The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance (Mammoth Books)

by Trisha Telep

  She laughed. “Let me get the towel.”

  It took them half an hour to clean up the mess and retrieve the salvageable foodstuffs. Nathan carried the welcome mat inside his apartment to dump it in the shower, leaving behind a purplish aureole of color around a pristine rectangle on the hall carpet. Stacey brought in the last of the supplies and laid them on the counter that separated the small kitchen from the living room. She couldn’t resist taking a quick look around. His apartment was laid out like a mirror image of hers, so she guessed the two rooms she could see in the shadows off the hallway led to a cramped bathroom and a single bedroom. The open living area wasn’t exactly spotless, but no worse than her own, with newspapers piled in corners and shoes kicked off beside the battered couch and a humongous plasma TV taking up all the space on the interior wall.

  Nathan reappeared, drying his hands on his jeans. “I really appreciate your help. Can I get you something to drink? I just remembered, I’ve got a couple beers, too, if that sounds better. Or Coke, if you’d rather.”

  “I just got a phone call from my dad,” Stacey said.

  Something in the tone of her voice caused him to pause in the act of turning toward the kitchen. His eyebrows lifted. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “He’s been dead for two months.”

  Nathan nodded and continued on toward the kitchen. “Right, then. Whiskey it is.”

  They sat on Nathan’s couch and talked for the next two hours. Despite looking like a dispirited floor model from a run-down furniture factory, Nathan’s fuzzy brown couch was surprisingly comfortable, and the Jack Daniel’s was as smooth as honey. Both of them encouraged Stacey to confide.

  “I loved my dad, but he would drive me crazy. He’d call me two or three times a day with something stupid he wanted to tell me – a joke, or the plotline of some made-for-cable movie that didn’t make any sense. Sometimes I didn’t answer the phone when he’d call because I couldn’t fake the interest for another half-hour. Then after he died—” she pressed a hand to her heart “—I kept thinking, Oh, what wouldn’t I give for one more call from Dad? And then tonight. When he called. I kept thinking I was hallucinating.” She glanced around the apartment. “I still think I might be.”

  Nathan leaned back. He’d kicked his shoes off and stretched out, slouching down so his head rested on the back of the sofa and his butt was almost off the seat cushion. “Well, I’m not hallucinating. I think we’re both very real. But I can’t explain the phone call. I’ve never believed in ghosts.”

  “No, me either!” Stacey leaned forward. “This sounds so weird but I was talking to him on my cell phone when he had the heart attack. Do you think . . . Would it make sense . . . I mean, could his soul or his consciousness or whatever have imprinted on my phone? Like, gotten tangled up in its electronics somehow? I mean, when you think about it, how remarkable is it that we can transmit voices 300 miles? We aren’t even sending sound through wires any more. Those voices are going through air, from one little handheld device to another. So why can’t souls go through the air, too, and end up in a phone?”

  Nathan spread his hands. “I can’t answer questions like that. I’m not a science guy who can explain electricity and conductivity and fiber optics. And I’m not a religious guy or a New Age guy, so I can’t tell you what souls do and how spirits move through the vortex or whatever. I mean, I believe you, but I couldn’t tell you why or how it happened.”

  Stacey took another sip of her whiskey. It was amazing how the alcohol smoothed away all the rough edges. The disembodied call no longer seemed so spooky or unnerving, and the sorrow she had carried around with her for the past eight weeks had loosened its grip on her ribcage. She couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t been drinking more or less continuously since her father’s death. “Well, what kind of guy are you?” she asked.

  “Software engineer guy.”

  Her response was half a laugh and half a hiccup. “Oh, because there’s such a need for those here in Kansas City.”

  “Well, I wanted to get away from Silicon Valley. And . . . stuff there.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “My wife died six months ago.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry! That’s terrible.”

  He took another swallow of amber liquid. “We’d been separated for a year. It’s a long story.”

  “You don’t have to tell me about it,” she said. “But I’d listen if you feel like talking.”

  He was silent a moment, studying the liquor in his glass, then he shrugged. “We got married just out of college. Had all those early hardscrabble days that you’re supposed to remember fondly when you’re older and richer. Lived in an apartment smaller than this one with crazy neighbors upstairs and a drug dealer downstairs, or at least that’s what we always assumed.” He paused again, remembering, or maybe trying to edit the story down to its essentials. “We argued a lot. And it didn’t get better once we both had jobs and could afford a bigger place. We just had more rooms to argue in. Finally we agreed to a separation.”

  He straightened up, poured himself another shot of whiskey, and sat there a moment, resting his forearms on his knees and gazing backward at his past. “We still called each other every week or two, but I knew she was seeing someone else. I tried to go out with other girls but I couldn’t really get in the spirit of dating. One night she died in a car crash. One of our friends told me she’d been trying to get up the courage to ask for a divorce so she could get married again.”

  Stacey knocked back the last of her whiskey and held her glass out for more. “Well, that sucks rocks.”

  Nathan carefully poured another portion into her glass; she could tell he was rationing. He didn’t seem miserly, so she figured that meant he realized she was drunker than she realized she was, and he was trying to spare her the effects of excessive inebriation.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I always thought.”

  “So you left California to leave your memories behind,” she said. “Is it working?”

  “Not so far,” he said. He looked surprised. “Except. Well. Talking to you tonight. I haven’t thought about Mandy until I started telling you the story.”

  “I know. This is the first time I’ve felt kind of cheerful since my dad died.” She looked at the glass in her hand. “Do you think it’s the whiskey?”

  He shook his head. “Probably not. I’ve had whiskey before and it hasn’t helped this much. I think it’s the company.”

  “Oh.” She thought that over a moment, then smiled at him tentatively. “Well, I’ll be happy to scare away your ghosts any time you’re willing to hear me talk about mine. I don’t know – did that sentence make any sense?”

  “Enough sense for me to know what you meant,” he said. He was smiling, too. “Let’s have dinner tomorrow night and see if the magic lasts.”

  Stacey thought going out on a Wednesday was probably easier than going out on the traditional date nights of Friday or Saturday, but she was still nervous the next day as she looked over her wardrobe. She wanted to appear cute but not overtly sexy. She was literally the girl next door, and if the dinner didn’t go well, she didn’t want Nathan to mentally roll his eyes every time he encountered her for the next few months. Oh yeah . . . there’s the chick who was wearing the see-through black lace blouse when we went to Red Lobster for dinner. So she picked a soft white sweater with just enough cling, blue jeans, boots and an art-glass necklace she’d bought at a street fair. She was relieved that she was having a good hair day, plenty of body still left in her shoulder-length brown curls. A quick sweep of the comb, a swift mist of spray, a deep breath, and she was ready.

  Nathan was knocking on the stroke of seven. “I figured I had to be on time since I could hardly say I got stuck in traffic,” he said with a grin as she opened the door.

  She grinned back. “Are you usually late?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say usually. It’s been known to happen.”

  She angled her
head back to study him. She liked that he was taller than she was; many men weren’t. “Because you’re disorganized, because you lose track of time, or because you think a deadline is more of a suggestion than a commitment?”

  Now he was laughing out loud. “Oh, you’re the kind of girl who likes to nail things down, are you?”

  “Well, I like to understand the operating system.”

  They were still standing in her doorway, but now he motioned her forward, so she stepped out and locked the door behind them. They headed down the stairs at a leisurely pace.

  “Mostly it’s because I lose track of time,” Nathan said. “I’m a pretty organized guy, so I tend not to forget appointments or misjudge how long it will take me to get somewhere. I say, ‘OK, I’ll work on this project for an hour and then drive to Joe’s,’ and when I look up again, two hours have passed and I’m officially late.” He glanced down at Stacey. “I do call, though, when I realize I’m behind. That is, when I have your phone number.”

  That surprised a ripple of laughter out of her. “Oh, that was subtle, that was smooth!” she exclaimed. They were in the cramped lobby and pushing out through the main door onto the street. The scents and sights of a Midwestern spring instantly surrounded them – new grass, wet dirt, fluttering birds, a random sprinkling of purple and yellow flowers. “I’d be happy to give you my phone number.”

  “I mean, sometimes it might be impractical for me to just come knock on the door,” he explained, touching her lightly on the back to steer her toward a car parked in front of their building. It looked like a Honda with more than a few miles on it – practical, reliable, comfortable and well put together. Stacey tried not to draw obvious parallels to its owner. “You might be in the shower—”

  “In which case I’m not answering the door or the phone.”

  “Or entertaining romantic guests.”

  “Haven’t been a lot of those lately.”

  “Or in your pajamas.”

  She smirked at him as he waited for her to settle into the passenger’s seat before shutting her door. “Are you trying to find out what I wear to bed?”

  He laughed, closed her door and circled the car to get in. “Well, I’ve seen what you wear down to the laundry room,” he said, starting the engine. “I figured your night-time attire was a likely variant.”

  Now she was giggling, but also trying to remember. “Wait – when did you see me doing laundry?”

  “Couple of weeks after I moved in. I was getting stuff from my storage locker in the basement, so I don’t think you saw me.” He had pulled easily into traffic. She liked that he seemed to be a careful driver, though not a nervous one. “You had on this green stretchy top and these black – I don’t know – leggings or something. And I thought, Wow, there’s a girl who doesn’t give a damn what anyone else thinks of her.” He glanced over. “I thought that was pretty cool, but I have to say I was relieved to see that you had other options in your wardrobe.”

  Now Stacey was slumped back in her seat, covering her face and strangling a groan. “Oh, my God, and when I think how I agonized over what to wear tonight! If only I’d realized you’d already seen me at my worst.”

  “Really? That’s your worst? Well, that’s something else that’s good to know.”

  “My hair was probably a real mess, too, jammed on top of my head with one of those butterfly clips.”

  “It was,” he said. “Looked like you hadn’t washed it in a couple of days.”

  She heaved a dramatic sigh. “See, it’s so unfair. Girls have to spend hours doing their hair and putting on make-up and choosing the right outfit or they look awful. But a guy can show up wearing a wrinkled T-shirt and baggy shorts, not even having combed his hair, and he looks sexy.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that’s really when I look sexy,” Nathan said.

  She turned her head to gauge the strong profile, the tousled hair. She thought he was probably wrong in his self-assessment. “So when do you look sexy?” she asked.

  “When I’m in a tuxedo. I look great.”

  “Really? And how many times have you worn one?”

  “Mmmm. Three times. No, four. Been a best man three times and every time I rocked.”

  Unsaid went the explanation that his fourth outing in a tux had been at his own wedding, or so Stacey assumed.

  “Wow, three times as best man?” she said. “I’ve been a bridesmaid four times, but only maid of honor once. You must be a great friend. Or have a lot of brothers.”

  “Only one brother, and he’s not married yet,” Nathan said. “So I guess I’m a great friend.”

  She would have asked about those friends, except he was already signaling to pull into a parking lot. “I guess we’re here,” she said. She kept her voice neutral, but part of her was thinking, Would have been nice to have some input into the decision about where to have dinner.

  But it was hard to be annoyed when he cut the motor and turned to her with a slightly anxious look. “I hope you’re OK with Italian food,” he said. “The guy I work with is married to a woman who recently opened this restaurant, and I think it’s struggling a little bit, and I thought it would be nice to give them a little extra business on a weeknight.”

  Right then she felt her heart melt. If this guy is for real, I am grabbing him and never letting go, she thought. “Love it,” she said. “Hope you’re OK with garlic.”

  “Love it. Let’s go.”

  They were debating dessert after a truly fabulous meal when Stacey’s cell phone rang. She made no move to dig it from her purse, but Nathan gestured. “Go ahead, get it, I don’t mind,” he said.

  “I’ll just see who it is,” she said, but no data came up on caller ID. She felt a little tingle go down her back as she flipped open the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hey, baby,” said her father’s voice, still a little gruffer than it used to be. “How you doing today?”

  “Hi, Dad,” she said, and watched Nathan straighten in his chair. “Good. I’m out on a date.”

  “Yeah?” He sounded pleased. “Who with?”

  “The guy in the apartment next door. We got to talking last night and we had a good time, so we decided to go to dinner today.” At her words, Nathan nodded emphatically.

  “Yeah? Is he nice?”

  “Seems to be.”

  “Good-looking?”

  “I think so.”

  “Is he going to pay for the meal?”

  She had to choke back a laugh. “We haven’t gotten that far yet.”

  His voice took on a scolding note. “You shouldn’t be all modern and insist on splitting the check. A man likes to take care of a woman.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Hey, Dad, how are you doing? How are you feeling?”

  “Great, couldn’t be better. But I gotta go, honey. I’ll call you next week.”

  He disconnected, and Stacey was left staring at a silent phone. She felt a curious mix of euphoria and unease that left her shaky and off balance.

  “Kind of freaky, huh?” Nathan said in a soothing tone.

  Stacey lifted her eyes to gaze at him. He was solid and sincere and as far from spectral as you could get. “Pretty freaky,” she agreed. “On the one hand, wow, how great to hear his voice! On the other hand, it’s really spooky. I feel kind of—” She let a tremor run down her back. “Shivery.”

  “Do you think he’s going to call you every day?”

  She stopped herself right before uttering an automatic God, I hope not. “I have no idea,” she said. “That would certainly take some getting used to.”

  He nodded. “Well, there’s really only one way to deal with events as unnerving as this.” At her inquiring look, he said, “Double chocolate espresso cake.”

  She laughed, and the shivers went away.

  He paid for dinner, too.

  Even though the meal had gone so well, Stacey felt herself growing ridiculously tense as they drove back to the apartment and climbed the stairs. She’d never been t
he type to sleep with a guy on the first date, and there was still that how-weird-would-it-be-to-live-next-door-to-an-ex question knocking around inside her head. So the night’s goodbye felt uncomfortable to her before they’d even arrived at their adjoining doors.

  When she risked a look up at Nathan, he wore a thoughtful expression. “I can’t decide if this is cool or awkward,” he said. “Pretty easy to walk you home! But kind of strange to just wave and say goodnight.”

  She relaxed a little. “I keep looking ahead,” she confessed. “You know, after we have the torrid affair, then we break up, and then we’re always running into each other on the stairwell, and half the time you’ve got a new girlfriend with you – makes it hard to live in the moment.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “The torrid affair part sounds good, though,” he said.

  It surprised a laugh out of her. “Yeah, I haven’t had torrid in a while.”

  Before she’d had time to brace for it, he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “But maybe we’ll hold off on that for a few days,” he said. “Till we get to know each other a little better.”

  She smiled up at him. “That sounds good.”

  “Not this weekend, though,” he said, his voice regretful. “I have to work twelve-to-twelve both days. We’re installing a new system and it’s supposed to be up and running by Monday. It won’t be, but the software guys are working around the clock to make it look like we’re doing our part to get it going.”

  “OK, well, I’ll blow you a kiss if I see you in the hallway,” Stacey said. “Goodnight. Thanks. It was . . . I really had a great time.”

  “Me, too.”

  He stood there and watched her as she fumbled for her keys, which of course were at the very bottom of her purse under her wallet, her sunglasses, her make-up case, her comb. She was blushing when she finally unearthed them and unlocked the door. He was still watching her, so she paused and blew him a kiss before going in. Then she stood just inside her apartment and waited until she heard his door open and shut before she threw the lock and headed to her bedroom.