“I’ve heard that, yes. But look at it this way. If I can make someone pretty on their way to the hereafter, when they come to you through a séance, at least they won’t look . . . tacky, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m going inside. You two can continue discussing the dead while I speak with Ida. I’ve got to convince her to tell Thomas’s story to Abby so she can use this for her column. Whatcha think, girls?” Toots said before slipping through the sliding glass doors.
Both Sophie and Mavis just shook their heads.
Chapter 36
Two weeks later . . .
Again , they prepared to gather in the dining room, now referred to as the official séance room. Sophie hadn’t performed a séance since Thomas’s last appearance in Charleston. She’d been aching to perform another one. Again, she was going to ask Toots to assist with the psychic writing since Ida was still out of town. It had worked before, and she hoped it would work again. This time, though, she had a purpose. A goal she hoped to achieve. This time around, she wanted to make contact with Walter. Though she’d made contact with his presence before, she wanted a face-off with him. For thirty years, she had wondered why he treated her like a broken-down dog. In order for her to move on, she needed answers. She was no longer fearful of anything he could do to her. He had better be worried about what she could do to him. It didn’t matter that Walter was already dead. She’d send him to the fires of hell for eternity if she could. Well, maybe she didn’t have that much power, but the visual was nice.
Ida and Mavis were in San Francisco, taking training to learn how to dress the dearly departed. Abby and Chris would be attending tonight’s séance in their place. So Sophie and Toots prepared the dining room just as they always did. The purple silk bedsheet covered the old wooden table, and a drinking glass was in the center. Candles were placed in their usual positions. In front of Toots’s chair, Sophie placed a pencil and a pad of paper. Chris and Abby were due to arrive any minute. Sophie wanted to get started as soon as they arrived, didn’t want to waste a minute on anything that was unnecessary.
She glanced around the room one last time before going out on the deck to smoke a cigarette with Toots. Everything was as it should be.
Outside, in the early evening air, a warm breeze blew in from the Pacific, seagulls cawed, and waves rushed against the shoreline. Voices and laughter from the beach below drifted up to the deck. Sophie wasn’t sure which place she liked more, the back porch steps in Charleston or the deck opposite the beach in Malibu.
“You’re way too quiet tonight. What gives?” Toots asked.
Sophie lit a cigarette and sat in the lounge chair next to Toots. “I’m going to try to make contact with Walter tonight. It’s something I feel like I need to do.”
“Does this have anything to do with Goebel?”
“Why would you think that?” Sophie asked.
“I can see the signs. Remember, I’ve been married eight times? I’m quite an expert at putting one relationship behind in order to move on to another. At least I think I am. If John hadn’t died, I would still be married to him. He was the true love of my life, but he wasn’t my only love. You and Walter, on the other hand . . . Well, let’s just say we both know there was no love lost between the two of you. I don’t see why you stayed with him all those years. Why you took his abuse. I never took you for the type of woman who would put up with a man’s abuse, not to mention his many indiscretions, but the past is prologue. You’re ready to move on, Sophie, and that’s okay. More than okay. It’s great. If anyone deserves it, you do.”
“Call it what you will. It’s just something that I need to do. I think I just heard a car. I’ll go see if it’s Abby and Chris.”
Coco’s fierce growl announced their presence. Abby must have brought Chester along. Coco’s true love.
Sophie arrived at the door at the same time Abby and Chris prepared to knock. Chester, Abby’s German shepherd /bodyguard, danced up and down, excited because the canine knew what awaited him on the other side of the door. Inside, both dogs ran to their favorite spot in the kitchen, licking and barking at one another. Both would be content for the rest of the evening.
“Sophie, you look fantastic!” Abby gave her godmother a tight squeeze, then stood back to rake her in. “You’ve changed.”
Chris stood off to the side, grinning from ear to ear. “She says the same thing to me every time I see her,” Chris said.
“Well, I don’t know if I’ve changed or not, but I’m certainly not the woman I was a year ago. I smoke less. I don’t eat near as much garbage as I used to. I’ve all but given up saying the F word, so I guess you could call that change.”
Chris and Abby both burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Toots said as she entered the room.
Abby practically raced to her mother’s open arms. “Sophie said she’s smoking less and giving up the F bomb,” Abby said laughingly, her clear blue eyes lighting up like diamonds. “So, what’s on tonight’s agenda?”
“Sophie wants to try to make contact with Walter.”
When they’d returned to California, they had told Abby about Thomas’s coming through and how successful Sophie was becoming in her new career as a medium. Chris had not told her, because Toots had asked him not to. Ida had just given Abby permission to use her story for The Informer. Their story would run in tomorrow’s edition.
Ida said she didn’t really care about publicity anymore. She wanted to put that part of her life behind her, as she and Mavis were working together to make dying a beautiful experience. At least in the clothing and makeup department. Don’t ask and don’t even go there. It’s their thing . . . their . . . calling late in life or some such thing.
“If you guys are ready, I say let’s get this show on the road. I can’t wait to tell Walter to go straight to hell,” Sophie said, a fierce expression on her face.
They all laughed, but the laughter was nervous, edgy-sounding.
Five minutes later, they were seated around the wooden table. The lights were dimmed and the candles were lit. Toots held the pencil in her hand, ready to do its bidding.
Sophie started with her usual prayer. “Oh, great one, bless this dump and those who inhabit it, living or dead. Everyone, relax. Think of something pleasant. Let’s all take a deep breath.”
Toots, Abby, and Chris did as instructed.
“We are here to communicate with the other side. We are friendly. We mean no harm.” Sophie said this at the beginning of every séance she conducted. Who knew what kind of evil lurked in and among them?
“Place your fingertips around the glass very lightly,” Sophie instructed.
Chris, Abby, and Toots placed the tips of their fingers on the glass.
“Is there anyone here who wishes to make contact tonight? Roll the glass toward the window for yes and the other way for no.”
All focused on the glass. Nothing happened.
“Toots, start making circles on the paper.”
“Walter Manchester. In life you were a cruel, wicked man. In death, you may have a chance to redeem yourself,” Sophie intoned in a solemn voice.
Before she could utter another word, tiny orbs of light filled the room. They flew around like miniscule shooting stars, up and down, right and left, until they formed one giant glistening orb. Suddenly, the temperature in the room dropped by several degrees. Sophie watched as Toots’s hand raced across the paper. She strained to read the words in the dim light, but all she saw were dozens of tiny circles.
“Walter, are you here with us?” Sophie asked.
Abby and Chris were focused on the glass. Ever so slowly, it inched to the right, toward the window.
Intakes of breath filled the room.
“Yes, you are here,” Sophie continued. “Do you know who I am?”
The glass rolled to the right again.
“You are Walter Manchester, former husband of Sophia Manchester?” she clarified. She needed to be sure.
&
nbsp; For the third time, the glass rolled to the right, stopping when it reached the edge of the table.
“Are you in hell, Walter?” Sophie inquired, making it sound as if she were simply seeking information the way a neutral observer might. She sneaked a glance at the others. They were staring at her as if she were out of her mind.
Nothing happened for several seconds. Then Toots’s hand began to slash words across the paper. Over and over. Left to right.
Sophie wanted to see what, if anything, she’d written and stretched to make out the word she’d repeatedly written across the paper.
Forgive? Forgive? Forgive?
“Walter, are you asking me to forgive you?” Sophie asked, obviously stunned by the words, her voice no longer anything like that of a neutral observer.
The glass finally rolled off the edge of the table, crashing to the floor.
Toots’s hand went crazy across the page again.
Please! Please! Please!
“You wicked son of a bitch! I said those very same words to you over and over again for thirty long and painful years! Did you listen to me when I begged you to stop hitting me? Hello! No, you didn’t! Did you listen to me when I begged you to stop drinking? Hell no! I hope your soul cries out in pain as you burn in the deepest, hottest flames of hell! I hate you, Walter! Can you hear this?” Sophie all but screamed the words.
“Leave, Walter! Never make your presence known to me again, in this life or in the afterlife! Begone with you!” Sophie swung her arms out to the sides, toppling one of the candles. Abby quickly grabbed it and placed it back on the table.
As suddenly as the temperature had lowered in the room, it returned to normal. The giant orb was no longer visible, and the pencil fell out of Toots’s hand, dropping to the floor.
Sophie stood up and flicked the light switch on, bathing the room in bright light. “That bastard! He’s returned from the grave, asking for my forgiveness! I can’t believe this. I need a cigarette.” Sophie walked out of the room, leaving Toots, Abby, and Chris sitting in the séance room, totally stunned.
Outside on the deck, the breeze whipped the ends of Sophie’s hair around, tossing them in the air. She’d wanted to make contact with Walter tonight, and she had. She didn’t plan on his spirit asking her to forgive him. Once a bastard, always a bastard, she thought. Why should she forgive him?
Toots, Abby, and Chris stepped outside on the deck.
Toots stood beside her. “You can forgive him, you know? That doesn’t mean you’ll forget the terrible things he did to you,” Toots said, placing a hand on her arm. “It’s the right thing to do. He’s the past, Soph. Don’t let your memories of him ruin your future.”
Sophie nodded. “You’re right, as usual, old gal.” Sophie looked up at the stars, then leaned over the deck, looking down at the grayish tan sand. “Walter, if you can hear me down there, kiss my ass and the dog’s ass, too! You got that?”
Toots, Abby, and Chris bent over in a fit of laughter. Sophie gave an aggressive flip of the bird to the beach below.
“Rot in hell, Walter!”
Chapter 37
Mavis turned white as a ghost, and Ida could barely keep her lunch down. Mavis swallowed several times, took a few deep breaths, then sat back in the chair as close to Ida as humanly possible.
San Francisco’s Society of Morticians was holding its annual weeklong classes on how to dress the dead for their final departure. Since Mavis’s idea to design, manufacture, and sell clothes to send departed loved ones off for their final good-byes had launched last week, she now wanted to learn how to instruct her clients on how to use them. She’d made a pattern using Sophie and Toots as her “bodies,” and the rest was quite simple. Mavis made the front of a dress/jacket or skirt/jacket for women and slacks/shirt/ jacket fronts for the men. Her designs came with an absorbent cotton liner since she’d learned that after embalming, there could be leaks. These designs were selling faster than she’d ever dreamed, so much so that she’d had to hire ten more seamstresses just to keep up with the orders. When the body was placed in the casket, no one needed to see the back side of the body, and this made dressing the dead much easier. Mavis had dressed her first body last week, with minimal training from a local mortician in Los Angeles. He loved her idea so much, was so impressed with her skill, that he recommended she attend these classes in San Francisco this week. Ida had been working with a chemist to produce a line of cosmetics strictly for those who were about to be laid to rest.
“I thought they were just going to instruct us on how to lay out the body after it’s placed in the coffin,” Ida whispered to Mavis. “You forgot to mention we’d have to watch an actual embalming.”
“Shh,” Mavis said. “He’s speaking.” She focused on the guest speaker.
“Once the body has been cleaned, the next step is to make a small incision here in the neck.” He used a small knife to make an incision in the jugular vein. A small hose was inserted into the incision, and all body fluids were flushed from the body and drained into a large glass container. The guest speaker, a mortician, explained each step of the procedure while performing it. Ida held a tissue over her nose. Not only could she smell the formaldehyde, but could actually taste it.
The speaker continued, “Once the body is empty of fluid, then we clean the body. If there are injuries, such as a gunshot wound, any visible markings on the body, we try to cover them with flesh-colored bandages. Eye caps are placed under the lids of the eye.” He opened the corpse’s eyes as he did this. Several people turned away.
“Next, we will stitch the mouth in a closed position, and we try to keep it as natural looking as possible. See this?” He took a fine needle and a sturdy, thin thread. In three movements, the cadaver’s mouth was no longer slack, hanging open.
Ida audibly gagged, but she wasn’t the only one in the room who did so. Mavis wasn’t quite as queasy. With each step she learned, she told herself she was making it better for those to whom she would be attending. Once she became certified, she would instruct others on how to dress the dead. Of course, using her designs would just be a matter of a few adjustments to the body once it was placed inside the casket. Mavis looked at it as though this were a final performance, and who wouldn’t want to look their best?
When the session was over, Mavis and Ida went down to the wharf, where they watched the sea lions. Neither one of them felt they would be able to eat after what they’d just witnessed, until they saw a small open-air seafood restaurant. They bought fish and chips served in a cone and doused in malt vinegar.
“This is not figure flattering,” Ida said.
“Just eat half. We’ll walk these rolling streets, which is guaranteed to burn off any extra calories,” Mavis said.
When they finished picking at their lunch, they strolled up and down San Francisco’s streets. They walked as far as Presidio Boulevard, then tromped up Russian Hill to Lombard Street, one of the most winding and crooked streets in the world.
“I’m glad I didn’t wear heels,” Ida said.
“I’ve always wanted to do this, though I didn’t think to add it to my ‘life list.’ As soon as we get home, I’m going to do just that, then cross it off,” Mavis said. “What about you? Is there anything you want to add to your list?”
Ida’s pace was slow as they turned around to walk back up the hill. “I’m not sure yet. Being normal is a big accomplishment for me. I like helping you, too. At first, I thought I would be frightened, but I find that I’m not at all, though I didn’t like watching that poor man’s embalming. Did I tell you I’ve come up with a name for my new line of cosmetics?”
Mavis gushed. “No, and I, for one, am so proud of you for taking this step. Tell me, what are you going to call them?”
“Don’t laugh, but I thought it appropriate. How does Drop-Dead Gorgeous sound to you?”
As they strolled through some of San Francisco’s most famous streets, Ida felt lighthearted, more carefree than she had in years. Like Toots
said, she would know when the time was right to make changes in her life. She glanced at Mavis, who was complete and total proof that you could do and be anything you wanted to be.
“I think it’s perfect. We can work together. I’ll dress the dead. You can apply their makeup.” Mavis was so excited over their new venture together.
“I’ve even thought up names for the colors of the nail polish and eye shadow, though I’m not sure if that matters. But if my cosmetic line is as successful as your designs, I like to think those in this business might want a name for the products they use. What do you think?”
“Of course they will. Now, tell me what they are. This is just so exciting to me!” Mavis exclaimed.
“Don’t laugh. I’m calling the new peach-colored nail polish and eye shadow Pulse-Less Peach and the lavender Life-Less Lavender. Does that sound too disrespectful to you?” Ida asked.
“Not at all.” Mavis looked at her watch. “It’s time to go back. Just think. When we get back to Los Angeles, we’ll be official dressers to the dead.”
Chapter 38
Ghostly Encounters
By
Abby Simpson
New York City millionaire
medical-supply tycoon
Thomas McGullicutty is truly
a hero even though he died
two years ago. The New
York County Medical
Examiner originally reported
the cause of his death as
food poisoning. Though
deceased, the wealthy
playboy was not happy with
the results. In a rare and
most unusual event, Thomas
spoke from beyond the
grave during a séance,
explaining to the medium
that he had not died from
eating tainted meat, as was
reported. Those attending
the séance were stunned
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