Maybe This Time (18 page)

“Right.” Andie rubbed her forehead again at the thought of telling North to burn a body. Not that he couldn't get it done, he could get anything done, it would just be explaining it to him that would be difficult. “Let me get back to you on this.”

“Do you want me to come down there?” Flo said. “I'm very sensitive. I might be able to help. For instance, water and fire bar ghosts, they can't cross running water and they abhor fire.”

“Really,” Andie said, thinking,
My mother is a nutjob.
Except she was sitting in the only house in southern Ohio that had its own moat. And a fireplace in every room.

“I should come down there,” Flo said. “I can
help.
”

Andie thought of her mother, wandering through the house, trying to find ghosts so she could ask them where they were buried. And what their signs were. “Just wait. I'll get back to you. I promise. Thank you.”

Then she hung up and called her very last resort.

 

Southie knocked and came into North's office a little before seven that night. “Your secretary's not out there,” he said, looking back into the empty anteroom. “You know, she's a cute little thing.”

“You can't have her,” North said automatically as he scanned down his neatly printed notes. “She's intelligent and efficient and I don't want her quitting because you seduced and abandoned her.”

“Not my type,” Southie said. “Which is what I came to talk to you about. Kelly wants to go down to that house. Somebody else is calling the experts and asking questions, and she's afraid she's going to get scooped. I don't see why she shouldn't go.”

“Because it's private property and she's not invited.”

“Yes, but she would like to be invited. She would like me to invite her. I would like me to invite her. There's no reason for me not to invite her.”

Outside the office, a phone rang.

“Yes there is,” North said, ignoring the blinking light on his phone. “You're not invited.”

“Shouldn't I be able to go see my third cousins without your permission?”

“In a better world, possibly. In this one, no.”

Southie sat down. “Let's discuss this rationally.”

“Let's not,” North said, pointedly staring at the case notes he was working on.

The phone rang again.

“I have a parapsychologist, a pro at debunking fake ghosts. We could take him down there, he could find out how they're faking the hauntings, clear everything up. That would be a big help to Andie.”

North looked up. “There are no ghosts.”

“
I
know that,” Southie said reasonably. “
You
know that. But a lot of people don't know that. If Dennis can show how it's being done—”

“Dennis.”

“Professor Graff. He's the real deal, North. Teaches at the university.”

“Which one?” North said automatically.

“I don't know, one of the ones in Cleveland. You should meet this guy.”

“No, thank you. I have work to do—”

The phone had not stopped ringing, Kristin had evidently forgot to send it to voice mail before she left, so when it rang again, he picked it up and said, “Yes?”

“I need help,” Andie said, and she sounded upset, which wasn't like her.

“Go away, Southie,” North said to his brother, and then spoke into the phone. “What now? Bats in the belfry?”

Across the desk, Southie said, “Is that Andie? I should go down there. She might need help.”

North covered the receiver. “The help will not be you.” Then he went back to Andie. “What do you need?”

“Can you find out where the kids' Aunt May is buried. And maybe who used to live in this house a long time ago? And where they're buried? In England? And where the kids' aunt is buried?”

“Where they're buried?”

“Just for the hell of it,” Andie said, trying for breezy and missing. “Because we may have to dig up their bodies and burn them.”

Jesus, she's lost it.

“Buried?” Southie said. “Does she need help with a body?”

“No,” North said to him.

“No on the finding the bodies or no on the burning them?” Andie asked.

“Not you,” North said. “The ‘no' was for Southie. I'll find out what you need. Why?”

“We may have a ghost,” Andie said. “Maybe more than one.”

Southie leaned toward the desk. “You know, North, I have all my research on the house. It probably has the information in it that she needs. Let me go down there and help.”

“Andie has enough on her hands.” North spoke into the phone. “That seems, uh, far-fetched.”

“I thought so, too, until I started seeing her. Is it illegal to burn a corpse? If it's already been buried and everything?”

This is not good,
North thought. “What's going on?”

“Has she seen a ghost?” Southie said.

North glared at him. “Leave.”

“North, I can help,” Southie said.

“Leave.”

Southie sighed, clearly disappointed in his brother's shortsightedness. “You let me know if she needs help. I'll be right there. I'm staying in tonight, so if you want a nightcap, come on over.”

“She doesn't need—” North began, but Southie was already heading for the door. “—your help,” he finished as the door closed behind his brother, and then he went back to the phone. “Yes, generally speaking, it's illegal to burn a corpse. I'll call a friend in England tomorrow, it's after midnight there now.”

“He won't think you're crazy?” Andie said, and North thought,
Well, at least she knows it's crazy.

“Simon's not a run-of-the-mill guy,” he told her. “He won't bat an eye. I'll put Kristin on finding May Younger's grave tomorrow. Are you all right?”

“Yes, thank you. Sorry to sound hysterical.”

“You don't sound hysterical. The corpse burning is over the top, but otherwise you're pretty calm.”

“Ignore that part. Because mostly we're normal.” Her voice brightened, and he thought,
Somebody else came into the room.
“And thank you again for the computers. The kids love them.”

“Was it too much for Alice?”

“No. Alice uses it to play Frogger. What? No, you can't play Frogger now, it's almost bedtime. Go brush your teeth and then I'll come up and tell you the story. Yes,
now.
It's Bad Uncle.”

Who?
North thought.

“Alice wants to talk to you,” Andie said.

“Okay,” North said cautiously.

“Hello?” Alice bellowed into the phone.

North held the phone farther from his ear. “Hello, Alice.”

“We're not leaving here!”

“That's fine,” North said.

He heard the phone clunk and then Andie came back on and said, “Sorry about that.”

“No problem,” North said.

“No, you can't tell him anything else. You're just stalling. Go brush your teeth. He doesn't want to talk to you again, you were rude. Yes, yelling at people is rude. Now go upstairs and brush your teeth. No.
Upstairs now, Alice
.”

He leaned back, listening to her argue with Alice, partly intrigued by this new bossy, maternal side of her and partly still dealing with the whole body-burning thing. She'd sounded as if she really believed there was a ghost. A nanny with a vivid imagination, he could dismiss. Andie saying it was different. If somebody was playing tricks, trying to drive outsiders away—

A wail rose up on the other side of the phone, and Andie said, “I have to go beat up a kid. The information would be gratefully appreciated.”

“Of course,” North said, and then the wail in the background was cut off by the dial tone. He put the phone back in the cradle and thought,
Maybe I should go down there.

Except he was swamped with work. And Andie could take care of herself, the body-burning thing notwithstanding. She always had taken care of herself. She didn't need him.

The memory of her turning to him with that glorious smile, opening her arms to him . . .

Don't go down there.

That Andie was gone, she was marrying somebody else, she was having a really bad time and she did not need him down there, trying to get her into bed—

The memory of her rolling hot in his arms hit him again, one he'd been trying to forget for ten years. Andie, tangled in the sheets, clinging to him, shuddering under him, her mouth hot on him—

“Jesus!” he said, and got up from the desk and began to pace.

He needed to see her again. They had unfinished business. He wanted to finish it. Or start it again.

She was going to marry somebody else, so that was a problem. And she was still mad as hell about him neglecting her ten years
ago. Neither of those were insurmountable obstacles unless she really loved this other guy. Plus there was the ghost thing.

He should go down there, see for himself what was going on. Find out about the ghost. Find out about Andie. If it was over, it was over. Of course it was over, it had been over for ten years.

But if it wasn't . . .

Andie, hot in his arms again.

Oh, fuck,
he thought, and went to get that drink from Southie.

 

Andie had gone up to the nursery after forcing Alice to brush her teeth—“Because they'll rot out of your head if you don't, and you'll be ugly, and you won't be able to eat cereal because you'll have
no teeth
!”—her mind back on her own problems. If good old Aunt May showed up in her dreams that night, they were going to have a talk. In fact—

Alice came in to the nursery, her Bad Witch T-shirt-nightgown slipping down over one shoulder, her face washed and her teeth scrubbed. “I want my story.”

“Let's try something new,” Andie said, determined to get more information before Aunt May showed up to play Three Questions again. “How about tonight you tell me a story about the dancing princess.”

“I would like to dance.” Alice went back in her bedroom and came out with her Walkman, popping it open in front of the boom box on the TV. “Put this in, please.”

Andie took the tape and read “Andie's Music” on the label. “This is mine.”

“I know,” Alice said, sounding exasperated. “Put it in.”

Andie put the tape in the player and punched play, heard Cyndi Lauper start “She Bop,” and prayed that Alice wouldn't ask what “She Bop” meant.

“I like this,” Alice said. “I dance to it.”

She began to bounce around the room singing while Andie thought about Aunt May.

The thing was, May didn't seem malevolent. Young, pushy, a little spoiled, but not . . . horrible.

The song ended and Alice said, “Aren't you going to dance?”

“What kind of music does the dancing princess dance to?” Andie said, and then “Somebody's Baby” started, and Andie thought,
Oh, hell
.

“Did you used to dance to this?” Alice said, and Andie closed her eyes and remembered North walking across the floor of that dark bar to her the night they met, pulling her close, whispering in her ear as he moved against her, and all the nights they'd danced to it after that, in their attic bedroom.

“Yes,” she said. “I danced to this. I danced to this a lot.”

“Show me,” Alice said, holding out her arms, “show me a
real
dance,” and Andie was so surprised that Alice was reaching for her that she went.

Alice's little hand was cool in hers, and there was a moment when Andie first took it that Alice went still, and then she said,
“Show me!”
and Andie showed her the basic box step, figuring that Alice would like the symmetry of that. Alice added a hip bounce which improved it tremendously, and then Andie showed her how to twirl under somebody's arm which Alice loved, and then they just danced around the room while Alice sang, “Somebody's baby,” over and over because she didn't know the words yet.

“Play that again,” Alice said when it was done, and Andie thought,
Jeez, twist the knife, kid,
but she rewound the tape, and they danced again, Alice demanding many twirls, breaking off to bop by herself for a while but always coming back and holding up her arms for more, which charmed the hell out of Andie, singing, “Gonna shine tonight,” with fervor.

“Again,” Alice said, but Andie let it go to “I've Got a Rock 'n' Roll Heart,” which had its own memories since North had been a
huge Clapton fan. She and Alice danced wildly around the nursery, the box step and May forgotten for the moment, Alice singing like mad, completely happy since the first time Andie had met her.

She looks relaxed,
Andie thought, holding on to Alice's hand as she flailed happily, doing what was basically the Snoopy dance. She'd been so tense and unhappy at the beginning of the month, but now she was laughing. Maybe things were getting better, maybe—

Carter opened the door, and Alice said, “Come in. We're
dancing
.” He shook his head and Andie said on impulse, “Someday there will be girls in your life and they like to dance. Get in here.”

He rolled his eyes, but before he could leave, Alice ran forward and grabbed his hand. “Come
on,
you
need
to dance.”

He let her pull him in, clearly in hell but also clearly unable to say no to Alice.

“It's easy,” Andie said, hitting the pause button on the boom box as the song ended. “Look. This is the box step. You move in a square . . .”

She stood beside him and made him take the four steps—“Don't move on the diagonal, trace the box”—and Alice did it with him, saying, “See?
See?
” He frowned, concentrating, clearly out of his element, but once Carter understood something, Andie had learned, he didn't stop until he mastered it. Once he had it, she said, “Okay, now with a partner, and you lead.” She put his hand on her waist and he stiffened, and she realized that was the first time she'd ever touched him.
Gotta spend more time with Carter,
she thought, and took his other hand. “Lead with your left,” she said, and as he stepped forward, she stepped back, following him, and they walked through the step until Alice hit play and “Man in Love” came on, and Andie remembered North barreling down I-71, singing it at the top of his lungs. It seemed impossible now that he had ever done that, North Archer did not sing, but he had, and she'd just laughed and loved him. She'd been with him all that time, and she hadn't even realized what it had meant back then, that he'd sing like that.