Unfinished Business An Angela Panther Novel (A Chick-lit Paranormal book) (The Angela Panther Series)

by Aspenson, Carolyn Ridder

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh, crap. My bad.”

  I turned my head in slow motion, hoping the man hadn’t noticed me, but I was SOL. The man, in all his glory, and clearly proud of it, was sauntering up to our table. I tried to act casual, like naked ghosts were a part of my daily routine, and took a sip of my coffee but just as I started to swallow, the man spoke in a fantabulous British accent, and I spit it out onto the table. Mel gave me the stink eye.

  “Hello, madam. Did you enjoy my show?”

  “Um, hi."

  Mel nonchalantly grabbed her napkin and started wiping up my mess.

  “Right. Hello. So, madam, did you?”

  “Uh, did I what?”

  “Are you okay, Ang? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Now Mel got the stink eye and I kicked her under the table, since it seemed to be my new thing with her.

  “Ouch.”

  I tried to maintain a straight face and told the ghost, “Well, actually, yes, I did, and you know what? After the few days I’ve had, I really needed a good show, so thank you, sir. Thank you very much, actually.”

  Mel lost it.

  The man smiled a big, broad, all teeth smile. “You are ever so welcome, madam. I am here every day between the hours of nine o’clock and eleven o’clock a.m., if you ever are interested in another performance. Next week I’ve planned a wonderful tap routine with a touch of traditional Indian dancing mixed in. I think it will be a lovely performance.”

  How did he expect me to respond to that? “Oh,” was all I could muster.

  “And your friend? Does she not have your gift?”

  I frowned toward Mel. “No, she doesn’t. Sadly, she doesn’t get to see your wonderful performance." I suppressed a giggle.

  “Right. Her loss. Last week I brought a set of blue balls and juggled them while I danced. I must say it was quite a challenge.”

  I snorted. “Well, that’s wonderful and I know my friend wishes she could have seen that. I’ll watch out for you and give her the best description I can, next time. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”

  “Oh, that she will. It is not every day a man with my skill allows the public to view his talent. And please, tell your lovely friend I think she is beautiful. I was stationed in Singapore during WWII and met a lovely Japanese woman named Aki. Oh, how I miss spending time with a beautiful woman.”

  “Oh, I’ll tell her, I promise.” It was hard to hold back my laughter.

  “Well, thank you then, madam. For now, I must go. I have another show at another Starbucks I must get to. A performer such as I should not keep his fans waiting. Good day.”

  “Good day, sir.”

  The man fizzled away, which I thought was pretty cool. I looked at Mel and busted out laughing.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Oh my gawd, that was freaking priceless, is what it was. That dude just totally streaked through the whole parking lot, and when he heard me whistle, he came up and told me, in a British accent, mind you, that he’s here every day and even juggles blue balls while he dances. Blue balls! I about peed myself when he said that. He calls it dancing and says he’s got a tap dance with an Indian flair planned for next week. I’m so coming here everyday next week. Then he told me he thinks you’re beautiful and that he dated a Japanese woman during WWII. Oh, and he sure misses the company of a beautiful woman. I about fell out of my chair.”

  “Was he hot?”

  I laughed because of course that would be her first question. “WWII Mel. He was in WWII.”

  “He could have died young and stayed that age. Isn’t that what happens?”

  “Beats me, but he wasn’t anything close to young.”

  “Some older men are hot. Look at Sean Connery.”

  “If you think butt old, wrinkly, bald on top and hairy everywhere else, and I mean everywhere else, is hot then yeah, he’s hot.”

  She busted out laughing. “Figures. You get to see a naked ghost and he’s Sasquatch. Way to go, my friend. Way to go.”

  “Yeah. Why can’t I see some young, Chippendale ghost instead of a hairy grandpa with a set of blue balls?”

  “You didn’t actually see the blue balls, right?”

  “No and praise God and thank you Jesus for that, even though they weren’t the kind of blue balls we’re thinking of.”

  She laughed. “At least he had an accent. That makes him almost sort of sexy.”

  “Not in this case, Mel.”

  We both laughed again.

  “So what were we talking about?”

  I had to think about that for a second. The naked streaker ghost caused a major brain fart. “Um...oh yeah, Emily and the pill parties.”

  “That’s right. I think you should have Fran do a little more research. Maybe she could find out when the next party is, and go and scare the crap out of the kids, you know...freak them out enough to not do it again?”

  I realized Mel might be onto something. “I’m not sure she should actually haunt a teen party, but having her check one out might not be a bad idea.” I took a sip of my coffee. “I can’t get the naked streaker ghost image out of my mind. I think it’s permanently seared into my memory.”

  “Better you than me. I’ve got Ryan Reynolds stuck in my head and I’m not at all interested in swapping him out for an old naked streaker ghost.”

  “He’s mine.”

  “And?”

  “Get your own imaginary famous boyfriend.”

  “I have several of my own, but I like yours, too. Have you seen the muscles on him?”

  “Yes, I have. That’s why he’s mine and you can’t have him.”

  “It’s my imagination and it lets me have anyone I want. I’ll let you have sloppy seconds.”

  “You’re already having mine, so it would be thirsty thirds and that’s really gross.”

  “Yup, guess I’ll keep him.”

  “Imaginary boyfriend stealer. Some friend you are.”

  “I know. It is a gift.” She finished her drink with one last gulp. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve got taxi duty to swim lessons for five kids, and I should have been home five minutes ago.”

  “You really need to learn how to say no when people, except me of course, ask for favors.”

  “No is only in my vocabulary when I speak to my kids or when I’m tired and Nick wants to have sex. Which he’s not asking for much these days anyway.”

  I sensed some frustration in her tone but she didn’t elaborate so I didn’t acknowledge it. Instead we both laughed and tossed our cups into the garbage next to our table. If something’s up with Mel, she’ll tell me when she’s ready. “Okay. I’m going to talk to Ma and Jake. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “Cool." We walked to her car. “Hey, have you called Linda back yet?”

  “No, I need to do that, too. I’ll do it when I get home. Thanks for the reminder.”

  “Yup. See ya. Text me.”

  “Always do,” I said and then got into my car.

  As I left the parking lot, I thought about using Ma as a tool for information about my children. Was that wrong? Should I tell her to butt out, and not tell me what’s going on? If I was meant to find out, the universe would give me that opportunity, right or could her telling me be the way the universe was letting me know? On the one hand I couldn’t help but feel like I was cheating as a parent; as if I’d be discovering things I shouldn’t know, but on the other hand was the whole “better safe than sorry” theory. Screw it. I had a mother who could snoop without the risk of being caught and if I needed to use her to help keep my daughter safe, then that’s what I’d do. Josh was another story. He could see my mother, so if I needed to snoop into his world, I’d have to find another way. I sighed heavily. He was only ten. I had a few years to figure out what to do about him. For now, the focus needed to be on Emily and Taylor and the pill parties.

  ###

  I ran a few errands, including trips to the grocery and dry cleaners, becau
se my life was that exciting, then headed home to Mama duty. Jake was in the kitchen working, his stuff spread all over the kitchen table. I cringed at the sight of it, and more so when I heard him pacing on the deck, talking on the phone. Jake’s office is in the basement, far, far away from the rest of us, where it should be. He preferred the kitchen, where he could talk on the phone to people I imagined must be close to deaf because he was so loud. The louder he got, the louder we all got living our life in the main areas of the house. He shushed us often and I didn’t think that was fair. Jake was a wonderful husband, but as with any man, there were things about him that drove me insane. Working in the kitchen was one of them. So were his less than stellar basketball skills, because his discarded, dirty clothes never made it to the laundry basket but seemed to lie next to it on the floor instead.

  I peeked out the back door and smiled at him. He blew me a kiss, which of course made me feel just slightly guilty for feeling cranky toward him a second ago. Ack. That was annoying, too. I went outside and gave him a quick kiss, then checked on the bird feeder, which was full of empty seeds so I whispered for him to take it down because I was too short to reach it. He did and I brought it in the house to dump out and refill after I finished with the groceries.

  I put the groceries away, made a fresh pot of coffee and then made sure the birds wouldn’t starve. Jake came in and sat at the table with his pile of work crap. I grabbed a cup of coffee, filled it with French vanilla creamer and grabbed the bills from the basket on the counter. I hated paying bills. I hated taking the time to open them up and deal with them. I paid electronically and Jake kept telling me to set up automatic payments but I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment just yet. We’d only been with our bank for 17 years and I wasn’t sure they were trustworthy enough. Last month I paid our mortgage to our electric company because I clicked on the wrong icon. The good news was I wouldn’t have to pay the electric company for another year. The bad news was I had to figure out how to pay the mortgage with the two hundred dollars budgeted for the electric bill. Luckily I was smart enough to figure it out and not let on to Jake. Sometimes, when I screwed up, it was best to keep him out of the loop. I planted myself on the couch, turned on the laptop and went to work.

  Josh was in the basement playing on the XBox. I knew this because I heard him screaming into his mic through the vent. Emily, I assumed, was still in bed. I clicked on the TV to catch up on what we’d DVR’d and heard a loud thump outside. Our two-story family room (don’t get me started on the wasted space) has a large picture window we’ve named suicide central. We don’t have curtains or blinds covering the window and on several occasions a bird has flown into it, ending its life with a quick smack. I rushed outside to see what hit and found a little woodpecker on the deck, breathing heavily and lying on its side. Poor thing. I rushed back in and grabbed a few paper towels – germ issues again – then picked the bird up and turned it over. It was a Red Cockaded Woodpecker, black with white spots. A female I guessed, because there wasn’t a red spot on her head. I could tell she wasn’t going to make it. I stroked her side and cooed softly to her, hoping to help her relax as she passed. It was my fault she hit the window. I’ve got five feeders out there and nothing on the window to stop the birds from flying into it. I’ve seen this little one or at least one that looks like her, out there several times eating the suet.

  I continued to coo as she slowly stopped breathing. Jake came out, made sad faces at the bird and me and then told whomever he was talking to what happened. I told him it was a Woodpecker, and his expression got even sadder. I took the little bird inside and placed her in a disposable plastic container and then buried her along the side of the house, under the ivy. I said a little prayer for her and hoped I was able to offer some comfort as she died, though I probably just scared her even more. I made a mental note to get decals for the window.

  ###

  After the bird funeral, I washed my hands for a little longer than usual, fearing that I’d caught some nasty disease from the bird, and then felt bad for thinking that, though I’m not sure why. I went back to paying bills online, though I wasn’t happy about it.

  “The last thing that bird saw before it died was its' ass.” Ma appeared in the family room.

  I didn’t look up from my computer. “Nice, Ma. Been hanging out around your sons lately?” That was a joke one of them would have made.

  “John had a BBQ the other day and I heard a few new jokes. Did he tell you the one about the blond at the bank?”

  “No and I’d prefer you didn’t tell me. I’m not really in the mood for jokes right now, Ma.”

  “Ah Madone, Angela. It was a bird. It’s not the end of the world. Well, for the bird it is but put it in perspective, will ya?”

  “Wow, Ma, you’re just all warm and fuzzy today, aren’t you?”

  “Just keeping it real.”

  “Just keeping it real? Ma, have you been watching MTV again?”

  “Goodness, no. I’m hanging with my girls, learning the lingo. Imma gonna be gansta before ya know it. Ya feel me?”

  I giggled. “I feel ya, Ma.” I couldn’t think of anything else gangsta-like to say and was actually grateful for that.

  “You homies, you ain’t got nothin’ but drama, I be slack, and chillin’, dude.”

  I giggled again and so did she. “Oh my gawd, Ma! Seriously! Stop it.”

  “That’s how they talk, you know, those kids at those parties. They sound like idiots. I couldn’t even understand half of what they said, let alone figure out what it meant. They even talked in abbreviations and moved their thumbs while they did it, like they didn’t know how to speak without a phone in their hands.”

  “You went to one of those parties?”

  “I may have popped into one last night for a minute or two. Strictly for research, you know." Guilt poured out of her words.

  “Ma, you didn’t do anything, did you?” I secretly hoped she did.

  She stared at me and with all of the innocence she could muster, which wasn’t much. “No?”

  I closed my laptop and smirked at my wonderful, annoying mother. “Okay, so if you didn’t do anything, what might you have done if you did?”

  “Well, I might have taken the bowl of pills and thrown it up toward the ceiling and giggled a little when the pills went flying all over the room.”

  I gave her my, tell me more look.

  “And maybe I would have blinked the lights a little bit.”

  “Mother. You did not.”

  “Aren’t we talking hypothetically?”

  I let out a big breath of hot air. “Then what would have happened?”

  She bowed her head in shame. “Maybe the kids would have gotten a little spooked and after a little screaming and running around, the party would have ended. But nobody got hurt, I promise. Ya feel me?”

  I had to give her credit for that. “At least you ended the party without anyone getting hurt, but Ma, you can’t go around haunting parties just because you can.” Even though I thought it was a fabulous idea, it probably wasn’t appropriate.

  “Why not? If I stop a child from getting hurt, I most certainly can. I’m like the Goodwill Ghost, ya know?” She smiled, feeling satisfied with that thought process, I could tell. “Yeah, that’s what I am. The Goodwill Ghost, saving kids from harming their stupid selves.”

  She did sort of have a point, but still. “Ma, I appreciate that you want to save the world, but probably your way isn’t the best. Maybe we can figure out another, less frightening way?”

  She flipped her hand in the air. “Aw, you’re no fun. It was completely innocent anyway. Nobody got hurt. And besides, it was fun to watch them all run like they’d just seen a ghost or something.” She tilted her head, recognizing the irony in her own comment.

  I couldn’t help but giggle at the image of the kids running around with pills flying through the air seemingly for no reason. Had I been a teenager and been there, I’m sure I would have peed on myself. �
��Well, the good news is that none of the kids took any of the drugs, so I guess I can’t be that mad at you. Did you stay to see what happened next?”

  “I didn’t stay long. After everyone left, the boy who lives there called his parents crying, and I felt sort of bad about that. I guess they told him to go to the neighbor’s because he ran out of the house like a bat out of Hell. So I left too. I would have cleaned up the mess, but I’m not good enough yet to focus like that.”

  “Who was the boy?”

  “That’s the thing, I don’t know exactly. The way they were all talking was so confusing; I couldn’t understand most of it. I think his name is Sam but I’m not sure if they were calling him Sam or saying damn. The music was loud, though I wouldn’t actually call it music, so it was too hard to tell. Who’s teaching kids to talk these days? They don’t make any sense. It’s all nonsense. And the abbreviations – what do you call them – acronyms? Why do they use those? O-M-G. L-O-L. Why can’t they just say the damn words for crying out loud?”

  I laughed at my mother. “You entered a whole new world last night, Ma. Kids today don’t talk in complete sentences. My seventh grade teacher is probably in a mental institution because of it. They speak like they text. O-M-G means oh my God, and L-O-L means laugh out loud.”

  “Laugh out loud? Whadda they gotta tell ya that for? Why not just do it? Sounds like a WOTTM.”

  “Huh?”

  “Get with the program, Ang. Waste of time to me.”

  “Oh.” Again, she had a point. “Ah, the wonders of teenage-dom. I don’t get it either. When I was that age I spoke Valley Girl, so this acronym stuff is like, totally foreign to me, too, like, for sure.” I laughed at my own joke but my mother didn’t get it, which made me think she didn’t listen to a thing I said to her in the ’80s. Smart woman, my Ma.

  “Kids today. Can’t live with them, can’t even swat at them with a wooden spoon. What is this world coming to?”

  “Sadly that’s frowned upon now. Anyway, back to the party. Mel and I were actually talking about this early today. We think it’d be a good idea for you to go and keep an eye on things, but maybe you should limit your actions to just visual and let the living handle the rest.”