A Match Made in Hell

by Terri Garey

  Kelly broke down, covering her face with her hands. Her upper body shook with sobs, bandages pinning her legs to the pillows.

  I felt like a big meanie. Was I supposed to pat her shoulder or something? I missed Evan—he'd know what to do.

  In the end, I picked up a box of tissues from beside the bed and held them out. She snatched the box from my hand and helped herself to several, continuing to cry.

  I sat down awkwardly on the foot of the bed, and after a minute or two the crying jag eased. Kelly wiped at her face with the wadded tissues and lay her head back against the pillows.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I survive a major car accident and find my long-lost sister, and instead of being grateful to be alive, I'm mad at the world. I've made a mess of everything, just like always."

  I liked her much better this way, but I was still wary.

  "You seem to have a lot of friends around here," she went on, "and I'm in the middle of feeling pretty sorry for myself. Maybe I'm a little jealous."

  At this point, honesty surprised me, but it was so much easier to deal with. Jealousy was something I could understand.

  "Maybe I'm a little jealous, too." I went with the flow. "After all, you were Joe's first love, and you're still married. Little things like that can make a girl nervous."

  She sighed, giving me a watery look. "You've got nothing to be worried about. He's obviously crazy about you."

  Silence for a moment. He was, wasn't he?

  "Truce?" she offered.

  Relieved that particular issue had been dealt with, at least temporarily, I took a deep breath. "Truce."

  Kelly gave a final sniff, reaching for another Kleenex. "By the way, your friend Albert came by to see me early this morning."

  For a moment the name didn't even compute.

  "Albert?" I repeated it, in case I'd heard her wrong.

  "Older black man? Very thin, dressed in a suit?" Kelly could read the confusion on my face.

  I nodded, not certain where this was going. What was Albert doing here?

  "He said he had a message for you"—the hair on the back of my neck began to prickle—"from somebody named Granny Julep. He said to tell you 'you did good' and 'thank you.'"

  Why would Albert come here, and how could he have a message from Granny Julep?

  Granny Julep was dead.

  Uh-oh. The little chill I always associated with the phrase "someone just walked over my grave" went up my spine.

  Maybe Albert hadn't come to the hospital just to visit Kelly.

  "I gotta go," I blurted, rising from the foot of the bed.

  Kelly frowned, dabbing at her nose. "He is a friend of yours, isn't he? Seemed like a nice old man."

  "I really have to go," I said again.

  Her eyebrows shot up but she didn't argue.

  "Are you coming back?" Kelly's voice had a note of something that sounded suspiciously like hope. I wasn't ready to analyze whether it was hope that I would or hope that I wouldn't.

  "I'll be back. But right now I gotta go." And I left it at that.

  As soon as I was outside in the corridor, I started walking toward Joe's office. If there was an elderly black man named Albert Johnson somewhere in this hospital, Joe would be the one who could help me find him.

  Even if my suspicions were correct, and Albert was in the morgue.

  "Fascinating." Ivy looked elegant today in beige silk. A chunky amber necklace and earrings in shades of honey, gold, and green were the perfect accents. I'd already decided this would be my last therapy session, even though I'd grown to really like Ivy over the last few weeks.

  "So you think your twin sister has the ability to speak with spirits, just like you do?" Ivy slipped her chic little reading glasses off the tip of her nose and held them in her hand. "That would imply the trait is genetic, yet you've always maintained it was the result of your near death experience. Does this change your thinking at all?"

  "I don't know." Did it matter? "But Albert Johnson did indeed pass away yesterday morning at five-thirty A.M., in Columbia Hospital. I've seen his death certifi-cate." I hadn't found it in my heart to be sad for Albert. I knew he'd rather be with Granny Julep than anywhere else. "Maybe something happened to Kelly when she got hit on the head. Or maybe she had a near death experience, too, but just isn't talking about it." If so, she was smarter than I was. I wouldn't be sitting in a shrink's office right now if I'd kept my mouth shut.

  "Why don't you ask her?"

  Ivy had such a way of reducing the complicated down to the simple.

  "We don't seem to communicate very well. Either she's crying or she's accusing me of being an overdressed whore. Puts a kink in the whole sisterly bonding thing."

  "And how are you to her?"

  I shifted in my seat. "I've tried to be nice."

  "Hmmm."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Nothing. I'm just listening." Ivy spread her hands, and I noticed the amber ring she was wearing on her index finger. Very cool.

  "Okay, so maybe I'm not really ready to give her a chance either," I said. "But I didn't go looking for a fight."

  "Didn't you?" Ivy was more direct this time.

  "No, I didn't," I snapped. "I didn't go looking for anything. She started it."

  "Now you sound like sisters." Ivy smiled, and put her glasses back on her nose. "I think there are deeper issues at work here, Nicki."

  No shit.

  Ivy flipped through her notes, going back to the first few pages. "You were very clear about something that happened during your near death experience. Ah, here it is." She read, "'I saw the fabled "grand design" stretched out before me like an infinite spider web." Ivy looked at me over the edge of her glasses. "That means you believe there is a grand design. Given everything that's happened to you since, isn't it possible that meeting your sister is part of it?"

  She didn't wait for my answer, flipping another page and continuing to refer to her notes. "You said the voice told you to 'do unto others as you'd have them do to you.'" She smiled to herself, then pinned me with an innocent look. "Interesting that you'd meet your sister while she's injured and vulnerable, isn't it? How would you want to be treated in that situation?"

  "Now wait just a minute." I didn't like where this was going. "I'm the vulnerable one here. She rides in on her broom and tries to play on everybody's sympathies, and before I know it she steals Joe right from under me. I've watched enough Lifetime movies to know how this works."

  Ivy laughed out loud. "You're a funny girl, Nicki."

  "Lotta good that'll do me when I'm throwing rice at Joe and Kelly's second wedding," I said glumly. "She'll probably ask me to be her maid of honor just to make me suffer." I could see it all now; me dressed in acres of lavender taffeta with a big bow on the butt, Kelly radiant in white with Joe at her side.

  Ivy cocked her head, a sure sign I wasn't going to like what she had to say.

  "Have you ever heard of a 'self-fulfilling prophecy'?"

  "What am I now, an oracle?" Visions of crystal balls and black velvet reared their ugly heads.

  Ivy shook her head, still smiling. "That's not what I meant. A self-fulfilling prophecy is an outcome that happens because you believe it's going to happen. The theory is that a person becomes so invested in the outcome itself that they behave in subconscious ways that actually make the outcome occur." She gave me a bland look. "You're a smart girl. You figure it out."

  Damn, damn, and double damn.

  Ivy was good.

  "So you're saying that if I let Kelly piss me off to the point that I come off as a bitch, I could drive Joe right into her arms." Ivy's mild expression had probably come at the cost of thousands of hours of training, and thousands of dollars of somebody's money.

  Worked for me. Maybe I'd keep coming to her for another week or two.

  "Let's analyze the situation with an eye toward the future," she said. "Kelly's injuries will heal, though the ankles will be a problem for a while. I imagine she'll b
e discharged soon. She's been in the Peace Corps?"

  "Yes." I knew this was leading to something.

  "No permanent home? No significant others?"

  I ignored a stab of guilt. It wasn't my fault Peaches died. "I haven't heard of any, except the guy she left Joe for. She said she's not with him anymore."

  "Where will she go? What will she do?" Ivy's curiosity seemed genuine.

  I shrugged. "I haven't asked her. Like I said, we have a communication problem."

  "So I guess that means you haven't told her that your friend Albert Johnson was a ghost." Ivy's look was as direct as her comment. "What if she sees more spirits? What if they start popping up in her life the way they pop up in yours? For people who have a communication problem, you two might have a lot in common."

  I didn't answer.

  "You have to decide if you want a relationship with your sister, Nicki. Whether you do or you don't is entirely up to you. I'm not here to sit in judgment, merely to help you think it through." Ivy recrossed her legs. Her crocodile heels were gorgeous. "Feelings are fluid… they change. And I'm not going to lie to you. If there comes a time that you do want to get to know your sister, you're going to have to work at it. There isn't going to be an easy solution, because this isn't an easy situation."

  Nothing was easy anymore.

  What I wouldn't give for the good old days, when I laughed and flirted and drank a bit too much, not a care in the world except getting my business off the ground. Evan and the store were all I cared about.

  Well, that, plus fashion and Chinese food.

  "Doing unto others" was hard work.

  I headed straight home from my session with Ivy, having told Evan I'd be back at the store later in the afternoon. Business had been slow that morning, and he could handle things alone for a while.

  Traffic was a little heavy on Paces Ferry Road, but I didn't mind. Sitting through stoplights gave me time to think. The quiet was nice, until a voice from the backseat nearly gave me a heart attack.

  "She's a smart woman. You should listen to her."

  "Shit!" Heart pounding, I took a quick glance over my right shoulder, glad the car wasn't moving. "You scared the crap outta me!"

  Lila Boudreaux's form was vague, not as solid as she'd been the other day. I could see right through her, straight to the upholstery, which was kinda creepy. She was in shades of gray, all color muted from her face and clothes.

  "I don't have a lot of time, so you need to listen very carefully," she said hurriedly.

  "What's going on?"

  What was Lila doing here? I'd been certain she'd passed into the Light.

  "He's coming," she said. "He's coming for you both, but you mustn't let him in."

  "Who's coming?" The hair rose on my arms, tingling into goose bumps. The flow of traffic moved, then stopped. I tried to keep one eye on the rearview mirror and one eye on my driving.

  "He's a liar. Don't listen to anything he says." Lila sounded rushed, worried. "He'll strike where you're weakest… he'll go after Kelly first. Promise me you won't listen to him."

  The car in front of me flashed its taillights. I had to slam on my brakes to keep from rear-ending it. "What are you talking about? Who are you talking about? What's going on?"

  At a full stop, I twisted around, but there was no one in the backseat.

  Lila was gone.

  "Great," I muttered, turning back to my driving.

  "Show up and get all cryptic on me, then disappear. Just what I need."

  Who was Lila talking about? Was there an anonymous father out there, too? Stood to reason. Maybe Kelly and I were about to get a visit from our long-lost sperm donor daddy. Oh, goody … more relatives.

  This situation just seemed to keep getting worse. I had a sister now, a true, flesh and blood sister—who I didn't know at all. And a birth mother who was haunting me. Now I was supposed to be worried about some guy showing up and telling lies. Hardly your typical family reunion.

  I sighed, thoughts returning to Kelly. She was married to my boyfriend, and given her reaction to my pink and blue paisley outfit, obviously considered "fashion" a dirty word. The only things my sister and I had in common were that we both saw dead people, and we'd both slept with Joe.

  She sees dead people, too.

  I didn't think Kelly knew it yet. She'd seemed to accept Albert's visit at face value—a quick visit from one of my friends. Not that Albert was ever truly my friend. He'd done me a favor once, but only because it served his own purpose. I had no hard feelings, though, and I was glad to know that he didn't have any either.

  I hoped he and Granny Julep were at peace now, together in the Light.

  Kelly was in for some surprises. I couldn't help but remember how bewildering it was to wake up in the hospital to a whole new reality. It had been hard to accept that nobody saw the little Yiddish grandmother beside my bed except me.

  But I'd accepted it, and dealt with it, even if dealing with it wasn't easy.

  I popped in a Siouxsie and the Banshees CD, tired of silence and introspection. But while my fingers automatically tapped out the beat on the steering wheel, my mind was still working.

  Before I reached the streets leading to my Ansley Park neighborhood, I'd decided to be bold. There was no way around this situation with Kelly except straight through it. No matter what she thought of me, and no matter what I thought of her, we needed to deal.

  So I went home and used a little trick I'd taught myself long ago. Look like a million bucks, feel like a million bucks.

  Whatever the situation was, there was an outfit for it, whether Kelly thought so or not.

  Even though I'd already gotten dressed once that morning, I did it again. Only when my bedroom resembled the frenzied remains of a sale at Bloomingdale's was I satisfied; low-slung jeans embroidered down one leg with black thread, paired with a black off-the-shoulder blouse, sexy yet not overdone. The jeans looked great with stilettoed boots.

  Then I spiked my hair a little, playing with the pink streaks until they were just the way I liked them. I redid my makeup, heavy on the eyeliner and mascara, and used my favorite shade of dark red lipstick.

  I looked at my reflection in the mirror one final time. If Kelly and I were going to deal, then it was time to get real. This was me—"glam" and all. She could take me or leave me.

  So for the third time in three days, I went to the hospital to see my sister.

  "Hey." The television was off today, and Kelly was reading.

  "Hey," she answered. Her eyes were wary.

  I walked in and took a seat in the chair next to the bed, crossing my legs and resting my black velvet Rosenfeld bag in my lap. "I've been thinking about what you said yesterday, and you have every reason in the world to feel bitchy. You've been through a lot." Despite my sense of resolve, I wasn't ready to blurt out to Kelly that she and I could see the dead. I doubted she'd believe me, and if her experience was going to be anything like mine, she'd figure it out sooner or later anyway. I took a deep breath. "I'm really sorry about what happened to Lila. I know it has to hurt."

  "Peaches," Kelly said, laying down her book. "She wanted us to call her Peaches."

  "Okay, Peaches." Don't get sidetracked, Styx. "What I'm trying to say is I'm sorry she's gone. You barely had a chance to get to know her, and I didn't know her at all." Not entirely true, but there was no need to go into that yet. "Let's not miss the chance to get to know each other."

  The swelling on the side of Kelly's face had gone down, but she still looked like someone had used her for a punching bag. Her hair was clean and straight, brushed neatly behind her ears.

  She looked me in the eye, searching for the truth, and I met her gaze evenly.

  "The police came to see me again this morning." Hers statement threw me off. "They wanted to know if Peaches had any relatives or friends that needed to be notified. She didn't have any identification—they haven't been able to find any other next-of-kin."

  "Does she have any?" De
spite the way Kelly'd brushed off my apology, I was curious.

  "Not that I know of. She must have some friends at the insurance company where she worked. I told them about that. But Peaches lived alone. Never married, no other kids. No family, except for us."

  The way Kelly said "us" told me something. Suddenly certain what she was getting at, I answered, "Then I guess we'll have to make the funeral arrangements for her, won't we?" It was stupid of me not to have considered this sooner. I had no problem with laying the dead to rest with all the pomp and ceremony they deserved—especially if it helped them stay that way.

  Kelly blinked a couple of times, then looked away.

  "I don't have any money," she murmured. "I used the last of it on my plane ticket." She was staring at the crappy curtains again. "I was going to stay with Peaches in Savannah, and get a job there."

  I looked at the bandages on Kelly's legs and the mottling of bruises on her arms and face. A job was a long way off.

  "You can pay me back for your half of the funeral expenses when you're back on your feet." Fair was fair, and I had the distinct feeling she didn't want my charity.

  "Why?" Kelly was looking at me again. "Why would you do that? Feeling sorry for the ugly duckling loser who's been dumped on your doorstep?"

  That set me back. Kelly obviously had her own demons… and I was beginning to wonder just how well they were gonna get along with mine.

  "No," I said, very calmly. "I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do." And I meant it, every word. Maybe I was getting the hang of this "do unto others" thing, after all.

  "And you're not ugly. Or a loser." Although the loser part remained to be seen.

  In a crash course on mental skydiving, I took the biggest plunge of all.

  "Maybe you should come stay with me when you're discharged from the hospital. I have an extra room."

  Kelly's lower lip quivered, just once. "And what about Joe?"