Ghost Mortem

by ReGina Welling

  “Thank you, darling.” The final stitch finished, she snipped the thread with a tiny pair of scissors, then looked up at me. “David has offered to move out and let you have your old room back.” I couldn’t tell if the prospect relieved or worried her, but it didn’t matter.

  “There’s no need. I’ve … um … well, I’ve found a place to live.” There would be a lecture when I told her what I’d done, I knew, but I stiffened my spine and spilled the story anyway.

  To my surprise, she grinned at me. “Your grandmother would be so proud.”

  “Which one?” I knew Grammie Dupree would have thrown me a party for doing something so outrageous, but I had no idea what my maternal grandmother might have thought. Most of what I knew about her came from looking at pictures in the family photo albums. She’d been the kind of woman who never smiled for the camera.

  Whether she was pleasant when the spotlight was off, I couldn’t say, but since my mother rarely spoke of her, I suspected the stern expression to be habitual.

  Mom smiled at me. "Both of them, now that I'm thinking about it, if for different reasons." As much as I would have liked to know more, she didn't elaborate. "It's a big house, but well-built with solid bones, and in a good location. With some cosmetic updates, it will be an excellent investment. Interest rates are destabilizing the market right now, so it would be best if you held onto it until things settle."

  My mouth opened, but nothing came out.

  “What? I know things.”

  "I never doubted it. I just thought you'd disapprove. To be honest, I've been wondering if I did the right thing. I got caught up in the excitement, and Mrs. Tipton kept throwing numbers at me. I don't even have a job yet, and that's another thing. I need a resume. My head is just spinning. And don't you think it's weird that the town would let that house go so cheap? She said some investment company was interested and I'm betting they would have paid a lot more."

  I could hear myself babbling as I settled into a straight-backed chair, but lacked the control to stick to a train of thought or better yet, just shut up.

  "Everyone says the place is haunted, and hey, I bet that's why it was so cheap. I bet there was no investment company at all, and Mrs. Tipton took advantage of me. She talked me into buying Spooky Manor, and now I have to live by myself in a haunted house."

  Wisely, my mother let me talk until I ran down like a wind-up doll because she knew me well enough to know I processed things in my own weird way.

  “Rent-free.” A tentative smile slid over my face as I circled back around to the reason I’d bought a house without even seeing the inside of it first. Maybe the ghosts would be good company. Or they’d facilitate my slide into madness. You never knew.

  Seeing I was done, my mother picked up the conversation as though my little meltdown had been full of valid information. “Have you ever seen a ghost hanging around the Willowby house?”

  “Of course not.” Probably because I’d always walked on the opposite side of the street if my path took me down Lilac Lane. “None of my friends did, either.” Now I was starting to wonder if I’d let a case of the childhood frights turn into more.

  "No one ever has,” Mom said, examining the finished book to make sure she’d gotten it just right. “These are the kinds of stories you hear, and they always start with someone's cousin or a friend of a friend who heard it from someone who heard it from someone else."

  I rested my elbow on the table and my chin in my palm while I thought back. “You’re right. Okay, then if the house isn’t haunted, it makes even less sense for the town to let it go for peanuts.”

  Her steady brown eyes met mine. “Does it? Isn’t fear of a thing often more terrifying than the thing itself? The power of suggestion is a strong force.”

  I let her half-convince me, but I still thought there was something hinky with the whole scenario.

  She sighed and said, “It’s a solid house that you could flip, or better yet, would be a good place to raise a family if you don’t mind putting in a little hard work.”

  “Mom, I’m in the process of getting divorced. The last thing on my mind at the moment is raising a family. You get that, right?” The idea of dating actually made the thought of living with ghosts more palatable.

  Seriously, what did that say about my life?

  She played off the gaffe. “I wasn’t suggesting you jump on the first man who looks at you sideways, but you’ll heal and move on eventually.”

  The question I’d held inside for the better part of two days finally popped out. “How could Paul do what he did, Mom? Why didn’t he love me enough to be faithful? Why wasn’t I enough for him?”

  "Oh, Everly. Darling, the only answer I have for you is that there's something fundamentally wrong with the man.” When I started to protest, she held up a finger. “No, don't give me that look. You know I never could find a way to bond with Paul, but I was willing to accept him as long as he made you happy. Was he good to you?"

  Rising, she came around the desk to pull me up and into her arms. I laid my head on her shoulder and tried to remember my life before the enormity of the moment when everything fell to ruin.

  Looking back from here, I could see the frayed edges in our marriage that I hadn't noticed from the inside. Being brutally honest, I'd let him take charge, not because he made me feel threatened if I didn't, but because it was easier to coast along with him in the lead. The part of me that hadn't felt fulfilled went ignored—first from a sense of compromise and later, just from habit. There had been nothing abusive in our marriage, not like my mother was thinking anyway.

  “Mostly. I guess. Not like you and daddy, but the two of you are freaks of nature.”

  A watery chuckle followed that bit of truth out of my mouth. I offered another. “We were talking about trying.”

  “Trying?”

  “To have a baby. I wanted so badly to start a family, and now that dream is over.”

  Stepping back from the hug, Mom laid her hands on my cheeks and turned my face until our eyes met. “Take the time you need to heal, but don’t throw away all your dreams over a man who wasn’t worthy of the least of them. Do you hear me?”

  I nodded and let the conversation die. It was easier to let her think a happy marriage might still be in my future than to dash her hopes. I was through with men. Period. Forever. End of story.

  “If I’m going to move on with my life, I need to find a job so I can afford to keep my haunted house and support the ghosts in style. Do you mind if I use the computer in here? My laptop is still packed in a box, but I need to put together a resume and print a few copies.”

  “Of course, honey. You know the password.” Mom patted my hand and went back to her project while I searched the Internet for a resume template, then set to work making myself look good on paper. To be honest, I wasn’t feeling so hot about my off-paper attributes at the moment.

  I’d have bet good money I wasn’t the first scorned woman to turn the magnifying glass around and search for things she had or hadn’t done that might have caused such a rift. Oh, I knew I wasn’t responsible for his decision to cheat, but there had to have been a few steps between him saying I do and then deciding to do it with someone else.

  And that was who she was to me now—someone else—because she’d clearly never been the friend I’d thought she was. Double the betrayal, double the heartbreak.

  “Everly, dear. Do you need help?” Mom’s voice startled me out of the rabbit hole my thoughts had taken me down. “You’ve been staring at the screen for several minutes now.”

  So much for letting her think I’d grown a spine.

  Hastily, I hit print and a copy of the single sheet representing my accomplishments and suitability for a job. Pathetic. “I’m fine. What do you think?”

  She scanned once, then twice, and then nudged me out of the chair.

  “Not bad, but you could strengthen the description of your duties. It’s okay to toot your own horn once in a while. That’s what
a resume is for.” Fingers tapping the keys, she added and refined, then hit print. “That’s better.”

  Sheets in hand, I leaned down to give her a kiss on the top of the head.

  “Come for dinner tonight,” she urged. “I’ll do lemon chicken. You know it’s one of your favorites.” It was, and I was on the verge of saying yes when she added, “David likes it, too.”

  Partway to the door, I turned back. “He’ll be there?”

  “Of course he will. He’s a nice young man, Everly.” The emphasis on nice was a dig at Paul.

  Maybe so, but I didn’t want him crammed down my throat. “I almost forgot. I made plans with Jacy tonight. Sort of a girl's night in, so can we do it another night? I'm home for good now. There'll be plenty of chances." Her face fell, and I rushed to add, "Better yet, give me the recipe, and you can be my first dinner guests when I'm settled into the new house. Well, after the ghosts, of course."

  While she smiled, I could tell she was disappointed, because there were still little frown lines marring her forehead. “That would be lovely, dear.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Even in the most populated section of town, houses weren't stuffed into lots so tiny a person could reach out their bedroom window and slap the neighbor's siding. Small-town folk prefer more breathing room than that.

  My new home sprawled across the left-hand side of over a quarter acre of uncut lawn.

  I never claimed to be sensitive or psychic or to have any woo-woo tendencies at all, but the palpable displeasure rising up in me at the sight of such neglect might have been Mrs. Willowby’s almost as much as my own.

  "I'll get the grass cut first thing." My mutter must have pleased her, or my curiosity drove away the fanciful notion because when I ascended the porch to take a peek in the windows, it was with anticipation. Anticipation that quickly turned to annoyance because the curtains were closed, leaving not so much as a sliver of space where I could get a glimpse inside my new house.

  “Lucky we keep an eye on the place.” The soft drawl coming from the woman standing on the walkway scared me half out of my skin and evoked the images of moss-draped trees and plantation verandas. I’d been too preoccupied to hear her coming.

  “Otherwise, the copper plumbing might have been ripped out and turned in for scrap. Ever since the prices went up, there’s been a run on break-ins of abandoned homes.”

  Heart still racing from being startled, I gave my soon-to-be neighbor a smile. "I'm Everly, and I just bought the place, so I can't tell you how much I appreciate your effort. Did you know Mrs. Willowby well?” Hopeful for any information I could glean, I joined her at the bottom of the steps.

  Wavy hair the color of warm honey escaped the attempt to keep it pulled back and framed a face not much older than my own.

  “Neena.” The hand she held out carried smudges of paint around the nails. “Neena Montayne. I live right over there.” She indicated the blue house across the street. “Welcome to town.”

  Suddenly my mother’s odd reaction to my new address made more sense. As the cherry on top of my spectacular run of bad luck, it looked like I’d be living right on top of my ex-boyfriend and his wife.

  If she let him back home, anyway.

  “Thanks, but I’m actually a returning native. My folks live over on Maple, so I was born and raised half a mile from here.”

  Any hope of the same names being a coincidence died when she repeated mine. "Everly. It's Everly Dupree, right? I've heard of you." The chill creeping into her tone suggested what she'd heard hadn't been complimentary, and I suspected the welcome mat she'd laid out was in the process of being rolled up and stuck back behind the door.

  What was I supposed to say now?

  I went with dead honesty since I was too tired to think of anything else. “Look, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’ve had a lousy few days, and I came home to relieve stress, not add more of it to my life.”

  Okay, maybe not full honesty since I didn’t mention her husband had been knocking the headboard against the wall in the room next to mine the night before.

  Neena gave me a serious blank face, so I added, “Or to yours.”

  If what Jacy had said about Hudson was true, Neena might not be in the exact same boat as me, but she sure was getting her oar tangled in the same lily pads. “I’ve sworn off men for life, and even if I wanted to hang my single shingle out, it wouldn’t be pointed in Hudson’s direction. All I want now is to find a job and to settle down in my new place.”

  Another assessing moment passed while Neena registered the fact that I knew who she was.

  “Mrs. Willowby kept a clean house, and she made really good hoecakes." I took the return to our previous topic as a concession, but only a fraction of the stiffness left Neena’s body, so I knew it was a small one. I nodded as if I had the slightest idea what she was talking about, and didn’t try to stop her when she turned to leave. “You should talk to Spencer Charles about a job. I heard he was looking for some help.”

  “Been there, done that.” My mutter at Neena’s retreating back went unheard. What was it with that man? Was he the only person in town looking to hire? If so, I was sunk.

  Duprees don’t sink, girl. They soar. Don’t you dare let a run of bad luck clip your wings.

  Having my grandmother’s voice as my subconscious was kinda cool, and if I lived even half the life she had, I’d consider my days well spent when the last one came to a close.

  What would she have done in my place?

  Easy. She’d have gone back to Spencer’s office with her new resume and set camp until he gave her another interview. Charm, guile, tact, she’d have used every weapon in her arsenal to get the job. Grammie Dupree had guts and spunk and a fiery spirit, while I felt like I’d been dunked in the swamp until my fire went out, then hung up to dry.

  So many hits in rapid succession had me swinging like a pendulum over a pit of self-pity. Part of me wanted to stop moving and examine the pit, but the rest was afraid I'd fall in, and it looked deep. I thought if I stayed occupied and moving forward, I'd eventually get to the place where it all smoothed out again.

  So long as I managed to find a job to go along with my new house, I’d call it a win.

  And so, filled with misgivings, but channeling my grandmother’s indomitable spirit, I pulled up in front of Spencer’s office, swiped on some fresh lipstick for a confidence boost, and prepared for battle.

  The front desk area was empty, but I heard Spencer talking on the phone, so I settled in to wait. The closed office door muffled the words, but his tone sounded impatient. Though, from what I’d seen of him, that was his brand of normal.

  The phone call ended, and before I had a chance to knock, he yanked the door open. Seeing me there, his eyes widened, but that was the only hint I’d surprised him. “What can I do for you, Everly?”

  "My resume." I handed him a single sheet. "With references." Charm and guile flew out the window because something about him just flat rubbed me wrong, but he needed help, and I needed a job, so I fought my desire to walk away and waited to see what he'd do.

  “Okay.” He gave the sheet a quick scan, turned back to drop it on his desk, then ushered me out and locked the door behind him. By the time I mustered up what I wanted to say, he was slamming the door on a shiny red two-door something or other that looked sleek and took off like a bullet.

  Way to not get the job, I told myself as I slid behind the wheel of my current ride, the moving van of shame.

  Half of me wished I’d taken my mother up on that dinner and the other half looked forward to burying her head under the covers for the night. Instead, ten minutes later, I found myself staring at the last two pieces of pepperoni pizza spinning around in the warming oven at the gas station near the motel.

  Orange grease pooled between ropes of congealed cheese, the edges had started to curl up, and I had almost decided to go for an overpriced box of dry cereal when the door whooshed open to let in a guy carrying a stack of pizza
boxes.

  “S’cuse me.” After setting the boxes down beside the warming oven, he reached past me to yank open the glass door and scoop up the dried-out slices.

  “You’re late, Ray,” the man behind the counter-accused. “You missed the supper rush, and now I’ll end up throwing half my profits in the trash.”

  "Get off my case, Bud." Red-faced, the pizza guy snarled. "I just went a round with the coach for pulling my boy outta the game.” With sharp, nearly violent motions, he transferred the fragrant pizzas into the warming oven. “I’ll give you a discount if it’s such a big deal.”

  I stared after him as he slammed out the door.

  “Don’t mind Ray,” the man said after the door had closed. “He’s determined his kid deserves a full ride to Louisiana State on an athletic scholarship. Got a helluva pitching arm on him, but keeps getting in trouble with his grades.”

  "That’s a shame,” I said, for lack of anything better. “The pizza looks good, though." Because it was there, I went for the pepperoni and a slice covered in peppers, onions, and black olives. The veggie slice never made it out of the parking lot, and I debated going back for another, but common sense won out over hedonistic leanings, and I reluctantly backed out of the space and headed home.

  The day was looking up, I thought until I turned the corner and saw Hudson limping toward the motel. My conscience wouldn’t let me pass him by, so I pulled up alongside.

  “Hey, you need a ride?”

  His was a face I knew well, so when he looked up at me with hooded eyes, I knew I should have kept going. Hudson was in a mood.

  “I’d heard you were back in town.”