“I can never sleep after a day like this,” he lied. “So tell me about your ghost.”
She went shy again, looking away.
“Really,” he said. “Share the story with me. I’ve done nothing but hear myself talk these past few days. Listening to somebody else would be a welcome change.”
That wasn’t a lie and perhaps she could tell, because she gave him a small, grateful smile when her gaze returned to him.
“Do you believe in what you write?” she asked after a moment.
That was a familiar question from this and other tours and he didn’t have to think about an answer, the rote response immediately springing to mind. He left it unspoken and traded it for a more truthful answer.
“It depends on the source,” he usually said. “I know for certain that the world’s a strange and mysterious place with more in it than most of us will ever see or experience, so I can’t immediately dismiss elements that are out of the ordinary simply because I haven’t experienced them. But by the same token, I also don’t immediately accept every odd and unusual occurrence when it’s presented to me because the world’s also filled with a lot of weird people with very active imaginations. The trouble is, unless you experience what they have, it’s difficult to come to any definitive conclusion. I will say that, for all my predilection toward the whimsical and surreal, empirical evidence makes a strong argument.”
What he said to Mary was, “Yes. It might not necessarily be true for me, or for you, but if it’s in one of my books, it’s there because it’s true for someone.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Things are either true or they’re not.”
“I think it’s more a matter of perception. Just because ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the world has decided that something like a ghost or fairy spirit can’t exist, doesn’t mean they’re right.”
“Do you really believe that?”
He nodded.
“That’s not what you said on the TV interview this morning.”
Christy smiled. “You watch that show?”
“Only for the how-to segments.”
“But a pumpkin carving contest aimed at speed rather than quality?”
She laughed. “Come on. Don’t tell me you didn’t think it was funny.”
“This is true. …”
Christy had had a hard time keeping a straight face while sitting in the green room and watching that segment on the monitor. Between the host and the three guest pumpkin carvers, they’d made such a mess that it was only through the director’s clever manipulation of camera angles that his own interview hadn’t appeared to be filmed in the disaster zone it had been. There’d been pulp and seeds everywhere, squishing underfoot wherever you stepped, and he was still surprised that no one had been hurt with all those flashing knives. He’d left the studio with the smell of pumpkin pulp lingering in his nose for hours afterwards.
“So why do you say what you do when you’re being interviewed?” she asked. “I mean, if you really believe in this stuff …”
“I don’t want to be dismissed as a crackpot,” he told her, “because then they’ll also dismiss the stories out of hand. This way, if I allow them to see that I have my own healthy skepticism, the stories get to stand on their own. We can talk about them, ad nauseum, but in the end, the words will remain. The stories will be there and taken more for their own merit, rather than being the product of some obviously deluded individual.”
“Do you really think they get a fair shake because of that?”
“A fairer shake,” Christy said.
She smiled. “You still talk like an author, you know.”
“And you still haven’t told me about your ghost.”
She hesitated a moment longer, twisting her finger around one of the escaped locks of her short hair. The movement brought a stronger waft of rose hips to him and he realized it was her perfume, not tea he’d smelled earlier. From the office behind her, the CD player changed discs and Ednaswap began singing about a safety net.
“Well, the way I heard it,” Mary said, “she was the daughter of the hotel’s owner. Really talented and artistic, but unfocused. She could have been a painter or a poet. A singer, a dancer, a writer, a photographer. She was good at everything she tried and she tried a lot of different things.”
“But?” Christy prompted when Mary fell silent.
“Her father wanted her to work in the hotel. She was all the family he had and he refused to let her go out into the world and ruin her life trying to make a living with anything so chancy. She could have just taken off, I suppose, but it was a different time. A teenage girl didn’t do that in those days. Or maybe she simply wasn’t brave enough. So she tried to be both. Dutiful daughter, working with her father in the family business, and the free spirit who wanted to create and experience and never settle down. But it didn’t—couldn’t—work.”
“I knew it was going to be a sad story,” Christy murmured.
“It gets sadder.”
He nodded. “They usually do.”
“One day,” Mary went on, “she couldn’t deal with it anymore, so she killed off the free spirit inside her. She called up an image of Death in her mind, you know, scythe, black hood and all—not too imaginative, but then she was trying to kill her imagination, wasn’t she? So cowled Death came at her bidding and cut the free spirit out of her soul and together they buried the poor little dead thing—figuratively, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Over time she pretty much forgot about that spirit lying somewhere, buried deep in her memory, and the odd thing is, she did come to feel better. There was no resentment toward her father or the hotel. When she did think of that girl, she remembered her as someone she’d once known, rather than someone she’d once been. But the funny thing is—the ghostly thing—is that from time to time guests will see that free spirit roaming through the halls.”
“But the woman never does?”
Mary shook her head.
“An unusual ghost,” Christy said.
“Mmm.”
“And what do you think is keeping her here?”
“Well, not vengeance,” Mary said with a small laugh.
“Why not?”
“Well, if she was that sort of a person, she’d never have let herself be shut out of her life the way she was, would she? I think she’s just, like you said, sad. In mourning for everything she lost. She can’t go on because she never got to find out who she could be. Or maybe she just wants some recognition.”
“But not from the guests.”
“No. I think it’d have to be from the woman who killed her.” She cocked her head to look at him. “Have you ever heard of a ghost like that?”
Christy shook his head. “But that doesn’t mean she’s not real.”
“To me.”
“And whoever else has seen her.” Christy paused a moment, then asked, “I assume you have seen her?”
“I think everyone who’s in this hotel for any length of time gets to see her. But most of them don’t know she’s a ghost.”
“Now I’m really intrigued.”
Mary smiled. “Use it in your next book. ‘Course, I guess you need an ending to be able to do that.”
“No, I just tell the stories the way I find them, anecdotal, fragmentary or complete.” He regarded her for a moment. “You only know what I write from that TV show.”
“I don’t get into bookstores a lot. Pretty much all I read is what people leave behind in their rooms. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I think there are far more people in the world who haven’t read me than there are those who have. Or who even know who I am.” He smiled. “And frankly, most of the time I’m happy to leave it that way.”
“When aren’t you?”
“Oh, when I’m looking at some rare first edition that I can’t buy because I only have this month’s rent in my bank account.”
“I hear being rich isn’t all it’s cracked up to
be.”
“Did you ever hear a rich person say that?” Christy asked.
“Only when they’re trying to pass as one of the proletariat.”
“Now who sounds like a writer?”
Before she could respond, another of the hotel’s guests approached the desk, asking if there were any messages for him.
“Thanks for the conversation, Mary,” Christy said as she turned away to look.
“You, too,” she told him over her shoulder. “Sleep well.”
The next morning, when Christy went to the front desk to check out, he had a copy of one of his books in hand. He doubted Mary would still be on shift this morning, but thought he could at least leave a copy for her with whoever was on duty.
The morning clerk could have been Mary’s mother—she even had the same name on her nametag, but there the resemblance ended. She was middle-aged, forty-something—which made her roughly his own age, he thought ruefully. Funny how you forget that you grow older along with everyone else. Medium height, not quite overweight, attractive in a weary sort of a way, short brownish-blonde hair that had started to outgrow its last cut, dressed in a skirt and blazer that appeared a little outdated.
Her taste in music, judging from the faint wisp of sound drifting out of the office behind her, ran more to the classics. Something by Paganini was playing. Solo violin. The smell of her coffee made him wish he’d ordered some from room service, instead of waiting till he got to the radio station where he was doing his first interview this morning.
“Does everyone working here have the same name?” Christy asked.
The woman regarded him with confusion.
“Your nametag,” he said. “It has the same name as was on the one the clerk was wearing last night.”
Now he wished he’d never brought it up. Maybe they only had the one nametag and shared it around.
“Jeremy was wearing my nametag?” she asked. She said it in the same tone she might have used if this Jeremy had been manning the desk while wearing one of her dresses.
“No,” Christy said. “It was a young woman. Blonde hair, sort of punky looking—but in a nice way,” he quickly added when the woman’s frown deepened.
“We don’t have anybody like that working here,” she said. “The clerk on duty last night would have been Jeremy.”
“And he’d have been at the desk here the whole time?”
“Unless it was particularly quiet. Then he might have been studying in the office in back.”
Christy could see a portion of the office from where he stood. He returned his attention to the woman who was regarding him with some measure of suspicion now.
“Studying,” he said.
“He’s a student from the university,” she explained.
Christy nodded. He knew now where this was going.
“Does your father own this hotel?” he asked. “Indulge me,” he added as her look of suspicion deepened. “Please.”
“My father passed away a few years ago. I’m the present owner.”
“I’m sorry,” Christy said. “Not that you’re the owner, of course, but…”
“I understand,” the woman said. “Can you tell me what this is all about?”
Christy shook his head. “Not really. It seems I had the most vivid dream last night.”
The woman regarded him expectantly.
“I should just check out,” he said.
He studied her, surreptitiously, while she completed the necessary paperwork. He could see the traces of the girl she’d been, now that he knew to look. Could almost smell the rose hips of the younger Mary’s perfume.
“This is for you,” he said, handing her the book when their business was done.
The suspicion returned, deepening once more when she opened it to the title page and read the inscription.
For Mary,
May you finally be recognized for who you are.
Christy Riddell
“I don’t understand,” she said lifting her gaze from the book to meet his. “How could you know my name before you came down to check out? And what does this mean?”
She was pointing at the inscription.
Christy could only shrug.
“It’s a long, sad story,” he said. “But we met once, a long time ago. I doubt you remember—you must meet so many people in this business.”
She nodded.
“The inscription refers to who you were then—when we met. You told me a ghost story.”
She looked down at the book again, read the title. Ordinary Ghosts, Hidden Hauntings.
“Like these?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, it was a rather extraordinary ghost story, pulled out of a rather sad situation that happens more often than any of us likes to admit.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. But nothing I can say will change anything, or make it any clearer. I’m sorry if I’ve troubled you in any way.”
He nodded and turned away, walking across the lobby. He paused at the exit.
“Good-bye, Mary,” he said. “I hope you enjoy the book.”
“Well, I’ll certainly give it a try,” the woman behind the desk told him.
Christy hadn’t been talking to her, but he gave her a smile. He didn’t get a response from the other Mary, but he hadn’t been expecting one. Nodding again, he left the hotel and hailed a cab. There were only two interviews this morning, then a signing at a bookstore. Plenty of time to think about choices made and what could come of them. Too much time, really.
But then that was what life is all about, isn’t it? The choices we make and how the people we are can be left behind when we make those choices because they’re no longer a part of our story. For many, not even the words remain to remind us of them. There are only all those ghosts of who we were, wandering around for anyone to see. Except ourselves.
Because we rarely see our own ghosts, do we?
As he settled in the back seat of his cab he found himself wondering about his own ghosts, how many there were, haunting the places he’d once been, those products of choices he’d made that he would never meet, telling stories he would never hear.
Many Worlds Are Born Tonight
I went down to the Beanery that night, you know, that cafe down in the old factory district by the canal that’s more like a warehouse than a coffee bar. Big enough for a rave, but the wildest the music gets is Chet Baker or Morcheeba. Very hip place, at least this week. Nonsmoking, of course, but everything is these days. Open concept with lots of woodwork: pine floors, rustic rafters and support beams. No real general lighting, only pockets, low-hanging overhead lights illuminating tables with groups of people in earnest conversation, drinking low-fat lattés and decaf espressos, go figure. Kind of like a singles bar without the action, but I like it for that. For the anoyminity it allows me. So I’m surprised when I catch a name I haven’t heard in years.
“Hey, Spyboy.”
It takes me back to New Orleans, Mardi Gras. Spyboys are part of the Big Chiefs’ entourages during the annual parade, the Mardi Gras “Indians” who scout ahead for the other tribes on the march and just generally make a lot of mischief. I did my bit in the parades back in those days, but the name stuck because of another job I held before I retired: digging up dirt for the Couteau family. I’m good at secrets—keeping my own, uncovering those that belong to others. I guess I’d still be there, but I took exception to the use of my expertise. I don’t mind tracking down deadbeats and the like, but it turned out that people died because of information I dug up. When I found out how the Couteaus were using me, I couldn’t live with it, but you don’t say good-bye to people like this.
See, I grew up wanting to be one of the good guys. Call me naive. When I realized that wasn’t happening, when I understood exactly what I’d fallen into, I had no choice but to disappear. That entailed getting out of town and staying out. Maintaining a low profile once I was gone and, most important, keeping my mouth shut.
So when I hear that name, one part of me wants to keep walking, but curiosity’s always been a serious weakness. I turn to see what part of my past has finally caught up to me.
I don’t recognize him right away. The lighting’s bad where he’s sitting, alone at a table, nursing a chai tea latté. Nondescript—your basic average joe, medium height, brown hair, brown eyes, no distinguishing features. The kind of man your gaze just slides over because there’s nothing there to hold it. He’s wearing a dark jacket and turtleneck.
“I heard you were dead,” he says.
It’s the voice I remember. That rasp, like it’s working its way through a hundred years of abusing cigarettes and whiskey. Sammy Hale. Used to run numbers for the Couteaus until he got caught dipping his hand where it shouldn’t. Not once, but twice. I check out his right hand where the fingers are cut off at the knuckles. It’s Sammy all right.
I give him a shrug.
“I could say the same thing about you,” I tell him.
“I got better,” he says. Smiles.
It’s enough to hook me, pull the line taut, then reel me in. He knows my weakness. I take one of the empty chairs at his table.
“Sounds like a story,” I say.
“Maybe. You still in the information business?”
I shake my head, then touch a finger to my temple. “This is where it stays now. Can’t sell anything anymore because that’s like saying, ‘Here I am.’ But you know me.”
He nods. “Yeah, you always had to know.”
“So how’d you survive?” I ask.
Again that smile. “I didn’t.”
I hear a lot of stories, mostly from street people these days, and they’ll tell you any damn thing. What intrigues me right now is that I remember Sammy from the old days. The one thing he never had was much imagination. Why do you think he got caught ripping off the Couteaus, not once, but twice?
I’m good at waiting. You learn more if you don’t ask questions. But I can tell that’s not how Sammy wants to play this out.
“So what happened?” I ask.