Haunted Ever After

by Juliet Madison

  ‘Um…I said, red! Does Georgie have a…red dress?’ I called out feebly. I didn’t really want to wear red, it didn’t suit me. Overpowered my pale skin and light brown hair.

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ Lorena replied.

  Ha. Exactly.

  ‘But no.’ The clicking of footsteps grew louder. ‘Phew! I think I will need to put my feet up if I have to keep going up and down these stairs. Hence you have the upstairs room.’ She held up a small dress in front of me, its silver sequins shimmering slightly in the fading light.

  ‘That’s only the top, right? I’ll wear it with my black pants?’

  Lorena laughed. ‘No, this is the whole outfit. You’ve never seen a shift dress before?’

  I scrunched my face. ‘Will it even cover my lower half?’

  ‘It ends just above your knees. Gives you a chance to show off those slim legs of yours.’

  I flicked my hand. ‘Oh, but my knees are knobbly, and my legs look like they belong to a twelve year old boy!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, or would you rather have my legs with their varicose veins and cellulite? Happy to swap.’ She chuckled. ‘Now, get into this sexy number and then I’ll do your hair and makeup.’

  ‘What about you? Don’t you have to get ready?’

  ‘My hair and makeup is already done, I only have to get into my dress. Though I might need some help with the zip!’

  I didn’t even bring makeup. The most I wore was a swipe of tinted lip gloss and the occasional flick of mascara for a work function, but that was it.

  ‘Should I be worried?’ I lifted my limp ponytail.

  ‘I’d be worried if you kept your hair the way it is now, girlfriend,’ Red said behind me and I spun around. Damn it, I couldn’t talk to her with Lorena here, and she knew it.

  ‘Sal?’

  ‘Oh, I thought I felt a spider on my neck.’ I brushed my hand around my skin and clothes to make a show of it.

  ‘Lucky you bought all that bug spray then. Rightio, get dressed, and I’ll meet you in the downstairs bathroom.’

  I turned around and Red was gone. Bloody impulsive, fiery, redhead. I bet she was an Aries too, not that I believed in horoscopes.

  I’ll show her, I thought, as I stepped into the shimmery dress. I’ll show her I can be a sassy, sexy, woman. I’ll show her I can have some fun too. No ghost of my fiancé’s ex-girlfriend is going to stop me enjoying my one and only hen’s party.

  * * *

  ‘Lorena, you’re a miracle worker,’ Georgie said, as I walked on wobbly high-heeled feet out of the bathroom and met my bridesmaids in the living room.

  ‘Gee, that fills me with confidence about myself, Georgie,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that, sorry! You’re gorgeous in your own natural way, but wow! You look a million bucks. You should dress up more often.’

  ‘Yeah, I can hardly recognise you,’ Mel added. ‘Those curls look amazing. Totally suits you.’

  Lorena hadn’t let me see the final result until she’d finished, and when she’d swung my chair around to face the mirror, at first my instinct was to rub the gunk off my face and pull my hair back into a comfortable ponytail as usual. But something twinged inside. Whether or not it was the desire to show Red I could pull off sexy and glam like the best of them I wasn’t sure, but part of me felt excited. Different. And I liked it. Lorena was right. I needed to let my hair down literally and metaphorically this weekend, make the most of it and create some fun memories to look back on. Maybe I should even dress up like this for Greg occasionally, put a bit of spice into our relationship. I giggled at the thought of him seeing me like this. Plain Jane, Sensible Sally; all bright and shiny and sparkly.

  Ding-dong!

  I turned to look at the front door. ‘Who’s that? Are we expecting someone?’ Curiosity tickled my nerves.

  Lorena flashed a grin and waddled in a sexy way to the door. She opened it to reveal a man and a woman holding bags and what looked like photography equipment.

  ‘Paparazzi at your service,’ the man said. ‘I’m guessing this is our star for the night?’ He gestured to me.

  A wide-open smile grew on my face as I glanced at Lorena.

  ‘Sure is,’ she said. ‘Come on in. Sally, it’s time for your glamour photo shoot! I thought it would be nice to get some shots of all four of us to commemorate the weekend, and of course, some of you before the wedding. I bet Greg will love it, you could give him one as a wedding present!’

  ‘Wow, thank you. I never would have thought to do this.’ Probably because I didn’t know if I wanted to do this, though it was a lovely thing for Lorena to think of. But getting my photo taken always felt uncomfortable. And Greg would probably prefer gold-plated golf clubs as a present, but we won’t get into that now.

  After setting up their equipment and lighting and taking a few snaps of us together, it was time for my solo shoot. They got me to sit seductively on the velvet couch, though I probably looked more awkward than seductive.

  ‘Oooh! I’ll be the fan!’ Red jumped in front of me, blowing with all her might to try and make my hair waft backwards. She sucked in deep breaths and expelled them like a blowfish, and if she wasn’t already dead she looked like she was about to pass out from hyperventilation. My newly curled hair lightly wafted backwards. ‘Woohoo! Did you feel that? Finally, some action!’ She kept blowing, and I fiddled with my hair to avoid anyone else noticing.

  ‘Sally, now, keep your hands crossed on your knees like I showed you. Your hair looks perfect, no need to adjust,’ the photographer said.

  ‘Phoooo!’ Red blew harder and my hair lifted up. My hand flew to my head to catch the rogue strands.

  I pretended to shiver, ‘I think there’s a draught in here, I’m a bit chilly, are you chilly?’ I eyed my friends.

  ‘We’ll put on the fireplace tonight, Sal, don’t worry.’

  ‘Phoooo!’

  And we have lift-off again. My hair flapped upwards and I shrieked.

  ‘My, oh my, we do seem to have some sort of draught in the room.’ The female photographer’s assistant glanced around the room, but my bet was that she wouldn’t find the source of the draught.

  I glared at Red and tried to mouth ‘stop it’ while keeping my lips still, as though I was a ventriloquist. One of those dodgy ones who audition for The X Factor and think they’re fabulous.

  ‘Why is your mouth going all weird?’ Lorena asked.

  ‘I’m, ah, just stretching it out after all the smiling. Who knew one’s mouth could get so sore from a photo shoot?’

  ‘Wait till your wedding day, hun,’ said Lorena. ‘You’ll need an intensive mouth massage by the end of it.’ She slapped Mel’s nearby thigh. ‘And she’ll probably get one later that night, hey!’

  ‘Girls! Not when we have company, please!’ I urged.

  ‘Keep thinking of something funny,’ the photographer said. ‘It’ll make the smile more natural and won’t ache as much.’

  Funny, funny…what on earth could I possibly find funny about this situation?

  I glanced at Red. She pulled her top lip inside out and made her eyes bulge.

  Nice try, ghostie.

  Okay, funny stuff…um, that Friends episode when Ross gets a fake tan on one side of his body. That was quite funny. I smiled, but not enough to make me laugh.

  ‘Getting there, now relax and flash us a great big laughing smile.’ The photographer snapped photos while I kept adjusting my facial expressions and pose, and Red kept pulling faces, none of which triggered a burst of laughter. Until she gave up directing them at me and pulled them at the photographer instead. She stood right next to him, shoved her face next to his and grunted, looking like a deformed monkey. A bubble of laughter tickled my throat. She then sat in front of me on the floor and squished her face together with her hands till she resembled a chubby baby crossed with an alien, and that did it. My stomach heaved and laughter burst forth, and click, click, click went the camera.

  ‘Bravo! Th
at’s what I’m talking about,’ said the photographer. ‘Now I’ll just check some of these before we change location.’ He fiddled with his camera and frowned. ‘That’s odd.’

  The assistant approached him and peered at the screen. ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Hmm what?’ Lorena asked.

  ‘It’s okay, but we might have to shoot a couple more to replace a few of these. There’s a strange light imbalance in a few pictures.’

  ‘Can I have a look?’ I asked, launching from the couch and up to the camera.

  ‘Ah, sure,’ he said, holding the camera in front of me.

  Oh my God. Right where Red had been sitting in front of me was a warped stretch of light, like a smear of something on glass. He flipped through the images and each photo where Red was in the shot had a ‘light imbalance’ or whatever they called it. I gulped.

  ‘I don’t know where that came from. Look, the one before is perfect, and then an instant later the shot is disrupted.’ He fiddled with the settings on his camera and I looked towards my friends and shrugged. But inside my heart flip-flopped. This was evidence. Proof that Red wasn’t just in my imagination or a manifestation of some disease, she was really here. A ghost. In this house, with me.

  ‘C’mon, you sexy housewife you,’ said Lorena. ‘Let’s touch up your lipstick while they adjust the equipment.’ She led me towards the bathroom, and Red followed alongside us making The Twilight Zone sound effects and wriggling her fingers.

  Oh dear. I may not be sick or mad, and I wasn’t too sure about the sexy part, but I was definitely one very haunted housewife.

  CHAPTER 5

  ‘I’ve never felt so glamorous. Thanks for organising the photo shoot!’ Mel hugged an arm around Lorena.

  ‘I figured this would be the last chance I get for a while.’ She rubbed her belly. ‘Had to take the opportunity before sleep deprivation takes the healthy glow from my face.’

  ‘I don’t know if I ever had a healthy glow before kids, but the only way I get one nowadays is with some extra help. Now gimme.’ She wiggled her fingers near Georgie who was making cocktails.

  ‘Patience, Mel, patience.’ She expertly mixed and shook and poured, and eventually placed a tray of cocktails on the large kitchen counter where we sat on bar stools.

  Red approached, rubbing her hands eagerly together, and I shot her a ‘don’t you dare’ glare.

  ‘So, do your creations have a name?’ I asked Georgie.

  ‘One of them does, but I thought I’d get your creative input on the others. I made them all especially for you guys.’ She handed me a drink of luminescent green liquid with a hint of pink at the top, and a white straw. ‘This is the Gresally.’ She chuckled. ‘For Greg and Sally. Made with specially chosen ingredients to complement your caring nature, Greg’s love of golf courses, and the love you both share.’

  I smiled. ‘Oh, that’s so lovely. Thank you.’ I picked up the glass and Lorena took a photo of me as I sipped. ‘If you weren’t my bridesmaid I’d have you cater the drinks and food at the wedding!’

  ‘I’d do both if I could.’

  ‘I know you would.’ Georgie was known for taking on challenges.

  ‘Now stop chatting girls, which one is mine?’ Mel was practically salivating at the tray of brightly coloured drinks.

  ‘Here.’ Georgie handed her a purplish mixture with one of those tacky paper umbrellas sticking out of it. ‘And here,’ she handed Lorena an orange mixture, ‘Non-alcoholic of course.’

  ‘Not fair.’ Lorena pouted. ‘But only a few months to go.’

  Georgie took hers, a fairly plain-looking cocktail with a greyish-silver appearance. ‘Cheers!’

  ‘Cheers!’ We clinked glasses and sipped.

  ‘I think I’ll call mine the Thank God I’m Finally Drinking cocktail,’ Mel said as she sighed in relief, and Georgie laughed.

  ‘Or what about…A Night to Remember?’ Lorena proposed. ‘And mine could be…’ She eyed her orangey concoction. ‘The Fruit Tingle? The Fruit Loop? The Tingling Touch?’

  ‘Citrus Craving?’ I suggested. ‘Or something sort of, um, motherly?’

  ‘What, like a Leaking Nipple?’ Mel guffawed, her drink half gone.

  ‘Ha ha, Mel. No need to get me excited about things to come. How about I call it The Glow?’

  ‘Nice.’ I smiled, and clinked her glass with mine.

  ‘What about yours, Georgie?’ Lorena asked.

  ‘Don’t know. Maybe something in honour of this weekend.’

  ‘The Country Getaway? Girl’s Best Friend?’ Lorena suggested.

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’ Mel raised her glass.

  ‘Mel, you’ll drink to anything.’ I winked.

  ‘True.’ She downed the rest of her drink and took another from the tray.

  ‘Hmm, let me think of another name…’ I tapped my chin.

  ‘The Dead Chick!’ Red exclaimed from beside me, and I forced myself not to look her way. ‘The Dead Chick. Go on, say it!’

  ‘Hmm,’ I repeated, as though I was putting a lot of thought into it.

  ‘Say it! Say it!’ Red jumped up and down next to me.

  ‘Um, what about…’

  ‘The Dead Chick, The Dead Chick, The Dead Chick!’

  ‘Oh alright, The Dead Chick!’ I said with a little too much frustration in my voice.

  Red burst out laughing, her piercing tone making me lift my free hand to my ear.

  ‘The Dead Chick?’ Georgie furrowed her brow.

  ‘Oh, is that what I said? I meant the um, the…The Best Chick! Yep, that’s you!’ I punched her lightly in the arm in a ‘you’re such a great pal’ way. ‘You’re the best chick, for making these drinks for us.’ Oh God. That was pitiful.

  ‘I’ll drink to that too,’ Mel said.

  ‘Mel, go easy, we haven’t started the hors d’oeuvres yet,’ Georgie said, then looked at me again. ‘Well, thanks, Sal. I’m glad you think I’m the best chick.’ She gave me a confused smile.

  ‘It could be a Dead Chick too, though,’ said Lorena. ‘I mean, the drink is kinda dark and gloomy looking. Not in a bad way, I mean, I bet it tastes fantastic, but it has a kind of mysterious appeal.’

  ‘Hey, you’re right. I reckon Dead Chick suits it,’ Mel replied.

  ‘Or even The Haunted House,’ Lorena added. ‘We are in an old, creaky place after all. Beautiful, but it does have that look of a haunted house, don’t you think?’ She glanced around.

  I scratched my cheek. Then my head. Then my arm.

  ‘Are you allergic to The Gresally?’ Georgie asked. ‘I hope not!’

  ‘Oh, no. Not at all. Just get itchy sometimes, from all those anti-bacterial hand sanitisers I use at work, I think.’ I stole a glance at Red who was in hysterics at Lorena’s suggestion for calling it a Haunted House.

  ‘If only she knew, ha ha! Tell her, Sally, tell her I’m here. I dare ya!’

  Never in a million years.

  ‘What about The Ghost?’ asked Mel.

  My eyes darted to hers. ‘What? What ghost?’

  ‘What about calling Georgie’s drink The Ghost? It has a spooky look to it.’

  ‘Oh.’ For a moment I thought they were all in on the ghost situation and were waiting for me to finally admit I could see her.

  ‘Is that what I look like? All spooky?’ Red asked, her hands waving about her body, then she laughed.

  Thankfully, Georgie served up some nibblies, and conversation steered away from naming cocktails to ‘ooh’s’ and ‘ahh’s’ at her cooking prowess.

  ‘This is so unfair!’ Red kept screaming. ‘I want some!’ She chucked a childlike tantrum and pounded on the floor and I tried my best to ignore her. She was like a hyperactive child high on red food colouring. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d died from overexcitement.

  As darkness fell, Lorena lit some candles and refused my attempt at turning on the main lights. She checked her watch. It was the third time she’d done it in the last ten minutes.

  ‘Why d
o you keep looking at your watch?’ I asked.

  ‘Huh? No reason.’

  Liar. Five minutes later when I got settled on the velvet couch with another cocktail, the reason rang the doorbell.

  * * *

  ‘Surely not the photographers again?’ I asked, twisting sideways to peer over the back of the couch to the front door.

  ‘Nope. You sit right there, hun, I’ll get it.’ Lorena said with a cheeky grin.

  What did she have planned now? Maybe it was a limousine driver to take us to a fancy club? Only there weren’t any fancy clubs out here in the country, unless you counted the Barron Springs Pub, which was probably a few points shy of fancy.

  Lorena opened the door slowly, and a man stepped in and placed his black winter coat on the coat rack. He was wearing blue scrubs and a surgical mask.

  Huh? Someone from work? Maybe we were really having a surprise party and Lorena had invited all my work colleagues.

  ‘Are you okay, Lorena? It’s not the baby is it?’ I asked, suddenly concerned that maybe there was some problem she hadn’t told us about.

  She laughed. ‘Oh hun, there’s no problem with me at all. This is Ty.’ She ushered him further inside. ‘That gorgeous young thing over there is Sally, the bride-to-be,’ she said, pointing my way.

  Oh God. Was this an intervention? She had caught me talking to myself in the bedroom. Though it wasn’t really to myself. And I had been acting a bit strange and saying weird things thanks to Red. But maybe Red didn’t really exist after all and I was actually hallucinating and they could all tell, and Dr Ty was here to whisk me away to the psych ward.

  Although the room was dark, apart from the ambient glow of candlelight, I could see strong cheekbones above his surgical mask as he walked towards me. He was also wearing protective goggles, like the ones I wore when I had to assist in a delicate potentially blood-spattering procedure at work. Maybe I, or all of us, were infected with some rare virus and he was here to quarantine us.

  Confusion and a bit of fear raced through me. Ty stood dominantly in front of me. Golly gosh. They probably sent the strong one to carry me away and prevent me from resisting. Maybe there was a whole team of elite, muscular doctors waiting outside to ensure we didn’t escape. Or to move in if we retaliated. Like a medical SWAT team.