Dying for You

  “I guess you’re right,” Cathy sighed, sitting up. Jack got up at once and went to the bathroom. Nikki heard the sound of running water, and then he came back out holding a full glass. “Thanks.”

  “Drink it all,” he told her. “You don’t want to become dehydrated in this heat.”

  “Jerks! I’m in the room, you know. What, you’re all done mourning now?” Although, the thought of Cathy crying nonstop for a week (a week?) was sort of dismaying. Especially if she was el preggo. “Can you really not see me?”

  She stuck her arm through Jack’s head. He didn’t notice. Didn’t even get a cold chill, like in the movies. And the guy had been a ghost himself for, like, eighty years.

  She thought of The Sixth Sense, the most horrifying movie in the history of cinema. She had been mesmerized. That poor kid. Poor Bruce Willis.

  But, what was worse than seeing dead people?

  Not being seen at all.

  “Jerks,” she said again. It was lame, but it was all she could think of.

  “Let’s go back to the lodge, see if they found—if they found anything.”

  “You mean,” Nikki said, “if they’ve stumbled across my rotting corpse.”

  Jack got up again. “You stay here and try to relax.” He rested his hand on her annoyingly flat stomach, and Nikki thought, The true, awful irony of death: I still have cellulite. “I’ll go check.”

  “Hurry back,” Cathy practically begged.

  “I will. Rest.”

  He walked through (yeesh!) Nikki, making her windmill her arms in surprise, opened the door, and was gone.

  She rushed to the bed. “Cathy! Cath, it’s me.” She waved frantically as her friend sighed and gulped and sniveled. “Come on, we’re—we were—best friends. There’s a bond! There was a bond. Argh. Fucking past tense. You’ve got to see me.”

  Cathy groped for a tissue and noisily blew her nose.

  “See me!” Nikki yelled. “Dammit! People are scared shitless of ghosts! You’re supposed to see my bad dead self and freak out!”

  Cathy sighed and stared at the ceiling, tears leaking from her big blue eyes and puddling in her ears.

  “Okay, remember this? I was too tall for cheerleading and you were too lame, but we learned the cheers anyway.”

  She threw her arms up in a V for victory.

  Cannon, Cannon, loyal are we.

  Red and black we’ll shoot you to victory.

  So fight fight fight our motto will be.

  Rah-rah-rah and sis-boom-bah!

  Fight fight fight fight!

  Go for the red and black!

  She leapt in the air, limbs akimbo. “Yaaaaaaayyyyy!”

  Cathy cried harder. Not that Nikki could blame her.

  “Dammit,” she said, and plopped into the chair recently vacated by Jack. She had so much momentum she slipped through it, through the floor, and a good four feet into the ground, which really gave her something to swear about.

  Chapter 4

  She had prowled every inch of Little Cayman (or maybe haunted was the word) and except for the resort guests and the iguanas, there was nothing but sand and nauseatingly gorgeous beaches.

  Nothing had changed. Cathy had been crying on and off, Jack had been stoic, the cook had produced magnificent meals, and the coast guard boats kept chugging up and down the beaches, sometimes very close to the dry sand (she was amazed the boats didn’t beach themselves, like whales), sometimes little dots on the horizon.

  Morbidly, Nikki wondered how much longer they’d search. And where the hell was her body, anyway? Probably in the gut of some damn great white.

  She had tried talking, yelling, screeching, cheering, walking through them—nothing. Nobody else on the island could see her, either.

  Was this it? No bright light? No afterlife? Just stuck watching her best friend’s misery? Even Patrick Swayze got the bright light, after a while. This—this was unbearable. She had never dreamed being dead would be so bad, but watching your friends suffer was hell.

  Due to the tragedy of her untimely death, she, Cathy, and Jack were the only guests at Pirate’s Point. Everyone else couldn’t get back to the small airport fast enough. Nobody wanted to go scuba diving, either—and who could blame them? Everyone was afraid of stumbling across her body.

  The iguanas, usually fed fruit by indulgent guests, were getting bad off—certainly Cathy and Jack weren’t in the mood to toss grapes at them. The boats stayed tied up; the snorkeling equipment stayed in the shed.

  If this went on much longer, the tiny resort would really be hurting.

  But Jack and Cathy wouldn’t go home. Nikki had no idea how to feel about that. Relieved? Annoyed? If they left, she’d be by herself. But they couldn’t keep hanging around Little Cayman until…until. That was just…

  She walked through the south wall of cabin 3 just in time to see a naked Jack climb on top of her (naked) best friend. She had a horrifying glimpse of hairy ass and Cathy’s pale flailing limbs before she gagged and lurched back out the wall. Not fast enough, unfortunately, to drown out Cathy’s “Jack, Jack! Do it now!” and Jack’s rumbly “Ah, my sweet fragrant darling…”

  “Nice!” she hollered. “I’m dead and you two are boning—again! Or celebrating life. Whatever. Still, take a breather once in a while, willya? It’s the middle of the day. Besides, how many times can you get her pregnant in a—a—month?”

  How long had it been? Time, she had discovered in death, was a slippery concept. The sun raced across the sky, followed by the moon, and although it only felt like a couple of days, Cathy was already showing.

  She decided, trudging back to the lodge, that as fine as Jack was, if she never saw his hairy crack again, she’d be happy forever.

  Fragrant darling?

  She put the thought out of her mind, quick.

  Chapter 5

  “I think we should call a medium.”

  It was chilly in the small hut—the wall unit was going full blast to combat the tropical heat outside—and Cathy pulled a blanket over her legs. “A medium what?”

  “A psychic.”

  “To help us find the body.” It wasn’t a question. Jack had been on the spirit plane for almost a century; it was natural that he would think of such a thing. “Maybe—talk to Nikki?”

  “Maybe. It’s something, anyway. Better than waiting for…better than waiting.”

  She stroked his long thigh. “I guess it sounds like a silly complaint, but three months in paradise is too much. And it’s no fun without Nikki here.”

  “Thanks,” Jack said dryly.

  “I’m sorry, babe. You know what I mean. Everything’s, you know, unfinished. I feel like I’m in limbo.”

  Unseen by both, Nicki stuck her head through the wall and yelled, “You feel like you’re in limbo?”

  “Yes,” Jack agreed as if he hadn’t been interrupted. Which, in a way, he hadn’t.

  “Do you know who to call?”

  Nikki popped back in. “Oh, we’re in a rerun of Ghostbusters now? ‘Who you gonna call? Nikki-busters!’ ”

  “I mean,” Cathy continued, “how do you find a psychic?”

  “I know exactly who to call—not the medium, but the medium’s intermediate. She can put us in touch. The boy would be”—Jack’s dark eyes narrowed in thought—“well into his thirties. Assuming he’s still in the business.”

  “One way to find out,” Cathy said, and got up to get dressed.

  THREE DAYS LATER

  Nikki was gratified to see Jack and Cathy come out of their cabin after the sun had set. She didn’t want to risk interrupting another (gag) intimate moment and besides, she had high hopes. It was a full moon (again) and if she knew her spooky movies and Ouija board fiction, it was a great time for spirits to speak to the living.

  “Guys!” she said, following them to the lodge. Their footprints sank deep in the sand; she, Nikki observed glumly, left none. “It’s still me. Still Nikki. Don’t you think it’s about time you noticed me? You kn
ow, if you can stop having sex for five minutes.”

  The lodge van, a tasteful serial-killer gray, pulled into the drive, and her friends hurried to meet it.

  That was weird. There hadn’t been any new guests since—well.

  “Let’s try a new one,” she said, trailing after them like a puppy. “You’ve gotta remember this one, Cath. We worked on our walkovers for six months to get it right. Remember? We went to Michigan with my folks that time and memorized it? Cath? Remember?”

  The van’s engine cut off, and the driver and a lone passenger got out. Nikki, focused on her friends, ignored them.

  She punched a fist through the air and cheered:

  Let’s give a cheer for dear old Traverse

  Come on and boost that score sky high

  And let the north woods ring with glory

  For the tales of Central High.

  She took another breath (force of habit), made a V for victory, clapped, and continued.

  And watch out you who stand against us

  For we’re out to win tonight.

  We’re gonna add to the glory

  Of the—

  “God, will you stop making that noise?” the passenger said, clearly irritated. “I’ve already got a headache from all the plane rides.”

  “What?” Cathy said.

  “What?” Nikki said.

  Chapter 6

  He was a tall drink, at least six feet five, and thin—too thin, like he forgot to eat regularly. He had a headful of blond, shoulder-length waves—the moonlight bounced off them in a romantic, yet weird way—and the palest, bluest eyes Nikki had ever seen. Pilot eyes. Shooter’s eyes. He hadn’t had a chance to shave in a couple of days, and the beard coming in was surprisingly dark and coarse.

  “Is this a joke? It must be. I fly two thousand miles to listen to a dead cheerleader reliving her glory days.”

  “Hey!” Nikki snapped. “I was never a cheerleader. Too tall.” Then she realized what was happening. “Wait a damn minute. You can hear me?”

  “She didn’t make cheerleading,” Cathy was saying sorrowfully. “She was too tall. But we had fun practicing together. That’s amazing, that you would know that. Did your psychic vibrations tell you that?”

  “The only vibrations I get are when I lean up against the washing machine.”

  “In lieu of regular dating, I guess,” Nikki snarked.

  “Shut up, what do you know about it?”

  “So how did you—Did you study up on her background before you came here?” Cathy was asking.

  “Please,” the man said, rolling his blue, blue eyes. Then he looked at Jack. “What are you doing alive again? That’s not your body.”

  “It is now,” Jack said. “It’s nice to see you again, Tommy.”

  “Tom,” the man corrected. “For God’s sake. I’m too big to be a Tommy.”

  “This is my wife, Cathy, and—”

  “Do you think you can find her?” Cathy interrupted.

  “What’s to find? She’s here.”

  “Yippee! Finally, someone can hear me!”

  “Yeah, lucky me,” Tom said sourly.

  She jumped up and down in her excitement and he flinched. “Don’t. For the love of God, don’t do another cheer.”

  “I wasn’t going to.” Then she realized what he had actually said. “You can see me, too?”

  “Yeah. You need to comb your hair.”

  She nearly reeled from a combination of surprise, relief, and rage. “Hey, at least I’m not sporting three days of stubble, jerk!”

  “You mean she’s here?” Cathy gasped. Fortunately, the driver had taken Tommy’s beat-up bag into cabin 5, and it was just the four of them. “Right here?”

  “Yes, and she won’t shut up.”

  “You shut up.”

  “Tell her we’re sorry,” she begged, “and tell her—”

  “She can hear you,” Tom said, looking bored. “You just can’t hear her.”

  “Tell her she must move on,” Jack said, obviously forgetting the rules.

  “Get lost,” Tom said to Nikki. “Go away. Scram.”

  “Oh, suck my fat one,” she said crossly. “Who died and made you king?”

  Tom grinned, which was startling. It changed his whole face, took years off. Made him look, she had to admit, almost attractive. “Apparently you did.”

  Chapter 7

  Tom had gone from pooped to horny to annoyed to intrigued, in twenty-five seconds.

  And normally, nothing would have gotten him out of his hometown (Pontiac, Missouri) just when it started to get perfect out: not the wet, overwhelming heat of summer, not the brown mid-temps of winter. But he couldn’t say no to that kind of money, no matter how nice he’d gotten the yard to look.

  As usual, it took him a second to figure out who was dead. What was not usual at all was how instantly attracted he was to the ghost. And what wasn’t to like? A tall blonde in khaki shorts and a white oxford shirt; pink sandals and toenails the same shade. He knew it was how she pictured herself, the mental image she carried around, as opposed to what she’d actually been wearing when she died. Another surprise: most people saw themselves as unattractive and badly dressed.

  And nobody on the other side (that he’d seen, so far) worked on cheers; they were much more concerned with finding forgiveness, or happiness, as opposed to spelling out S-P-I-R-I-T with their arms.

  Heh.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” the man who used to be dead was saying. Tom remembered Jack Carroll well: It was seeing him alive in a new body that was surprising. Jack had been dead for decades, devoted to his sister, and stuck in a beat-up Victorian in St. Paul. “As you can see, we have a rather large problem.”

  “Who are you calling large?” the ghost said crossly.

  “Heh,” Tom said aloud. It was downright alarming; he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He had a dozen questions for Jack and didn’t care; the ghost was a thousand times more interesting.

  What a damn shame he’d been hired to get rid of her.

  “So, what’s the problem?” he asked her.

  “You mean, besides my untimely demise?” she replied. “I mean, I know how self-absorbed you probably think I am—”

  “You and every other ghost I’ve met.”

  “Not that you should make snap judgments, but don’t you think I’m entitled? Just this once? I mean, I’m dead!”

  “And you shouldn’t be here,” he reminded her, inwardly thinking, Of all the luck.

  “Tell me!”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Tell her,” Mrs. Carroll interrupted (not that she knew she was interrupting), “that we’re so sorry, and we’ll do whatever she wants. What does she want?”

  Tom waited. The ghost (he groped for the name and found it: Nikki) waited. Jack and Cathy Carroll waited. Finally, Tom said, “Aren’t you going to answer her?”

  Nikki started. “Oh. Right. I guess I was waiting for you to say ‘They want to know what you want,’ and then I’d answer, and you’d tell them what I said, and then they’d answer, and…you know.”

  “You don’t speak English anymore? You lost your hearing when you lost your head?”

  “Okay, okay. Tell ’em I’m fine. You know. Relatively speaking.”

  “She’s fine,” he said.

  “But boy, this is going to get old, quick.”

  Normally, yes. He almost literally had to bite his tongue to stop from saying, “Naw, not this time.”

  “Don’t you want to go to your cabin and freshen up, or whatever?”

  He had; he’d forgotten his urgent need for a piss and a shower the second he’d spotted her, but now the urges came rushing back. “Yeah,” he said. Oh, you’re impressing the hell out of her! “Yeah.” “Naw.” Great!

  On the heels of that thought: Why do you want to impress a stranger? A dead stranger?

  “Well, I can wait. I mean, it’s been a couple of months. What’s another hour?” She smiled, flashing perf
ect American teeth. “I bet you’ve talked to people who’ve waited a lot longer.”

  That was true. But normally he didn’t mind in the least making the dead wait. God knew they didn’t hesitate to impose on him. But somehow, it seemed particularly awful to keep this woman waiting. Seemed awful to picture her moping around in the sand, hermit crabs crawling through her feet and the wind blowing right through her, and nobody seeing her, nobody at all.

  He bit his lip and said, “Thanks. But I can freshen up anytime. You—what do you need?”

  She looked surprised. “I dunno. What anybody wants, I guess—to make their budget, to get good gas mileage.”

  “That doesn’t help us.”

  “Nikki,” Cathy was asking, “what happened?”

  “An accident,” she replied. “I’m getting kind of vague on the details. I guess it doesn’t matter, right? Dead is dead.”

  “An accident,” Tom told the Carrolls.

  Mrs. Carroll was rubbing her little potbelly and looking anxious. “But is she—but you’re okay now? I mean—nothing hurts?”

  “Not a thing,” Nikki assured her friend. The shorter woman was looking a foot and a half to the left, but Tom didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  “If this were a movie, I guess we’d start looking for her killer.”

  “No!” Nikki nearly shouted. “Don’t worry about my killer. Stupid thing’s probably a hundred miles away by now, anyway. Don’t hurt it.”

  “Shark?” Tom asked, and was immediately sorry when Mrs. Carroll—Cathy—looked stricken.

  “Stingray.”

  “Stingray?” he repeated, in spite of trying to spare the Carrolls’ feelings. “How’d you manage that?”

  For the first time, the dead woman laughed. “Chum, it was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I’m not really prone to that sort of thing.”

  “Once was the charm.”

  “Yeah,” she said, laughing again. “It was the dumbest thing. You wouldn’t believe.”