Baby, I'll Find You

by Jennifer Skully

  “Yes, you may. But do come in first.” She held the door wide as Jami stepped into the front room. “I was just pouring some tea. Green tea. I hope you like it. All those antioxidants keep my skin fresh as a daisy.” She stroked her cheek, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Too bad I smoked for all those years or I’d look twenty years younger than I am. You don’t smoke, do you?”

  “No.” Jami shook her head for emphasis.

  “Wonderful.” The little woman led her to a flower-print loveseat, purple flowers on a cream background.

  The whole room was purple. Lavender throw rugs over polished hardwood floors, lilac pillows on the two overstuffed chairs, needlepoints of purple sunsets and purple flowers and boats with purple sails. Jami figured that instead of having different glasses for each dress, the woman had one pair of glasses and all purple clothing.

  “I like purple,” her hostess whispered.

  “I assume you like Tom Jones, too.” For every sprig of purple, there were two Tom Jones bits of memorabilia. Coffee mugs, a shot glass, an ashtray (clean, not used), coasters with the singer in several poses, a stuffed Tom Jones sitting like a pillow on the sofa, a needlepoint of his likeness, a 1968 calendar on the month of July displaying Tom decked out in red, white, and blue sequins—even if he was Welsh. The Tom Jones booty just went on and on.

  The little lady grabbed Jami’s hand. “Oh my dear, have you ever seen him singing ‘Delilah’?” She shivered and closed her eyes. “All that sweat pouring off his brow.” Her blue-lined eyelids popped open again. “On eBay, I discovered a DVD of him singing ‘Delilah’ on the Ed Sullivan show. I can’t even think about how much I paid for it.” She shuddered. “But it was worth every cent”—then added, almost as if it were the same sentence—“I’m Isadora Winter. Who are you?”

  “Jami Baylor.”

  She tapped her lip. “Hmm, a boy’s name.” Then she brightened. “That’s okay. What’s your favorite color?”

  Jami wondered what would happen if she didn’t say purple. “Teal?” she admitted, almost as a question.

  Nothing happened. “Do you like Tom Jones?”

  What was the diplomatic thing to say for the moment? “I saw him in Mars Attacks, and for his age, he looked very good.”

  Isadora grabbed her hand again and squeezed. “Wasn’t he marvelous?”

  “Uh, yes.” Several rungs above crooner Slim Whitman—not to diss Slim or anything. In fact, Isadora looked a bit like the grandmother in the movie.

  “Oh, I’m forgetting to pour the tea. You got me all distracted with Tom Jones.” She giggled.

  The tea was lukewarm, and a little honey might have taken the bite out of it, but Jami drank. “Now, about the reason you haven’t been able to rent the room?”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” Isadora asked with the straightest of faces.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say I completely don’t believe in them. Is the room haunted?” she added to humor Isadora.

  She put an amethyst-beringed hand to her chest. “Well, I’ve never seen a ghost in his room. But when I tell people that poor Mr. Rogers died in the bed, they get a little...” She pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose. “Wigged out.”

  He died in the bed? “And who was Mr. Rogers?”

  “Why, he was my last tenant. Such a sweet man he was, never missed a rent payment, never made a peep. In fact, for a while, I didn’t quite know he was dead. It was only when I went to take him his weekly change of sheets.”

  Ewwe. “He’d been dead for a week?”

  Isadora flapped her hand and huffed. “No. The coroner said it was only a day. But imagine that, I was sleeping with a dead man for a whole night.” She blinked. “Well, not sleeping sleeping, but you know what I mean.”

  “I think so.” Jami set her teacup on the glass-topped wicker table. “How long ago did Mr. Rogers pass?”

  “Six months.” Isadora bit her lip. “I bought a new bed and repainted the furniture and laid down new rugs.”

  Thank God. “Well, then”—Jami spread her hands—“it shouldn’t be a problem.” Though she wasn’t sure it wasn’t a problem for her. “You could just not tell people about it.”

  Isadora gasped. “I couldn’t do that. It would be lying.”

  “Have you seen Mr. Roger’s ghost?”

  “No.” Her lips stayed in a round O.

  “Have you heard anything strange coming from the room?”

  Isadora shook her head.

  “Then there probably isn’t a ghost, and you’ve redone the entire room, so I don’t think it’s necessarily a lie if you keep the fact all to yourself that he died in there.”

  “You don’t?” Her cat’s eye glasses slipped down her pug nose as she raised her brows.

  “No,” Jami assured her.

  Isadora broke into a high-wattage smile they should have outlawed for using too many BTUs. “Would you like to see the room then?”

  Could she handle a ghost? It was a bit creepy that someone had died in there.

  Still, if Denise hadn’t called, Jami wouldn’t have turned down Redwood Lane, and if Mr. Rogers hadn’t died in Isadora Winter’s room, it wouldn’t be for rent. Serendipity. Not to mention that Jami thought about Mars Attacks the day Leo dumped her, and lo and behold, Isadora had a thing for Tom Jones who’d starred in the movie.

  Jami was all about the signs. Those things had to have meaning. At the very least, it was rationalization for something she was going to do anyway.

  Plus, she liked Isadora. “Yes, I’d love to see the room.”

  Chapter Six

  He was alone with her. Andrea. Frank had gone out for his afternoon Ruby check-in, and Cole actually had to talk to her whenever she put up an order. He sounded like a freak. She was just a kid. Nothing to be afraid of.

  Only Cole wasn’t afraid of Andrea. He was terrified of his own ghosts.

  On Saturdays, Pete was due in at four—another interminable hour away—and he would fill the fry and drink orders while Andrea took the cash. At least until Frank got back. Pete wasn’t a bad kid, but he couldn’t count change worth diddly-squat, and Frank refused to put him on the register.

  Andrea tucked some loose hair back beneath her net and started scribbling again. She did that a lot, pulled an art book from beneath the counter and scribbled. Cole had never looked. It wasn’t his business what she did when there wasn’t a customer to wait on. She was a quiet little thinker, private, didn’t talk much, shy, excessively shy. Most of the time, she looked at the floor or the counter when she spoke, not only with him, but with Frank, customers, everyone. He couldn’t say he’d ever seen her with a friend. As far as he knew, she only used her cell phone to check in with her folks. It was sort of unnatural. In fact, today’s reaction to Jami Baylor had been the most animation Andrea ever displayed.

  The kid had eaten up the attention as if she were starving for it.

  Maybe she was starving. Upon the heels of that notion came the realization that it was a crime to pretend she didn’t exist.

  Suck it up, man. Cole set down the metal spatula he’d been using to scrape the grill. Andrea tipped her head one way, then the other, flipped her pencil over to erase a line, then shaded with the flat side of the lead.

  She didn’t even hear him, though he made sure to scuff his boots on the floor. “Whatcha doing?”

  Andrea shrieked and scrambled to close the pad, dropping it on the floor instead.

  Cole bent down to pick it up. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She stared at his boots. “It’s okay.”

  He handed her the sketchbook. “I see you drawing in this a lot, and I wondered what you were doing.”

  “Just stuff,” she mumbled.

  “It’s really good stuff from what I saw.” Before she’d slapped it shut, he saw a faerie, exceptionally detailed, and as good as anything he’d seen on a fantasy book cover or calendar. When she was done, it would be worth framing even it was only a pencil drawing.

  Andrea sh
oved the pad back under the counter.

  “I’m gonna fill the soda machine now,” she said, though that was Pete’s job. The girl was as skittish as a colt.

  Cole didn’t have a clue what to say to bring her back. He was tempted to help her as she pulled out a gallon-size carton of syrup and climbed on the footstool to pour it into the machine, but she’d completely shut him out.

  Hell, maybe she thought he was some old geezer hitting on her because they were alone for the moment. God forbid. After years of shutting out other people himself, he didn’t know how to suddenly turn it all back on. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to.

  Screw it. Andrea didn’t need his help anyway. He went back to cleaning the grill.

  * * * * *

  Jami had spent her first full night in her new room at the front of Isadora Winter’s house, and she’d neither seen nor heard a single ghost. The furniture had a fresh coat of white paint and pretty ceramic handles, the bed was a queen with a firm mattress, and Jami had her own small bathroom with a claw-foot tub, no less. Not to mention the hot plate, coffee maker, small refrigerator, cable TV, and wireless Internet.

  What more could a girl ask for?

  Don’t answer that!

  Best of all, her mom hadn’t freaked when Jami told her. Miracle of miracles, she hadn’t mentioned Leo and his pregnant girlfriend either. Renting a room smacked more of a permanent move than simply staying in a motel, but Mom had handled that in stride. “Please don’t send me to voice mail every time I call during the next month,” she’d asked. That was a reasonable request. Jami would only send her to voice mail every other call.

  And really, it didn’t bother Jami that she’d spent the night in a dead man’s room since she hadn’t heard a peep out of his ghost.

  “Would you like a crumpet, dear?”

  “I’d love one, thank you.”

  Isadora had invited her for Sunday breakfast. The kitchen was bright and warm with morning sun streaming through the big bay window at the back of the house. A pot of African violets garnished the center of the table, a toaster next to an outlet crisped four crumpets, and the Sunday edition rubbed ink onto the daintily stitched tablecloth. Jami didn’t realize they actually delivered newspapers anymore. Isadora separated the funnies, coupon fliers, and entertainment section from what she called “the rest of the junk.”

  “The bed was very comfortable,” Jami said conversationally.

  “Were you warm enough, dear?”

  “Perfectly.” She’d thrown off the bedspread during the night.

  Even now, her new landlady had the heater vent open and blowing full blast against the morning chill. Purple posies dotted her white, short-sleeved robe. She obviously preferred a higher heating bill and fewer clothes, despite what she said about her limited budget.

  “Your backyard is gorgeous.” And very...purple.

  Isadora smiled. “I like to have a pretty place where I can sit on a summer afternoon and have my tea and cookie.”

  “Well, it’s certainly a perfect spot.” A wrought-iron table with two cushioned chairs afforded a picturesque view of lilac bushes, lavender, a lush green lawn, and scattered stepping stones. A birdbath bubbled in the far corner by the fence, and hummingbird feeders hung from the lowest tree branches.

  “My mother was British,” Isadora imparted. “When I was a little girl we always had tea and crumpets in the afternoon out in the garden. Until it got too close to winter, of course. She made it look exactly like her English garden at home.” The crumpets popped up, and Isadora scooped them onto two plates, handing one to Jami. “Afternoon tea is a little tradition I’ve never given up. Although now I have green tea and sugar-free biscuits.” She leaned forward to pat Jami’s hand and lowered her voice to a whisper as if Mr. Roger’s ghost might overhear. “Although I have to admit that sometimes I’d commit the blood sacrifice of my first born for a real cookie and real English tea with milk and sugar.”

  Jami almost choked on her first bite of crumpet. “Blood sacrifice of your first born?”

  Isadora coated her crumpets with a smidgen of butter and jam. “An old English saying my mother was fond of using,” the lady explained, with a straight face and a twinkle in her clear blue eyes. Then she lowered her voice again. “My son always thought I meant it.”

  Laughing, Jami spoke without thinking. “I’m sure he was traumatized.”

  “Poor kid was scarred for life,” Isadora said, this time with a smile on her lips.

  The timer on the kitchen stove dinged, and Isadora jumped up to rescue the soft-boiled eggs, bustling back a couple of minutes later with two plates, two egg cups, and two teaspoons. “My husband always had to have eggs for Sunday breakfast. He liked fried the best, but I always made poached, scrambled or soft-boiled.” She slid a plate in front of Jami, then settled into her own seat. “Better for the arteries,” she said, her gaze a bit far off. “Funny, he still died of a heart attack, even after all the healthy cooking and daily exercise.”

  Jami thought of her dad who’d died of lung cancer having never smoked a cigarette, not even one. Sometimes bad things just happened. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, I’ve recovered.” Isadora’s short sleeves fluttered as she wriggled on her seat. “That was ten years ago. I still miss him when the water heater goes out or one of these old pipes springs a leak.” Her misty eyes, however, belied her flippant tone. “Now our son, he’s a fast-food junk king,” Isadora went on, “and I tell him he’s setting himself up for a heart attack. He says he’s going to have one no matter what since his daddy gave him a bum gene.” She tipped her head. “Sometimes I think I never should have poked a pinhole in that condom.” Then she tucked into her egg with the teaspoon.

  Jami couldn’t move a muscle. Was Isadora serious? Or just yanking Jami’s chain? Maybe she was senile.

  “Go on and laugh.” Isadora motioned with her egg-covered spoon. “I’m trying to be funny. Humor eases the tension.”

  Jami finally smiled. “I wasn’t feeling particularly tense.”

  “Oh my dear, that’s wonderful.” Isadora beamed one of her high-watt smiles. “Sometimes young people don’t feel comfortable around old people.”

  Jami almost snorted. She didn’t think of herself as a young person. She was thirty-five, for goodness sake.

  “I’m still waiting on my son to give me grandchildren,” Isadora went on. What a typical motherly thing to say.

  “Is your son married?”

  “Yes.” Isadora rolled her eyes dramatically. “And his wife is such a bitch.” Then there were the times when Isadora was so not the typical mother. Not the fact that she didn’t like her daughter-in-law, but that she’d actually call her a bitch. “It’s all about money-money-money,” Isadora mimicked. “And she doesn’t want to ruin her figure. Personally I think she’d look normal with a little meat on her bones. Instead, she looks like a tree limb denuded of all its branches.”

  “It’s safe to say you don’t like her.”

  Isadora’s eyes went wide. “Oh, I adore her.” Then she wrinkled her nose. “Not.”

  Her egg and crumpets finished while Isadora had done most of the talking, Jami pushed her plate away and pulled her coffee mug to her. She figured the lady had made the coffee for her benefit, and she poured in extra cream, thick and sweet, the way she liked it. “I like you, Isadora. You say it like it is.”

  Taking the last small bite of egg, the lady shook her spoon. “She’s the reason they don’t visit. She says Yosemite is the sticks.” She smirked. “And she’d rather go to Vegas.”

  “Bitch,” Jami agreed. But she had to wonder, too, at a son who let his mean wife dictate how often he saw his mother. Maybe Isadora’s spite against the daughter-in-law masked disappointment in her son.

  “Here-here,” Isadora cheered softly. “Let’s read the newspaper.”

  Jami had the feeling Isadora simply didn’t want to talk about her son anymore. “I’ll take the want ads,” she said, changing th
e subject. “I need to look for a job.”

  “There’s an opening for a waitress down at the Silver Mine.”

  “I wouldn’t be very good at that.” She had her computer. She could look up job postings, but she figured it was nicer to give Isadora a little company than to closet herself in her room.

  “Here you go.” Isadora handed over the classifieds.

  Jami opened to the job listings. One in particular almost smacked her in the face.

  It was serendipity. Or fate. No. It was destiny.

  Easy Cheesy Burgers needed a new bookkeeper.

  * * * * *

  Childish but true, Jami staked out Easy Cheesy Burgers that very Sunday afternoon, until the parking lot was reasonably empty. She hadn’t made an appointment because she didn’t want to be turned down before she even got to the starting gate. Which meant she waited across the street for over an hour. Then she waited a little longer, until Colton Amory drove off in his dusty truck.

  Thank God. She took her chance.

  “I’d like to speak to Frank about the job.” At the order window, she shoved the newspaper under the teen’s nose and pointed. The poor kid had a big red pimple right on the tip of his nose.

  “Frank!” he yelled

  She almost stuffed her fingers in her ears, the screech was so piercing. The boy still needed a bit more of a voice change.

  A bald head poked out of a doorway on the left, the same bald head she’d met the day before. “I’m not deaf. Whatdya want?”

  “Lady.” The teen kid simply pointed. “Job.”

  Maybe they didn’t teach speaking in full sentences in school anymore.

  Bald Frank looked at her. Then he shot her a crooked smile; well, not so much the smile as his teeth, as if he had a few too many in his mouth, like the Big Bad Wolf, all the better to chomp her with. The one chipped tooth added to the look. Snaking a tattoo-glorified arm out, he crooked his finger at her, then pointed to a side door.

  The sheer dimensions of the tattoos obscuring the man’s arms was mind-boggling. She didn’t like to think that she rushed to judgment or failed to give a person the benefit of the doubt, and he had jumped to that poor girl’s defense yesterday, but...he looked dangerous. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.