Patricia Rockwell - Essie Cobb 04 - Ghosted

by Patricia Rockwell

  “Why?” asked Essie. “I would think he would be proud! He’s really an Italian movie star?”

  “I don’t know how famous he is, or was, in Italy,” continued Bev, leading Essie over to the massive hair drying unit at the back of the shop, “but he obviously doesn’t want anyone to know about his former life. So I think we’d better honor his wishes, Essie, if we want him to stay with us.”

  “Oh, my!” said Essie as Bev fitted the large metal dryer over her head, “I won’t tell anyone, Bev. I think he’s a wonderful director, and I certainly wouldn’t want to lose him. But it is strange, isn’t it? You’d think he’d want to tell the world about his background!”

  “You’d think!” Bev replied, lowering the machine over Essie and flipping on the switch. The dryer burst into action and streams of hot air began whooshing out from all around Essie’s head, blowing her hair dry in super quick time.

  Our director a movie star, mused Essie as she leaned back into the chair, relaxing, the noise of the dryer blotting out all sounds around her. As Alice would say, curiouser and curiouser. She couldn’t wait to tell her pals about this new piece of information. Or maybe, as she just promised Bev, maybe she shouldn’t tell anyone. After all, she didn’t want word to get out and get back to Felix Federico. Would he be so embarrassed if the residents found out about his movie career that he’d quit? She certainly hoped not.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about but few have seen.”

  ––Anonymous

  Essie had several pieces of interesting information to mull over before dinner that night. When she finally was seated at her table with Marjorie, Opal, and Fay, she was still contemplating whether or not she should mention any of the little tidbits of gossip she had picked up at the beauty parlor that afternoon. She was so focused on the news she had acquired that her recent bout of forgetfulness and hallucinations seemed to dissipate and she chalked those episodes up to some fluke—maybe something bad she’d eaten.

  “Essie,” said Opal, “you’re very quiet tonight. You’re not having second thoughts about the haunted house field trip, are you?”

  “I guess not,” replied Essie. “I was at my hair appointment this afternoon and Bev was going on and on about how wonderful it is; she’s evidently been to Tippleton House and she says it’s more a beautiful old mansion than anything really scary.”

  “Then, there you have it!” cried Marjorie. “There’s no reason to be frightened.” Marjorie gave Essie a patronizing little smile and took a sip from her coffee cup.

  Santos appeared and started removing their dinner plates.

  “Ladies want dessert?” he asked as he slipped each plate expertly into the fold of his other arm. “Cook, he make chocolate cake with cherry sauce!”

  “Sounds divine, Santos,” said Marjorie, “count me in.” Santos smiled and looked at the other women expectantly.

  “Me too, Santos,” said Opal with a shrug. “How can anyone ever keep their figure with that man always cooking those delicious desserts?”

  “Miss Essie?” he asked.

  “Chunky Chihuahuas!” responded Essie with a sigh. “I’m with Opal. It’s hopeless. And you’d better bring one for Fay too, Santos. She usually eats whatever dessert we all do.”

  “Four chocolate cherry cakes!” he said smiling, and headed off to the kitchen with his load of dinner plates.

  “Your hair looks wonderful, Essie,” said Opal when Santos had departed.

  “Thank you, Opal,” replied Essie. “Bev always does it just to my liking.”

  “You have beautiful hair, Essie,” added Marjorie. “It’s so shiny and full. What does Bev do to make it look that way?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Essie. “She washes it. She curls it.”

  “You were blessed with good hair genes, Essie,” said Opal. “I wish my hair was like yours. Mine is so thin and lifeless. There’s not much Bev can do to help it. She tries though, bless her heart.”

  “Well, thank you, Opal,” replied Essie. “I don’t see anything wrong with your hair. I’m always amazed how you manage to wrap it in such an intricate fashion the way you do each day.”

  “I’ve always had long hair and I learned how to put it in a bun years ago,” said Opal. “Of course, nowadays, my morning aide helps me some, because my arthritis is so bad in my fingers.”

  “That’s the benefit of short hair, Opal,” noted Marjorie, fluffing her head of curly reddish brown hair. Essie deemed that Marjorie was fishing for a compliment so she willingly obliged.

  “Your hair is such a lovely color, Marjorie,” said Essie.

  “Isn’t it?” replied Marjorie. “It’s Color Essence Number 32.”

  “What?” asked Opal.

  “It’s the hair color shade I use,” replied Marjorie. “You all didn’t really think that I was a natural redhead at my age, did you?”

  “I don’t know,” said Essie. “Why not?”

  “I have no problem assisting Mother Nature,” added Marjorie, with a wink to her friends, “in all areas—not just my hair color.” She puffed out her bosom in that way that Essie found slightly annoying.

  “You mean…?” queried Opal.

  “You surely didn’t think that I was a natural 36D, did you?” Marjorie smiled sweetly and tugged at her sweater. Essie thought that Marjorie did own a lot of sweaters that seemed to emphasize her figure and that she did have a rather nice figure for her age.

  “Marjorie, you can do whatever you like to enhance your looks,” said Essie, shaking her head, “but I just don’t see why you would. I like you no matter what you look like. At our age, what good does it do to fight against the inevitable?”

  “What good?” cried Marjorie. “Essie, you may not care about it, but I would like to attract a man! And there are precious few of them here at Happy Haven. And, Essie, you might not have noticed, but I’m not the only female resident here who uses certain enhancements to improve their looks.”

  “Essie and I aren’t two of them,” said Opal looking a little stiff. “And neither is Fay.”

  “That’s your prerogative, Opal,” replied Marjorie. “But with men around like our new director and that Edward Troy…”

  Santos returned with the four plates of chocolate cherry cake and placed the gooey-looking treats before each woman. Then he zipped back into the kitchen.

  “Yum!” said Fay aloud, grabbing her spoon and digging into the dessert. The other three women laughed at Fay’s enthusiasm and quickly joined her in devouring the cakes.

  “All right, Essie,” continued Marjorie after a few bites. “We haven’t forgotten. About that Edward Troy? Did you find out anything more about him after we all saw him with that package he brought in through the back entrance?”

  “I may have found out a few things,” said Essie coyly.

  “What?” asked Opal, licking the backside of her spoon.

  “Opal,” said Essie, setting down her spoon and speaking directly to her tall, lean friend, “You sound almost eager to hear about Mr. Troy. That seems more like Marjorie.”

  “I don’t care about him as a potential mate as Marjorie probably does,” Opal replied.

  Marjorie fluffed her hair and redoubled her efforts in eating her cake.

  “But that doesn’t mean I’m not curious about him,” continued Opal. She turned to Essie. “What else did you find out? What’s in those packages he’s bringing in so secretively?”

  “I don’t know,” said Essie. “But I do know where he lives! I found out from June MacDonald in the beauty parlor that he’s on the west wing on the second floor.”

  “That’s probably why I haven’t seen him,” suggested Marjorie. “I’m on the first floor. But Opal, you and Fay are on the second floor. Haven’t you ever passed him in the hallway up there?”

  “No, I haven’t,” said Opal. “Fay and I are in the east wing. The only place we’d be likely to bump into him would be at the elevator and we never hav
e.”

  “I wonder how long he’s been here,” mused Essie.

  “Not as long as our director,” offered Opal, “and we don’t know much about him either.”

  “Oh, yes, we do!” cried Essie. She saw no reason why she shouldn’t let her friends know what Bev had told her if she swore them to secrecy. “I found out at the beauty parlor today that he once was in Italian movies!”

  “What?” exclaimed Marjorie.

  “He was in several movies when he was younger.”

  “Like a star?” asked Opal.

  “I don’t know,” said Essie. “But apparently, according to Bev, it’s something he wants to keep quiet. So don’t mention it to anyone!”

  “How did Bev find out?” asked Opal.

  “I don’t know,” replied Essie. “She’s in the beauty parlor all day. I’m sure all sorts of residents—and staff—come in and out and probably tell her all sorts of things.”

  “I’m sure Felix wouldn’t tell her if he didn’t want it to get out,” reasoned Marjorie.

  “It must have been one of the staff,” suggested Essie. “Anyway, your lips are sealed.”

  “Of course,” agreed Marjorie. “But I can just see him on the screen, can’t you, Opal? He’s so dreamy!” She leaned back in her chair, spoon in hand, leisurely licking the red sauce off the back.

  “He’s attractive,” said Opal. “But more important, he’s nice.”

  “I agree with you there,” said Essie. “Compared to our last director, he’s an entire world of difference! He reminds me of John,” she added softly and then smiled at her friends.

  “You know, Essie,” said Opal, squeezing her brows together, “there’s something about him that reminds me of my husband too.” She set down her spoon and looked straight ahead.

  “Oh, you two!” cried Marjorie as she scraped her dessert plate with her spoon. “I can’t believe your husbands were movie star handsome like our Felix Federico! I know mine was a gem, but he never looked as good as our director.”

  “I said,” explained Essie, “that he reminds me of John because of how nice, how sweet-natured he is. I have no misconceptions that my husband was some sort of dreamboat, because he wasn’t. Of course, to me, he was. But I loved him for his gentleness, his sense of humor…”

  “Mine too,” added Opal. “My husband had the best sense of humor! When our basement flooded and we were both sitting on the steps with water lapping at our toes, he turned to me and said, ‘At least it’s not the Titanic!’ I always remember that. He was like that. He always found a way to make light of every catastrophe. He always made me laugh.”

  “I was thinking about John the other day,” added Essie. “I remembered a time when we went to a fancy party and I wore this beautiful cocktail dress. I guess it’s because my girls just found it in my closet and gave it away. But I remembered all of a sudden wearing that dress—the only time I wore it—and how John looked at me. I never paid much attention to the dress, but the way he looked at me when I wore it…”

  “You’re both right,” said Marjorie softly. “Now stop it, because you’re making me reminisce too about my husband. And I’m going to start crying. I don’t want to cry here at the dinner table.”

  “Marjorie, Opal,” said Essie, grabbing their hands. “My dear friends! I love laughing—and crying with you!” As she squeezed their hands, Fay’s eyes popped open and when she saw the love fest going on among her friends, she too smiled and grabbed Opal’s and Marjorie’s hands and squeezed them.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “No ghost was ever seen by two pair of eyes.”

  ––Thomas Carlyle

  Later that evening, Essie was feeling much better about everything. Her memory had seemingly settled on Monday, and although she couldn’t remember the previous day, she seemed to be keeping track of the present day’s events with clarity. The answering machine was not blinking and her phone had not rung. The big squirrel had not reappeared anywhere—inside or outside. Everything in her little apartment was as it always was, and that was how she liked it. Simple and plain. She was now hard at work on one of her puzzles while the television set played quietly across the room.

  The quiz show with the big wheel was proving to be quite engaging. Several of the puzzles had been even more thought-provoking than the one on Essie’s clipboard. She found herself listening and watching carefully as the contestants slowly filled in some of the consonants on the puzzle board.

  “Hmm,” she mused at the two-word puzzle. The category was “phrase” and Essie usually figured out the puzzles long before the contestants did. She always called out the answers to them, but they never seemed to listen to her. Sometimes these short puzzles were harder than the long ones, she reasoned, because each guess filled in fewer spaces than when the puzzle was comprised of many words. Now on the board were the consonants “r” and “n” and the contestants all appeared mystified. Essie put her mind in gear.

  “Rhyming, rendering,” she said out loud. “No, that won’t work.” She furrowed her brow and concentrated as the camera cut back to the contestant whose turn it was. As the camera focused in on the man’s face, Essie gulped and blinked.

  The man reached down and spun the wheel and the camera followed his hand. The big wheel spun round and round and Essie leaned in, focusing on the small television set across her living room.

  “Show that man’s face again!” she cried to the camera. On cue, as if following her direction, the camera panned back to the man as he attempted to guess the puzzle, spin the wheel, or possibly buy a vowel.

  “I’ll buy an E,” said the man.

  “It can’t be!” whispered Essie. Her eyes must surely be playing tricks on her again, but the man on the screen, the man playing the spinning game, was none other than her dead husband John. Of course, Essie knew that this was impossible, yet her eyes refused to come to any other conclusion. The man looked exactly like John. Granted, he wasn’t the John she remembered from the last few years of his life. This was young John—the husband she had married when she was just a young woman. The man who had taken her to the drive-in movie. The man who had promised her he would return from the war. This was that man. Essie was riveted on the man’s face. The camera was too—at least for a moment. Then it shot back to the puzzle board and showed the various squares with only some of the letters filled in. Returning to the contestant’s face—John’s face—the man turned and looked directly into the camera, his eyes staring straight at Essie, she felt, and announced the puzzle.

  “Remember when!” he declared.

  “That’s it!” said the genial host. Music played and the audience applauded. The host proclaimed the man’s new score.

  “It can’t be,” said Essie, and as the camera focused on the man’s happy face enjoying his win, he again looked directly at her and said, “Remember when, Essie!”

  ***

  “Essie! Essie!” said a voice she vaguely remembered. “Essie! You sleeping already, girl? Why don’t you wait for me to get your pj’s on?”

  Essie roused herself from her recliner and found herself staring into Lorena’s cheerful, but presently concerned face.

  “Lorena!” she mumbled. “Oh, my! I must have dozed off! What day is it?”

  “Monday,” replied Lorena.

  Relieved that she hadn’t lost track of a whole day, Essie lifted herself up from the chair and realized that the television was still blasting across the room, although it was playing a show Essie didn’t even recognize. It must be much later. Essie usually didn’t watch TV at night.

  “You sure been acting strange lately, Miss Essie. What you got this TV on for?” said Lorena cautiously, grabbing Essie’s remote and flipping off the switch. “You never watch shows so late.” Lorena, assured that Essie was not ill and had merely been sleeping, headed over to the kitchen and began preparing her nighttime medications. Essie dutifully downed her pills and the vitamin powder in a glass of juice.

  “Lorena,” said Essie
tentatively as Lorena helped Essie to her bedroom to start getting her ready for bed, “do you believe in ghosts?”

  “What?” laughed the large woman. “Miss Essie, you really gettin’ in the Halloween spirit! That Fright Night must have inspired you!” She continued chuckling as she helped Essie slip on her robe and bedroom slippers.

  “So you’ve never seen a ghost?” asked Essie, genuinely wanting to know.

  “You seein’ ghosts, Essie?” asked Lorena, stopping in her tracks and staring at her charge. “What’s all this ghost business, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Essie. “Lately, some strange things have been happening.”

  “Like what?” asked the ever practical Lorena, who never took any sort of guff from anyone and who was always the first person to be skeptical of any sort of unusual occurrence.

  “Like, I sort of lost a day,” said Essie sheepishly.

  “You mean you forget Wednesday and think it’s Thursday?” asked her aide, hands on hips.

  “Something like that,” agreed Essie. “And some of the animals outdoors seem, well, a bit bigger than normal.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Lorena, gesturing wildly. “It’s that global warming! You seen those geese that gather out by the lake across the street? They get so big they almost look like turkeys!”

  “I don’t know, Lorena,” said Essie with a shrug, “a goose and a turkey are pretty much similar in size, aren’t they?”

  “Oh, who knows?” replied Lorena, back to finishing Essie’s nighttime routine as she helped her to the bathroom to brush her teeth. “What animal you talkin’ bout, Miss Essie?”

  “A squirrel.”

  “They get pretty big sometimes,” Lorena replied, nodding knowingly.

  Essie brushed her teeth as she gathered her thoughts and then said, “I saw one that looked like a beaver.” Lorena shrugged, wordless.

  “And he was in my dresser mirror.” Essie put down her toothbrush and stared at Lorena’s face while her aide digested this piece of information.