by Lotta Smith
“But—” I opened my mouth, but my words were interrupted by Alicia.
“You know, sometimes I wish I had a fairy-tale wedding with hundreds of guests and everything,” she said. Her tone was casual, but I knew she was telling me her honest opinion. “So, I think you’ll love a big wedding.”
“You think so?” I furrowed my eyebrows.
“Yes, I do.” She smiled. Then she tilted her head to the side, saying, “Why do you prefer a small wedding?”
“Imagine me clad in a long wedding gown, walking the aisle in front of hundreds of guests, and guess what? I’m on the clumsy side. What if I step on my hem and go down, crushing the ring bearer, who happens to be a llama? I’m gonna be the mother of all jokes forever!” I shivered, adding, “Not to mention that llama spit stinks for more than three days.”
“Mandy, I’ll watch your step for you, and I’ll warn you before you step on anything you shouldn’t,” Jackie said proudly. “That’s one of many perks of having me as your maid of honor.”
“Don’t worry, Mandy,” Dad said quietly. Indeed, he was always so quiet that we, the women of the Meyers, barely noticed he was there. “If you get wobbly with your footing, I’ll be there to help you from falling.”
“Says a guy who kept on running, dragging me on the ground like a potato sack during the three-legged race of my preschool’s sports day!” I spat.
“Here comes bridezilla.” Alicia rolled her eyes and Mom shushed her.
“Don’t tease her when she’s edgy.”
“Sorry about that, love,” Dad mumbled, turning to Rick, who was laughing his ass off. “Don’t even think about playing around with other women. She’ll take it personally and hold a grudge forever and ever. You can see it by how she still resents my faux-pas that happened more than two decades ago.”
“No worries. I’ve been keeping an eye on Rick, and so far, he’s a good, good boy.” Jackie winked at me.
“I won’t have affairs. I swear,” Rick said, still chuckling. Obviously, he didn’t hear Jackie’s words. Touching my arm, he went on. “Look, Mandy, I already called Alice and had her cancel the llama. Also, if you’re so uncomfortable with a large number of guests, we can always cut off names from the list.”
“Are you sure?” I looked him in the eyes.
“Yes. I’m sure.” He nodded, not looking away from me. “It’s about the two of us enjoying the special day, isn’t it? So let’s forget on the guest list and my family business.”
His voice had soothing effects on me. It was funny that all the strain I’d been feeling for the past few hours seemed to be gone.
“Still, Mandy, you want to be careful not to step on your hemline. You’re gonna fall regardless of the guest number when you lose your footing as long as there’s gravity.” Nana patted my hand. “So, back to the haunted ring. How did this ghost end up dead?”
“She fell off a horse while riding,” I said. “According to Marion, the ghost, she was fourteen. Her dad purchased the ring back in the late nineteenth century.”
“I bet the dealer knew about the ring’s jinx. No one informs their potential customers about the jinx of the product they’re about to purchase,” Nana commented.
“Anyway, Marion’s mom was very happy about the gift from her husband, celebrating the tenth anniversary of their marriage, but shortly after she fell ill and died without recovering.”
“Do you call that a curse?” Alicia raised an eyebrow. “She might have died from an infection. I’m guessing that people in France back in the nineteenth century were really germy. French people are notorious for never washing their hands.”
Rick snorted. “Alicia, that’s exactly what I said.”
“Or else the ring was laced with poison,” Nana mentioned.
“Anyway, Marion’s dad put the ring in the safe, promising to hand it over to her on her sixteenth birthday, except she didn’t live to that age,” I went on. “The ghost’s father, devastated by her death, sold the ring, which changed hands over the course of a hundred-plus years, ending up on U.S. soil sometime in the early twentieth century. Anyway, our interest in the ring’s history itself wasn’t that keen, but the ghost was on a roll and wouldn’t stop talking about what she saw over a hundred years ago. And then when asked about what we actually wanted to know, the ghost didn’t recall anything. Can you believe that?”
When I asked Marion about the heist that occurred five years ago, the ghost’s reply was “What heist?” According to her, she can only see her surroundings when she’s out in the air; when she’s in a box or a bag, she goes into a hibernation-like status. Apparently she’d been kept in the box most of the time until she came to her current owner—the old lady found passed out on the street.
“You said most of the time. I’m guessing the robbers took you out of the box for appraisal and such,” I pointed out. “You saw the burglar’s face, didn’t you?”
“Maybe.” Marion shrugged. “By the way, can you recall the face of someone you saw five years ago just once?”
I had no choice but to say, “No.”
“Mandy, you said the ring’s very old, didn’t you?” Nana tilted her head to the side. “Did you try banging the ring? Back in the old days, we used to bang everything when it didn’t work as we wished. And to tell you the truth, stuff like TVs, ovens, fridges… everything worked better after banging. Perhaps this ghost of the ring will recall more about the robbery if you’d bang it really hard.”
“I’m not sure if banging something worth three million dollars is an appropriate solution,” I said.
“Hmm… your granny has a point,” Jackie said. “At least you can make a point to that mean-spirited girl ghost.”
Rick crossed his arms as I relayed Jackie’s words, but after some contemplating, he said, “Let’s keep that option for later.”
“Got it,” I agreed, but Mom responded to the word “later” rather strongly.
“Amanda,” she said in her mother-taking-no-nonsense tone. “You can postpone banging the ring, but don’t put off your wedding preparation. Unless you’re going with a quickie, Vegas-style wedding, it takes months to book the venue and get everything arranged nice and smooth. Keep that in mind, okay?”
“Okay, Mom.” I nodded like a scolded third grader.
“The next time we visit here, we’re going to share more details about our wedding with you, I promise,” Rick assured Mom.
“Come on, you can’t mak—” I tried to warn him against making an empty promise, but I didn’t get to finish the sentence because he shut me up by planting a kiss on my lips. And I’m not talking about a casual, soft peck like the ones that could be used as ‘Hello’ and ‘How are you?’ It was more like a really, really deep kiss with lots of tongue and everything—like a forget-about-talkin’-and just-focus-on-kissin’ kind of a kiss.
“Swoon!” Jackie danced around.
“Sometimes, I wish I was a ghost,” Nana said.
“Excuse me?” Mom gasped.
“Not that I want to be dead,” Nana said casually, “but if I were a ghost, I could sneak into her body and savor a little bit of his kiss. You know what? When you’re my age, you rarely have such an opportunity like being kissed by a young, devastatingly hot guy. Besides, they say you won’t get any deader when you’re dead.”
Nana’s words prompted Rick’s and my lips to part, and everyone else to chuckle.
“What’s so funny? Why is everyone laughing?” Minty, just coming back to the dining room with her big sister in tow, wanted to know.
“Why is Uncle Rick wearing Auntie Mandy’s lipstick?” Emma, always an observant kid, asked, pointing at Rick’s lips. “Are you playing dress-up, Uncle Rick?” she asked.
“Not really.” Rick shook his head and winked at my niece. “I’ll tell you when you’re thirty.” Then he thanked my folks for a great dinner and a super-fun evening before escorting me out.
CHAPTER 5
The next morning, Rick and I were standing in a part of L
exington Avenue lined with low to midrise buildings peppered with posh cafés, boutiques, and small art galleries. Both of us had red eyes, stifling a yawn.
After coming back to his condo on Fifth Avenue from my folks’ place in Queens, we had a long chat about the wedding planning, like which wedding venues to consider. Of course, we didn’t decide, much less reach a mutual understanding about anything. The only thing we agreed on at almost 3:00 a.m. was that we’d have to settle with the number of guests, at least.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Rick said, with the three-million-dollar sapphire ring in the zipped opaque blue plastic bag in one hand.
“Sure.” I nodded, stifling a yawn. “Hopefully Marion suddenly remembers important info, like the name of her current owner and how the stolen ring ended up being a possession of the old lady.”
When I talked with Marion on the previous day at the office of Paranormal Cases Division in the presence of Rick, Agent Woo, and Jackie, she provided very little information that could lead to Purple Panther, the notorious group of burglars.
Okay, so she had a point stating that she couldn’t describe the burglars she might have once glimpsed five years ago, but the trickier part was she provided little information about her current owner, who was found collapsed in the middle of the road. The elderly lady’s name was Mrs. Miller, which happened to be a surname ranking in the top ten of the most common surnames in the U.S.
To make things worse, Marion didn’t even know Mrs. Miller’s first name. According to the ghost, Mr. Miller addressed Mrs. Miller as ‘darling,’ or ‘sweetie,’ and Mrs. Miller did the same to her husband. I’d heard about people, especially women, losing their names once they got married and had kids, turning into Mrs. Smith, Jason’s wife, Timmy’s mom, and such—never addressed with their first names. The concept of losing my first name was slightly horrific, so I made a mental note to have Rick always address me by my first name at least once daily.
When asked about Mrs. Miller’s residential address, Marion shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“Excuse me? But you’ve been sticking around the ring, which had been on her finger for years. You should have seen mail and parcels addressed to the Millers, right?” I pointed out. “Also, her house must have some kind of a doorplate with the name and address on it.”
But Marion just shrugged nonchalantly. “Okay, so I saw her handling those items, but I wasn’t really looking. The ring has been changing hands for the past hundred years or so, and to be honest, I have no interest or attachment to them. After all, all of them have suffered dreadful deaths. What’s the point of knowing anything about the person?”
She had a point. If I were in her shoes, I’d prefer not to know the personal lives of the owners—especially if they were destined to perish shortly. I tried to dig deeper by asking the ghost about a nearby station or bus stop to Mrs. Miller’s home, but the ghost told me that her owner usually took a cab to get around in town because she had bad knees.
As I relayed her words, Rick said, “Does she know anything about the house where her owner lives? Is it a detached house, or an apartment or condo?”
“Mrs. Miller lives in a white building with many floors,” Marion replied.
“Good.” Rick nodded encouragingly as I relayed her words. “So, it’s either a condo or an apartment.”
“I’m glad to be of help.” Marion was smiling and waving at Rick.
“Marion, you seem to be happy when you talk to him,” I said, attempting an eyebrow raise.
“You think so?” She cocked her head to the side casually. “He’s my type. Isn’t he sexy?”
I found myself getting slightly annoyed, Okay, so I agreed with her about Rick being sexy. Standing at 6’2, he had the body of a Calvin Klein men’s underwear model, including the perfect six-pack abs and everything. Not to mention the perfectly sculpted face, which was way more captivating than that of any A-list actors. Considering all of that, I wasn’t comfortable with the girl ghost flirting with him.
Still, I forced a smile on my face. The spirits of dead people rarely worked as we living humans wished, and it was ridiculous and oh-so-consuming to be easily offended by each of their reactions. Besides that, sometimes dead people could manifest unbelievably incredible power in the worst way possible. I didn’t miss Marion’s long, corkscrew curls swaying like a tidal wave when she moved her head, and I hadn’t forgotten about a certain ghost who tried to kill me by strangling me with her ghostly hair. When the strangulation failed, she attempted to crush me by throwing a tall bookcase on me. I survived without even a scratch, though Rick ended up with a broken leg when he rescued me from the falling bookcase.
“Why don’t you tell that sexy guy what I told you?” Marion moved her elbow like she was trying to nudge me as I fell silent with my lips half open like a total idiot. “He and the other gentleman can’t hear my words, can they? Oh, I wish they could hear me. That would make things so much easier.” She grimaced as her elbow passed through my arm.
I shrugged and relayed Marion’s reply to Rick and Agent Woo, omitting the part about the ghost’s comment about her crush on Rick.
“I see.” Rick nodded. “Does she know more about the building? Like the name? What color the exterior is? Does it have any stores in it? And how many floors does it have?”
“I don’t know the name of the building,” Marion replied. “I’ve never really counted the number of floors. Mrs. Miller usually takes a cab when she goes out, and I don’t get to observe the building so well anyway. It’s not like I’d been sticking around with her by choice. As for the store, there’s a place that sells paintings on the ground floor.”
“Sells paintings? Like an art gallery?” Rick frowned.
Agent Woo groaned. “Hmm… that’s tricky. In Manhattan, there are five to fifteen hundred listed art galleries. If you count non-listed small places, the number gets practically astronomical.”
“Mandy,” Rick said, “can you ask Marion to describe the neighborhood around the Millers’ residence? Any landmarks by the building? Shops, restaurants, and such?”
“Rick, next to that white building were other buildings.” Marion yawned.
As I relayed her words, Agent Woo frowned. “So, was Mrs. Miller living close to the road where she was found?”
“Yes. She left her home and walked for about fifteen to twenty minutes, which was very, very rare.” Marion looked at me, as if she was urging me to recite her words to the agents.
“Fifteen to twenty minutes….” Listening to my interpretation, Agent Woo took out an iPad from his briefcase and opened a map app. “Oh crap. Some parts of the Upper West Side across Central Park fit in the distance of a twenty-minute walk. The park is open until 1:00 a.m., so she could have come across the park.”
“Still, considering Mrs. Miller was walking with bad knees, perhaps you can lessen the distance,” Rick suggested.
“Actually, she was walking much faster than usual,” Marion said nonchalantly. “I was surprised. She left her home so suddenly, and she started wandering in the streets, almost running. Her shoes came off somewhere on the way, but she didn’t seem to care.”
“Why did she leave home so suddenly in the first place?” I asked. Assuming from the description of Mrs. Miller, she didn’t seem like someone who went out in pajamas. “It was already in the graveyard hour when she left home, so she wasn’t just taking a stroll. Did she have an argument with Mr. Miller or something?”
“Not really.” Marion shrugged. Flashing an enigmatic smile, the ghost said, “I have no idea.”
In retrospect, she seemed to be hiding something rather than just being enigmatic.
I looked at the white low-rise building in front of me, wishing it to be the home of Mrs. Miller. I got an e-mail from Agent Woo and a map of the Upper East Side neighborhood was attached to it. There were dozens of landmarks marked with red dots, and all of them happened to be buildings that matched Marion’s description of Mrs. Miller’s residence. Someo
ne with the White-Collar Crime Unit must have spent the whole night listing the buildings.
“Hi, Marion. Are you there?” I spoke to the ring in the plastic bag, but nothing happened.
“Is she there?” Rick asked.
“No.” I shook my head.
“Perhaps it might help if you take the ring out of the baggie,” he suggested.
“Does that mean I’ll have to wear it?” I said reluctantly. After hearing about the ring’s track record of inflicting tragedies on its owners, I wasn’t crazy about sporting it on my finger. “Actually, I haven’t excluded Nana’s comment about this ring as a total joke. What if it’s laced with poison? Or worse, some deadly infection? I don’t fancy bloating up and turning purple like a rotten eggplant.”
Rick glanced at the ring. “Okay then, you don’t have to actually wear it.” He put on rubber gloves and took it out of the baggie.
The moment the ring rolled out, Marion popped up from out of nowhere.
“Good morning! I didn’t notice the area she collapsed in happened to be so nice!” Marion exclaimed cheerfully, taking in the not-so-clean air of Manhattan. Just like the previous day, she was clad in a frilled tea dress with a balloon skirt and sporting golden corkscrew curls. She was also carrying a gorgeous white parasol with embroidering and a lot of frills, which was something I didn’t see the day before. The ghost pointed at a shop in front of her. “What’s that store over there? The one with its windows decorated with colorful jewelry-like objects."
“That’s a bakery specializing in cupcakes,” I informed her.
“Mandy, we’re not here for sightseeing, remember?” Rick reminded me, touching my arm. “Where’s the ghost?”
“She’s here.” I indicated Marion with the palm of my hand.
“Okay, Marion.” He looked in her direction. Indicating the white building with an art gallery on the ground floor, he asked, “So, does this building look familiar to you?”
“Oh, this?” The ghost took a glance at the building, tilting her head to the side. “No. I’ve never seen this place.”