Keep Me Ghosted (Sophie Rhodes Romantic Comedy #1)

by Karen Cantwell

  “Did you see that?” Dr. Callahan beamed as we walked back to his office. “I saved a man’s life.”

  I didn’t want to let him down and tell him that it wasn’t his expert CPR techniques that breathed life back into Ronald Ellison’s body. “You sure did,” I agreed, smiling when his chest puffed a little more from pride in the accomplishment.

  Back at the office, we found Moonflower pouting in a reception room chair.

  “Why did you leave?” I asked her.

  Ignoring me, she stood and raised her nose in the air. “Johnny, can we speak privately?”

  He rolled his eyes and I detected frustration. “Not that I have a choice,” he said, and strolled down the hallway with Moonflower following.

  She stopped for just a minute to turn back and shoot me an evil stare. “I don’t like you,” she hissed.

  “We’ll call it mutual then,” I responded.

  I hadn’t had a tour of the place to know exactly where they were going, but I guessed it was one of his examining rooms. After locating an instruction manual tucked away in a drawer, I taught myself how to use the phone and messaging system. Unfortunately, one of the messages was from his four o’clock patient wanting to reschedule, which I managed to do successfully for the next day. I remembered that my own doctor and dentist gave me reminder calls the day before my own appointments, and figuring that this office could use all of the help it could get, decided to do the same. My first three calls went to voicemail, so I left messages letting them know we looked forward to seeing them the next day. My fourth call was answered by a nice lady named June who seemed surprised at the reminder. She remarked that I was, “much friendlier than that last receptionist. She was a monster.”

  The computer seemed to be logged into a billing program, so I went searching through drawers again for another user’s manual. Five minutes of searching proved fruitless, so I decided to ask the man himself. As I made my way down the long hallway from the reception desk, I noted a tiny cubicle of a kitchenette on the left followed by a bathroom just two more steps down the hall.

  The door to the first room on my right was open and the light was off. I flipped the light switch on the wall, illuminating a large room with two computers on tables, each up against a different wall, a large TV screen on another, an open cabinet filled with what looked like toys, and a rectangular table in the middle with a chair positioned on each side. A few plastic crates were scattered around on the floor that were overflowing with odd items I couldn’t have identified if I wanted to. It seemed like a strange assortment of items for an optometrist’s office. Where were the eyeglasses?

  The next room on the right had a door that was closed. Not seeing another option, I knocked.

  “Come in!”

  I opened the door and peeked my head in, not wanting to appear too forward. “Dr. Callahan?”

  I scanned the room, which, by the equipment, verified my guess: examining room. A large chair, well-worn as if it had seen years of experience, sat at the far end of the room. Attached to it, like an electronic octopus, were three or four metal arms holding instruments that looked more like what I would expect in a doctor’s office. Pen in hand, Dr. Callahan sat on a rolling stool at a long gray desk full of drawers. The desktop, much like the reception desk, overflowed with papers and boxes and devices.

  He smiled and shook his head. “Please don’t call me that.”

  “What should I call you?”

  “My friends call me Cal.”

  “Your name is Cal Callahan?” Then I remembered the initials on the signage above his door: H.U. “What do the initials stand for then?”

  A frustrated expression crossed his face. “My legal name—don’t laugh—is Hiram Ulysses Callahan. I’m named after our ancestor Ulysses S. Grant, whose real name was Hiram Ulysses. It’s a long boring story, even to people related to him. Bottom line: my friends call me Cal.”

  Actually, I wasn’t very comfortable calling him Cal. Dr. Callahan seemed much more professional, but I didn’t want to offend him during our first day of working together.

  “Of course,” he said with a self-conscious head bob, “You should probably call me Dr. Callahan around patients.”

  I nodded, relieved. I couldn’t help but joke though. “You mean I can’t call you Johnny?”

  His smile returned and he released a short chuckle. “What’s that all about, right?”

  “You don’t know why she calls you Johnny?”

  He rolled the pen between his fingers. “No idea.” When he ran his fingers through his hair, I found myself wanting to do the same. It wasn’t thick, but it wasn’t too thin either. Nice hair. Sexy hair. Dr. Callahan’s combination of clean-cut handsome and slightly awkward was very appealing to me for some reason. Maybe I was growing up. I reminded myself of Marmaduke’s advice, and yanked myself back to the conversation.

  “Interesting name she has there. Moonflower?” I asked.

  More uncomfortable head bobbing. “She says she’s not sure it was her name—you know—when she was...”

  “Alive?”

  He nodded. “I’m a doctor, you know. The sciences are what I know. Facts. Reality. This is all...”

  “You’ve never had a ghost companion before?”

  “Ha! Are you kidding me?” He gave me a quizzical look. “You sound very experienced. How many have you had?”

  I leaned against the door jam. “When I was five, I had an ‘imaginary friend.’ Her name was Beatrice. It wasn’t until Marmi came along a year ago that I realized she wasn’t imaginary at all. So I’m not all that experienced. Sometimes it gets annoying. You know—he’s always there. But on the other hand, we’ve become friends, so it can be nice to know that he’s always there. So, what did you mean when you said Moonflower came with the office?”

  His answer was interrupted by a ringing phone.

  Excited to be doing an actual job for actual money, I jumped to attention. “Hold that thought,” I said while running to the front phone.

  We never had the chance to finish that conversation because after I handled the phone call, a mother and her son walked in, thinking they had an appointment. Dr. Callahan gladly took the son in while the mother read on her Kindle in the waiting room.

  Marmaduke returned while I tried to figure out the patient filing system. “So the good doctor has patients after all? How nice for him,” he said, spinning his bowler hat like a teenager with a basketball.

  Since I couldn’t respond verbally without looking like a crazy lady to the mother waiting, I opened a blank document on the computer and started typing. This was our default method of communicating when in public, although I usually typed on my cell phone as if I was texting. It always worked well except for the time on a subway train when a medium, aware of Marmi’s presence, attempted to move him into the light. Marmaduke had avoided the light for a good 97 years; he wasn’t about to let a rogue medium mess with his comfort zone.

  I pointed to the screen and started clicking on the keyboard, anxious to learn if Marmi had more information about the Ellisons. Especially the dead/not-so-dead one. What happened down there? I typed.

  “The Ellison fellow was carted away by ambulance.”

  Did he say anything? Remember anything?

  “It didn’t appear so. He was disoriented and fairly unaware of what had happened. He saw me though.”

  How do you know?

  “He focused on me—it is very easy to recognize. If I had to guess, however, he did not remember being a spirited one himself. On this, I could be wrong, but it’s unlikely. I’m rarely wrong.”

  Anything else?

  “Anything else you ask? I’ll say. Two razzers arrived on the scene and engaged in a conversation of some interest possibly to you and your new employer.”

  Police officers?

  “They arrived soon after you departed with your new employer. Friends of yours.”

  Who?

  “Alex.”

  That’s only one. Who e
lse?

  “Shane. That dastardly Shane. Foul, foul excuse for a man. I felt like giving him a good scare.”

  Shane Daniels. I had a feeling. Ex-boyfriend and the reason I finally quit my job at the Stephens City Police Department.

  How did he look?

  “Truthfully, Sophie? How did he look? Like the ill-mannered gorilla he has always been. You are so much better than that beast. But you haven’t asked me about their conversation of interest. Stay focused.”

  Don’t get tongue-tied now, Marmi. Keep talking.

  “Apparently, they were called to this same office building a little over a year ago. A young woman was found dead in a suite where her father operated an accounting business. She was Indian by lineage, and you guessed it—she was found in this very office. Probably right where you are sitting now.”

  Moonflower?

  “Well, they only referred to her as ‘that Indian girl,’ but you and I have made similar assumptions. It really isn’t a giant leap now, is it?”

  The Kindle-reading mother interrupted. “You sure do stay busier than his last receptionist,” she said.

  I looked over the desk. “Just trying to catch up. He hired me on the spot today, and I’m sort of training myself.”

  “Dr. Callahan is a wonderful man and a great doctor. My son, Jason, loves him. I hope you actually stay around long enough to help him. The last lady talked on the phone all day with her friends and creditors. The one before that was more interested in her fingernails than making appointments and helping patients.”

  “Trust me, I need the job. I’ll do my best to keep this one. It sounds like you come here often—is that normal, to see an eye doctor so regularly?”

  “You really are training yourself, aren’t you?”

  “He’s been... busy.”

  “Dr. Callahan is a developmental optometrist—he does vision therapy.” She waited to see if the last words meant anything to me.

  I shook my head. I’d never heard of vision therapy.

  “Jason comes once a week—sometimes twice. Dr. Callahan trains him to use his eyes better.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “That’s not the right word...” She snapped her fingers a couple of times while thinking. “Efficiently!” She clapped her hands, happy. “That’s the word I was looking for. Efficiently. He’s learning to use his eyes more efficiently. He has trouble reading. Following words on the page. Tracking is the term Dr. Callahan uses.”

  “I did notice that most of his patients were children.”

  “It’s a specialized form of optometry. My husband and I are so thankful—Jason went from being two grade levels behind in his reading skills to being a half-year ahead of grade level. And his grades in other subjects went from C’s and D’s to A’s and B’s. Honestly, it was like a miracle. And like I said, it helps that Jason loves Dr. Callahan the way he does. The man seems to have a way with kids. I’ve talked to some other mothers here in the waiting room. They agree.”

  “My, my, my,” Marmaduke drawled. “A regular saint, this man is.”

  Marmi actually turned a ghostly shade of green.

  “So,” the nice mother continued, “I hope you’ll stay and really help him whip this new office into shape. I’d send more patients his way if I wasn’t so worried about how they’d be treated by his office staff.”

  Aha. The perfect time to learn about this history of Suite A. “When, exactly, did Dr. Callahan move into this office?”

  She looked into the air, as if looking at an imaginary calendar. “Let’s see. This is July. It must have been mid-April? He was sharing a tiny little office with two speech therapists about three miles from here, but their lease ran out I guess. He was very excited when he was able to buy this place. He said he got a great deal on it. Evidently, the previous owner suffered a terrible loss and wanted to be rid of it as quickly as possible.”

  I wondered if the ‘terrible loss’ was Moonflower. “Boy, he sure does share a lot of information with his patients.”

  “I work with his mother,” she winked. “She likes to talk about her only son.”

  I made a mental note to talk more with Jason’s mother if I wanted to know anything about Cal. I mean, Dr. Callahan.

  A door swooshed open and the next thing I knew, Jason was tearing past the reception desk to his mother’s side. Dr. Callahan moseyed out behind him with a patient file in his hand and a smile on his face.

  “Let’s go, Mom!” Jason bellowed, tugging at her arm. “I don’t want to miss my show.”

  Looking at Dr. Callahan, I worked to get a grip on my duties. “Should I take a payment from her? Do we bill her insurance?”

  He shook his head while handing me Jason’s patient file. “She paid for his visits in advance. We’re good. I’ll show you the billing program and fee slip tomorrow.” He waved to the departing mother and son. “Bye, Jason. Good luck with your soccer game tomorrow.” He narrowed one eye at Jason, but held onto the smile. “Remember to practice those eye exercises I gave you today, right?”

  Jason stopped. “And if I do, I can play the computer games?”

  Dr. Callahan gave him a nod. “Just like I promised.”

  A large smile erupted across Jason’s face and he ran out the door, his mother following.

  “See you next week!” Dr. Callahan called with a final wave.

  When the door closed behind them, he leaned an arm on the desk.

  I pressed a palm to my forehead to push away a brewing headache. “Jason’s mom sure did have some nice things to say about you.” I looked at the folder he had handed me. “Should I file this away?”

  “Yes please. Do you feel okay?”

  “Just a little headache. I get them when I’m on the computer for a while.”

  “Hmm.” He eyed me seriously. “And when you read—a book or a magazine?”

  I had to think about that one for a minute. “Um, yeah. I guess so. Probably.”

  “I should give you an eye exam.”

  Poking through the filing cabinet behind the desk, I rifled through files until I located the proper spot, then slipped Jason’s file in where it belonged. “I have twenty-twenty vision.”

  “Who’s the doctor here?”

  I laughed. “Jason certainly thinks you’re cool as doctors go.”

  He fidgeted with a cup of pens on the desk. “Jason’s a great patient. Good kid. He’s done really well. And speaking of doing really well, you seem to be taking charge up here.”

  “That’s why you hired me.”

  “It’s not what I do best...” he waved his hands around my work area. “This stuff. I like seeing patients, working with the kids. Paperwork, phones—not so much. So I’m sorry for kind of, you know, dumping it all on you. And thank you for not taking a permanent smoking break. I really appreciate that.”

  “Well,” I said, sitting back down. “We’ll probably make a good team then, because I’m not so good with the kids, but I kick butt when it comes to paperwork and phones.”

  Dr. Callahan leaned further over the counter, moving the cup of pens out of his way. He cleared his throat. “There’s one other thing...” breaking our eye contact, he cut his gaze down to the desk and cleared his throat again. “Something I wanted to ask you.”

  Suddenly, Moonflower appeared again, floating around him. “Johnny...” He stood upright and took a stern tone. “Not now, Moonflower. I need to ask Sophie something.”

  “But Johnny...”

  He wasn’t backing down. “Not now, I said. Not now.”

  “Sophie,” Marmaduke whispered in my ear, “can I speak with you privately?”

  “Marmi... Dr. Callahan needs to ask me something.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he whispered in response.

  “That’s enough!” Dr. Callahan shouted.

  Marmaduke and Moonflower stopped their antics and I suppressed a smile.

  “You two nosy ghosts,” he pointed to the far corner of the room. “Over there.”

  When they
didn’t move immediately, he stressed his point. “Now.”

  Sheepishly and reluctantly, they moved away. “I’m impressed,” I said, once they were far enough away to know that he’d achieved his goal.

  “They’re a pair, aren’t they?” he snickered.

  I laughed as I watched them in the corner sizing each other up with a good amount of indignation.

  Dr. Callahan tried to lean on the counter again, but slipped a little. When he regained his composure and a better, more confident stance, he cleared his throat. “Let’s try this again.”

  His tension led me to believe that he wasn’t going to ask for my previous employer references. I held my breath. Was he going to ask me out? Part of me liked the idea. The other part of me said, No, no, no, Sophie, bad idea! He’s your boss! Your brand new boss!

  “I was wondering,” he continued, “if you were doing anything tonight.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AND THERE IT WAS. MY boss of only five hours had just asked me on a date. If I hadn’t found him attractive, I could have considered the move sexual harassment. I needed time to think, so stalled with an admittedly lame comment. “That’s not really a question you know.”

  “What?”

  “Technically, that would be a statement.”

  “Could you just pretend that it was a question?”

  “See, now that’s a question.”

  “Do you always make things this complicated?”

  “To make another statement, I’m not sure that we should be dating. I just started working for you and...”