I smile weakly, gazing through the window at the dim, littered street. “Think I'll pass.”
“Shame.” Ruby shakes her head, green eyes flashing. I realize, all of the sudden, that Ruby reminds me a little of a girl I knew back in Canada. Tessie Langford. I pined after Tessie for months, and after we finally hooked up—with the understanding that we weren't dating exclusively—she started getting jealous of every woman breathing within ten feet of me.
So a week later, we ended our relationship. But every once in a while, Tessie sends me an overly friendly, creepily informed-about-my-life email, suggesting that we “grab a cup of coffee sometime.” On a hunch, I Googled her name and found out that she'd been issued restraining orders by four different women.
In all likelihood, Ruby isn't a stalker, just a friend with benefits whose feelings have been hurt. If Ruby knows who I am, I can't blame her for being snappish with me. Trudy's awesome, and I've been monopolizing her lately. Well, I'm not sure that monopolizing is the right word for what I've done with her...
Ruby interrupts my thoughts, says, “There's no better way to get to know somebody than through their hands. But you know that, Alex. You and Tru have already gotten to know one another's hands pretty well. Haven't you?”
Okay. Trudy definitely told Ruby about me.
Through gritted teeth, Trudy hisses, “Ruby. Outside. Now.” She takes the woman's arm and guides her to the back door, gesturing for everyone else to follow. They carry their bags of equipment outside, murmuring softly, and after a few moments, Trudy returns, wearing an apologetic expression.
“God, I didn't know Ruby would react like this. I shouldn't have told her who you are, but we have this honesty policy, and I didn't want her to figure it out for herself and then feel betrayed—God. I'm sorry, Alex. She's never been jealous before.” She pauses in front of me, reaches out to clasp my hand. Her head is bowed so that her long lashes cast shadows onto her cheeks. She laughs softly and whispers, “Then again, she's never had reason to be jealous before.”
I touch my fingers to her chin, and she raises her eyelids, gazing up at me with her breath-stealing, dusky gaze. I kiss her—gently. Then...not so gently. My hands slide around her waist, meeting at her back, and I draw her close, as close as two bodies can get...
When our mouths part, she rests her chin on my shoulder and breathes out a long, laughing sigh. “Alex... What are you doing to me?”
“Same thing you're doing to me, I think.”
Chuckling again, Trudy claims my mouth, sliding her hands beneath my shirt, beneath my bra, cupping my breasts with her warm, smooth palms. “I know we're here to bust some ghosts, but I don't want to do anything but kiss you,” she smiles against my lips.
“No arguments here...”
Just then, my phone begins to vibrate in my pants pocket.
Trudy laughs huskily. “Gonna answer that? Go on. I'll keep myself busy.” She bows her head and nudges beneath my shirt, licking my stomach as she moves upward, her hands still massaging my nipples, then squeezing... “Answer, Alex,” she grins against me.
I chuckle and slide the cell out of my pocket, glance at the screen—and then I drop the phone into my pocket again.
“Wrong number?”
“Um...no.” I lick my lips. “Just someone from my past.”
Trudy pauses as her mouth closes over my nipple. She pulls her head out of my shirt and straightens, regarding me seriously. “Someone from your past—as in...a woman?”
I shrug slightly and nod. “Yeah.”
“Oh. Oh. Yeah. Cool. What's her name?” Trudy's trying to act casual, but her face fell when I confirmed her suspicion, and there's a little treble in her voice that wasn't there before.
“Trudy—”
“No, I'm just curious. I'm just...getting to know you. And your past is part of you. It's everything that came before this moment. We need to talk more, you know?”
“Yeah, we do.” Sighing, I lift my gaze to the ceiling and murmur, “Lucia. Her name's Lucia.”
“Ah. Lucia.” Trudy's fingers seek out my nipples again and pinch them—not too hard, just enough to send a lightning flash of longing throughout my body. I moan, leaning against her. “See? That was easy. Sharing. Just as easy as Sesame Street always promised it would be. And sharing has its own rewards...” One of her hands slips loose from my bra and glides down along my abdomen, slipping beneath the waistline of my pants, beneath my panties...
I moan again.
We fall against one another, kissing deeply, desperately—until Trudy trails her lips over my neck, lingering at my collarbone. “Problem is,” she whispers, “we've got a job to do. And I'm team leader. What kind of example am I setting here? God, you taste so good,” she murmurs, kissing me again. But then, “Oh, c'mon,” she pouts. “Be my sexy assistant.” And just like that, her warmth leaves me, and she's tugging on my hand, casting me a coy glance as she pulls me over to a pile of electronics. Ghost-hunting equipment.
Right. The ghosts. That's why we're here tonight.
Empty-armed, unkissed, I gaze up at Elizabeth Patton-in-the-window and offer her a beleaguered, but resigned, smile.
Okay. Once more with feeling: icebergs, ice cubes, ice cream headaches...
- - -
Funny how quickly you can get the hang of something new when you're thrust into an unfamiliar situation. By nine-thirty, I feel like a ghost-hunting pro, taking slow, quiet steps through the house with my EVP recorder in hand. Trudy taught me the basics: ask questions aloud, move as soundlessly as possible, and take account of any noises, natural or supernatural. So far, I haven't experienced a single ghostly encounter, but EVPs—electronic voice phenomena—according to Igor, are not always audible to the naked ear. Sometimes paranormal voices are picked up by the recorder only, so after tonight's investigation, the team is going to listen to the audio footage, watch the video footage, and report back to me with their findings.
I'm not optimistic: all in all, it's been a disappointing, uneventful night.
Hard to tell with a grumpy guy like Igor, but based upon the frustrated looks he's been assailing me with, I think he's beginning to suspect that I made everything up, that this old Victorian isn't haunted. After all, Ruby hasn't conversed with any lost souls, and Trudy's had no luck with her various and very complicated-looking electronic gadgets.
And we've only got half an hour left.
As of five minutes ago, the six of us split up, armed with voice recorders or video cameras. Trudy, Cordelia and I are inside of the house, and Ruby, Igor and Marisol are wandering around the exterior.
Right now, I'm sitting on my bed, feeling more than a little absurd as I talk to the empty air, asking Elizabeth and Victoria to “give me a sign” as I hold up my voice recorder and wait, listening hard for a spectral response.
Nothing. Not a whisper or a whine.
I have to admit, if I were a ghost, I'd bristle at being ordered to speak and perform on command. If I were a ghost, I'd hold my tongue until this investigation was over, playfully, stubbornly silent. Lurking, waiting, soundlessly laughing—
And, just then, someone does laugh.
“What the hell—”
I spring up from the mattress, wielding my voice recorder like a knife. Relax, Alex. Maybe the voice belonged to Trudy or Cordelia...though it didn't sound like either of them. It was a female voice but light, musical. Creepy. And right beside my ear.
I glance down at my arms, covered in goosebumps; a cool gust of air engulfs my body, just like it did the first time I entered this room, on my tour with Marie. Marisol mentioned something earlier about temperature change... Does this mean that a ghost is nearby?
I start to call out for Trudy but stop myself—or, rather, my tongue suddenly becomes a useless lump in my mouth—and my numb fingers drop the voice recorder to the floor.
Oh, my God...
The laughing hasn't stopped, and I can see my breath coming out in little puffs of fog, but these things hardly
register in my mind; nothing else registers aside from the vision before me: Elizabeth the ghost. Full-length, down to her boots, which are faintly red in the dim light of the room. She looks misty but real, so much more real than before, and she's smiling, laughing—laughing at me.
Or...no. Teasing me. Her eyes are dark but kind. My own eyes skim over her features: black lashes, straight nose, full lips above a rounded chin. Her neck is as long and lovely as a swan's, and she has a tall, lean silhouette, buttoned tightly into her black lace gown.
“Can you hear me?” I whisper. My heart thuds, and I feel dizzy, dazed. Is this real? Am I dreaming? Did I fall asleep—
“Yes...” Elizabeth says, and just as quickly, her expression grows grave. I glimpse the sorrow behind her laughter; staring into her eyes, I feel, in my deepest core, an immeasurable sense of loss. A loss that isn't mine but that I know intimately—bone-deep, soul-aching, irreversible, inescapable...
I double over from the weight of it, force out between gasps, “You lost someone close to you?”
“Yes.” It pains her to speak; she winced when she forced out yes before, and she does so again.
She's fading.
The Ghost Team informed Cordelia and me earlier that a spirit requires a large amount of energy in order to manifest. One reason that ghost hunters use electronic equipment to record paranormal presences is because the spirits can use the electricity, the batteries in those devices, as a power source. Maybe appearing to me, laughing at me, depleted Elizabeth's energy store. Her outline is growing less distinct, more transparent...
“What do you want?” I ask her, stepping closer, until we're only a few inches apart. The air is thinner, colder here, and Elizabeth looks like a hazy hologram, an illusion of light, when, before, she almost resembled a living, breathing person. “How can I help you?”
She gazes at me sadly, shakes her head. Barely there wisps of brown hair fall out of her elaborate topknot, gliding down to her shoulders. And then she lifts her arm and, without a word, points to the window.
I watch her for a moment, uncertain, hesitant. “You want me to look out the window?” She doesn't answer, only points and stares toward the panes. So I walk over to the window, acutely aware of Elizabeth's cold, misty presence at my back, and when I peer through the glass, gazing down at the dark, weedy backyard, my heart seizes in my chest.
Victoria is staring up at me.
Victoria the ghost. Elizabeth's art model. Elizabeth's...friend?
And everyone—Trudy, Cordelia, Ruby, Igor, Marisol—stands in a circle around Victoria, alternatively gaping at her and then gaping up at me. Cordelia flaps her arms like a bird, calling out words that I can't hear...
I turn back around, fully expecting to see no one, nothing, in my bedroom behind me, but Elizabeth is still here, arm lowered now, eyes lowered, too. She's as filmy as plastic wrap, particles of her form drifting in tiny orb-like shapes up, up, to disappear into the ceiling.
“Wait! What—I mean, how—who is Victoria to you? Are you looking for her? She's right out there. Come, look,” I urge her, but she doesn't move, only continues to dissipate, to come apart. “Bess, please.”
Her mouth curves softly at the sound of her nickname.
“Bess,” I say again.
But it's too late; she's gone.
Still gaping, I fall onto my bed in a boneless heap, my heart hammering in an erratic rhythm. Gradually, the air grows warmer, and my goosebumps fade. But I can't stop staring at the space in the room that Elizabeth—Bess—had filled, as palpable and real as Trudy, as Cordelia.
And I can't erase the memory of the heartache she shared with me, the abysmal sense of loss that she communicated—for Victoria.
- - -
“So.” Marisol's brown eyes are as wide as the saucer resting beneath her teacup.
“So,” Trudy echoes her, smiling broadly, brilliantly. She takes a triumphant swig of her coffee, squinting her eyes when the liquid burns her tongue. Unbothered, she shakes her blonde head, laughs, exclaims, “That was epic. Told you guys you wouldn't be disappointed. Full-body apparition! And Alex had a conversation with Elizabeth Patton! Whew. Okay, now what?”
I sip at my own coffee, faintly shaking my head. Marisol, Trudy, Igor, Ruby and I are sitting at a small table in Bean Power—conveniently open twenty-four hours, seven days a week—and we all look like, well, we just saw a ghost.
Or two ghosts, in my case.
Based upon our blanched, haunted expressions, the empathetic barista prescribed extra espresso and put on a “Soothing Vibes” CD. But the Enya song that's playing right now reminds me of Elizabeth's lilting voice, high, feminine, and eerie.
Poor Marisol's hand won't stop shaking enough to allow her to drink her tea.
“Now,” Igor begins, crossing his arms over his large chest and exhaling loudly through his nose, “we examine the data, write up our individual reports, compare, contrast, compile—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Ruby rolls her green eyes, leaning back in her chair until the front legs lift off of the floor. “We'll do all of that, Egon—”
“Igor—”
“—but what we need to do right now is get royally wasted. What do you say, Tru? Wanna blow this caffeine stand and hit the old Pink Lady?” She smiles at Trudy across the table, bedroom-eyed, tracing her tongue over her lips. “They've got a five-dollar cover tonight. And remember? Manic Pixie Nightmare Girls are playing. I bought us tickets last month. You love MPNG.”
“Yeah. I do. But...” Trudy downs the rest of her coffee, wincing—and now I can't tell if she's wincing because the hot beverage burned her throat or because Ruby's invitation made her feel uneasy.
Gambling on the latter, I place a hand on her arm and smile nonchalantly. “Hey, it's been a crazy night. If you want to unwind at the club, go for it.” Go for it? I don't even talk like that. And though I heard myself say the words, I can hardly believe that they came out of my mouth. I feel a little like a ventriloquist's dummy—or just a human dummy.
God, why did I say that?
“I should go?” Trudy asks, regarding me with surprise. “Oh. I thought we were going to, um, hang out later.” Meaningfully, she toys with the zipper on her jumpsuit and raises a brow, her lip-glossed mouth drawn into a confused frown. “You changed your mind?”
I swallow and then dig myself a deeper grave: “No, I'm just tired. You know.”
“Right. Yeah. I know. Yeah, it's been an adventure.” She smiles weakly, avoiding my gaze.
Marisol stands up, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “Let's all catch up tomorrow, compare our findings, like Igor said. I've got to get home. I'm already twenty minutes late, and my sister will be leaving for her night shift soon. It was nice to meet you, Alex.”
“You, too, Marisol. Thanks for your help.”
Moments after Marisol leaves, Igor rises from the table, mutters something about the eleven-o'clock news, and makes an awkward, hasty exit.
“And then there were three,” Ruby announces ominously, suctioning the last of her iced coffee through her straw. “Be right back.” She stands up to toss her cup in the recycling bin before heading toward the unisex restroom at the back of the cafe.
“Alex—”
“Trudy—”
We laugh, having spoken in unison; I reach for Trudy's hands and enclose them with my own. Her fingers are cold, ice cold, so I hold them tighter. “Look, it's not that I want you to go out with Ruby. Honestly, I really, really don't want you to—”
“You don't?”
“God, no.” I smile, my gaze moving from her eyes to her mouth; her lips are slightly parted, shiny, temptingly pink... “I just...I don't know how to act around you. So I'm trying to be chivalrous. Self-sacrificing. To the point of stupidity. I'm lost. I've never done...this...before.”
She smiles softly and lifts a brow. “This?”
“Yeah, this. Us. You.”
“Ah.” Her mouth slides into a smirk, and she slips one hand free to
trail her long nails over my cheek, my neck... “Beg to differ there, tiger. You have done me before. Shall I jog your memory? There was that time on the floor—”
“I remember every moment.” I bring the hand I'm still holding to my lips. “Every breath.”
“A scientist and a romantic. You undersold yourself, Alex.” She copies my gesture, drawing my hand to her hot mouth, kissing my fingers lingeringly, one by one. “So what do we do about all of these feelings of ours, Dr. Dark?”
I flick my gaze toward the swinging restroom door. Ruby just emerged and is aiming for our table, hands shoved deep into her jumpsuit pockets. Knowing that our time together is running out, I meet Trudy's searching gaze and whisper, “How about we just trust each other?”
“Trust. Huh. Yeah. Sure. I can do that. But really?” She indicates her jumpsuit, Vanna White-style. “You promised, Alex.”
“And I always keep my promises. Another night. Or...day. Or, hell, weekend. Anyway, you shouldn't miss that concert.”
“C'mon, Tru.” Ruby reaches Trudy's side and points to the tie-dyed clock on the wall. “Show starts in fifteen minutes. Said on Facebook that they're gonna do some of their old stuff from the first album. Remixes, I think.”
“Cool.” Dragging her eyes from mine, Trudy stands up, yawns, stretches cutely, and then offers me a coy smile. “Stop by the library tomorrow, Alex, and I'll share my data with you. Pretty sure I'm in possession of some pretty wild stuff.”
My mouth curves involuntarily. “I know you are.”
Ruby groans.
Undaunted, Trudy picks up her half-full coffee cup and blows me a kiss. As she turns slightly, aiming for the door, Ruby snakes her arm through the loop of Trudy's elbow, guiding her out of Bean Power as she leans toward her, whispering something, her slanted lips grazing Trudy's ear...
“I'm an idiot,” I moan quietly, and I cradle my head in my hands, trying not to envision the adrenaline-fueled night Trudy and Ruby are about to share—and, of course, failing miserably. They'll be hip to hip at the club, dancing, sweaty, a little or a lot drunk, and then Ruby will reach for Trudy's waist, draw her close as the music pumps hard around them—
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