by Jacquie Gee
I tug at my tie again. Stupid thing’s still off kilter. Dabbit. I never have been able to tie one of these.
My fists clench at my sides as a cool breeze passes through me, inhabiting my arms and fingers. In a whip-like movement, the tails of my tie jump and flip up in the air before me, and seconds later, fall assembled about my neck in the perfect Ascot knot. My eyes bug from my head as I watch myself tuck the tails of the tie neatly into the top of my vest and pat it flat, then coolness leaves my hands, and my arms fall limp at my sides.
“Thank you,” I say, staring dumbfounded at myself, in the mirror.
Did he just?—
Did he just?—
Ding Dong!
Oh, Juniper. There’s the bell. I dash for the door.
It’s Jules. She looks amazing, standing on the stoop in a gorgeous red vintage dress, its shapely cut hugging her curves.
A crazy lightbulb-ish flash goes off inside me as I throw open the door and take in her view. I haven’t felt that reaction in years.
I let go of the door and it continues to demonically creak back as if widening for a second person to take a look.
Can nothing about this house be normal for just thirty seconds?
"Come in, come in,” I say, feeling a waft of cold air encircle me.
“So nice of you to join us,” I whisper to it.
Jules enters, her luscious lips parting in a gasp as she walks through the plume of cool air. Her pupils dance, frightened at first, and then inquisitively about the place.
The door groans even louder.
She stares back at it.
“Hinges need oiling,” I jest, and lean back against the door, bringing my arms to rest across my chest, trying to look as casual as one can about the onslaught of paranormal activity in their house. “Welcome to my humble abode.” I stretch out an arm.
“Don’t know if I’d describe it as humble,” Jules says, tentatively wandering in.
“Wine?” I ask, shooting forward.
“I brought some.” She shows me, holding up a vintage bottle.
“Oh, grand.” I relieve her of it, as Edgar gets the door. It creaks slowly shut.
"Can I take your jacket?" I reach for her shoulders and notice them shaking a bit.
“No, I think I’ll keep it for a while.” She shudders, pulling it close, her eyes warily skulking the ceiling. “Feels a bit drafty in here, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” I mutter.
“No offense,” she quickly adds.
"None taken. Let me get some glasses?" I start off again, thinking perhaps it's not a good idea to leave her alone with Edgar. "Do you want to…" I jerk a thumb through the air "…come with me?”
“Absolutely.” She swallows, clutching her bag. Clearly, she’s unnerved by the notion of being here again.
I jet toward the sideboard and she follows, stopping to peruse my equipment along the way. Her eyes widen as she takes in the scene, monitor lights flickering, needles wagging, dials scaling up, then down again, giving off low-frequency squeaks and squeals.
“I have to keep them on,” I explain. “Helps me know what’s happening.”
“I see,” she says. “Why, of course.” She swallows hard. “Been picking up any act-tivity?” She stutters on the word.
“Loads. I mean, some.” I forgo the wine and mix her a martini, then double it, considering.
“Love what you’ve done with the place,” she jokes as I glide back over and hand her a drink. Her eyes widen, as she assesses the room, gaze bouncing off the ancient furnishings—which I’ve basically just vacuumed and thrown coverslips over—and then off the walls—that I haven’t got around to dusting yet—then back onto my ghost busting equipment that lays haphazardly strewn about the floors, giving the place an uneasy mad scientist feel.
No wonder her hands were shaking as she accepted the drink.
“Look, I-I just need to have them on, you know, just in case. It’s not like anything bad is going to happen.” I move closer.
“Sure,” she says, and I can feel the shake of her body from where I stand. She takes a sip of her drink. “Oh!” She shakes her head. “My goodness.”
“Too much?” I jerk toward her. “I can change it out for something else.”
“No, no, this is fine. I was just expecting wine.” She waves the thought away.
“I thought I’d save the wine for dessert.”
“Good idea. If we get that far,” I think I hear her mumble as she turns, taking another healthy swallow, and gulping it down like she’s ingesting fire. “Likely just the thing I need.” She holds up the glass, and I swear I hear her add, to get through this night, under her breath, which sort of crushes me.
I really wanted this night to work out, and not just for Edgar’s sake. "Hors d'oeuvres?" I hold up a plate.
“Lovely,” she says, and helps herself to three, cramming them into her mouth in not the most sophisticated way.
The air snickers and I snap a look at it.
“Come have a look at the dining room.” I steer her toward it, and away from the noise. The dining room table is set as if I’m about to dine with the queen. Jules’ gaze flashes. I’ve set it exactly to Edgar’s specifications. With Edgar's help, I've managed to dress it beautifully. Everything in its place, good china, proper silverware, fresh flowers in the urn, and then some. It looks like a regular snippet from Rogers and Hammerstein’s The King and I.
Some enchanted evening! goes off in my head. Gawd, how I hate that musical. Wow, where did that come from? My unknown mother haunting me again. I glance up at the ceiling.
“It’s gorgeous.” Jules floods forward, running her fingers over the table lace, plucking a plump shrimp, baked in creamy garlic mushroom cap, from the raised, polished, silver platter, sitting next to the first platter of hors d'oeuvres. She whirls around and takes a bite. “Mmmm.” She moans, giggles, at last somewhat relaxed. “These are amazing. Did you make these?”
“I made everything I’m serving tonight.” I puff out my chest.
“Wow. These are really good. I’m not kidding.” She selects another, still chewing the remains of the last. “What is this, anyway? The sauce, I mean?”
“It’s an old creole recipe.” Or so I’m enchantedly told. I glance at the ceiling. “Been in the family for years.”
“Who’s family?”
“M-mine.” I trip on the word. “On my mother’s side.”
“Your adopted one?” she offers.
“S-sure.”
She takes another bite and gets this disturbed look on her face like she’s been here before, in this very moment, in this very thought, and is suffering from déjà vu. She suddenly looks completely unhinged.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she chirps, her face a haunting shade of ashen as if she's just been visited by a personal ghost. I know the feeling. It's happened here to me, several times. I look around for Edgar but feel nothing.
Jules puts the second shrimp down. “Shouldn’t fill up on these.” She smooths down her dress. “Don’t want to spoil my appetite for supper.”
She dusts off her hand and moves nervously admiring the flowers at the center of the table. “You pick these?”
“All by myself.”
“And arrange them like this?”
“Every single stem.”
She purses her lips in a smirky-smile, and gazes longingly at me, as she cradles the head of one of the flowers delicately in hand. “Man of many talents, aren’t you?” she rasps in a low voice.
“You could say that,” I answer swiftly, wondering if we’re still talking about flowers and sort of hoping we're not.
I shake the lewd thought from my head and move on with the night. “May I?” I offer to freshen her drink.
“Don’t mind if I do.” She smiles with her eyes.
Our fingers brush in the exchange, and I’m doused with a flash fire. A tiny spark that’s struck between the two of us. For a long moment, I hesita
te, standing close, staring at her, gazing into the depths of her swirling coffee-brown eyes. My chest pounds with a bounding thrum. What is this madness?
This sweet madness?
"Do you always ogle your guests this way?" Jules whispers, a grin playing on her glossed lips when still my gaze is locked on hers.
“Only the most irresistible ones,” I answer, fighting the urge to lean in and kiss her. To press my mouth to her mouth, and devour her. She feels it too, I know she does, this unexplained pull between us. I can tell in the way her body is swaying, willow-like, ebbing ever closer to me.
Where is this coming from?
The moment grows too intense, and I turn away, snapping it in two, and regretting it immediately.
When I do this, she stumbles forward, off balance, as if the invisible force field that held her in place at arm’s length has suddenly given way, and she’s fallen into my orbit. Instinctively, my arms fly out to catch her.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She recovers, stumbling back on her high heels, their points scuffing the tops of the floorboard, as she attempts to right herself. Releasing me, she grasps the back of a chair, embarrassed, brushing the hair from her cheeks.
“Shall we start?” I say, at a loss for words. The brush of her body against mine has lit me aflame. “Or should we sit or wait for Anna?” I quickly add, glancing toward the door, feeling strangely unmoored myself, all of a sudden.
“No, actually, Anna’s not coming,” Jules explains.
“Not coming?”
“No. She had a last-minute client to deal with. Said to eat without her and she’d be along later, but to save her some.”
“Oh, I see.” I tug at my beard. That’s awfully strange.
The air in the room is growing thick with tension and icy cool.
Or maybe not so strange at all.
The tie at my neck chokes me, and my worst nightmare is confirmed. “In that case, shall we sit?” I say.
For some weird reason, my heart leaps at the thought of us being alone. Perhaps Jules has bribed Anna to stay away, it wonders. Why would she do that? I mean, seriously.
The lofty air whistles.
Jules’ head snaps up.
“Weird, isn’t it, that she had to work?” I override the ghost noise with my voice.
“Yes,” Jules says. “Especially in Heartland Cove where there’s more real estate agents floating around than population.” She twists her hands. “But apparently, her boss was being a pip and insisted she serve the client. But I’m sure she’ll be along soon.” She laughs nervously and I wonder if she’s telling me a tale. Maybe my prior assumption was true.
A frosty breeze limps past my chest, and I know I’m wrong. This is not, in any way, Jules’ doing. He’s done this. I stare at the ceiling. Edgar. He’s fixed it so we’re alone.
But why?
“She assured me she’d be here no later than dessert.” Jules puts the information out into the air as if putting the air on alert.
“Then we have plenty of time.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Noted,” I add. I don’t even know why I said that. “May I?” I motion toward a chair, grasping its back, and pull it out for her to sit.
“Oh, thanks!” She takes her place, in an elegant sweeping manner, which reminds me of something that for the life of me I cannot recollect.
The flesh of her thigh peeks out of the slash in her dress, revealing a small collection of freckles in the shape of a half a heart. I glance down at the pattern, overwhelmed by the feeling that I’ve seen it before.
Which is completely a lewd and impossible thought.
“Let me freshen your drink.” I bolt away, unnerved.
"No, no, no." She places a long-fingered hand over her glass when I try to take it.
“All right then, we’ll start with soup.”
“Oh, lovely. What kind?”
“Chowder, of course. Clam.”
“Right?” She looks at me stunned.
“You do like chowder?”
“More than anything.” Her lips quiver.
“Seriously? Isn’t that amazing.” I move from the dining room into the kitchen to retrieve the pot, wondering what crazy magic is at work here.
I check on the baked foie gras and oysters Rockefeller while I'm there, fanning both out of the oven as I pass it to the plate. Then I return to the dining room, where I serve her the soup, my gaze drawn to her cleavage, shamefully. More freckles dot the slopes of her ample bosoms, which I should in no way be admiring right now. I place her bowl down with a jolt, along with a basket of baked bread, and vanish.
“Would you like more boobs, butter,” I say.
She giggles. “No thank you, this is fine.”
I feel my cheeks crimsoning up.
She leers across the table at me, reaching out for more bread, at exactly the same time as I go to adjust the plate, and we touch, again. It’s just a slight brush, a graze really, but enough to stoke the already burning fire inside me.
Warm tingles rush over me like the rush of a passing train, and in a fleeting moment of desire-filled exhilaration, I want to take her into the next room.
What fresh madness is this?
I barely know the girl.
What am I, crazy?
But she feels it, too. She wriggles in her seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Instead of sharply drawing her hand back, she lets it linger there, hovering over her plate, dangerously close to my own. I glance down at my hand, as though it doesn’t belong to me. The tips of my fingers are suddenly freezing cold again.
“I’m sorry, I…” I yank my hand back, afraid that the chill of my touch may be disturbing.
“No need to be sorry.” She slowly retracts her hand, her gaze never leaving me.
“I-uh…” I gulp. “Do you care for pheasant?” I change the subject.
“Actually, it’s my favorite meal ever. I’ve no idea how you knew that.”
“Neither do I. I mean… you know I was serving pheasant?”
“Anna told me. She saw you in the grocery.”
“Oh, yes.” I stare. “Here I thought it was perhaps just fate.”
“It still might be,” she says, in a breathless way. “Like you walking into our bait shop the other day.”
My cheeks flush immediately red. “I doubt that,” I mumble. “I’ll go get the bird.” I smile, trying not to make it feel cheesy, but I fear it comes out cheesy just the same. I’m overwhelmed with guilt. Me walking into her bait shop was no coincidence. It was planned. I just wanted it to come off as one. I was sent there to find her, by Edgar, I now know, in one of my dreams. But as for the pheasant, I seriously don’t know what possessed me to buy one.
Oh, yes, I do.
I glower at the ceiling, as I pass into the kitchen.
“Are none of my moves my own anymore?”
I suddenly feel commanded by something other than myself, and I don't like it. And although I probably should have realized this by now, I'm oddly surprised by this notion. "I'd really like part of this night to be my own, if you don't mind. I kind of like the girl,” I tell the cold air that swirls around me. The air begins to glow, turning slightly green. “Oh, no you don’t. Not yet.” I hold up my hands. “Stay hidden, until at least we’ve eaten our dinner.”
I turn my back on Edgar and race from the room, pheasant platter in hand.
“Did you do research on me, is that how you’re figuring this out?” Jules asks when I return. She’s fixed herself another drink and is visibly tipsy.
“Research?” I stop.
“Yes. You know, looked me up. Goobled me. I mean, Goggled,” she stammers, downing the rest of her drink. “Is that how you knew?” She grins like a Cheshire cat. “There’s no other way to explain it. Your knowing all these things about me. The food I like. My mother’s book…”
I place the bird down on the table. “But how? How could that be possible? Where would I find those kinds of things? Besides, I didn’t even kno
w we were going to meet?” Liar. My cheeks burn red.
"Of course not." She flips out her napkin and lays it in her lap. "How silly of me." I've made her feel stupid now, I can see it on her face. Her cheeks are tinged with pink.
“Nothing silly about it.” I melt guiltily into my chair. “I find the whole thing strange too.” And that’s not a lie.
“So, you like pheasant too, then? That’s why you purchased it.”
“Actually, that’s not fair to say.”
She scowls.
“I’ve never really eaten it before. I just saw it there and thought—”
“You’d buy a bird you’ve never eaten to serve to your guests.”
“Yeah, why? That’s weird.”
Her face changes color. She glances worriedly over at her newly filled water glass as if the water was suddenly, not water. “Perhaps I should be going.” She snaps to her feet. “It did look like it might rain, and we know what happened before.”
“No, wait!” I stand abruptly, stumbling over my chair to get to her before she reaches the door. “Please, please don't go." I grasp her arm. Again, our connection ignites into a warm, glowing tension. Slowly, she turns around. Her gaze traipses the length of her arm to where I'm clutching it and holds there.
“After all,” I whisper. “I’ve gone to all this trouble.” I stretch my other hand back to show the table. “It seems a shame to waste it, considering it is your favorite meal.” I swallow, sensing the alarm in her eyes.
She hesitates, examining me closely, but not pulling away as if she's just as mesmerized by our connection as I am.
"Very well, then," she relents, almost robotically. Her tone different than it was before. Different from the other days, in the store and in the car. This is not at all the girl who tried to choke me in her shop. The one who drew a knife across my throat accidentally cutting it.
I don’t know who this girl is, all quiet and demure.
Wait a minute. Do I?
"But no funny stuff," she adds when I release her arm. "Just dinner."
“Right,” I say, and escort her back to her place at the table, where she sits even more elegantly, leering up at me, brazen.
It's like the Jules I know is floating in and out of some weird altered reality. And I think I might know exactly who might be altering that reality.
