Christmas Ghosts - Fiction River

by Fiction River

  “She asked me to help her,” he said. “She said she didn’t want to go home.”

  Erika cursed. He hadn’t heard that particular combination of words in more than a decade.

  “Why would she think you could help her?” Louise asked.

  “How the hell should I know?” Roth had had enough. “I didn’t say a word to her. Why don’t you just call her cell?”

  “Because,” Erika said, “I’m so practical I made the kids leave their phones at the hotel so that I wouldn’t have to police them in the theater.”

  He was finally beginning to hear some of the other words she was using. Kids. Tour.

  “Are you a teacher?” he asked, unable to imagine it. The Erika he had known didn’t have the patience for or the interest in handling a group of children all day.

  “No,” she said. “I run theatrical tours of Manhattan.”

  He blinked, frowned, trying to control his face as well as she had controlled hers. The most gifted actress he had ever known running tours? In Manhattan?

  He glanced at Louise, who shrugged. Apparently Louise and Erika knew each other.

  “It doesn’t matter what I do,” Erika said. “I have to find this girl. She could be in trouble.”

  A door banged behind them. Roth turned. The girl stood near the wall, hands behind her, eyes wide. She was trying very hard not to look at Roth, although her gaze kept darting toward him.

  “It’s okay, Ms. Brandis,” the girl said. “I’m sorry if I caused you trouble. I didn’t mean to.”

  Erika frowned. “What’s this all about? You asked Ro—Jaime—for help. Were you—are you—in trouble?”

  The girl glanced at Roth. The color rose on her cheeks as she spoke to him. “Your friend, he followed me. He said that—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here, and I made a mistake.”

  Roth’s stomach twisted. “My friend?” he asked, hoping against hope she meant Cody, the assistant.

  “The old man in your dressing room? He was in the corner? He said…” she paused, seemed to reconsider her reluctance to speak.

  Roth’s hands were shaking. He wanted her to finish the sentence.

  “…He said,” she repeated, “that you’re not a person to consult on family matters and he said you have—I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” Roth said, feeling numb.

  “He said you have…never helped anyone in your life.” She winced, as if she expected some kind of physical repercussions for her words.

  Roth looked at Erika. He couldn’t help it. Her gaze met his. There was a slight frown between her eyes. Never helped anyone?

  “Your friend?” Louise asked. “There’s someone else here? I thought you and I were the last ones.”

  “I haven’t seen him for a while,” the girl said. “He showed me where to hide, but I felt silly. I’m stupid asking for help. I mean, what can you do? You’re just some famous guy.”

  Roth was glad his hands were in his pockets. He had to clench his fists to control his shaking.

  “What do you need help with?” Erika asked. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”

  The girl looked down. “I just had this stupid idea that Jaime—Mr. McKendrick—was like his character on TV. I’m smarter than that, really, but I think I’ve thought that forever.” She looked up, and he could see the naked need in her eyes. “Home is…” She shook her head. “I should have just run away.”

  Home is…indescribable. He recognized that one.

  Erika bit her lower lip.

  “New York is no place for a girl alone,” Louise said. “Believe me, I know. You’re seventeen. You got about a year to put up with home. Do good, get into a good college, and you’ll escape. I promise.”

  The girl nodded, her cheeks dark red with embarrassment. Apparently she had heard this advice before and it meant little to her.

  “The man you talked to,” Roth said. “Was there anything familiar about him?”

  She raised her head. “He had eyes like yours,” she said.

  Strangely, the shaking stopped. “And you saw him,” Roth said. It wasn’t a question. He was stunned, and his voice reflected that.

  The girl nodded. “Wasn’t he supposed to be here?”

  Roth swallowed. He didn’t want her to know about the ghost. He didn’t want anyone to know. The fact that a teenage girl had seen the ghost terrified Roth on such a deep level that he could barely speak.

  “I hope I didn’t get anyone in trouble,” the girl said.

  “You didn’t,” Erika said. “Let’s go back.”

  She put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and propelled her forward. Roth took a deep breath, stunned by the afternoon.

  “Erika,” he said.

  She turned.

  He had no idea what else to add. It’s good to see you was too banal. I missed you was true, but irrelevant. Talk to me, don’t leave me, we can fix this—all of that got said long ago.

  She must have seen it in his eyes. She gave him a tiny half smile, nodded once, and then let herself and the girl out of the theater.

  Louise followed them to the door and locked it behind them. “How do you know Erika?”

  We grew up together; we went to school together; we ran away together; we saved each other’s lives; we believed in each other once.

  “She used to act,” he said.

  “Oh,” Louise said flatly. “Didn’t everyone?”

  ***

  The streets were holiday empty, but it had started to snow. Every cab that went by had its service light off, even if no one sat in the backseat.

  Since Erika had found Hannah, there was no real need to hurry back to the hotel. They went to the nearest subway instead.

  Down a long flight of stairs, through the turnstile, on the platform. It was hot here; it was always hot down here; and right now she welcomed it.

  Neither of them spoke. Hannah was probably afraid she would get into trouble, and Erika should have been wondering what to do with her.

  Instead, her mind was on Roth.

  She should have expected to see him. She had gone to his play, after all. But she’d seen him at work half a dozen times, mostly on trips to LA usually timed around the shows he dabbled in. Roth always dabbled in theater, usually uncredited, because it was his first love.

  Sometimes she thought it his only love.

  She huddled deeper in her coat.

  He looked good, better than he had onstage. Younger, which he was supposed to look because he was much younger than Ebenezer Scrooge, but vibrant too, as if he were lit from within. Roth had always had too much charisma, but he used to be able to dim that light. Now, it seemed, it was on no matter what he did.

  “You gonna send me home?” Hannah asked quietly. No one else stood on this part of the platform.

  “You want to tell me why I shouldn’t?” Erika probably wouldn’t have asked that question of any other girl. She hadn’t even learned most of their names. But she had watched Hannah from the beginning. This trip had meant something to her. She did iron her clothing, but it wasn’t ego. She was trying to fit in. And she got lost in the plays. They seemed like a hobby, or maybe an obsession: she knew if someone had played the roles previous; she even knew the history of some of the theaters. She was bright, the kind of bright that stood out in a group, even when she tried to hide it.

  And Roth was right: she was too thin.

  “I paid for this myself, you know,” Hannah said. “I sold some stuff to get here. My parents don’t even know I’m here. They haven’t been home in months. I’ve been on my own. I want to stay. Can I stay?”

  Erika let out a sigh. Hannah knew how to pick her targets. Erika had run away from home at sixteen. She and Roth had arrived in Manhattan together, determined to take the world by storm.

  He’d managed that. She hadn’t.

  “You’re supposed to go home Tuesday,” Erika said.

  “I know,” Hannah said. And in those two words was the explanation for the entire afternoon. Erik
a wondered how long Hannah had dreamed of rescue, and how long Jamison Roth McKendrick’s fictional creation had had a starring role in that little psychodrama.

  A hot wind blew through the tunnel. Erika could see the lights of the approaching subway car.

  “When do you turn eighteen?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

  “February 16,” Hannah said.

  “Two months from now?” Erika said, not expecting that. “I thought you were a junior.”

  “I’m a senior. I couldn’t go last year,” Hannah said. “I couldn’t afford it. I begged to go this year.”

  The train slowed to a stop, and the doors eased open.

  “Coming here was the extent of your plan?” Erika asked.

  Hannah shrugged. “I hoped I would have more money.”

  Erika sighed, and led Hannah onto the train. Only one other person boarded a few doors down. He hunched, his coat pulled tightly around his face as if the breeze down here had been chill instead of hot and humid.

  Erika tensed, then made herself release a breath slowly. She always got nervous when she saw a man alone like that, particularly one whose face she couldn’t quite make out.

  “Who’s that?” Hannah asked, looking at the shrouded man at the far end of their car.

  “I have no idea,” Erika said.

  ***

  Dinner: take-out. Vegetarian, which damn near spoiled the fun. Roth had planned to spend the evening watching videos and reading, but he stood in front of the penthouse’s windows instead, looking down at a glistening city.

  No matter what happened to him here, no matter what had happened to him here, he loved New York, had from the moment he saw it.

  And if he were honest with himself, it always made him think about Erika.

  He hated being honest with himself.

  Three wives, three divorces. The second wife had accused him of having a true love and not marrying her. The second wife, who had met Erika just once, that last visit fifteen years ago. Logically, the first wife should have accused him of not getting over Erika, since Wife Number One was the rebound. But by the end, neither of them cared. The problem with Wife Number Two and, if he was honest with himself (there he went again), Wife Number Three, was that both of them cared.

  He thought he had. But when he saw Erika this afternoon, he realized he was wrong. Or maybe he had been right on the word: He had cared. But he more than cared about Erika.

  He loved her, even now.

  The Christmas lights added to the city lights. New York was the only North American city that seemed brighter over the holidays than it did in the middle of the summer.

  He had booked the play after the divorce was final, making all of his “people” scramble to get everything in place. If a show hadn’t closed at the Mary Martin he wouldn’t be here at all.

  Live shows, December 23 to 30, including Christmas. And he had convinced himself that the schedule was all right; then he wouldn’t notice just how alone he had let himself become.

  Maybe he wouldn’t have noticed if Erika hadn’t shown up. Erika, irreverent, goofy, then aloof and frightened (thanks, Dad), willing to go that extra mile for Roth’s talent, she said, even though it was her talent that got them booked. They were for a brief shining moment the Nichols and May of their generation, back when people knew who Nichols and May were and the comparison meant something grand.

  Only Nichols and May hadn’t been in love with each other, although Roth later read that they had gotten too real on stage and that had convinced them to quit. He and Erika hadn’t gotten too real—too real involved suicides and stalking and darkness. Instead, they had gotten too far away from real. The humor got too light. The sarcasm they were known for, sarcasm Roth’s fans would be surprised to know he had within him, had vanished in froth. Erika used that as an excuse to stay off stage, so he got them a screen test in LA.

  The morning of the test, she promised she’d leave their hotel after him, and she didn’t. He had to go on without her, and he did, and he didn’t get the role (of course) because it had been for a witty couple, but he did get another part, which led to yet another part, which led to the TV show, and the rest, as they said—whoever they were—was history. Not that it was meaningful history, but it was his history, not even her history, because he had gone back to the hotel and he had tried to reason with her, and she had burst into tears, told him he was too pushy and he didn’t understand and he reminded her of his father which was the worst insult ever and she couldn’t take it any more, so she wouldn’t.

  She left, right then.

  And he let her.

  He convinced himself that he didn’t need her.

  Of course, he lied.

  ***

  Erika let all the girls go out to dinner, even those she had initially grounded. Hannah went too, but Erika called in one of the Brandis Tour staff members to tail Hannah like a bloodhound. The girl wouldn’t even go to the bathroom alone.

  Erika remained at the hotel with Mrs. Markovich, who confirmed that no one had seen Hannah’s parents at the school for more than a year, not that anyone cared about the loss.

  They’re nasty people, Markovich said. Always drunk, always mean. I’d heard he lost his job and had to relocate, but the wife wanted to stay in town, so she did. That way, Hannah could stay in school.

  Gossip wasn’t an answer, so Erika used more connections. The local police were going to check with neighbors and get back to her. A detective friend was going to check credit card and cell phone records. It might cost her a bit of money, but she wasn’t going to send a girl back to a bad situation, not after the girl had asked for help.

  Erika had been in a bad situation and never asked for help. She and Roth had decided to flee together. Fleeing, which used to be her response of choice, wasn’t as good as staying most of the time, but sometimes it was the only sane thing to do. Or so several of her counselors had said, as they tried to work through her fears.

  Not that the fears entirely went away, as that creepy guy on the subway made her realize yet again.

  It had been a perfect storm, one counselor had said to her. Parents who didn’t give a damn, a stalker who killed himself in front of you, and no one there to help you deal with the aftermath.

  Roth helped, Erika had said timidly.

  Sixteen himself, the counselor had said, and the son of the man who ruined both of your lives. Did you ever think he didn’t have the ability to handle the crisis any more than you did?

  It was after that conversation she found herself watching Roth’s movies, and then going to his plays only when she knew he wouldn’t see her. It was, she suspected, her way of forgiving him for trying to make her into something she wasn’t.

  She couldn’t handle the stage. She couldn’t handle all those people watching her. She had no idea how Roth lived the way he did, under such a microscope, with people who not only stared at him, but followed his every move. And being an actor—a superstar—meant that he had his own share of stalkers. The profession encouraged them.

  Erika let go of the acting dream long ago. She drifted a bit, then came back to New York. Setting up the tours had been her way of inching back into the theater scene. She’d even enrolled in Tisch School of the Arts. She wasn’t enrolled for acting; she had enrolled for writing. Technically, her advisors at NYU had told her that she didn’t need to do this; her background lingered. Bad videos of her and Roth on stage, doing material she improvised, material she sometimes wrote, would have gotten her the work she craved.

  Her therapist said she needed written courage, like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. A piece of paper to give her legitimacy.

  And the therapist was right: Erika wanted that. She wanted to be real, somehow, not this floaty terrorized creature, hiding behind a tough-woman mask.

  Which was why she couldn’t let Hannah go without researching her situation. And now, time was of the essence.

  Erika took a break from her computer work and the phone calls, a
nd got some room service. She wondered what Roth was doing; the show was dark tonight, and would be dark for one more day. The actual performances started on Tuesday.

  Her breath caught just thinking about him. She had never married, which she blamed on her stalker, but she could as easily blame it on Roth. Despite everything, she had loved him. It just wasn’t meant to be.

  How could it? His father stalked her from the time she hit puberty and then, when she was just fifteen, he caught her alone and assaulted her. She told no one about that; she just avoided him. Nearly a year later, he caught her again. This time, he threatened her with a gun. Roth had interrupted them.

  Roth, all big and strong and so angry. Roth, who was trying to get her out of the room, when his father turned the gun on himself.

  Roth’s mother blamed Roth. And Erika. That measly excuse for a woman ran off when she realized that no one would take pity on her for being McKendrick’s wife. She had died of some kind of alcohol poisoning or maybe it was an overdose just a few months later.

  At Christmas.

  That was when Roth told Erika he wanted to go to New York. He hadn’t tried acting before that. He was trying to take care of her. At least that was how it felt. Only she took care of him, nurturing him to get him on stage, writing his early material until he relaxed and blossomed in front of crowds.

  She had withered, and he hadn’t even noticed. Or maybe he had, and it disgusted him. He had certainly married women who looked nothing like Erika—all tall and busty and blonde. He had dated women like that too. Erika was the aberration, and she knew it.

  But that didn’t stop her from feeling like a lovesick kid when she looked at him this afternoon.

  Someone knocked. Erika peeked through the keyhole, saw the room service waiter, then opened the door. At the end of the hall, an older man watched them. He made her heart pound.

  The waiter pushed the food cart inside, and as he did, Erika stepped into the hall. The man seemed to vanish into his room. Erika didn’t even hear the door snick shut.

  The room service waiter quoted her a price and she paid it. If she had been leading a tour of businesspeople, she would have charged it to their account. But schools couldn’t afford that. They couldn’t even afford the extra administrative room she usually insisted on, which was why Markovich lay kitty-corner on the bed, snoring as if nothing had happened all day.