“All right. Don’t get huffy.”
“I’m sorry. I just really hate Babs. Anyway, you were telling me about my makeover.”
Maggie sipped her wine. “Well, as I understand my job here, I’m supposed to teach you about yourself and sex and men and dating and all that. In the end, you’re supposed to get out more, go dancing, make love.”
Barbara toyed with her fork. “And what makes you such an expert?”
“I am, or was, a…Again how to put this. I was an expert at making men happy. Let’s just say I did it professionally.”
The fork dropped out of Barbara’s hand. “You were a hooker!”
“I prefer call girl. Very highly priced, I might add.”
“But you look like you could be my mother.”
Maggie winced. “Ouch. That hurt.” She walked into the hallway outside the kitchen and looked at herself in the ornate mirror that hung just inside the entrance. She studied her face for a moment, then returned to the table and sat down. “I don’t look that bad, despite my current circumstances, I’ll have you know.” She paused. “But I guess I am almost old enough to be your mother.”
“So why would some man…?” Barbara suddenly realized that without being totally insulting she had no way to finish the sentence.
“Why would some man want to make love with me? Because I know how to make men happy, how to fulfill their fantasies, how to make them feel strong or weak, brave or pitiful, whatever they want. I’m damn good at what I do and I have a client list as long as your arm.”
“What do you…I mean, did you charge?”
“I was worth the five hundred a night that men paid me.”
“Five hundred dollars? For one night?” Barbara’s mouth literally hung open.
“Not the whole night, of course.” Maggie ran her long fingers through her hair and fluffed it out at the sides. “And more if they want something special.”
“I don’t want to know about that part,” Barbara said. “Look, I don’t pretend to understand any of this, but I really don’t need your help. I’m happy just the way I am.” In response to Maggie’s raised eyebrow, Barbara continued. “Really. My life is just what I want it to be. And I’m just the way I want to be.”
“Sure,” Maggie said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Listen. You’ve heard enough for one evening. You really need to take a day to digest all this. Let me run along now so you can think about what we’ve said.” Maggie paused, then asked, “By the way, what day is it?”
“It’s Tuesday,” Barbara said, her head spinning. She was sitting in her kitchen having a conversation with a dead prostitute. She certainly did need some time to digest this. But she didn’t need any help with her life. None. Absolutely not.
“What date? What year?”
“It’s Tuesday, March 4, 1996. What did you think?”
“I’m totally disoriented. This bouncing from time to time. The last date I remember was July 18, 1995.” Pain flashed across Maggie’s face as she recalled Paul Crowley and their phone conversation that last evening. I wonder how he felt when he found out about me. “And where are we? It looks like New York, but everything wonderful looks like New York to me.”
“We’re about twenty miles north of the city, in Fleetwood.”
“I know the town well.” Paul lived in Bronxville, the next town up. With a sigh, she emptied her wineglass and shook off her negative feelings. “I’m not sure how this time thing will work, but I think I can manage to be here, same time tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to seem rude, but I don’t want you to come back. Just go away and leave me alone.”
“Sorry, but I can’t. I have a job and my ultimate future depends on doing it well. And remember, this is what your mother wanted.”
“I’m sure my mother didn’t want some whore giving me makeup tips,” Barbara snapped. Then her head dropped into her hands. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
“Yes, it was. But I am what I am. I am—I was—a woman who made men happy for money. I did my job well, and got a lot of pleasure myself as well. And I was highly paid for my talents.”
“I’m sorry. But this whole thing is so ridiculous.”
“Just think about it. Consider what you have to gain. Think about looking appealing to your boss and having him ask you out. Dream about what your third or seventh date could be like. Think about all this and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Maggie crossed the room and walked into the hall.
Suddenly the house was silent. Having not heard the front door open, Barbara got up to be sure this crazy woman wasn’t lurking somewhere waiting to pounce or something. “Maggie? Where are you?” She searched the house, but Maggie was nowhere to be found.
Chapter
3
Later that evening, Barbara lay on her bed, the romance novel she had been trying to read now discarded beside her. It had been foolish, she realized, to even try to think about anything besides the weird visit she had had with the ghost of a sort of motherly, utterly charming prostitute. Images had whirled in her brain as she had tossed her uneaten dinner in the trash and methodically washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen.
She considered what Maggie had said. Her life wasn’t dull, it was just predictable. She went to work five mornings a week, arriving in White Plains, barring car trouble, at almost exactly eight o’clock each morning. Gordon, Watson, Kelly and Wise was a small but elite firm, run by Mark Watson and John Kelly, two aging lawyers, and Steve Gordon, the thirty-five-year-old sexy-looking lawyer for whom Barbara worked. Barbara brought her half-sandwich and salad with her each day and ate her lunch at her desk. Steve Gordon junior, son of one of the founding partners, wasn’t overly dependent on her so Barbara usually left at four-thirty and was home before five.
Most weekends she did odd jobs around her two-story raised ranch. In the summer she mowed the lawn, in the winter she shoveled the driveway. Her kitchen and bathroom floors were clean enough to eat off of, and at the first sign of mildew she attacked her tub and shower with cleansers and brushes. She was an active member of her local church and could be counted to cook and bake for every benefit, chaperone the youth events and join parishioners in holiday visits to local nursing homes.
My life’s not dull. It isn’t. But when was the last time she had been out on a date? Carl Tyndell’s face flashed again through her brain. He was the last, she realized, and that was…She counted on her fingers. Let’s see. Mom got really sick and moved in two years ago and it was a few months before that. Maybe more than a few months. Phew. Had it really been more than three years since she had had a date? Well, after that last debacle, it was just as well. Anyway, she was happy. Wasn’t she?
She thought about Steve. He was almost six feet tall with piercing blue eyes and just enough gray at his temples to be distinguished and sexy. He had a strong jaw, and large hands with slender fingers and well-sculptured nails. Frequently Barbara would find herself watching his hands as he signed the correspondence she typed for him.
Was Maggie right? Barbara sighed and popped an M&M into her mouth from the open bag on her bedside table.
She slept little that night and, the next day since Steve was in court, she typed, arranged and organized several important briefs, two wills and a few mortgage documents. Without too much thought, she opened Steve’s mail, dealt with the items she could handle herself and arranged the others in folders on his desk. She answered the phone, made and confirmed several appointments for her boss and gave him his messages and took copious notes about his responses each time he called in. She nibbled on her American cheese sandwich and salad at lunch and left the office at four thirty-five.
As she drove home, she realized that, although she had thought about her life and the things Maggie had said most of the day, she had made her decision the previous evening. If this whole thing wasn’t an elaborate hoax or some kind of boredom-induced hallucination, she would go along with Maggie, at least for the moment.
When Maggie had
walked out of Barbara’s kitchen the previous evening she suddenly found herself back inside the revolving door. She pushed her way to the other side and stepped out, only to find herself walking back through Barbara’s kitchen door.
“I didn’t know whether you’d really be here,” Barbara said as Maggie entered the kitchen.
“This is really disorienting,” Maggie said, rubbing her forehead. The kitchen was different, with two plates on the table, each with a hamburger on a toasted bun, mixed vegetables, and rice. “When am I?”
“That’s an interesting takeoff on the typical question. It’s almost six-fifteen. I wasn’t sure you’d be back.”
“Did we meet last evening or just a few minutes ago?”
“We met yesterday.” Barbara sat at one end of the table and pointed to the second place setting. “I cooked some dinner for you, but I remember you told me you didn’t get hungry. I can put it away and eat it for lunch tomorrow if you don’t want it.”
“This is all new to me, too,” Maggie admitted. “I don’t know exactly what I do and what I don’t.” She sat down and sniffed, enjoying the slightly charcoal smell of the grilled burger in front of her.
“Is this the first time you’ve helped someone?”
Maggie nodded ruefully. “I’m not like Michael Landon in Highway to Heaven. This isn’t my job, you know. It’s just a test to see where I go.”
“I love Highway to Heaven. Michael Landon is so adorable.”
Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s good to know you notice things like that.” She picked up the burger and took a bite. “Delicious.”
“Thanks. I did all the cooking for my mother and me until she died. Good wine and good food were her only pleasures toward the end, and I did what I could to make special things for her.”
“Well,” Maggie said, her mouth full, “this is really wonderful.”
Barbara found herself delighted that Maggie liked her cooking. “What does an angel do all day? I mean, what did you do today?”
“I’m certainly not an angel as anyone who knew me in my old profession can tell you. That’s the problem that puts me here with you. And for me, there was no today. I walked out of your kitchen and just walked back in.” She blinked, then took another bite of her burger. “I guess I’ll get used to it. Tell me what’s been happening in the world since I left. Did the O.J. Simpson trial ever end?”
For the next hour Barbara caught Maggie up on what had occurred in the last eight months. Strangely, Barbara realized as she poured coffee for each of them, she had completely accepted the fact that Maggie was dead. She also realized that she hadn’t enjoyed an evening this much in a long time.
“I think it’s time we got down to business” Maggie said as she sipped her coffee. “I’m here to see that you get out, date, have some fun.”
Barbara stretched her legs beneath the table and sighed. “It won’t work. I am what I am.”
“Do I hear self-pity? A bit of ‘poor little me?’”
Barbara sat upright. “Not at all. It’s just that you can’t make something out of nothing.”
“All right, let’s get serious here. Do you have a full-length mirror somewhere?”
“I guess.” Together the two women walked upstairs and into the guest bedroom. It was a simply decorated room with a flowered quilt, matching drapes, and a simple dresser. The room looked and smelled unused. Maggie walked behind Barbara and together they stood in front of the long mirror that hung on the closet door.
“Now, look at you,” Maggie said, looking at Barbara’s reflection over her shoulder. Barbara was wearing a pair of nondescript gray sweat pants and an oversize matching sweat shirt. “You look like you’ve just come from a ragpickers’ convention.”
“But this is just for comfort,” Barbara protested.
“Comfort is one thing but dressing in sacks is another.” Maggie grabbed a handful of the back of the shirt and pulled. The fabric stretched more tightly across Barbara’s chest. “There’s a body under this,” she said. “Nice tits.” She pulled the pants in at the seat. “And you’ve got nice hips, a small waist. Yes, there’s actually a shape under all this material.”
Barbara looked, but remained unconvinced.
“Look at your face,” Maggie said, grabbing a fistful of hair and pulling it back, away from Barbara’s face. “Nice eyes. Actually, great eyes. Good cheekbones, good shape. A definite nose, but not too much, and nicely shaped lips. Your skin’s not great, but nothing that a decent foundation wouldn’t cure.” She released Barbara’s hair and the two women stood, gazing into the mirror. “There’s really a lot of potential. We just need makeup, a good hair stylist, and a new wardrobe.”
“I don’t need a new wardrobe,” Barbara said, almost stomping toward her own room. She crossed to her closet, opened the door and flipped on the light. “Just look. There are lots of really nice clothes in here.”
“Nice for a dowdy moderately shapeless old maid, but not for you. You need high shades, sapphire and emerald, deep claret and purple. Oh, you’d look sensational in eggplant.”
“I have all the clothes I need.”
“But not the ones you want. You seem to want to slide through life virtually unnoticed. Nonsense. Make a statement. Be a real person.”
“I am a real person.”
Maggie made a rude noise. “In attitude, you rate a D and in self-esteem you get an F. In looks, I’ll give you a ‘needs improvement.’ And with the improvement will come a change in attitude as well. Are you game?”
Barbara dropped onto her bed. “I don’t know, Maggie. Part of me wants to be adventurous, stick out in a crowd, have men notice me. But the rest is terrified. It’s such a risk.”
Maggie sat beside Barbara and put her arm loosely around the younger woman’s shoulders. “Why is it a risk?” she asked softly.
“It just is.”
“Think about the worst thing that could happen if you walked into a room in a bright red dress with black stockings and black high heels, with golden highlights in your hair and a ‘here I am, come and get me’ expression on your face. What’s the worst thing?”
To her surprise Barbara burst into tears. Helpless, Maggie handed her a handful of tissues and, with her arms around Barbara’s shoulders, let her cry it all out. It took fifteen minutes for Barbara to get calm enough for Maggie to attempt to talk to her again. “You have to tell me what’s eating you.”
Barbara wiped her face and shook her head.
“I can ask Lucy and she’ll find out with that computer system of hers.” Maggie explained Lucy’s ability to replay events in her life at will. She had no idea whether she could even get to Lucy or whether Lucy could bring up bits of Barbara’s past, but she thought it was a decent bluff.
“Oh, no. That would be too humiliating.”
“Well, then, let me get us each a glass of wine and then you tell me what it is that frightens you so much. Where’s the rest of the bottle we were drinking last evening?”
“In the closet next to the refrigerator, and the glasses are in the hutch in the living room.”
“Lord. Unless I was entertaining I left dishes in the sink for days and in my drainer even longer. Okay. You think about how you’re going to tell me the ugly details while I fetch for us.” Maggie left the room.
Barbara listened to Maggie’s footsteps on the stairs and slumped onto her back. Maybe I can just run away. Maybe I can tell her to go to hell. Maybe I can slit my wrists. She sighed. Maybe it will feel good to tell someone about Carl and Walt. But maybe Maggie would just give up on her if she did. Didn’t that serve her purpose anyway, make Maggie go away? Too soon, Maggie returned and thrust a glass of wine into her hand.
“Drink this like it’s medicine,” Maggie said, brandishing the bottle and her glass in the other. “There’s enough here for another half-glass for each of us.”
Staying flat on her back on the bed, Barbara awkwardly emptied the glass, then held it out for Maggie to refill. Maggie emptied
the bottle into Barbara’s glass, then stretched out beside her on the bed. Softly she said, “Tell me about him.”
“How did you know it was a him?”
Maggie chuckled. “When a woman has an ego that has been smashed as flat as yours it’s always a man—or a woman. And from the way you gazed at that boss of yours yesterday, I assumed the asshole who flattened your self-esteem was a man.”
“Oh, yes,” Barbara said. “Carl Tyndell was definitely a man, and I guess an asshole, too.”
“That’s the attitude.” Maggie stared at the ceiling, giving Barbara time to decide where to begin.
“I met Carl at a party. It was about four years ago and I had just had my twenty-seventh birthday. Notice I didn’t say I celebrated, because, for some unknown reason, that birthday hit me very hard.”
As she set the scene for Maggie, Barbara could almost see the room, hear the incessant babble of suburban conversation, smell the cold cuts on the dining-room table. A couple she knew slightly from her church had given the party to introduce some new neighbors. She had put her coat on the bed in the master bedroom and as she walked back down the stairs she saw a sensational-looking man talking in low whispers to Walt McCrory, a neighborhood bachelor whom she had dated a few times a few months earlier. The two men laughed loudly, then the stranger worked his way through the crowd and engaged her in conversation.
“I should have suspected something was up the way Walt leered at me,” Barbara said.
“You and this Walt didn’t part on good terms, I gather.”
“We went out for a few weeks. We had dinner a few times, then one warm evening he invited me back to his place to check out his new above-the-ground pool. One thing led to another, but obviously not fast enough for Walt. After I told him I didn’t want to be groped, he called me a cold bitch, incapable of giving a man a decent wet dream much less a hard-on.”
“So he presumably talked this Carl person into picking you up.”
“I guess that’s true, but I was so naive that I didn’t make the connection until much later.”
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