The Ghost Slept Over

by Marshall Thornton

  “Warm,” I said quickly.

  Peggy walked across the store to a rack of big fluffy parkas. “These are about the warmest we have.” She stopped and looked at me a moment then picked out what she guessed was my size. I put the coat on. She’d been exactly right.

  “This is okay,” I said. It didn’t much matter to me what it looked like. When I moved down to the city I’d buy something more stylish.

  “Look at it in the mirror,” Dewey said.

  Dutifully, I walked to the back of the store and looked at myself in the full-length mirror. I looked like a big green pillow, which is about how I expected to look. I looked down to take a peak at the price tag and when I looked up again, Mac was standing behind me peaking around my shoulder.

  “Oh shit,” I said.

  “What?” Dewey asked. “It’s not that expensive. You can afford it.”

  “You can afford the coat,” Mac said. “But can you afford him? He’s probably billing you for this little excursion.”

  “I’ll take this one,” I said.

  “You don’t want to try on anything else?” Dewey asked.

  “He’s only after you for my money,” Mac said.

  “Thank you, that’s very flattering,” I replied to Mac without thinking.

  “I don’t mean the coat looks bad,” Dewey said. “Well, a parka doesn’t actually look good on anyone.”

  “How about a nice navy pea coat?” Peggy suggested. “They’re a bit more tailored.”

  “I’m not saying that you’re not attractive,” Mac continued. “That’s just an extra little bonus.”

  I ignored Mac and said, “Why don’t I just take both.”

  “Do you want to try the pea coat on?” Peggy asked.

  “Do I have to?”

  Dewey looked at me strangely and then said to Peggy, “Maybe we’ll just look around for a couple of minutes.”

  “Take your time,” she replied then stepped over to the register ten feet away from us and pretended she couldn’t hear.

  “Are you okay?” Dewey whispered.

  “I’m fine.”

  “No you’re not,” Mac said.

  “I am,” I repeated.

  “This was a mistake, wasn’t it?” Dewey asked.

  “No, you’re right, I need a coat.”

  “I meant us…this…we should have kept things professional.”

  “Absolutely,” Mac inserted.

  I had about enough of him, without thinking I said, “Dewey, you’re not the problem. Mac is.”

  “Mac? How can he—”

  “Shit. How can I explain this?” I’d backed myself into a corner. A rather tight corner.

  “Yes, that will be interesting,” Mac taunted.

  “It’s like his shadow is over everything. I keep thinking about him.”

  “Oh, you still have feelings for him?” Dewey guessed.

  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” I explained. “I have feelings about him. Anger mostly.”

  “Still?” Dewey asked. “Hasn’t it been a really long time?”

  “Yes and no. I still feel him everywhere. Certainly, inheriting his estate has made him very present in my life.”

  “Oh, I guess it would.”

  Struggling for a way out of this conversation, I asked, “So what did you think of Mac.”

  “He loved me,” Mac said quickly while Dewey looked thoughtful.

  “Like most people, I thought he was...challenging.”

  “Challenging? What does that mean?” Mac insisted, getting threateningly close to Dewey who, of course, did not notice him at all.

  “Yes, he was that,” I said. “Did he ever make a pass at you?”

  “Oh, well…” Dewey blushed.

  “That is absolutely not true!” Mac yelled, though nothing had been said.

  “He was well-known for his dinner invitations. After the first time, when Constance set us up, I managed to always be busy.”

  Mac gasped. “And I believed him!”

  “Really?” I said.

  “There were rumors. Nothing I know for sure.”

  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” I said, mostly to annoy Mac.

  “He has no idea what he’s talking about. I invited him to dinner to...have dinner.”

  “Of course, from what I hear I was a little too old for Mac. So maybe they were innocent invitations. They just never really seemed that way.”

  I looked at Mac, who looked like he might explode into thin air one more time. Just to really irk him, I said, “You know, it makes perfect sense that he liked younger guys. I was in my early twenties when we met. He probably just never moved on from that age group.”

  “Not that he’d have had much luck around here. It’s hard enough to find anyone gay, no less a specific type,” Dewey said, as I watched the anger build in Mac’s face.

  “I’ll see you at home,” he spit through his teeth and disappeared in a puff of red smoke.

  I smiled at Dewey and said, “Maybe I should try on that pea coat. And, maybe I should get a sweater or two.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Plan B

  The evening had been both a success and a failure. I liked Cal, I did, probably more than was wise, and I felt that he liked me. For that reason, I couldn’t ask him about the money for the Barnyard Players. Now that we had something of a relationship, temporary though it may be, I felt like I couldn’t ask. I’d be taking advantage. I should have thought things through. If I’d asked him before we had sex then the fact that we were—well, whatever we were—wouldn’t matter. But I hadn’t asked, so it did.

  Still, as upset as I was that I’d let the Barnyard Players down, I was also walking on air. Not only had the evening been a success romantically, the morning had been as well. After we left Peggy Ringer’s shop, Cal seemed pleased that I’d taken him to get a new coat. He looked quite dapper in a white Irish sweater and his navy pea coat. Perhaps too dapper. When we got back to Mac’s house, I leaned across the console and kissed him. He kissed me back and before I knew it I was lying half on the console half on his lap. After a few minutes, I pulled back and suggested, “Why don’t we go into the house?”

  “Privacy,” Cal whispered into my ear.

  “Having sex in the driveway is more private?”

  “It depends on how you look at it.”

  “You’re going to need to explain that.”

  “If we fog up the window’s it will be very private,” he said and then went back to kissing me. His kisses felt like the ocean, waves that ebbed and flowed, sometimes crashing against me, other times tender and tickling. There was no awkwardness, no hesitation, I felt like I could kiss him forever.

  Finally, he pulled away. “Should we get into the back?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  I suppose we could have gotten out of the truck and walked around to the back, instead I stretched myself between the bucket seats and flipped a lock on the back seat so that it folded down. That gave us plenty of room. I crawled over the console and waited for Cal to follow me. When we got comfortable, I reached down and began to undo Cal’s pants. He stopped me.

  “You know, things may be not be...as impressive as they were last night,” he said almost shyly. That made me smile.

  “You don’t have anything to worry about. You were amazing.”

  “That’s what makes me worry.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  I had no idea what he meant by that, but then he kissed me and I stopped worrying about it. Pressed up against him, every bit of me wanted to get even closer. I felt more awake, more alive than I could remember. A half an hour later, I was naked and Cal wore nothing but his pea coat. The windows were fogged. And, yes, he’d been amazing. Again.

  “You know we forgot something,” Cal said.

  “Really? It felt like we covered most of the bases.” Well, the ones you could cover without a condom or lube.

  “No, I
mean, Mac’s truck. We left it at the restaurant last night.”

  “Oh. We could go get it, I guess.” I said. “I’m already running late though.”

  “That’s all right. Come back for dinner.”

  As we pulled our clothes on, I said, “I hope this doesn’t sound weird but I’m having a lot of fun with you. I guess the fact that it can’t really go anywhere takes a lot of the pressure off.”

  Cal stopped pulling on his jeans. He gave me a sad little grin that made me wish I hadn’t said anything.

  “Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Or maybe we just like each other.”

  I wanted to agree, to say that maybe we did like each other. But it seemed like such a bad idea that I kept my mouth shut. He went back to dressing.

  * * * *

  By the time I walked in to The Steppin’ Inn the lunch hour was over and the Barnyard Players were waiting for me in the back dining room. The minute I entered the room, they fell silent, which told me something was up.

  Wendell glared at me and said, “Well?”

  “Well, what?” I asked.

  “I thought plan A was going rather well,” he said. “I’m surprised you implemented plan B.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I remember that we talked about different plans, but did we fully agree…?” I remembered exactly what was said. I also remembered never actually, directly agreed to any of it. My ignorance was a lawyerly stall.

  “It really isn’t fair to me,” Grady grumbled.

  “What’s not fair?”

  “I had to give up my part,” he whined. “If you were just gonna boink him to get the money why did I have to do that?”

  “I didn’t boink him for the money,” I said, a little indignantly.

  “But you did boink him?” Jane asked.

  “How do you all…I mean, we just…”

  “You left his car in front of the theater all night,” Wendell pointed out.

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, there could be other reasons—”

  “Then you bought condoms at the Quicky Pick from my nephew,” Grady said.

  “Your nephew? Really...”

  “And two coffees and six donuts from Ida at the Blackbird Bakery,” Jane said. “She was in for an early lunch.”

  Finally, Constance threw in, “And two winter coats from Peggy Ringer. Plus four sweaters. Two scarves, a hat and a pair of gloves.”

  “Sounds like quite a date,” Wendell said. “I hope you’re—”

  “Did you get the money though?” Jane asked. “That’s the important thing.”

  They all stared at me.

  “Well, no.”

  “Typical man, thinking with his penis,” Grady said. Jane and the others stared at him a moment. “What? Just because I do it too doesn’t mean I can’t make an observation.”

  “So, when are you going to ask?” Wendell demanded to know.

  “Well, I’m not sure I can now… It might seem like that was the reason I…you know.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t have you-knowed,” said Grady.

  “Probably not,” I admitted. “Okay, so we need a new plan. How about we invite him to be on the board of directors after Heaven Sent? That way he’ll see our financial position without having to be asked directly—”

  Jane interrupted me, “After Heaven Sent? We need money now.”

  “To finish the set.”

  “And print the program.”

  “And pay the electrical bill.”

  “The costumes will need to be dry cleaned.”

  “We’re out of tickets.”

  “We’re sold out?” I asked, jumping to a hopeful conclusion.

  “No, we just ran out of tickets and we need to buy more.”

  “Oh.”

  “We also need to send a royalty payment.”

  “All right, all right,” I almost screamed. “I get it. We need money and we can’t wait.”

  “Bingo.”

  “We need another plan. Isn’t there anyone else in town who would be willing to give us some money?” I asked.

  We had a long, uncomfortable, and ultimately fruitless conversation about every single wealthy family in town. Of which there were less than ten. Each family did a fair amount of giving. One supported the library, another the historical association that handed out grants to keep Marlboro charming, then there were two ambulances which required partial private funding to get anyone having an emergency over to Skyler, a twenty-minute ride at top speeds. There were two poorly attended churches needing a great deal of support to remain open. A free clinic that opened every other Tuesday. And a no-kill shelter for cats and dogs. On top of that, some of the locals got the crazy idea to support national charities instead. It was hard to argue that our little theater was more important than ambulances, homeless puppies or cancer.

  “There is someone we haven’t mentioned,” Grady said, turning to glare at me.

  My family fortune had dwindled over the generations and all that was really left was my house. Which was un-mortgaged, thank God, and hopefully would remain that way. The very low housing expense allowed me to appear more successful than I really was. Oh I had plenty of clients, they just had an unfortunate tendency to pay, well, rarely.

  “I suppose I could raise some money,” I said. “I will need to press some of my overdue clients for payment.”

  That sent a chill through the room. Constance owed me for a scrape she’d gotten into with an irrational, unhappy seller. Wendell had to take out a restraining order on an ex and, given the attendant financial strain of a sudden move, I’d been slow about billing him. Kirby had written his will three times. And Grady just liked to ask me legal questions which he insisted I bill him for and never complained when I didn’t.

  Kirby broke the silence by wondering, “What if someone else asks him?”

  “Who?” Grady wanted to know.

  “One of us.”

  “I’ll ask him,” Wendell volunteered.

  “No,” I said, a little too quickly. I looked around the room and quickly assessed them. When it came right down to it, there wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t make a mess of the situation and make things worse than my asking Cal myself. All I had to do was sit down with him and explain everything as calmly as possible and he’d understand. He’d say yes or he’d say no but it wouldn’t have anything to do with what was happening between us.

  “I’ll do it. I promise.”

  Rehearsal was at seven so I called Cal and suggested an early dinner around five. When I picked him up, he wore one of his new sweaters, a cashmere scarf, fur-lined gloves, and the parka. We took a quick trip to the theater and picked up Mac’s SUV. It didn’t seem like a good idea to leave it there in case any of the players came in early. After we doubled back to Mac’s, I drove him up to the ski lodge at West Mountain. Sitting at the foot of the mountain, the lodge featured a restaurant open only in the winter. It was largely frequented by visiting skiers, which I liked. Though I couldn’t be sure the staff wasn’t related to someone in the Barnyard Players. It was about twenty minutes out of Marlboro and I could at least hope we’d find some privacy.

  We settled in at a table with a nice view of the clear, crisp night sky. The sun had gone down before five and the stars were coming out, creating a view more spectacular than the windows at Tiffany. We ordered drinks, and as soon as the waiter set them down I asked him to give us a few minutes. Deciding to get it out of the way, I started, “So, there’s something that we need to discuss.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” Cal said with a frown. “I thought we were having a lot of fun together.”

  “We are. That hasn’t changed. At least, I hope—”

  “Then what has changed?” he asked.

  “Nothing really.” And nothing had changed. The theater was broke before Mac died and they were still broke.

  “Dewey, what are we talking about?”

  “It’s kind of about Mac, actually.”

  “Mac? Why on earth w
ould you want to talk about Mac?”

  I found his tone a bit more exasperated than it needed to be. It wasn’t like we spent all our time talking about his dead boyfriend. Still, I smiled and said, “He just won’t go away, will he?”

  “I guess not.” Cal studied me suspiciously. “Wait a minute. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?

  “I don’t know, what am I saying?” I began to blush. I was chickening out and I knew it. I needed to say that the Barnyard Players needed money and I just—

  “You tell me...what are you saying?”

  “I, um, what do you think I’m saying?”

  “I think you’re saying that Mac is still...around,” Cal said.

  “I guess I am saying that. Metaphorically.”

  “Metaphorically. Oh. I see.”

  “Did you think I meant not metaphorically?” I asked.

  “No, of course not. Mac is dead.”

  I put aside the fact that this conversation was terribly confusing, and pushed myself to say, “Anyway, as you know the Barnyard Players were important to Mac. He was very supportive, in fact—”

  “You know, silly question popped into my head. Do you believe in ghosts?” Cal asked abruptly.

  “No. Not really.” Why were we suddenly talking about ghosts?

  “Any specific reason?” Cal wanted to know.

  “Any specific reasons I don’t believe in ghosts? Well...I’m not sure I believe in heaven and all that. If I had to put a label on myself I guess I’d say I’m agnostic.”

  “You realize there doesn’t have to be a heaven for there to be ghosts.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “I suppose you’re right. I hadn’t considered it that way. You believe in ghosts, I’m guessing?”

  “I do now,” he said.

  “Now? Have you see a ghost? Somewhere?” I really hoped he had seen a ghost at the restaurant. He’d probably want to leave if he had and I was hungry.

  His mouth dropped open and he seemed to consider what to say next. Then he said, “I’m sorry. You were trying to tell me something about Mac. What was it?”

  The shift was a bit surprising. Had he seen a ghost? Or rather, did he think he saw a ghost, because he couldn’t have seen one. They didn’t exist. Then I realized something ridiculously obvious.