Dying on Second

by E. C. Bell

  “Who?” Things were moving too quickly. I couldn’t keep up. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Rita,” Charlotte said. “Rita Danworth.”

  I frowned. “Why do we need to talk to her?”

  “Because she can move things in the living world,” she said. “Remember the swarming?”

  “Worst waste of time ever,” I said, and rolled my eyes.

  “Maybe,” Charlotte said. “But I think the reason the swarming didn’t work was because enough of us didn’t know how to actually touch Marie. But think what could happen if we all learned. We’d be able to use it against Andy Westwood. We’d be able to make sure that the son of a bitch finally leaves and never comes back to your diamond. You know?”

  Oh.

  “Hey,” she said. “We dead gotta stand together. Don’t we?” Then she paused. “Can you imagine what crazy Joanne’s going to be like if she actually learns to touch stuff in the living world? That’d be worth the price of admission, all on its own.”

  She laughed, and it didn’t sound angry anymore. It sounded excited—almost alive.

  “Come on,” she said, and bumped me, showering me with her warm, wondrous light. “This is a good thing, Karen. It really is.”

  “I just can’t believe it will work.”

  “We dead can do anything,” Charlotte said. “Everything. All we have to do is want it bad enough.”

  I looked down at my hands. They were glowing their usual soft white. Maybe she was right. Maybe we could actually pull this off.

  Charlotte stayed with me the rest of the night. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. It was nice and I felt better than I had since I died. Maybe before that.

  And I decided not to tell Marie anything about what we were planning.

  After all, Marie was alive. She couldn’t understand what it was like for the dead. Not really. Besides, we had a plan. And if we wanted it bad enough, it just might work.

  Marie:

  The “What If” Scenario

  JAMES AND I didn’t watch a movie when I got back to his place that night. We watched a couple episodes of the first season of a cable TV show he’d found on sale at HMV. I figured he was the last person in the known world that still bought physical discs anymore, but whatever. He’d picked a strange series, no doubt about it, about this crazy guy having delusions and trying to bring down the world with his computer hacking abilities. James liked it better than I did, to be honest, so once the popcorn was gone I went to bed.

  James stayed up. “Just one more episode,” he said. “And then I’ll come to bed.”

  I could tell by the look on his face that he was probably in for an all-nighter, so I snuggled into bed. I was exhausted after my practice session with Greg, and hoped I’d be able to go right to sleep.

  But of course, sleep refused to come. I kept thinking about Karen acting so wild when I was explaining moving on to Lisa.

  I knew Karen wasn’t interested in moving on. She’d made that absolutely clear to me the first time we met. But she caught me off guard, losing it on me—and Lisa— when all we were doing was talking.

  And what was the deal with her being afraid of being left alone? I couldn’t figure that out at all. She was surrounded—literally surrounded—by ghosts, especially in softball season. They weren’t all going to decide to move on all at once. In fact, I was willing to bet most of them would hang around for a few more years, at least. They seemed to like what they had, and didn’t want to deal with their pasts, which was pretty much exactly what they had to do in order to move on.

  “Jesus, it almost sounds like me,” I muttered, punching my pillow as I tried, once more with feeling, to get comfortable enough to go to sleep. “I don’t want to talk to my shrink about any of that stuff, either.”

  Then I sat upright and stared into the dark, all thoughts of sleep gone.

  My shrink. Dr. Parkerson. She might be able to help me figure out what’s going on with Karen.

  Before, when I had a problem like this with a ghost, I’d just give my mom a call and she’d walk me through whatever part of the process I couldn’t figure out. But my mom was gone to wherever she’d decided was her next phase of existence without even saying good-bye, so I could only bounce my ideas off James, who was sometimes helpful, but not often enough. I couldn’t talk to Jasmine because she didn’t know about the ghost thing. And Sergeant Worth—Sylvia! Why couldn’t I remember her first name was Sylvia?—was on the no talk list too, even though she knew about me and ghosts, because she was a cop.

  But my shrink. I might be able to use her.

  I could tell her I was asking for a friend. Not a dead friend, of course, because there was no way in the world I was telling her about interacting with the dead. Just a friend, maybe on my ball team, who was showing some strange behaviours. And I’d ask her what I should tell my friend to do.

  Now, I realized she’d probably think I was talking about myself, but I didn’t care. She could think what she wanted. She might be able to give me some ideas about how to help Karen. Which would be great. Just great.

  For a second, I tried to figure out why I cared so much about Karen getting angry at me. It wasn’t like we were friends, or anything . . .

  I laid back on my pillow and pulled the blanket up to my chin and stared at the hugely old-fashioned popcorn ceiling of James’s bedroom as I thought about Karen. Maybe we were friends, sort of. Just softball friends, but still. Friends.

  “She’d been through some shit that she doesn’t want to talk about to everyone,” I whispered. “And so have I. Wouldn’t surprise me if we became besties, or something, if I can help her with her little overreaction problem.” I snorted laughter at the thought of me being best friends with a ghost, then rolled over and closed my eyes.

  Time to go to sleep for real this time. I hoped.

  DR. PARKERSON’S OFFICE was mostly beige. The carpet, the walls, the art on the walls—all various shades of beige. I think she thought it was soothing, but it wasn’t. Boring maybe, but not soothing. Not in that room.

  She waved me in and pointed to the chair where I usually sat. No couch, thank God, because when I first started coming to her, I think that would have sent me running, screaming, into the night. Now I was just afraid I’d fall asleep, and she’d talk about sleeping pills again. Maybe insist this time. And I was afraid that I would take her up on them. Just to catch a few zees.

  No. I’d catch a few zeds, I thought, and snorted laughter.

  “You’re in a good mood,” she said.

  I thought about it for a few seconds, and then nodded. “I’m feeling pretty good.”

  “Still playing that game for exercise?” she asked, then looked down at her notes. “The softball?”

  “Yep. Still playing the softball,” I said.

  She stared at me, waiting, then made a note. Probably something like “her passive aggressive crap is really starting to tear me down. Maybe I’ll start taking those pills I keep pushing on her.” Or something.

  “Actually, it’s going well,” I said. “I’m getting some extra help from the coach, so I’m improving. Even got picked up, by a team in Calgary.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “To play in a tournament with them.” I laughed, but felt uncomfortable. “Guess my name made it all the way to the city to the south.”

  “Well, that’s good,” she said, and made another note. “Sleep?”

  I thought about making a joke, but let it go. “About the same. Maybe a little better.”

  “How much better?”

  I thought about the five or so hours, on average, I slept. How that six hour sleep had felt like heaven. “Just a little.”

  “Headaches?”

  “The same.”

  “Nightmares?”

  I sighed. “The same.”

  “Is the IRT working?”

  I jerked guiltily and couldn’t look at her. She sighed. “You told me you’d give it a real try, this time,�
� she said.

  “I know.” I shook my head. “I’m just having trouble coming up with a happy ending to being kidnapped. You know?”

  “I didn’t say it would be easy,” she said. “But I’d like you to keep trying.”

  I remained silent. Didn’t know how I could tell her I’d keep trying something that I thought was ridiculous.

  “There’s always the Prazosin option,” she said.

  Prazosin. A cheap, generic blood pressure medication that sometimes helps treat nightmares from trauma. Worked for war vets. No reason why it wouldn’t work for me, too. That was her theory, anyhow.

  “No drugs,” I said. “I’ll give the IRT another try.”

  “Every day,” she said. “You have to replay the nightmare with the adjusted ending in your mind every day.”

  “I remember,” I said.

  I heard her pen scratch across her pad of paper. More notes. Probably about how impossible I was to help.

  I was beginning to think that perhaps this was not the best time to ask her about my “friend with a problem.” I wasn’t giving her the answers that she wanted, and I didn’t know if she’d be open to a “what if” scenario.

  “I’ll try,” I said. “Really.”

  “I hope so,” she said. “It can help you, if you let it. Because you have to sleep more. You’ll feel better, in all ways, once you get a handle on the sleep issue.”

  “I know.” I’d seen the research, online. She was right. It sounded dumb but it worked. Maybe it was time to give it another go. “I’ll do it. Every day.”

  “Good.”

  Her pen scratched, and then we were both silent. I was trying to figure out how to segue into a dialogue about my “friend.” I couldn’t guess what she was thinking about.

  “I’m getting to know my team mates,” I finally said. “We go for beers after the games.” I hadn’t actually done that yet, but she didn’t need to know. “And there’s this girl. Karen. I think maybe she’s suffering from PTSD too.”

  “Is she getting treatment?”

  I thought of Karen, trapped on second base. “I don’t think so,” I said. “But she blew a gasket when we were just talking the other night.”

  We’d been talking about moving on spirits, but Dr. Parkerson didn’t need to know that, either. No ghost talk. Not in this room.

  “She reminded me of me, a few months ago,” I said. “You know?”

  Dr. Parkerson nodded. She knew. “What were you talking about?”

  “Nightmares,” I said. “And stuff. I told her I was having trouble sleeping. That I was having nightmares. She said she was too. I asked her what they were about, and she just blew up.”

  Now, this wasn’t close to what happened, but I just needed Dr. Parkerson to give me a hint or two about how to get her to open up to me, so I could help her.

  “How did it make you feel?” Dr. Parkerson asked. Her usual question.

  “Pretty useless, to be honest. I didn’t know what to say to her. I apologized, but it didn’t seem to help.” I shook my head. “What do you think I should do?”

  “For her, you mean?”

  “Well, yeah. I want to help her, but I don’t know how.”

  I honestly thought Dr. Parkerson would be happy that I’d found people to talk to, to interact with. That was one of the reasons she’d suggested taking up a sport, after all. So I could make frigging friends. But she frowned.

  “Marie,” she said. “You shouldn’t think about her in those terms.”

  “What terms?” I asked, confused.

  “In terms of fixing her. Helping her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you need to concentrate on helping yourself,” she said. Scratch scratch scratch went her pen when I snorted derisively. Probably something about oppositional defiance disorder, or something.

  She wasn’t going to give me anything.

  “Forget it,” I said. “I’ll figure it out myself.”

  Dr. Parkerson didn’t respond, and I suddenly wondered if I’d even said the words out loud.

  “Does she know you are in treatment? Your friend?” She looked down at her notes. “Your friend Karen.”

  “No,” I said. “Why would I tell her that?”

  “It might help her make the decision to help herself,” she said. “If you show her that she’s not alone. That you’ve found a way to help yourself.” She looked at her notes again, then at me. “You do know that being in therapy isn’t a secret, don’t you? Lots of people are in therapy. You don’t have to hide the fact.”

  I thought about that for a moment. Just a moment.

  “I don’t think I can do that,” I said. “She doesn’t seem like the ‘go to therapy’ type.”

  “Just like you thought about yourself, eight months ago.”

  She got me with that one.

  “But here you are,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Here I am. So are you telling me that I can help her by telling her I’m in therapy?”

  “In therapy for PTSD. Yes.”

  “But she’d want to know why.”

  “Why what? Why you are sharing, or . . .”

  “Why I’m suffering from PTSD.” I stared down at my hands. “She’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “You’re not—”

  “I know!” I snapped. “I know I’m not crazy. But I don’t think that her knowing all about me will help her.”

  “You have to open up to someone, Marie.” Dr. Parkerson spoke softly, letting me know that I’d raised my voice.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I know. But I don’t think I’ll be opening up to Karen any time soon.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, she’s dead, so I can’t imagine—”

  Dr. Parkerson sat bolt upright. “What did you say?” she asked.

  I blinked. What had I said?

  “I said she’s damaged,” I said. “And that—”

  “No,” she said. “No you didn’t. You said she was dead.”

  My mouth went terror dry. “I didn’t say that,” I said. I could feel my lips catching on my teeth, my mouth was so dry, and hoped she didn’t notice. “You misunderstood me.”

  “I don’t think I did.”

  “Then it was a slip of the tongue,” I said. I pulled my phone from my pocket and looked at it. Time had to be up. But all I saw was the blank screen.

  “What time is it?” I asked. I turned on my phone, and listened to it tinkle awake. Felt horror when I realized that I’d only been there thirty-five minutes.

  “Put your phone away,” Dr. Parkerson said. “We need to talk about your slip of the tongue.”

  Jesus Christ almighty. What had I done?

  IT TOOK ME the full fifteen minutes to convince Dr. Parkerson there was nothing to my Freudian slip. That it really, truly was just a slip of the tongue. She seemed convinced, anyhow. Even though she did offer me another drug to take, as I was gathering my stuff when I could finally leave.

  “It’s called Seroquel,” she said. “It will help you sleep.”

  “I told you that I don’t want drugs,” I said.

  But this time, she ignored me. Reached into her front drawer and pulled out her prescription pad. “I think you need this, Marie,” she said. “That slip of the tongue makes me think that your lack of sleep is starting to affect brain function.”

  She quickly wrote the prescription, tore the sheet loose from the pad, and held it out to me. “Try it for a week,” she said. “We can talk about how much better you feel when you come in.”

  I didn’t want to take it, but she wouldn’t put her hand down so I grabbed it and stuffed it into my hoodie pocket with my phone.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  “Think hard,” she said. “Your lack of sleep is—”

  “Messing with my brain. Yeah, I get it,” I said. I tried smiling, and I think I almost pulled it off. “You sure read a lot into a simple slip of the tongue, Doctor.”

  “That’s what
I’m here for,” she said, and smiled back. It wasn’t real, but at least she was trying. “So, I’ll see you next week?”

  “My next appointment is in two weeks.”

  “I just want to check how you are reacting to the Seroquel,” she said. “Sleep-wise.”

  “Right.” No smile this time. I couldn’t have pulled one off, even if I tried. “All right then. I’ll see you next week.”

  Then, after I’d escaped, I sat at the bus stop and tried to keep from puking all over the sidewalk. I could not believe I’d said that, in front of my shrink.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  I GOT BACK to the office and Googled Seroquel. It was an anti-psychotic.

  An anti-psychotic. She was trying to get me on an anti-psychotic, obviously because she hadn’t believed me. She thought I was seeing dead people, and that I was crazy. I knew it!

  Then I read a little further. Seroquel—known for extreme sedation and sometimes prescribed for anxiety or sleep disorders and I stopped freaking out quite so badly. Maybe Dr. Parkerson had given me that particular prescription because she actually believed that I needed help with my sleep, and nothing more.

  Her telling me that my brain function was being impaired didn’t mean that she thought I was crazy, exactly. It just meant that she thought I needed help with my sleep. Which I did.

  I thought about telling James, then decided against it. He didn’t need to know about the possible brain impairment thing. All I needed was a couple of good nights’ sleep, and it would get better.

  I even filled the prescription before I went to my softball game. But I hadn’t decided whether or not I would take it. Just tucked it into my purse, away from prying eyes, and then went to my game, like nothing was wrong.

  Yeah, right.

  Marie:

  Calgary Henry and the Old Man

  THE NEXT WEEK was quiet, for the most part. James was working on two cases—more divorce, it seemed that was all that ever happened between married couples in this city—and so I was the one who had to walk Millie when she was at the office. She wasn’t too thrilled about it. Just trudged out, did her business, and then trudged back and crawled into her dog bed.