A Ghost of a Chance

by Cherie Claire

  She pulls her rolling suitcase to a halt and extends her hand, fingers exquisitely manicured. “I’m Kelly Talbot, the one who got stuck in Atlanta.”

  I offer my collection of fingers my mother dubs “steak fries.” “We thought you weren’t going to make it in tonight.”

  “Managed a stand-by and rented a car,” she says with a sugary sweet Southern accent. Georgia, perhaps?

  Maddox clears his throat and I realize I have forgotten my manners. “Kelly, this is Maddox Bertrand of the Eureka Springs Police Department. I had a bit of a mishap today and he’s here to haul me off to jail.”

  Neither one retorts to the joke, both appearing incredibly happy at what they are staring at. She extends her hand and gives her name again, but this time tilts her head coquettishly, which sends long, silky hair cascading over her shoulder. She and TB could be romance novel covers. I’m thinking maybe I should introduce them and mention it.

  Maddox eats it up, of course. Men become silly putty at times like these. “Are you a travel writer on this trip, too? Will we be seeing more of you?”

  “I’m an editor,” Kelly clarifies. “With Southern Gardens magazine.”

  Now, I really hate this woman. Southern Gardens was my dream job and I applied for three positions with them before giving up, couldn’t get a foot in the door. TB used to say I was crazy for applying since I lived in the world’s most interesting city while the magazine was in Athens, Georgia. But Southern Gardens vs. covering the police beat in St. Bernard Parish? Hell, I could have always visited New Orleans, not to mention that Athens is a pretty cool place, a town where REM and the B-52s got their start.

  “I love that magazine,” Maddox says with a stupid grin and I look at him puzzled. I can’t imagine him reading anything but Guns & Ammo.

  “Well, I’m going to get some shut eye,” Miss Georgia announces with that sweet tea accent, placing her key in the lock.

  “So nice to meet you,” Maddox says with more enthusiasm than he ever showed me tonight, and Miss Georgia disappears. Maddox finally turns back to me and our conversation but the handsome smile he bestowed upon my neighbor is long gone. He pulls out a card from his shirt pocket and his authoritative Po-Po voice returns as he hands it my way. “If you think of anything or have anything else to add, you’ve got my number.”

  My heart leaps, although my logical brain is telling me not to read anything into this gesture. Still, I wonder like the naïve fool that I am, is he hitting on me? I gratefully take his card and find myself smiling silly. “Great. And if you have any more information on the case, I’d love to hear it. Not as a journalist,” I quickly add. “I mean I am still a journalist but I’m a travel writer now. No more awful police beat.”

  Why did I say that?

  “Not that police business is awful,” I quickly add. “Just that I’ve got a really great job now as a travel writer. Get to visit cool places like this.” I move my hand in the air to indicate that I’m now way up in the world, staying at posh hotels like the Crescent.

  Maddox smiles politely, his forehead slightly wrinkled in a frown and I wonder if I shot myself in the foot. “Talk to you later,” is all he says and saunters off. But I take this as encouraging, hoping that he giving me his card means we will hook up sometimes in the future.

  When I wander back in the room TB has crashed on the bed, TV remote in his hand, thumb on a channel while he snores loudly. I turn off the TV, pull the blankets up to his chin and roll him over like I have for the past eight years, minus the last few months.

  I change into my nightgown, one of the few things I have not purchased at Goodwill, and for the first time in a very long while feel sexy, even though my logical brain is trying to rewind the scenes with Maddox and point out his disinterest. I refuse to admit that the man was way more interested in Kelly, convince myself he was just being polite with the garden editor, then I wash my face, apply the hotel’s mint and rosemary body lotion and brush my teeth. My headache has disappeared, I realize, and glance down at the Eureka Springs Police Department business card and smile.

  I’m headed to bed with visions of hunky detectives dancing in my head when I spot her. She’s waiting for me in the corner of the room, dressed in schoolgirl attire like in the photo. No longer hazy, I can make out the Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women logo on her breast pocket, the mauve ribbon carelessly tied in her hair, even the color of her eyes — bayou mud brown. I detect nothing of the sadness from before, no longing or heartache. Tonight, she’s anxious, as if her patience has been exhausted and it’s time for something to happen.

  “What?” I ask, not thinking that I’m speaking to a ghost. “What do you want me to know?”

  Before I can comprehend what is happening, the girl rushes toward me, her spirit pulsing through my body in a sensation I can only describe as being touched by a million lightning bugs. As the electricity pours through my being, I feel my eyes rolling back in my head and I lose myself.

  Chapter Ten

  I’m standing in the meeting room that I visited earlier, the one that held the photo of the girl and other hotel memorabilia next to the Baker Bar, but it’s a different time. I sense I still belong to myself, still existing within my own body, but I also feel part of the ether and those around me. As the room comes into focus, I make out several schoolgirls and a teacher, all of whom are excited about some good news.

  “I couldn’t be more proud of you all,” says the teacher whose name is James Cabellero. I don’t know how but his name appears clear in my head as the figure before me, a slender man in his late twenties with premature salt and pepper hair and deep brown eyes, more homely than handsome but there’s something attractive about him, that old college professor appeal I suppose? Could also be his enthusiasm, as if he had just left college and entered the teaching profession.

  “A national literary award,” James says. “Think of what this means to not only the school but to your parents. Not to mention for some of you who want to become writers.”

  James looks over my shoulder with a loving smile and I imagine he’s sending me that warm, affectionate gesture. Instinctively, I smile back, glowing in the recognition of my work that my family routinely fails to offer.

  “We owe it all to you.”

  His gaze passes right through me and I know he can’t be admiring me at this point. I turn to find the schoolgirl of my room — her name is Lauralei Thorne, Lori for short — sending the teacher a doe-eyed smile. As I glance back and forth between two people we might call geeks in the modern world, I wonder what’s going on between them.

  James breaks the connection and turns to the other girls, about seven pimpled-faced coeds in identical uniforms, ranging in age between what I imagined to be seventeen and twenty. They’ve gathered around his desk, all smiles, one playing with his pencil sharpener, another bouncing up and down with glee.

  “It was a concerted effort created by the unbelievable talents of my outstanding class,” James continues.

  He sends Lori another smile but only briefly this time, as if he senses someone might catch on. I look back at my roommate and find her awkwardly smoothing out her skirt, the same outfit the blond wore in the cave, I suddenly notice.

  As this scene continues to unfold before me, I’m not only viewing this gathering but picking up emotions from everyone as well. The rest of the girls come through as a ball of energy, unfocused with erratic thoughts consuming most girls that age. Will my dad be proud? Is my hair combed right? Will anyone notice my skirt is not the required three inches below the knee? But James and Lori emit messages through the fog, and it’s clear these two have more than a teacher-student relationship, although I’m doubtful anything physical has happened yet.

  In the same flash of a second the vision appeared, I’m back on the floor of my room, gazing up at the ceiling, my head splitting for the second time that day.

  “Did you say something?” TB asks from the bed, above my line of sight.

  I si
t up and gaze around the Victorian room with its deep reds, heavy furniture and an oversized plush chair, none of which belonged to my dead roommate — at least I sure hope she’s dead. I sense, now, this room was used by students during the college era, although the configuration has been changed over the years.

  I also know Lori died here.

  Out in the hall a voice carries and my heart skips thinking it might be Madman returning for more questions and here I’m lying on the floor in my cheap nightgown from Kmart after a bout of time travel. “Explain that one, Valentine,” I tell myself. And yet, for the first time since the Opera Singer back at the New Orleans airport, I’m not that surprised or worried about my ethereal experiences. Maybe I’ve finally embraced insanity.

  I gingerly stand so as not to jiggle the headache and make it worse. As usual, TB doesn’t ask why I’m on the floor, simply rolls over and rearranges his pillow.

  Heading to the door and the source of the noise, I press one ear to the wood and listen to a man explaining something and, when I gaze out the peephole, see a group standing behind him, listening intently.

  “It’s the ghost tour,” TB mumbles. “They have several every night.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That bitch of a mayor told me.”

  There are times when TB absorbs the world, digests its true meanings and appears almost smart. Few times, mind you, but I’m so happy tonight is one of those moments. I reach over and kiss his forehead.

  “What?” he asks without opening his eyes.

  “The mayor grabbed my arm in the library earlier and accused me of something to do with her cousin.” I pull up my nightgown sleeve and find a nasty bruise in the shape of fingers.

  TB opens his eyes and looks my way, spots the odd-shaped bruise and sits up. “Jesus, Vi.”

  “I know!” Now that I realize she has left a mark, I’m royally pissed. “What on earth was she thinking?”

  The group outside titters — you know, when something spooks them or a piece of information startles their senses and they react. One woman burps up a nervous giggle. TB and I stop talking and try to hear what the man in charge is saying. We can’t make out much, but we hear him recall a cancer patient named Theodora who stayed in the room across the hall during the Baker hospital days and apparently she can’t find her keys and appears at the door to hotel visitors.

  After a second or two, TB relaxes back on his pillow. “He’s telling the Ghost Hunters story. The crew from that TV show stayed in that room across the hall and the ghost moved everything around. When they came back to their room one night, they couldn’t get in the door because the ghost had moved their stuff and blocked the entrance from the inside.”

  “How do you know this?”

  TB shrugs and looks guilty. “There was a tour this afternoon.”

  He expects me not to catch on. Worse, he thinks I’ll be mad that he either crashed the tour or accepted a free one without my approval. I lean over and kiss him again, right on top of that thick head of gorgeous blond hair.

  “What?” TB asks again, totally confused.

  I sit on the bed next to him, grab the remote, turn off the TV and throw the remote on the side table. “Tell me all about it.”

  “Henry says you all will go on the tour tomorrow night,” TB begins, still fighting off sleep. “But there are several ghosts in this hotel.”

  I take a deep breath, hoping one of them is a plain girl with reddish hair and brown eyes. “I heard about Michael in 218. And the guy with the cap in the morgue. Who else is here?”

  “I can’t remember them all.” TB rubs his eyes. “The lady across the hall, a nurse with a gurney I think on one of the floors. Some couple in a suite took a photo of a woman in white in their TV screen.”

  My heart drops. “Is that it?”

  “That’s not enough?”

  How do I bug him without mentioning Plain Jane? “I mean, were there any others?”

  TB pushes himself up from the pillows. “Oh yeah, there was the college girl who threw herself off the balcony.”

  A hum begins in the room, too quiet to be detected by the human ear but it resonates with my pulse, skittering throughout my body. This buzzing energy is Lori, I think, and might explain the story of the room’s ghost. “What did she look like?”

  TB turns to me with a puzzled grin. “How the hell would I know?”

  And with that remark, the buzzing immediately stops, TB turns and readjusts his pillows, dropping down with a sigh and quickly falling back to sleep.

  I’m disappointed, naturally, but what did I expect from a man who couldn’t remember how to recite vows at our wedding. I’ll get my own tour tomorrow night and I’ll actually listen to the details.

  Suddenly, I’m exhausted and I crawl into my side of the bed, drifting off to sleep as I vaguely hear the ghost tour making their way down the hall and out of earshot. One piece drifts through the ether and into my consciousness, however, pausing within the fog enveloping me toward sleep: that of a girl who lived on this floor who fell to her death.

  We start the day at a cute coffeehouse in the center of downtown Eureka Springs, if you could call it a downtown. The city hugs the mountain so streets crawl high and low and twist in all directions, one reason why someone dubbed it “the town of up and down.” I hug my coffee cup and literally inhale the caffeinated aroma, hoping it might jolt my brain into action.

  Sleep eluded me like the ghosts I have been seeing, so I’m thoroughly exhausted. Through my dreams I witnessed faint images, saw tiny clues that I couldn’t quite grasp, and heard historic people telling me things I failed to decipher. I tossed and turned all night, waking up at the slightest sound, continually gazing the room for Lori who never returned.

  Now, clutching my coffee like a lifesaver, I remain in that fog, unable to focus on what our historian is saying.

  “Are you okay?” one of the emaciated Wallace girls asks me and for the life of me I cannot remember her name.

  “I’m fine,” I say, even though I want to nod off in my chair. “Have you had breakfast yet? You’re so thin.”

  I’m being rude and I know it. I had a friend in college who resembled a beanpole, which is exactly what people nicknamed her. None of us thought much about it, until I found her crying in her dorm room and realized that pointing out faults, no matter how much we wished they were our own problems, is as hurtful as calling someone fat.

  The Wallace girl isn’t insulted, but maybe she’s being nice because she’s in PR. “Are you sure your head is all right? We just had breakfast.”

  I look down and sure enough, there sits my half empty plate. Reminds me of the old Steve Martin stand-up routine where he would pause on stage then say, “Sorry, I went to the Bahamas.”

  “I’m not fully functional until I had my coffee,” I lie to skinny whinny, then kick myself for calling her a name, even if it is inside my head. “And I’m sorry for saying you’re thin. It’s the mother in me.”

  Admitting that makes me physically wince. Oh, please don’t ask me about Lillye.

  “We’ll be doing the walking tour soon,” she tells me and I breathe a sigh of relief. “That will help get you going.”

  Indeed. Like I said, I can focus better when I’m holding something, moving around. Sitting here listening to this fine gentleman drone on about the establishment of Eureka Springs is failing to lodge anything within my brain.

  Our Wallace Girl seems to receive that same message for she gently interrupts boring — but highly informative, I’m sure — local historian and suggests we continue the history lesson as we make our way around town. Richard mentions a bathroom break and another cup of coffee — the ghost tours outside his door interrupted his sleep — and Stephanie and Joe ask if they can run across the street to the Basin Park, where the original spring exists, to take photos in the perfect morning light that will disappear soon. It’s decided that we break for fifteen minutes and meet in front of the spring to begin the walking tour.r />
  The morning group is me, the Wisconsin duo and Richard for the others are enjoying spa services at the hotel; we have split up the salon time and mine comes tomorrow. Wallace boss lady gives us the go-ahead and we instantly move in all directions, like kids being released for recess. Since I neither have to visit the ladies room nor am interested in chasing light, I head outside for fresh air and a chance to clear my head.

  Next door is a chocolate shop, another bistro and then one of those typical gift shops you find in cute towns such as Eureka Springs, those offering the same tchotchkes made in China but also upscale souvenirs, local art and what I call “cruisewear” clothes for women, the free-flowing kind. None of this interests me — although I wonder if I will need those clothes if I keep eating like I do — so I walk to the end of the block and notice an alley with a stone stairway down to the next street. Again, the city is an up and down experience.

  Alongside the alley, beneath a rainbow flag, there’s a store with crystals in the window. Naturally, Rainbow Waters catches my eye but it’s the enlarged Tarot card on the front door that does the trick, the “Hanged Man” staring at me as if life is some big joke.

  Every time I have a Tarot reading, this card appears. It depicts a man in blue with red tights hanging upside down by one foot from a tree, like he got caught on a branch and decided to enjoy the experience. His hands rest casually behind his back and one leg is crossed behind the other. Around his head, a yellow light glows.

  I’ve been told the Hanged Man represents indecision or feeling stuck, an ample definition of my life since I graduated LSU in 1997. But the Hanged Man’s resignation, the ease of his hands folded behind his back and the heavenly light about his head suggests I need to surrender to circumstances and let go of emotional issues.

  “You need to release what you are holding on to,” the last card reader told me, which made me laugh considering. How does one move past the death of a child? “When you let go of the worries, concerns, emotional baggage you hold tight to, a new reality will appear.”