Keep Me Ghosted (Sophie Rhodes Romantic Comedy #1)

by Karen Cantwell

  “The force of what?” he asked, apparently confused by my movie reference. Ghosts don’t get to see a lot of movies.

  A stack of files lifted straight up off the top of a filing cabinet, hovered for a brief moment, then flew across the room, slamming onto the opposing wall. Papers dispersed like confetti.

  “I’m not liking this, Marmi.”

  For the first time since I’ve known Marmaduke, he actually looked scared. Something had upset him. “I’m not sure what your ‘Force’ is, but there is something very, very disturbing occurring on my plane of existence.” Like the lights, Marmi flickered off and then on again. The phone rang, startling me.

  I answered, only to be jolted by the sound of Moonflower’s horrendous wailing in my ears. The minute I slammed the receiver back into its cradle, it rang again. Even though I was suspicious and wary, I lifted it to my ear—more wailing. While replacing the handset a second time, items started flying from my desk at lightning speed. If I didn’t get out of there, I’d certainly take a hit.

  “Let’s get out of here!” I shouted to Marmi while grabbing my purse. I ducked to avoid a collision with an errant brochure holder.

  He wasn’t arguing. “That certainly is the best idea you have had all day!”

  With the door closed behind me in record time, I turned the deadbolt and dashed to my car. I was buckled up and speeding out of the parking lot when Marmi appeared in the seat next to me. “If only I was in possession of a physical body right now. I could use a pint of ale.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MARMADUKE HAD THE RIGHT IDEA. Since my bank account was enjoying a higher balance thanks to the paycheck, I stopped at the grocery store near my house. There are three things in this world that always calm me down: a cold beer, Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese, and Hershey’s chocolate with almonds. I stocked up on my comfort foods, then went home and stuffed myself on the mac & cheese and chocolate. I followed the feast with a beer, then fell asleep reading the People magazine I’d picked up as a guilty pleasure.

  I woke up Saturday morning with Uno cuddled against the back of my legs and me wondering what the heck I’d gotten myself into. Normal people get up and go to jobs that may not excite them, but at least they’re not dodging the wrath of a poltergeist with identity issues.

  Booting up my dinosaur of a computer, I searched the online job finder site—the same one that led me to Dr. Callahan. The Stephens City PD had openings. Should I go back, crawling on my hands and knees, begging them to re-hire me? That would mean working with Shane again. Nah. Scratch that. Save that option for the desperation file.

  Someone was in need of a smoothie maker at Smoothie Queen. Not a dream job, to be sure, and my boss would probably be some pimply high school kid with a Nazi complex. Scratch that.

  A car wash supply company was in need of a bookkeeper—experience required. Scratch that.

  A family was in need of a nanny immediately for toddlers aged two and four. Well, kids weren’t my strong suit, but I could learn. Must speak fluent French. Scratch that.

  Oh look, the ad for Dr. Callahan’s job for a receptionist was still there. Odd that no one else had called for an interview. Well, if I gave him my notice, at least he wouldn’t have to place it all over again.

  Sigh.

  I banged my head on the keyboard from frustration. A frustration that was spiraling quickly into a deep depression. I stood up just long enough to fall back down onto my bed in a fit of dramatic melancholy. This disturbed Uno’s slumber, who shook himself out then slinked off to his own less shaky cardboard box bed. His departure left me feeling all the lonelier. “Marmi?” I called out.

  “You rang?” He appeared, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Tell me what to do.”

  “Could you elaborate? Expand your thoughts. Flesh out, as a writer might say, the intent of your request?”

  “This job is too much.”

  “I’d hardly call that a brazen attempt at elaborating. In fact, I would call that a failed attempt. However, I am nothing if not a man of insight, so I will dive into this murky pool with you and offer an observation. I do not believe it is the job that you find overwhelming, but rather a singular element, which, in actuality, is not a component of the employment at all.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t understand anything you just said.”

  “The beastly ghost is your problem, not the position you hold within Dr. Callahan’s business structure.”

  “She’s a real problem alright. I’m torn. Half of me is relieved that I didn’t have to go to work today and deal with her. That tells me that I should just cut my losses, quit, and find a different job. Preferably a ghost-free job. They do exist. But then, the other half of me is sad, because I really like Cal. I mean, Dr. Callahan. As an employer, that is.”

  “Oh, you like him far better than just an employer. You are smitten, there is no doubt.”

  “I know, right? And then I start to think I like him too much and I’ve only been working there less than a week and it’s just too crazy for me to be falling for my boss, especially this early on. I’ve already made a fool of myself once with him. I’m lucky he wants to keep me on.”

  “I have said it once, and I will say it again: he’s just as keen on you as you are on him.”

  “You think? I do feel it. Sort of. Sometimes.” I curled up in a ball. Curling up in a fetal position always helps counter the crushing effect of the world collapsing in on me, which is what I felt like at that very moment. Too many variables. Somehow, considering that Cal—Dr. Callahan—might be romantically interested in me made matters worse, not better. Because then, if I followed that road toward its logical course, there was always the complication of what would happen if we did explore a relationship, but then it went sour. As relationships do. I was living proof that breakups happen quite frequently. The room started to feel like it was spinning. I clamped my eyes shut. “I’m going back to sleep.”

  “Yes, well, not confronting life is always another way to go.”

  I pulled my pillow from the top of the bed and pressed it tight over my head. A couple more hours of not confronting was just what I needed. I felt badly snubbing Marmaduke when I was the one who called him for help, but sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. I would apologize later.

  A ringing doorbell roused me from my morning nap, which had been light and fitful at best. Stomping angrily to the front door, fully expecting an inane magazine salesman or neighborhood watch representative, I was surprised to see Mrs. Wiley through the peephole. I didn’t remember giving her my address.

  She knocked again while I worried about opening it, since I was still in my pajamas. My worry over appearing rude overruled my concern for my appearance, and I flipped the knob lock, turned the deadbolt and slid the chain guard free.

  “Hi, Mrs. Wiley,” I said, peeking through a thin opening. “I’m, uh, not exactly dressed for company.” I stepped back, opening the door wide enough for her to enter, but hiding behind the door itself in case neighbors were passing in the hallway. “Let me go get dressed. Can you close the door behind you?”

  “Don’t worry about impressing me, Sophie.”

  Running back to my bedroom, I slipped out of my pajama bottoms and into a pair of shorts, then threw a t-shirt over my tank. “What time is it?” I called while checking my hair in the mirror.

  “A few minutes after noon. Is that too early?” She called back.

  “No, no, no,” I said, closing my bedroom door behind me and feeling a little more put together. “But how did you know where I lived?”

  Mrs. Wiley was standing between my dining area and living room, but since my apartment is so small, they’re practically one and the same. She wore a pair of khaki colored Bermuda shorts and a peach and blue plaid sleeveless cotton collared shirt. Her red, wavy hair was pinned up on her head leaving her shoulders bare. Her makeup was perfect for a summer day and quite honestly put me to shame. I was often inclined to pass up on the
blush and mascara on weekend days.

  She carried keys in her hand, but no purse.

  In response to my question, she grinned and winked. “A little Brit told me.” She jangled her keys. “You have a very concerned friend there. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a spirit so eager to help someone to whom they weren’t connected before death. It’s the oddest thing.” She jangled the keys a second time. Weird habit she had. “I saw a coffee shop right around the corner from here. Would you like to go chat over a cool drink?”

  I really liked this woman. She seemed like more than just a good mother—she seemed very genuine. And she understood my predicament better than most people. “Sure,” I said, my mood lifting. “Let me get my wallet.”

  The Coffee Grinder was right around the corner from my apartment—less than twenty steps once you landed on the sidewalk outside of my building. I hadn’t ventured in for the longest time since I’m not a coffee drinker, but one day I wandered in, enticed by some yummy looking cookies in the window. That’s how I discovered that they made more than just coffee. My favorite drink was a tall iced raspberry lemonade, which I sipped on as Mrs. Wiley and I sat at a small table in the far corner.

  “Tell me about your spiritual history, Sophie. How long have you been able to communicate with spirits?”

  I winced, not from the question, but from the pain of a minor brain freeze. “Uh...hmm. Good question.” I thought back. Way back. “When I was two years old or so, we moved into a house over on Lily Lane. Or maybe it’s Lily Street...off of Third Street on the west side of town. From my earliest memories there, I had a friend—a little boy named Wally. For the longest time I didn’t even know he wasn’t real, but my parents kept laughing and telling everyone about my imaginary friend. As I got older and made other friends who couldn’t see Wally, I knew something was up. At some point, I don’t know, maybe when I was around six or seven—I was in grade school by then—my mom told me I needed to grow up and stop ‘playing pretend’ with Wally. And soon after that, I don’t have any other memories of him. And I don’t remember ever seeing or talking to a ghost again until I met Marmaduke in a bar.”

  “And what were those circumstances?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What was happening at the time? Were you there having a good time with friends or were you alone waiting for friends?”

  “Oh, I was alone. My boyfriend had stood me up. We had plans to meet there, then go see a movie after.”

  She nodded her head as if that meant something significant to her.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Sensitive people—people like yourself—are especially open to communication with or from those on the spirit plane during times of stress or peaked emotional activity. It’s a gift that’s usually very apparent in children, so your story about Wally doesn’t surprise me at all. Let’s put it this way: your story is common among mediums.”

  “I’m not a medium.”

  “By definition, you are. You speak with those in the spirit realm. That’s a medium.”

  “I don’t send them into the light or anything.”

  She laughed. “You’ve been watching too much television.”

  “Is there a way to turn off certain spirits, because this Moonflower Jina girl is about to send me over the deep end.”

  “Marmaduke said you know more about her. What exactly have you learned?”

  I summarized the information I’d gleaned from my drunken encounter with Shane along with what Jonathan had told me. She raised an eyebrow when I’d finished. “It sounds to me like she’s not entirely sure of who she is. She may not even know where she is. Was she a vicious and violent personality when she was alive?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve never asked the question specifically, but Ronald told me once that she was a very sweet girl. I think he would have said something.”

  She slurped the last of her iced drink. “Could you ask him? We should find out for sure. And I’d like to talk to this Jonathan. In the meantime, I should probably try to communicate with her myself.” She placed a comforting hand on mine. “Dr. Callahan shouldn’t lose a good receptionist like you because of a disturbed spirit. Monday is a busy day with the boys, but I could come by the office in the evening after their father gets home—say, seven o’clock?”

  “Do you still think a witch is involved?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll be honest, I’m not very knowledgeable in the area, but this is feeling more and more like a case I worked on several years ago, before the boys were born. I was asked to help this woman who was being haunted by a male spirit. He was very possessive of her from the moment he appeared. He wouldn’t even talk to me. I had to bring in a psychic-medium on the case to assist me. She was able to sense that someone in the vicinity was tapping into the fifth plane.”

  “Fifth plane? That sounds ominous.”

  “It’s a little complicated—has to do with planes of existence. Long story short—witchcraft was involved. She was an experienced enough psychic to sniff out right away that the neighboring house was involved. Turns out that the woman who lived there was dabbling in the arts with two friends. They accidentally raised the spirit of a young man who had died in my client’s house nearly forty years earlier. You know how baby ducks imprint on the first thing they see when they hatch? Well, that’s what he had done. The first person he saw when he returned in spirit form was my client. He imprinted on her.”

  “So what happened?”

  “It took some time, but the amateur witches, once we told them what they’d done, were able to safely reverse the spell.”

  “Safely? Is there danger involved?”

  “Can be. I’m not very versed in the subject, though. Probably should be, but with two active boys, you know...so does seven o’clock work for you?”

  “I can stick around. Thank you so much.”

  She winked and picked up her keys from the table. “Let’s hold the thank-yous until we get this thing fixed.”

  Buoyed by my chat with Mrs. Wiley, I showered, ate, and then bravely picked up the phone to call Dr. Callahan. At the very least, I should let him know that the office was in turmoil when I left on Friday. And I’ll admit, I wanted to hear his voice.

  I dialed his cell phone, then almost hung up once I heard the ringing. It went to voicemail. Almost relieved, I left a long babbling message about Moonflower’s poltergeist blowup and how sorry I was that I couldn’t do anything about it and if he needed me to do anything, just, well, give me a call.

  When I clicked off, I rapped myself on my head with the phone. “That was the stupidest message you’ve left, ever!” The phone rang in my hands during my self-admonition. The caller ID read Callahan HU. My heart rate picked up. It was that odd feeling between embarrassment and exhilaration that I vividly remembered feeling the time in the seventh grade when Andrew Rinker called me in response to a love note I’d left in his locker. Only I was way past the seventh grade. Shouldn’t I be more in control?

  “Hello,” I answered, my voice cracking. If only there were a more original way to answer the phone.

  “Sophie?”

  “Yeah. It’s me.” Oh good. More originality.

  “Did you just call?”

  “I did. Did you hear my message?”

  “No. I didn’t pick up in time, so when I saw your name on the ID, I just called you back. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Uh, but, I had a bit of a problem at the office yesterday. Moonflower went on another rampage.” I purposely left out the part about inviting Jonathan in.

  “Really? Man.” He went silent for a minute. Not a fan of awkward silences, I was about to give more information when he spoke again. “Was it bad?”

  “Pretty bad. Quite bad. Things flying everywhere. I had to leave. That’s why I’m calling. It’s probably a mess and I left in such a hurry, I didn’t set the alarm. I thought I’d go over today to clean up, but, uh, you know... wanted to make sure it was okay with
you first.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be okay?”

  “I mean, I just started working for you. It’s your office, you know, I didn’t want to just show up any old time without at least letting you know.” Of course, I didn’t actually think he’d mind. I really called just to hear his voice. I imagined his blue eyes that crinkled at the edges when he smiled. Ah geez.

  “Sure. Thanks,” he said, stirring me from my reverie.

  “Right. No problem.” Well that conversation was short and sweet. I tried to think of something else to say—to keep him talking—then remembered Mrs. Wiley and the plan for Monday night. “Uh, Dr. Callahan...” A beep in my ear stopped me short.

  “Hold on, Sophie, someone’s trying to call me...”

  Suddenly, panic set in and I decided I didn’t want to keep talking. “That’s okay,” I said quickly. “I’ll hang up, you take your call and I’ll see you Monday. Ciao!” I clicked off.

  Ciao? Did I really just say “Ciao”? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  After a few more minutes of chastising myself, I decided to follow through on the promise to go tidy up the office. Hopefully Moonflower wasn’t still at it. I washed and dried my few dirty dishes, made sure Peter Pan and Uno had food and fresh water, then scooted out the door with my keys. Marmaduke appeared just as I was starting up the car. “You weren’t planning on going alone, were you?” he asked.

  “I was pretty sure you’d show up. You always do when I need you.” I flashed him a smile. “You’re my guardian angel, Marmi.”

  “I might be a guardian,” he huffed briskly, “but I’m no angel.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE OFFICE WAS INDEED A disaster, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. It made me wonder if Moonflower had ended her tirade soon after I shot out of there. Both Marmaduke and I noticed almost immediately a different feeling to the place. The intense presence, that large, oppressive pall that she’d cast the day before was gone. It felt as if she was gone.