One Ghost Per Serving

by Nina Post

  Taffy wasn’t interested in her food. “The problem –”

  “Taffy,” Willa’s voice had a warning tone. “I don’t want to hear about food poisoning.”

  Rex collapsed against the bottom of the window and pretended to sob. Eric gritted his teeth. At least he wasn’t in the restaurant.

  “Just a sec, Mom. The problem with nanocarriers is that they can bring embedded substances to parts of the body that –”

  “Taffy! I’m eating. Please.” Willa took a sip of her wine and cut a piece of her steak.

  “ – That they’re not meant to go to, and the substances carried into the body could be anything,” Taffy said in a rush to finish.

  “Anything?” Eric leaned in.

  “Pretty much.”

  After fighting Willa over the bill, Eric managed to give the server his credit card then sign for the check. He felt triumphant, but also felt like vomiting. “Where are we off to next?” he said, then smiled in an imitation of a financially secure and emotionally stable person. Willa stood and put her purse strap over her shoulder. Eric stood and moved closer. She was wearing Chanel no. 19, the one she wore when going out at night. It seemed like an odd match for an early dinner.

  Willa brushed lint off his sleeve. Eric moved in to kiss her, because it felt like a normal, albeit more nice than usual, dinner with his family.

  She turned away.

  Eric’s heart fell. He saw Taffy pretend to examine the sprinkler set-up again.

  Willa did a clipper dip, picked up the tulips, handed them to Eric. “These are pretty, but would you mind taking them back with you and dropping them at Dad’s?”

  “Aren’t we –” He tilted his head. “I thought we were going to the theater.”

  Willa glanced at Taffy.

  “We have plans with Mark.”

  “Oh.” Eric nodded.

  After Willa and Taffy were out of sight, Eric gave the tulips to the guy working in the used bookstore next to the restaurant, who said it would make his girlfriend’s night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Nathan, where the hell are you?”

  Nathan held the phone away from his ear, then brought it back to speak. “I told you two months ago that I would be taking a personal day today. Didn’t you add it to your calendar?” He heard a distant, repetitive thud. “What’s going on?”

  “Just doing some quick plyometrics,” DZ said on the phone. “Why didn’t you remind me you weren’t coming in today? There’s all this stuff happening, and it just keeps coming, this barrage, this river of crap. I can’t deal with it – I feel like Bruce Lee in that crazy tower where he has to fight off all these things before he gets to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Can’t you just come in today?”

  “No. This is a special day.”

  “It’s a special day here, too,” DZ said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Nathan hesitated. “Today is the anniversary of the day I lost my wallet. That experience taught me I wasn’t being vigilant enough in my daily life. So on this day every year, going on three now, I devote the entire day to organizing and quiet reflection. In addition to my regular maintenance, of course.”

  There was a long pause that soaked Nathan in unspoken judgment. “And you can’t do this on a weekend,” DZ said.

  “No, absolutely not,” Nathan said. “It has to be this day. I’m sorry. But that’s what personal days are for. Why don’t you take advantage of this time without me to, ah, refine your time-management system.”

  Nathan knew full well that DZ would only go so far as to put out fires caused by Nathan’s absence.

  “What system?”

  “Start one.”

  DZ lowered his voice to a whisper. “Nathan, this is untenable! I need you! The enchanters are on my back about money and some technical problem, my father keeps texting me, there’s an issue with the snack box deployment,” his voice got higher and faster, “my ex-wife’s attorney sent me a letter, my nervous stomach is acting up, and where are the takeout menus?” DZ said the last part in a near-hysterical whisper.

  “You’re more anxious about the takeout menus than a letter from a divorce attorney?” Nathan said.

  “Aw, c’mon, Nathan. I can’t be left alone here,” DZ said, in a plaintive voice.

  “DZ, I’m sorry, I am, but this day means a lot to me. It has to be this day. I have to block out all distractions.”

  Nathan cleaned every inch of his small house, down to the inside of cabinets, his appliances, and electronic equipment. He polished crevices on his phones and remotes with cotton swabs. He pulled things out to clean behind them. He put five bags of trash by the door. He turned the mattress. He dusted plant leaves.

  Once everything was clean, Nathan organized. First, he made sure that his travel equipment was ready to go, and filled tiny plastic containers for his go-bag of TSA-approved liquids. He also cross-checked his checklist with the items he kept in his carry-on. He verified one pair of pants, two shirts, one belt, three pairs underwear and socks, one pair pajamas, one sweater; also a dental kit with a copy of his sonic brush, his Proxabrushes, floss, a rubber gum stimulator, dental tools, two types of mouthwash, travel Waterpik, and emergency topical numbing agent, just in case. He verified his spare electric shaver and power cord, then made sure that his paper copies of prescriptions, passport, and proof of vaccinations were in order. Finally, he updated his snack bag.

  In his bathroom cabinet, Nathan organized his Proxabrushes by type and color. He tended to his emergency evacuation kit and his in-case-wallet-is-lost kit, ensuring it was in order and up-to-date.

  He still mentally kicked himself, years later, for losing his wallet and being unprepared. The time and effort he put into calling the credit card companies, obtaining copies of his credit reports, registering for two identify theft protection services, and replacing everything was considerable and exhausting. He would never make that kind of mistake again. A few minutes later, he curled up on his living room sofa and fell asleep.

  DZ drank an antacid with his milk while he fielded a call from a group of petulant enchanters. He held an ice pack to the back of his neck. “The deployment of Quantal Organic Yogurt snack boxes to domestic air flights has to be today,” DZ said, almost in a yell. “And I don’t even know what you’re saying!”

  The enchanters had a text chat going during the call. They used terms like cold chain diagnostic, gas barrier properties, and nucleic acids.

  They also stated their new demands.

  “You want how much more?” DZ said, outraged.

  The enchanters bickered among themselves then settled on a number.

  “That’s 40% over what you quoted me!” DZ said.

  The enchanters withdrew again to argue some more, then delved back into the chat about the technical problem.

  DZ muted the phone and rested his head on his fist while he watched the chat with tired, half-lidded eyes. He was up late last night in the city taking a twenty-one-year-old woman to see a band, which was far too loud. His ears were still ringing, but he didn’t want to be like Nathan and look uncool or take very uncool precautions like using earplugs. Then they went to a hot new sushi bar, and finally to a dance club in a former Masonic lodge. DZ was loath to admit it, but he was too old for a night like that. His eyes felt gritty and his body was achy and too warm. He kept nodding off for minutes at a time. As he rested in his office, he kept the lights off and the curtains drawn. The only light came from the screen, which was dimmed almost all the way.

  The enchanters threatened to stop all work unless they got their additional 40%.

  His aunt sent him a vitriolic, quietly nasty text insisting that he stop ignoring his father, followed by a text that stated he was just as selfish as his mother.

  The enchanters complained that they were never told they would have to handle the snack box deployment on domestic air routes. They purported to have another job they could start, instead – one that paid better and had fewer surprises.

&n
bsp; DZ received another text from his aunt telling him he was an awful person for not calling his grandparents, then yet another text from his father mentioning how nice it was that DZ’s younger brother worked at the family company, clearly implying his disappointment that DZ did not.

  “Leave me alone!” DZ screamed, wound up his arm like Ty Cobb, then threw the cell phone at the wall. The phone fell into a pile of sparking garbage, its screen cracked. “Why are they all texting? How did they learn?”

  The phone was not on mute. The enchanters giggled.

  “Shut up!” DZ shouted, then muted the phone.

  The enchanters, in a perceptibly lighter mood, presumably owing to DZ’s entertaining tantrum, chatted about polymer composites, blood-brain barriers, binding proteins, and biokinetics.

  Something clicked in DZ. He cleared everything off his desk in one sweep of his arm, turned on the small banker’s lamp, and put on his reading glasses. He wheeled around to his stylish, candy-colored espresso machine and made an espresso. It was time to buckle down and get serious. He would go Nathan on everyone’s ass, see how they liked that. DZ put the enchanters on hold and called the airline’s catering division to verify that the Quantal Foods-sponsored snack boxes featuring the Quantal Organic Yogurt would be deployed. He emailed the enchanters to tell them that they would get a 12% increase and no more, only if they resolved their technical issue by the end of the business day.

  DZ buckled down and dusted off a time-and-contact management software program he had never used. He collected all the scraps of paper he used to jot things down and entered the text into the program. He cleaned his office and filed away every piece of paper, then reflected on how pleased Nathan would be. Settling back into his chair with a rare sense of contentment, DZ called his realtor and bought a nineteenth-century farm that included cows, chickens, heritage pigs, and wild turkeys.

  He reflected that Nathan wouldn’t be very pleased by that after all, but who cared what that Felix thought, anyway.

  Willa took off her heels, dropped her bag on the floor, and stood at her Dad’s white farmhouse sink to sort through the mail. He received subscriptions to Cardinal Confrere – not a Catholic newsletter about Cardinals, but the bird – and Woodquiddity. She liked cardinals, but not enough to read a magazine about them, and wasn’t into woodworking, so she would have to cancel those, and whatever else came in for her father, even though doing anything like that made her want to curl up in bed and stay there indefinitely. But she had a daughter, and work, and had to keep going.

  She rifled through the rest of the mail, neglected lately. Willa got bill after bill after bill, though not for Taffy’s magazines and journals; somehow Taffy managed to get those for free. She made a pile of mail to shred, a pile for immediate follow-up, and a pile for no action. She opened a large white envelope with printed address labels, including a return label with a Marshall, Texas address.

  She slid the contents out onto the blue laminate counter.

  “What in the name of Reuben Trane –”

  She used a pencil to separate glossy 8x10 photos and document copies.

  Then she picked up the phone and dialed her husband. “Are you working? About to go to work? Then get over here now.”

  Willa fumed for twenty minutes, but also scheduled a locksmith.

  When Eric arrived, he tried not to laugh. “You look like Yosemite Sam.” His wife was tiny and fuming, and Eric expected her to strongly suggest that he say his prayers!

  “First the grocery delivery, now this?” Willa jabbed a finger on the table. “Don’t touch it.”

  Eric used the eraser end of the pencil to look through the pile. There were photos of Willa teaching a class, with coupons attached for an energy drink. There were photos of Willa driving in her car, with coupons for coffee drinks. There were photos of Willa parking in Ed’s driveway, with coupons for real estate services and grief counselors.

  There were photos of Eric cleaning the windows of the Princess, with coupons for a diesel fill-up. There were photos of Eric shopping at Quality Market with Taffy, with coupons for a purchase at the deli. There were photos of Eric going to the school for his secret sponsor meetings. There were photos of Eric peering into a display case at the market, and photos from the inside of the cooler, with coupons for Quantal Organic Yogurt.

  “Oh God. The yogurt’s been photographing me in the bus.” Eric put an arm across his chest to massage his shoulder.

  There were photos of Taffy in the school lab, wearing safety glasses and mixing something blue, with a coupon for lab supplies. Photos of Taffy riding her bike, with a coupon for a bike store; one of her engaged in a transaction by a set of lockers, with a coupon for high-yield savings accounts; and one showing her berating her lab partner, with a coupon for anger management therapy.

  “She’s her mother’s daughter,” Eric said.

  “This is serious,” Willa said.

  “I know.”

  There were also copies of intercepted emails, a blank CD with ES on it that Eric shoved in the back of his pants, copies of grocery receipts, and a list of places Eric and Willa went based on their credit card activity and cell phone activity.

  Willa pulled on a pair of yellow dishwashing gloves and put everything back in the envelope, minus the CD in Eric’s pocket. “This has something to do with you,” she said. “I know it in my gut. So you –”she pushed the envelope at his chest, “are going to fix this.” Then she rose up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. Eric felt like dancing down a rainy, gas-lit street like Gene Kelly.

  “But you’re the competent one.” Eric suspected she was right. She usually was. First the yogurts in the store ‘recommended’ that he stop trying to win the contest, and now they were getting creepy direct mail.

  After he left Ed’s house, Eric ran a fast mile before he circled back to the driveway and drove away in the Princess.

  The next morning, Eric waited in the Princess for the Argosy Food to open. The sky was still dark, but his laptop screen and the yellow glow of a wall lamp illuminated the narrow interior of the bus. He sat on the bed he had made up with a set of Taffy’s old dinosaur sheets, taken from the linen closet at the house.

  It wasn’t even five a.m. yet. Willa would have been awake almost a half hour, so she was already washed up and dressed, doing some work over a breakfast of coffee, raisin toast, and egg substitute. Willa would make sure Taffy had breakfast and got on the bus on time. Then Willa would fill her travel mug with coffee and drive to the college.

  Eric pulled on a button-front cardigan and wondered if he would live the rest of his life alone in a historical bus, living a one-dimensional existence surrounded by the scraps of a life he once had. Just a sad old man pulling on a threadbare cardigan, eating the yogurt that reminded him of when he made the horrible mistake – one in an epic series of mistakes – of entering to win a contest based on undecipherable glyphs only the ancient unnamed ones could read, in a doomed attempt to bring his family back together.

  He tried not to think about it. He turned on the TV to distract himself while he continued searching for information online about Quantal Foods and their various agencies. Through a combination of finance sites, annual and quarterly reports, UCC filings, electronic court records, and filings with the Secretary of State, Eric soon learned that Quantal Foods was a new business. It was also a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anemochore, a Delaware LLC, which was itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Nidus Monolithics, incorporated in the Isle of Man.

  Quantal Foods retained the services of Jerry’s small ad agency, a one-stop print, branding, and digital shop. They used a different agency for promotion, Jerry had mentioned. After a few minutes, Eric found Cynosure Promotions, based just outside of Jamesville in the city. The company’s management team page contained the names of only a few officers, without any photos or other details pertaining to their background. The CEO was DZ – just DZ, strange – and the Vice President was Nathan Watling.

  DZ had a person
al blog. Most of the posts were photos of things he had recently purchased, like egg-shaped pressure chambers, giant-sized candy bars, luxury yurts. Eric scrolled to the bottom. First in the list of recent posts was a heading that didn’t appear on the main page. Eric clicked on it. The text boasted about the successful completion of Phase 2 of his plan, code-named Helios, which involved deploying sponsored snack boxes to a domestic airline. After some initial trouble with a vendor, DZ, the CEO, “triumphed” and the deployment of the snack boxes ran as “effectively as the infestation of giant African snails in Miami.”

  Eric rubbed his arms then pulled the blanket up over his shoulders. Holding the blanket at his collarbone, he stretched over to get the second blanket from the box under the sofa.

  “What’s Phase 3?” Eric said to an empty bus, thinking of the now hundreds of people with a fevered zeal for Quantal Organic Yogurt. Why wasn’t he affected like they were, especially since it was all he could afford to eat? Did he have some kind of stomach bacteria or enzyme that –

  And then Eric felt like the dumbest person in the world. It was just like Rex said: Those customers were possessed like he had been, only with a variation – a different strain. On the plus side, whatever strain of possession this was, it probably wouldn’t spread human-to-human. It could probably only spread from the yogurt to the person who ate the yogurt, though he didn’t know for sure. Did Cynosure Promotions know about this? Did Quantal Foods know that their organic yogurt was infected with spirits?

  “Of course they know,” Eric said, falling back against the pillows. And he wondered again why he escaped unscathed this time.

  Maybe Rex was like the spirit possession equivalent of a vasectomy.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Eric stopped into the frigid and sweet-smelling Moo-ateria, a dairy-themed store and counter he found just outside of Jamesville. The Moo-ateria sold the entire line of Quantal products, including Quantal Organic Yogurt. They also sold milk, sour cream, other brands of yogurt, eggs, and ice cream cakes, and made egg creams and milkshakes at the counter.