Lily scooted closer to me. “I don’t know. WebMD is so scary,” she said, using the screen of her phone as a flashlight to examine me. “Sore throat? Get your affairs in order. Splotches on your fingernails? Might as well grab a white sheet, call an Uber, and head to the cemetery.”
My laugh came out as a painful mix between a cough and a bark. “I once hit a spin class too hard and looked up leg cramps. Scared the living shit out of myself.”
She huffed. “I know, right? You either need to eat a banana or you’ve got a rare degenerative muscle disease. Potato, potahto.” She tipped my head back, examining me with serious concern, before finally leaning away. “But I think that’s a negative. No grapelike swelling.”
I took a fresh tissue from her lap and ripped it into quarters. I made tight twists out of two of them and put one into each nostril. A wave of pain made my eyes water. Man the fuck up, Powers. “Hundred percent.”
She grimaced. Clearly, I wasn’t looking 100 percent. By the light of her phone and the park lamp, I saw a blush creep up on her cheeks. There was a gentle kindness about her that was incredibly hard to resist. “I feel just terrible. At least let me pay to have your shirt cleaned.” She pressed her hand to my arm and gave it a firm squeeze. Firm enough to hijack all my goddamned thoughts.
The chemistry between us was white-hot. One squeeze and I knew what I wanted. As if there’d been any doubt.
I wasn’t a guy to think about a good idea for long. Dicking around wasn’t my thing. I had gut instincts, and I listened to them. Here was a beautiful woman, and I was feeling it. If I didn’t grab this chance, I might never see her again. There was no way in hell I was going to let that happen. “How about I take you out for a drink?”
Her eyes flashed in the lamplight. “I almost knocked you unconscious, and we haven’t even checked on your shins.”
I nodded, and the torn edges of the Kleenex wads tickled my lip. “You said you wanted to make it up to me, right? So. A drink. We can call it even.”
Again she nibbled on her lip. She sized me up, like she was deciding what to make of me. She traced the edge of her phone case with her fingertip. “But I don’t even know you.”
Some problems could be solved on the spot. “I’m Gabe. I’ll be forty next year. I’m an Aquarius. I’m a lefty, but I can use regular scissors. I actually really do like long walks on the beach. Big fan of spaghetti and meatballs. I’m here for a while on business, and I’d really like to get to know you better.” I dusted off my hands. “Boom. Done.”
She pressed her tongue against her teeth, like she was stifling a giggle. “Fess up now. You stole that from a Tinder profile.”
Zing! But actually, no, I hadn’t. When it came down to it, I was just a dude like every other. Mostly. “You’ll never know unless you let me take you out.”
She crossed her legs, pressing her bare thighs together. She tucked the fingers of one hand between them. What I wouldn’t give for that to be my hand. Somehow, I managed to pull my eyes off that gap. But my gaze landed on her cleavage, and I dragged it away from there too. Every part of her was like a damned eye magnet. I made myself focus on her eyes. But those were most alluring of all. For a second we faced off in a badly lit game of chicken. She had no idea who she was up against. If there was one thing I’d learned in my line of work, it was unending, unflinching patience. Along with the ability to stay stationary for hours. “I could literally do this all night. Let me know if you want a break.”
Her eyes flashed, as if she liked that challenge. “All night?”
I lifted my eyebrow. “All. Night. Long.”
Her rapid blinks were followed by a stare and a press of her hand to her chest. So Southern belle. Fuck. But she relented, at last. “All right. Yes. It’s yes to a drink.”
“And dinner.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she stopped zipping her necklace. But I could tell she loved it. So I didn’t back down.
I ran my hand down my jaw and watched her. “Have some mercy, bruiser. Throw a guy a bone.”
She gave me a half wince, half smile. “Dinner and drinks, then. But it’ll have to be tomorrow. I have to get home soon. I’m not used to being whisked off for spontaneous dates.”
“Maybe you should get used to it.”
And she swallowed hard enough for me to hear the gulp.
The look in her eyes gave me a rush of adrenaline that I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. There was no fangirl fawning—just pure, plain old desire. Admittedly, I’d been closer to having a date with the yeti than a beautiful woman in the last few months. But there was something going on between us, and it felt damned good. “You pick the spot, my treat. Seven thirty tomorrow.”
One last firework whistled and went off in the air. It exploded in a shower of bright-white pinpricks right above us. Both of us looked up to watch it, and as the embers tumbled down into the river, she asked, “You’re sure you’re OK?”
“Lily.”
“All right! All right!” she giggled. “It’s a date.”
An hour later, I was lying in the bedroom of my allegedly haunted Airbnb on Abercorn Street with enough bags of frozen peas, corn, and green beans scattered around me that I could have gone into business as a vegetable soup tycoon. In spite of the throbbing pain in my nose, I could not stop thinking about her. She’d given me her number, and I’d sent her a text so she had mine too. I moved a dripping bag of slightly thawed peas aside so I could see my phone and opened the chat window. In reply, she’d said I’m so glad I didn’t mace you!, which she’d tapped out as I sat next to her. Cute. Now the blank space was begging me to answer with a Can’t wait to see you, or I’m totally fine, don’t worry at all, or The peas are definitely helping. It didn’t even matter that they weren’t, I just wanted to say something, anything, because 7:30 p.m. tomorrow felt way too far away.
But before I could type in a single letter, my phone started vibrating and my producer’s face appeared on the screen. There was a brief instant as I stared at his contact photo—a shot of him in Groucho Marx glasses with attached mustache—when I thought very seriously about hitting the decline button. I’d had a great night. I was thinking about Lily. I was in bed. The last thing I needed was him and his harebrained ideas killing this buzz.
His name was Mark Markowitz, and he was like an overcaffeinated Woody Allen with a near-religious devotion to spandex bike shorts. He drank green smoothies and used Bluetooth headsets and drove a yellow Prius with a license plate that said PRODUCE, which made his trips to the farmers’ market like an Abbott and Costello sketch. Some lady with a hippie skirt and a basketful of beet greens would look him up and down in the parking lot, zero in on his god-awful bike shorts, and say, What kind of produce do you grow? Let me guess—those tiny bananas!
Markowitz was the king of the Idea Fart. Every idea, large or small, had two things in common: urgency and inconvenient timing. He made like we had to act on all the Idea Farts right now before we got scooped. Sometimes I felt like he approached my career like an infomercial salesman hawking carpet cleaner at one in the morning. Act now and get a free bottle of foaming enzymatic carpet spray with your next television show!
But I’d done well, and I owed a lot of that to him and his terrier-like persistence. So I took a deep breath and answered the call on speaker. The big master bedroom was filled instantly with the sound of very heavy breathing. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, and I’m on to your workout schedule. “How’s spin class?”
“Kicking my ass! The burn, Powers! The burn!”
Spin classes at 9:00 p.m. on the Fourth of July. Los Angeles was the weirdest. “It’s like midnight here, man. What’s on your mind?”
“So,” he panted, “I was reading up on this ghost-hunting thing.”
Here we go. I put my phone faceup on my chest and mashed some corn into my eye socket. “I’ve got it covered. Seriously. I’m in a haunted house right now.” I looked up at the high ceilings and the ornate crown molding. I didn’
t believe in ghosts, of course. And I sure as hell didn’t think they were in this beautiful house.
“Seems like they all pick up EV somethings on their RadioShack tape recorders. Been reading up, Powers! Been busting my chops! I think we can do better! I’m thinking we should hire someone to help you out! Someone local! Someone who will know where to find the ghosts and get you some good audio!”
That was the other thing about Markowitz. He only responded to sentences that let him steer the conversation where he wanted it to go. Sometimes it was like he hadn’t even heard anything I’d said, like one of those robocalls that sounded real until you said, “Stop calling me,” and they responded with, “Refinancing your home is really very simple!”
“Like I told you, I’m in a haunted house. Right now.”
“EVPs! That’s what they’re called! Electro something somethings! We need someone professional for that!”
Though he presented this like a fresh Idea Fart, it was one of the oldest in his repertoire. He was absolutely determined to get me to believe that I needed to have a film crew for my show. He wanted my shoots to get bigger and better. More action, more stunts, more wide-angle panorama shots! I was equally determined to prove that if Les goddamned Stroud could spend a month in the fucking Norwegian tundra by himself, subsisting off nothing but pinecones, snowmelt, and frozen sparrow wings, I could certainly manage to film a few episodes about ghosts in one of the prettiest cities in America. And I most certainly didn’t need a film crew following me around with seven hundred pounds of equipment and six Starbucks runs a day to do it. “We’ve been through this like nine hundred times. I can handle it myself. It’s cheaper, it’s easier, and it’s my thing.”
“Powers!” he panted. “My thing involves a webcam and coconut oil, but you don’t see me making a career out of it, do you?”
Why. Just . . . why? “I’m gonna wire this place up tomorrow. See if I can get anything on video. I’m good, man. I’ve got this thing covered.” Exactly like everything I’ve ever done. I rubbed my temples and squished a pea between my forehead and thumb. “I’ll share the files when they’re ready. Don’t forget to hold your stretches, man,” I said and hung up the phone.
In the silence, I briefly considered doing the only new-age California thing that I’d actually found I liked—meditation. I was a big fan, and I’d tried all kinds. I’d practiced tonglen with Buddhist monks in a mountaintop temple in Nepal and transcendentalism with David Lynch in an overcrowded conference room in a slightly dilapidated Hilton in downtown LA. Hands down the best guided meditation I’d found for dealing with Markowitz was a two-and-a-half-minute video of pure genius on YouTube: “Fuck That: An Honest Meditation.” But I knew that tonight, I wouldn’t need to meditate. Because as I closed my eyes, there she was—those curves, those hips, that face, that Lily.
Fuck that? Fuck yeah.
2
LILY
The next morning, I was doing some breakfast-time nephew watching at my sister’s apartment so that she could enjoy her coffee, get rid of her grays, and generally have a baby-free morning to herself. While my nephew crawled around on the television room rug, I attempted to knit a hat for him—the fifteenth time had to be a charm—but no matter how many purls and knits I tried to string together, I found that I still couldn’t shake my thoughts of Gabe, the Possibly Broken-Nosed Hunk.
Even with the marked facial swelling, he’d been positively dreamy. I really and truly did feel awful for almost knocking him unconscious with the mic stand. That sort of thing wasn’t my style at all. When it came to men, I preferred to reject them by slowly failing to reply to their text messages. I preferred to go out with a fizzle rather than a bang. But he was so sexy, I found myself thinking less about fizzling and a whole lot more about . . . banging. Because that face. That jawline. Those shoulders. My goodness.
He was tall, dark, handsome, and also strangely familiar. But I couldn’t place the face. Maybe he had one of those faces, I thought, as I tried to remember if I was supposed to be purling or knitting. Rugged stubble, cheekbones. One of those faces that really belonged on television. I refocused on my needles. Was that a purl? Did I even really know how to purl? Or . . . “Oh, for God’s sake,” I muttered at my yarn as I ripped out a row.
My nephew planted his hands on the pink shag carpeting and dragged his knees along, occasionally off-gassing with the effort of this newfound mode of transportation. He made my heart ache with love. I was more than his auntie, really; after his dad left my sister, I’d stepped in as sort of auntie/father/all-purpose-coparent. His birth father was named Boris—a suspiciously dashing Russian photographer who’d done a midnight flit back to Mother Russia on an airline that nobody had ever heard of, never to be heard from again. But to his credit, he’d left behind the most fabulous little boy on the planet. He was named Ivan. After the czar.
Obviously.
Though I hated my sister’s ex, I loved the stuffing out of Ivan. Sometimes I even raised my sweet tea and said a secret nazdarovia to Boris as a thank-you.
Ivan toppled onto his side by the sofa and found a dusty Cheerio by the sofa leg. My standards about floor foods were not up to snuff, as per my sister. She adhered almost militantly to the five-second rule and insisted everything get rinsed off. I wasn’t so particular. As long as it was identifiable and hadn’t been left unrefrigerated for a dangerous amount of time, it seemed safe enough. And anyway, what was I going to do, pry the Cheerio out of his chubby, sticky, wet little hands?
That wasn’t how I earned my #1 Auntie hoodie. No, it was not.
He looked up at me and slowly moved his drooly hand toward his drooly mouth. For a second, he paused and watched me for my verdict. I too paused with the tip of my needle about to drop a stitch. Or move a stitch, or . . . Maybe I should take up origami. “Go for it, little bean,” I whispered and then ripped out another row of too-tight stitches.
It was then that my phone rang, making a grating grr-grr-grr on the kitchen table. I set down my knitting and bolted for it. Maybe it was Gabe, or maybe it was someone calling to hire me for a job. Either way, I wasn’t about to let it go to voice mail. On the screen was a number I didn’t recognize with an unfamiliar out-of-town area code. I hit the answer button and put my phone to my ear. “Sounds Good. This is Lily.”
“I’m looking for Lily!” hollered a nasally voice on the other end of the line. It sounded a bit like my dentist, except for the heavy breathing.
“Speaking. Yes. Hello. This is Lily Jameson.”
“My name is Mark Markowitz. I’m the producer for a show called The Powers of Suggestion. Ever heard of it?”
I almost didn’t think I’d heard him right. A producer. A show. As in . . . a television show? Holy moly. Move over, hourly bingo gigs! “I . . . I don’t think so?” Actually, I knew so. In the last few months, my watching diet consisted almost entirely of cartoons for Ivan and YouTube tutorials from women who knew how to knit and who talked reassuringly like I could learn too. Bless their sweet angel lying hearts. “How can I help you, Mr. Markowitz?”
“Investigating weird shit in far-flung places,” Mr. Markowitz said, like he hadn’t even heard my question. “Half survivalist, half legend hunter. Ring any bells?”
I was still a no on that. But even though it didn’t ring my bell, it would definitely ring my sister’s. Daisy was the queen of Unsolved Mysteries and whatever that ghost show was that was comprised entirely of badly lit and low-budget reenactments, all filmed on the same set, regardless of the episode. As if we wouldn’t notice that every scene had an identical sofa! “Not my cup of tea, exactly. Though it sounds very exciting!”
A rrrrrrrr sound caught my attention, and I turned to Ivan. He’d gotten a hold of his hat and was now gleefully pulling it apart—yarn flew in every direction. He made small kaa-kaa-kaaaaa noises and banged my knitting needles against the coffee table.
“I’ve got a problem, Ms. Jameson. I need your help. Filming starts on the show this evening, down in y
our city of Savannah. Normally, we shoestring it. My guy is hell-bent on being a one-man deal. But this time, we’re going to need legit audio. We’re doing ghosts, and we can’t be doing it half-assed, you feel me?”
“I’m with you so far,” I told him as I pried one of my needles out of Ivan’s hand.
“You believe in ghosts, Ms. Jameson?”
The question was hardly unexpected. Being from Savannah meant that everybody believed you automatically checked two boxes. One: a deep and undying passion for sweet tea.
A check so hard and enthusiastic it would’ve ripped right through the survey.
And two: believing in ghosts.
I still had my pencil hovering over that box.
I wasn’t sure if I believed or if I didn’t. It was one of those mysterious things. Like Jesus. Or Buddha. Or a totally mistake-free home manicure. Just because I hadn’t seen them didn’t mean they didn’t exist. And even if I had had a reason to be skeptical, I had the very serious disadvantage of eight generations of Jamesons from Savannah, gathering around the dining table, looking at old photos and wondering if that flash on the mirror was Great-Aunt Velma or if those strange sounds from the radiator were actually Grandpa Frank trying to communicate with Morse code.
In Savannah, everything was said to be haunted. And I mean everything. Churches built in the 1800s. The Outback Steakhouse built in 1999. Some old lady’s root cellar. The boys’ locker room at my high school. The bank teller’s station wagon. Everything. All I could say for certain was that the closest I’d ever gotten to a ghost was when I’d cut eye holes in a dish towel and put it over Ivan’s head. “That’s a bit complicated. I don’t really believe, but that doesn’t mean that—”
“Probably for the best! Can’t have our audio technician getting the yips, can we?”
If I’d known what the yips were, that would have helped. But I got the gist. “I’d be delighted to do whatever I can.”
“Tremendous. I’d like to hire you to record some sound in a house over on, lemme find the street . . .” Some papers rustled around on the other end of the line. “Abercrombie. Abraham. Corncob . . .”
Do You Feel It Too? Page 2