Spooky Little Girl (18 page)

And Lucy, unfortunately, sat there right alongside her. It wasn’t that Lucy wanted to watch these shows or be within a thousand-mile radius of Nola, but she really didn’t have a choice. The 1950s ranch house was small, and the available options of where Lucy could spend her off-duty ghost time were rather limited. She could hang out in the living room, where Nola was much of the time; in the kitchen, where Nola was when she wasn’t in the living room; in the bathroom, where Lucy could very well be trapped should Nola barge in and then do something unholy; in Martin’s “hobby room,” which was packed with camping and fishing equipment; or in her old bedroom, which was no option at all. Much to Lucy’s dismay, she’d arrived on a Saturday, and after Martin had scooted off to work, it had been Nola’s humanitarian duty to tune in to every corporate-sponsored tale of woe, tragedy, and overbites that had been televised that week, and Lucy, frankly, had had no choice but to join in.

She had quickly realized that the days of spooks and specters were long, drawn-out affairs, full of watching people conduct their intricately boring lives and not having any control over her own time. If she wanted to flip through a magazine on the table, she’d have to wait until the living left the house, much like if she wanted
to watch TV on her own, or play with the dog. There was only so much spooking one ghost could do in a day’s time; while it might be fun to flicker the lights or turn on the alarm clock at 3
A.M.
, self-control was key. Too much tinkering might have disastrous results, and Lucy knew she had to pace herself. It was no wonder that some ghosts went mad and started carrying their heads like purses simply to scare the living for the sake of a cheap thrill; thrills and excitement or the mere task of even being occupied were all too hard to come by when you observed but didn’t exist. She could go for a walk around the neighborhood, but that was about it; in the suburban sprawl that was this town, anything remotely interesting, like a movie theater, was miles away, and Lucy had no idea what the bus schedule was, let alone her newfound bus-related terror. She was, in a sense, stuck in limbo. She actually found herself yearning for the days back at ghost school, where at least she could interact with others. But being dead in a real-life environment was some excruciatingly boring stuff, with a whole lot of nothing to do. Plus, it was fairly safe to say that in her two days’ time back at the house, Lucy still had not figured out why she’d been placed there or what her objective was supposed to be.

However, Lucy had already arrived at the conclusion that once she unleashed her wrath, it would all come raining down on Nola, Nola, Nola. She did her best to distance herself from what was right before her eyes—Nola living in
her
house with
her
boyfriend and
her
dog.
Nola living her life
. The thought of it made Lucy nauseous, furious, vengeful. Lucy had to stop herself from thinking the obvious questions and trying to figure out the answers, because it was all too much. She knew she couldn’t take it. But every thirty seconds or so, Lucy glanced over at Nola, sniffling on the couch because a little boy with no bones got a bunk bed in his new bedroom, and she wanted to kick Nola like she had kicked the
chair at her funeral. Nola was deserving of it, so deserving. But Lucy did something else instead. As the little boy was being carried into his new bedroom painted with racing stripes and bold, empowering colors, as soon as he crossed the threshold, Lucy simply reached over and pushed the power button on the remote.

While a cloud of blackness swallowed the TV screen, Nola shrieked as if a surgeon had just rammed a six-inch needle under her kneecap. Nola fumbled for the remote, tried to recapture the precious moment of highest emotional exploitation that she had desperately been waiting for.

How did this even happen?
Lucy said to herself as she shook her head. She couldn’t help but wonder.
How did this pairing even come about, how does it even make sense? Seriously. This is what Martin replaced me with? Nola? And no one stopped it?

Over the last couple of days, she had observed them as a couple, had tried to figure it out, had watched their interactions, and she still didn’t have a clue. Martin was still Martin, simple, self-sufficient, matter-of-fact. Nola was fawning, overachieving, annoying in her inconsequential details.

“Oh! Oh! Oh! Don’t eat yet, Martin! I put the fork in the wrong spot. Let me fix that!”

Or:

“There’s too much salt in these instant potatoes, Martin. Too much salt! I have to watch my sodium. I’m never buying this brand again.”

Or:

“I am covered in Tulip fur. I’ve just given up on wearing any dark colors at all. And that’s terrible, because purple is my color. People have always said that.”

Or:

“Oh, you’re already watching something? I’m sure it will be better than the show I’ve been waiting to watch all week about the girl
who lost both eyeteeth in a softball accident and is getting a makeover and a new wardrobe so she can learn how to camouflage her thick hips. But I’m sure your show will be good, too. I guess.”

Lucy could barely stand it. It was all she could do to not plug herself into the fridge and then try to tip it over on the office manager in the middle of dinner.

But she couldn’t do that, because that was not her mission, and if she didn’t complete her mystery objective, she’d be stuck in this house with Nola and Martin until she could eventually see through them, too.

Then Lucy had a terrible thought. What if this was not a new pairing? What if this had not spontaneously happened post-Lucy? What if Nola was the reason why Lucy had found her stuff on the sidewalk? What if this was the reason Lucy had lost her job, because it had all been set up from the beginning? If Lucy could have felt ill, she would have, but instead, she waited until Nola left the room for another snack, and when she was officially out of sight, Lucy kicked her Pepsi can over, completely soaking her treasured arsenal of ladies’ magazines with the rushing sticky sweet soda.

If Nola had possessed a finer ear, she would have heard Lucy laughing heartily when she saw her nemesis’s face after she walked back into the living room and discovered the mess, and then she would have heard the laughter abruptly stop when Nola scowled, turned, and huffed, “Oh, Tulip! Bad dog! Bad dog! You are not worth the trouble, and
you are trouble!”

Lucy reached down to where Tulip sat loyally at her feet, and scratched the good dog’s head.

“Don’t listen to her. You’re a good girl, Tulip,” Lucy reassured her, but Tulip didn’t look so sure.

“Bad dog!” Nola snipped again, pointing her nasty finger at Tulip. Then she returned to mopping up the runny mess with the
napkin she’d pulled from the collar of her shirt, where she’d already had it tucked in from snacking.

Lucy sneered at her.
What you have coming
, she thought as she shook her head.
Oh, what you have coming, dear Nola
.

Thankfully, Nola returned to work on Monday, and Lucy had the run of the house. She was free to do what she pleased, and the sense of freedom was a tremendous relief. No longer being trapped by Nola’s presence was delightful, and Lucy was not bothered by Martin’s days off, just like when she’d been alive. That was because Martin rarely took any time off, and when he did, you could count on him to have his tackle box in the cab of his truck by 6
A.M.
, next to a steaming mug of coffee as he pulled out of the driveway.

Lucy had the days to herself and her dog, but she still felt rather limited. She knew it was wise to stay in the house rather than venture out with Tulip, even though there was nothing more that she wanted to do than take her for a walk. Once, she was staring out the window and saw a dog come trotting along, no leash, no harness, just as free as a bird. A couple of paces behind was its owner, bringing up the rear and smiling. From that distance, it had been difficult for Lucy to see if the person was outlined with a shine, and Lucy had wondered if the person was real, flesh and blood, alive, or if the owner was like her, weightless and earthbound. Instead, Lucy and Tulip played ball in the living room, hide-and-seek, and Lucy gave Tulip little doggie massages, which Tulip greatly enjoyed and which caused her floppy tongue to loll out of her mouth. When Nola and Martin arrived home at the end of the day, Lucy simply stayed as far away from them as she could, which she knew was not helping her mission any. The whole scenario simply disgusted her, and she thought the best way to deal with it—for now—was to simply remove herself from what little interaction they had with each other.

At night, Lucy made peace with the couch or roamed restlessly through the house. She had been back for less than a week, and already the days and nights were beginning to blur into one another as if she was a hostage. Although she liked the idea of “falling asleep” at nighttime, it was simply a ritual she felt comfortable with more than anything she got a benefit from. She never felt tired or sleepy, never felt the aches and pains of the day creep up on her at night the way she had before city-bus impact. Curling up on the sofa or in her little ghost school Super 8 bed was nothing more than a link to her former life, something that had been the only constant between life and death, aside from the clothes she’d entered the big sleep in.

Now quite dead, Lucy realized that there were far more hours in the day when there was nothing to do, nowhere to be, and no one to talk to. Martin had been quite thorough in picking through their belongings and culling her stuff, it had become apparent. There was nothing left of Lucy in the house—not a picture on the wall, not one of her books, none of her music, nothing. He had even replaced the calendar she had bought at the beginning of the year and tacked up in the kitchen. She had singled out important dates, such as their birthdays; Lucy’s Hawaiian vacation; her return date, including the flight number and time; the date of their wedding, writing little notes for each date. Even that, apparently, was too much of Lucy for Martin to tolerate. The calendar was gone, replaced by a free one from AAA. He really had eradicated her from everything, Lucy noted as she scoured the bookshelves, magazine rack, and even the pantry.

“Hmmmm,” Lucy said out loud to Tulip as she peeked at the shelves of food on one of her first days alone in what used to be her house. “Tons of Little Debbies, but not an Oreo in sight. But look, here are some cookies for you!”

After pulling some energy from the fridge, she grabbed the box,
noticing they were the generic store brand and not Tulip’s favorite kind of liver snaps, which Lucy had always made sure to have on hand for her. She held out the store-brand biscuit to Tulip, who simply sniffed it and then turned her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she ruffled the dog’s head with her hand.
“My
snacks are gone, too.”

Lucy heard a clanking noise and then a loud thud in the living room, and she recognized that familiar racket of the mail being delivered through the slot in the front door. Lucy motioned Tulip to follow her as she made her way to the living room to commence with Lucy’s newfound best part of the day—going through the magazines, ads, and bills of the daily delivery of mail. It wasn’t snooping, she decided. The dead can’t snoop. And besides, even if it was snooping, who was she going to tell? In just several days’ time, Lucy had discovered some fascinating things about her hosts: that they were planning a tropical cruise, based on the pamphlets and advertisements that were delivered; that Nola had a three-year subscription to
Homemakers
magazine; and that she had allowed her membership to Totally Ladies! gym to lapse. It was amazing, Lucy thought, the things you can gather just from a tumble of mail that you can’t even open.

And then she saw something she hadn’t expected.

It was a letter, addressed to her. Lucy Fisher. It wasn’t anything dire, just a letter from a wildlife organization asking for a donation and offering some free return address labels as a gift. As Lucy stared at the name on the envelope, she realized that she was feeling something she hadn’t experienced for a while. She felt sort of alive. She felt alive at the thought that someone out there believed her to be alive. Alive enough to write them a check, anyway. That letter, there on the floor, was hers. It was addressed to her. And she wanted it. She had basically no possessions, only what she’d been wearing
when she’d died. She had not one other single thing. Not that she needed anything; she didn’t, which was a definite checkmark in the “pro” column of not having a pulse, but she wanted this. A letter and some labels that were for Lucy Fisher. She needed this something that said, that proved, she had been here. That she had lived. There wasn’t even a body left to prove that.

Lucy searched for the remote and turned on the TV. She waited a minute or two until it was fully on, had stopped flickering, and had a full, complete screen. Then she took ahold of both corners on top and pulled, pulled, pulled, pulled up so much power that the screen began to flicker with weakness. After Lucy felt charged enough, she grabbed her letter and opened it, poring over all of the little rectangular stickers with her name on them, each embellished with picture of a wolf, polar bear, or baby seal in one corner. She sort of liked the stickers and was a little sorry that she didn’t need them for anything, but they still made her feel lively. Lucy scanned the room for a good place to hide the letter. She was limited by what she could do physically, so she couldn’t be terribly elaborate by taping it behind a china cabinet or shoving it under a heavy mattress. But upon another look, she thought she had found something equally as effective in the hiding department: under the cushion of the stinky burlap couch. With one flip, the battered cushion was up and the letter was safe, nestled in secrecy and surrounded by stench.

Lucy was quite pleased with herself, and had plopped down on the exact cushion to cement the deal when she heard the doorbell ring. She panicked. She could feel that she still had quite a bit of charge left, and was terrified that someone would see her bouncing all over the dilapidated couch in all of her visible glory. Quickly, she scurried off the couch and scrambled behind it, hoping that whoever was at the front door hadn’t been doing a little pre-doorbell spying through the window.