Chance of a Ghost (7 page)

We spent a good number of Saturdays together at his friend Sy Kaplan’s paint and hardware store, Madison Paint. (The fact that Madison Paint was not in the town of Madison, but in Asbury Park, was irrelevant; Sy had imported the name from his first location, which also wasn’t in Madison, but was on Madison Avenue in Irvington. But that’s another story.) Dad loved to hang out in the back room, where Sy kept a pot of coffee going all the time, and talk to the other contractors, mostly painters, who came through. They traded stories and complained about customers, but they treated me like a member of the tribe, never like a little girl. But I think Dad must have said something about curbing their language, because I very rarely heard any “inappropriate” words from any of the men.

Most Saturdays would be spent there unless Dad had a major project going, in which case I’d go along with him to the site in question. Mom didn’t object, I guess because I was home with her after school every day during the week, so she saw this as Dad’s time to get to know his daughter. Not to mention, time for her to get things done by herself.

“He has his reasons,” Mom responded. “He won’t tell me what they are, but I know it’s hurting him not to talk to you.”

I didn’t want to tear up and complain because I couldn’t speak to my dead father. Everybody loses a loved one sooner or later, and the vast majority never hear from that person again. I had no right to whine. So I sucked in my lips and bit them a little, then turned toward Mom.

“This isn’t about me,” I said. “It’s about you. So you’ve been seeing Dad. I take it this has been going on for some time.”

Mom nodded. “Almost since he passed on,” she admitted. She’d never been specific about how often she’d seen
him or how she could summon Dad, and now I was kicking myself for letting that go all this time. But the lip biting was helping, so I did it again.

“Why are you telling me about it now?” I asked.

“Because now your father is missing, and I want you to help find him,” Mom said.

Three

Melissa was not pleased about being asked to leave the
conversation (and the room), but I had no idea which way this scene was going to play out, and I didn’t want to have to explain it to my almost-eleven-year-old just yet. But she is an intelligent, wise girl, mature beyond her years, so it took only about ten minutes of whining and cajoling before she agreed to go up to her room.

I suggested the ghosts scram as well, but Mom said they should stay, as what she had to say concerned them, too. Which only puzzled me about six times more than I was already puzzled, which was plenty puzzled. Even if this was about Dad, what did that have to do with Paul and Maxie?

“Okay, spill,” I told Mom once Melissa was safely out of the room. “What have you been hiding from me?”

Mom, who is usually anything but a shrinking violet, sat down. “You have any beer?” she asked.

I do keep wine and beer in a mini-fridge (locked, because
I don’t have a liquor license and there is a minor living on the premises) in the game room, but that wasn’t the point. A
beer
?
My
mother? These two things had never gone together before in my memory. I walked silently to the fridge, worked the combination on the lock and took out a light beer, which I handed to Mom.

She looked at the label. “Nothing imported?” she asked.

I shook my head incredulously. Mom shrugged, opened the bottle of beer and took a rather long pull on it without wiping off the mouth first.

“Okay,” I told the person on the barstool, “who are you, and where are you keeping my mother?”

Paul and Maxie hovered near the ceiling, staring at Mom in fascination.

“Oh, don’t be silly, Alison,” my mother said. “I’m your mother.” Then she burped, but at least she looked horrified at her lapse in manners.

I realized that whatever she had to say must be very difficult, so I softened my voice. “All right,” I said. “So what is it you need to tell me, Mom?”

She took another swig of beer, seemingly to bolster her courage. “I’ve been holding this inside, and it’s been very painful,” she said. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you.”

“Didn’t tell me
what
?” That might have come out a touch more irritated than I’d meant it, but Mom didn’t react.

“I’ve been…seeing your father,” Mom squeaked out, barely audible.

I had sort of known that; this wasn’t news. “What exactly do you
mean
, you’re seeing Dad? Hasn’t that been sort of on and off since he…since he passed away?” I’ve found, especially since meeting Paul and Maxie, that the word
dead
is considered somewhat upsetting. Personally, I don’t see how
passed away
is any better, but my philosophy amounts to “don’t upset the dead people.” Sorry: “the passed away people.”

“Of course,” Mom said, her tone indicating that were I
among the tools in the shed, there might be some sharper than me. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t still see each other.” Given the company in the room, I couldn’t argue the point.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try. “Okay, so you’re seeing him. That’s not an emergency, is it?” But for reasons I couldn’t identify, my stomach was getting just a little queasy, and Mom’s rather horrified expression wasn’t helping matters much.

“Now, Alison,” she said, her tone a trifle pained for my unfortunate ineptitude, “I know you’re not able to connect with the spirits the way Melissa and I can, but you have to come to terms with that. I’m able to…relate to your father in ways that you can’t.”

That brought up images I would have paid cash money to erase, so I switched gears, perhaps with less smoothness than the average Ferrari. “I’m not really able to see him at all,” I said, a little unintended bitterness in my tone. “He never comes to see
me
.”

Mom looked down at the mouth of the beer bottle. “I know,” she said. “I don’t understand that. He loves you so much.”

“He’s got a funny way of showing it.”

I’ll admit it; I was hurt. If there was one advantage to my newfound ability to see spooks, I had thought, it would be the opportunity to renew my relationship with Dad. But aside from that one momentary sighting only a few weeks after I “met” Paul and Maxie, I’d never laid eyes on my father’s spirit. I’d never had a conversation with him since the waning days in his hospital room.

Nobody had ever called me “baby girl” again.

My father and I shared a special bond when he was alive. He called himself a handyman, although he was closer to a building contractor, and taught me everything I know about home maintenance and construction. I wouldn’t have dared buy the Victorian at 123 Seafront and converted it
into a guesthouse if Dad hadn’t brought me up to understand the inner workings of a building—“so you’ll never have to rely on some man to do it for you.”

We spent a good number of Saturdays together at his friend Sy Kaplan’s paint and hardware store, Madison Paint. (The fact that Madison Paint was not in the town of Madison, but in Asbury Park, was irrelevant; Sy had imported the name from his first location, which also wasn’t in Madison, but was on Madison Avenue in Irvington. But that’s another story.) Dad loved to hang out in the back room, where Sy kept a pot of coffee going all the time, and talk to the other contractors, mostly painters, who came through. They traded stories and complained about customers, but they treated me like a member of the tribe, never like a little girl. But I think Dad must have said something about curbing their language, because I very rarely heard any “inappropriate” words from any of the men.

Most Saturdays would be spent there unless Dad had a major project going, in which case I’d go along with him to the site in question. Mom didn’t object, I guess because I was home with her after school every day during the week, so she saw this as Dad’s time to get to know his daughter. Not to mention, time for her to get things done by herself.

“He has his reasons,” Mom responded. “He won’t tell me what they are, but I know it’s hurting him not to talk to you.”

I didn’t want to tear up and complain because I couldn’t speak to my dead father. Everybody loses a loved one sooner or later, and the vast majority never hear from that person again. I had no right to whine. So I sucked in my lips and bit them a little, then turned toward Mom.

“This isn’t about me,” I said. “It’s about you. So you’ve been seeing Dad. I take it this has been going on for some time.”

Mom nodded. “Almost since he passed on,” she admitted. She’d never been specific about how often she’d seen
him or how she could summon Dad, and now I was kicking myself for letting that go all this time. But the lip biting was helping, so I did it again.

“Why are you telling me about it now?” I asked.

“Because now your father is missing, and I want you to help find him,” Mom said.

Four

It took a while for that to sink in. “Missing?” I asked. “How
can a dead man be missing?”

The private investigator in Paul had awakened, leaning forward and suddenly all attention. He had clearly decided to take over the “client interview.” “Slow down, Loretta,” he said to Mom in a soothing tone. He’d once told me that saying “slow down” was better than “calm down,” which only got people more agitated. “Tell me what’s happened.”

His tactic obviously had the effect he’d desired: Mom exhaled audibly, looked in what can be seen of Paul’s eyes (ghosts are only sort-of opaque) and put a businesslike expression on her face.

“I’ve been seeing Jack every Tuesday for a few years,” she said. “He’d appear in the house, like clockwork, right around eleven in the morning. Once in a while I could sort of call him, you know, talk to him aloud and he’d hear me if he was close enough and then show up. That’s what happened the night he came to help Alison.”

I’d been so caught up in this convoluted tale that it hadn’t occurred to me until now: “Wait. You were talking to someone when I was in your house today. And it wasn’t your friend and it wasn’t on your cell phone. If that wasn’t Dad, who was it?” I asked my mother.

“I’m
getting
to that,” she answered. “I’m more worried about your father right now.” What did
that
mean?

I didn’t get a chance to push the point. “Why do you think your husband is missing?” Paul butted in and asked Mom.

“He hasn’t shown up for the past three weeks,” Mom said. “And believe me, he never missed a week. I’d go to bed extra early on Monday nights because I knew he’d be there on Tuesdays, and I’d need my rest.”

“Mom,” I reminded her, “your daughter is in the room.”

“Oh, Alison,” she scolded. “Really.”

Paul did his best to steer the conversation back to the primary topic. “Your husband, Loretta. You say he stopped showing up on Tuesdays. Isn’t there any other explanation? Could he have forgotten or simply been distracted?”

“By what?” I asked. “He’s been dead for five years.” Then I remembered that I was in the presence of other similarly deceased people. “Sorry.”

As had become practice, they ignored me. Mom’s eyes narrowed as she thought, and she shook her head negatively at Paul.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “You don’t know Jack like I do. He’d never forget and he’d never not show up without telling me.”

“Still, that doesn’t really classify him as ‘missing,’” I noted, having decided to join ’em rather than try to beat ’em. “Dad wouldn’t ever leave without saying where he was going, but if he got caught up in something, he could lose track of time.”

“There’s more,” Mom said, once again casting her eyes toward her brewski and looking uncomfortable. “I made the acquaintance of another gentleman.”

“You’re two-timing Dad?” It slipped out. Or more like it forced itself out at warp speed.

Mom looked up sharply. “Of course not!” she barked, her eyes flashing. “It never got…serious. We’re just friends.”

“Wait,” Maxie said. I took in a deep breath, because anything Maxie was likely to interject here was not apt to be helpful. “This other guy…”

“His name is Lawrence,” Mom said. “Lawrence Laurentz. He’s the one you heard me talking to this afternoon, Alison.”