authenticity—“and this guy, he was caught up in such a horrible case with this family. The dad was a drunk, the mom was on drugs. You make your own luck, yeah, but these people had gotten the shaft over and over. Turns out, one of their neighbors had died of—well, supposedly of an overdose, right there in their living room. Graybeal, the detective, wasn’t convinced it was an accidental OD, so he brought me in to see if I could communicate with the dead neighbor’s spirit. Long story short, the dad and mom both were so strung out when we got there for the investigation that they tried to attack us both. Graybeal ended up shooting the dad between the eyes right in front of me. Boom, bullet. Dead and done.”

  Lauren cringes and sucks air in through her teeth. “Jesus. That’s sad.”

  “Yeah.”

  In true Lauren Coeburn fashion, the sympathy disappears, and she’s right back to the story. “How come I never heard about this? Especially with you involved? Why wasn’t that all over the national news?”

  Oh, shit. Good point.

  “Um, they swept it under the rug. Total cover up. You get that kind of treatment when…”

  “When you’re you?” She can’t hide her snide incredulity. “You’re a piece of work.”

  “Hey, I didn’t ask for it, but yeah, since that day,” I say, shaking my head with feigned remorse, “I don’t want to be near a gun. That image is burned in my brain. The blood, the way his head rocked back. Gives me the shivers. You get that, right?”

  Lauren lifts a shoulder, drops it with an exaggerated pout. “If you say so. No guns.” She points past me with her chin. “Just in case, the combination is one, twenty-nine, seventy-four if you change your mind.”

  “Got it.”

  “And now you know when to send me something for my birthday. Don’t forget it.”

  “Note taken.”

  Lauren steps over to the large bay window, surveys the outside, and says, “The anticipation is killing me.”

  I move over, floorboards creaking underneath my boots. “Tell me about it.”

  “I wish they’d get it over with. I hate waiting.”

  “You’d never make it as a paranormal investigator then. That’s all we do. Hurry up and wait.”

  A strong rush of wind whips below the awning and across the porch, bringing with it the sharp pitter-patter of rain against the glass.

  She uses her forefinger to trace the rivulets. They capture the distant light from the southern streetlamp, the nearest one that’s shining, and refract it with shimmering color. “You
have a plan?” Her voice sounds empty and flat.

  “I hate to say it, but no, I don’t. I’ve never had the chance to see these guys up close. The only thing I can think of—we wait and see what happens. Maybe we invite them in, ask what they want me for. Don’t look at me like that. I already know it sounds stupid.”

  “Stupid? Those six letters don’t do that idea justice.”

  “With a situation like this, I gotta trust my instincts when it happens.”

  Lauren watches the storm. She says, “I’m hungry. Can you find me some food?”

  I look sideways at her, eyebrow raised. “Uh, sure, I guess. You’ll take first watch?”

  Peculiar request from her. However, she’s in a peculiar situation, thinking about her safety, her grandmother’s safety, while relying on a guy who might seriously consider pushing her in front of a moving train.

  Not that I would, on a good day, but I’d say she had a legitimate reason to be acting weird.

  Anyway, off I go into the kitchen. The dryer is humming back in a little alcove, accentuated by the clink-chink of the metal button on Lauren’s jeans tumbling inside. It smells like fabric softener in here, remnants of past laundry exploits released with the current heat. A streetlight to the east shines through the kitchen window, giving me enough ambient light to see and move around. The linoleum under my feet crackles in spots. No black-eyed children are sneaking up on us from this direction.

  Earlier, when I eased in through the back door, eyes alert, waiting on something to pounce, I hadn’t noticed the half-eaten meals on the kitchen table. Sandwiches with small bites taken out of them sit next to glasses of dark, flat soda. The generic “cola” two-liter is off to the right, cap unscrewed.

  They left in a hurry, apparently, which leads me to a question I had forgotten to ask earlier. With the black-eyed children right at the back door, and so close, how had Lauren gotten her nearly blind grandmother moving fast enough to make an easy escape? They left their uneaten meals behind, yeah, but had Lauren really stopped long enough to lock the front door behind them?

  Acting out of habit? Afraid the black-eyed children would try to get inside while they were gone?

  Sure. Maybe.

  I need to ask her about that.

  First, food.

  In the refrigerator, I discover some leftover munchies, perfect items to whip together a makeshift picnic; a pack of sliced, dry salami, sliced havarti cheese, and an open bottle of Chardonnay go onto a serving tray conveniently stationed nearby on the counter. Crackers from the cabinet too, once I check the date and ensure they’re not as old as Ellen.

  Wine glasses. Can’t forget those.

  Napkins. Check.

  Salami, cheese, and wine. You’d think we should be smack in the middle of Napa Valley, not setting up perfect appetizers for a night of paranormal frivolity.

  I balance the tray on one hand, like back from my days waiting tables, and stroll into the front room where Lauren remains stationary at the window. “Tasty snacks for m’lady,” I say, setting our mini-meal down on the coffee table.

  Lauren has light in her eyes again. “Oh, yay,” she squeals, clapping.

  It’s weird, you know? Like I don’t feel as if either one of us is as scared as we should be, given what we’re facing. Or what might be coming. Lauren seems to be swaying back and forth between normal and cautiously strange, and, I have to admit, there are a few molecules inside me that remain skeptical of her story.

  That said, it catches me totally unaware when Lauren, mouth full of cheese and salami, asks me the scariest question I can think of:

  “Are you ever going to get married again, Ford?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mike Long

  We retreated to my place, and now I’m standing here in a confused daze.

  By the time we got here, the kids had left for the Daltons’ house, friends of ours who live up the street and also have an in-ground swimming pool with a diving board. Dayton and Ashley spend more time there than anywhere else—which is completely alien to me since they have an entire ocean to swim in mere feet away. Not that I care, it’s just that sometimes I’m burdened by an adult’s logic. Aren’t we all? Most of us, anyway.

  Toni gave me no jealousy-fueled argument about leaving again with Dakota, and in fact, she almost seemed excited by the idea that I’d be out of the house. She didn’t even beg Dakota to hang around and take a tour of Casa de Long. She had on makeup, dangling earrings, and that skirt with the revealing slit up the side that I love so much, offering minimal details about a ‘meeting’ she was late for.

  “You might see me designing for a new client,” she’d said. “Wish me luck!”

  Stranger still, Toni also kissed me goodbye when she left, which I’m sure was just an act in front of Dakota, and whisked herself out the front door in a flurry of perfume and dramatic flair. She called back over her shoulder, “The kids are going to spend the night at the Daltons, so take all the time you need. Be careful, Dakota!”

  Then she was gone.

  And now Dakota stands beside me in the living room, studying me with an arched eyebrow. “Evil Medusa, huh?”

  I snort in disbelief. “I have no idea who that person was. Keeping up appearances for you, I guess.”

  “She doesn’t seem so bad.”

  “Give it time.”

  “That skirt, though. I’m jealous of her legs, that’s for sure.”

  “What? Don’t even go there. You’re—” I cut myself off. The conversation—my brain, rather—is heading down a playground slide coated in lard. I gotta stay on track. Dakota is attractive, yes, and I’m married—final word. Perhaps not happily married, but still, I have principles. I am not Ford. I’m a dedicated father and husband, not a cheating horndog.

  I stammer something dismissive about her looking great, smile awkwardly, and make a hasty exit, telling her I’m going to put my paranormal equipment out in the garage, charge the batteries, and then we can go to the library for some research.

  So, yeah, that entire interaction just now was like watching a crash-test dummy take a hit at sixty-five mph in slow motion.

  What had poured water on the hot ‘n’ bothered flames of my once-stagnant libido was that black, floating-mist-spirit thing blatantly noting that I want Dakota. If I’m projecting enough of that energy for it to be picked up all the way in the goddamn afterlife… then I need to back the hell off.

  Jus’ sayin’.

  What I really need right now is a hard workout—Old Faithful—to burn off some of this mental garbage. I need to go pick up heavy things and set them down, over and over, to wash my sins clean.

  I check the wall clock and see that it’s not much past eight-thirty in the morning. Best bet is, Ford’s asleep out on the west coast. It’d be nice to ask him how he’d approach this scenario—the investigation, I mean, not about being Don Juan with Dakota—because he always had the best ideas. You know, theories, angles, or a way to come at the spirits that would elicit the best response. He was so amazing at assessing a situation, creating a scenario as if it were a movie or a play in his mind, figuring out how these people had lived, what motivated them, what would be best to use as a trigger object.

  The one and only time he royally screwed up was with little Chelsea Hopper.

  One unheeded warning—mine—sank an entire ship like a midnight iceberg.

  ***

  Toni took the Audi, and that’s cool by me. Dakota and I hop into the BMW sedan, my first true gift to ourselves when the show got renewed for a second season. I love this damn car—bangs, knocks, rattles, and all. Loveable warts that remind me daily of so many good memories. I’ll drive this thing until the wheels fall off because there in the passenger side floorboard is the perpetual stain where Toni spilled an entire glass of red wine. Above Dakota, the cloth material is torn in a lightning shaped pattern, evidence of Toni’s stiletto heel and a particularly adventuresome, uh, event a long time ago when money wasn’t required as an aphro
disiac.

  The buttons on the CD player have ancient crumbs wedged between them where Dayton tried to see what his PB&J would sound like. Behind me and in the seatback pocket, there’s a miniature shovel that we brought back from the beach one afternoon a few years ago. We had no idea to whom it belonged, and none of the four of us had any clue where it came from. It simply showed up among our collection of toys.

  General consensus, at least from my side of things, was that a ghost had been trying to get our attention that day. I never discovered a reason, and since spirits can get attached to objects, I brought it out here to the car rather than unleashing a spiritual stowaway on our brand new home back then.

  I didn’t have the heart to throw it in the trash, because it’s a kid’s toy, and, well, you know, child spirits tug on the heartstrings.

  Over in the passenger seat, Dakota seems distant, distracted. It’s muggy, but not quite air conditioner weather, so we have the windows down. Wisps of loose hair, somehow escaped from the Alcatraz of her hair band, drift around in the thirty-mph wind. “Dakota?”

  She turns to me.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I dunno. Seems like you left us there for a bit.”

  “Just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “Mostly about how I got here. I mean, like, here here. It’s funny, you know, how I just randomly decided one day to go audition for this new show because I was bored at my old job. I absolutely could not hang around and plate up my old chef’s bland steak, his stupid, lumpy potatoes and his limp, soggy, disgusting salad. Not anymore. It wasn’t what I went to culinary school for, and I was completely wasting my life. I got bored with a song and changed the station, right over to an ad for auditions on the radio.

  “Instead of going to work, I made a left turn, and here I am. My life took an entirely different direction because I got bored with a song. That amazes me.”

  “You don’t think you would’ve ended up here eventually?”

  “Destiny? Could be. But the point is, I’m in a place where I have more money in the bank than I could have ever imagined, a humongous house on the beach—that happens to be haunted—and, honestly, I feel like such a first-world cliché. Beach house, nice cars, a few extra zeroes in my bank account… All great to have, yeah, but you saw my kitchen. I’m eating burgers and fries, pizza. I’m not even cooking anymore. I haven’t in weeks, and I feel like I’ve lost sight of doing what I loved.”