Ellen just shook her head. The wine tasted like all the red wines she’d ever had. Even if it were bad she wouldn’t let this woman have the satisfaction of showing it. “I think it’s just fine.” She took another large gulp.
“‘Okay. Lessons on wine. That’s on the list.”
“What list?”
“Let me start at the beginning so you’ll understand—well at least as much as I understand. But first, what’s today’s date?”
“Date?”
“Today’s date. What is it?”
“It’s September 28.”
“What year?”
With no clue as to what was going on, Ellen answered, “1999.”
“I’ve been dead for more than four years.”
“Right, and I’m the tooth fairy. You know,” Ellen said, “maybe you should sit down. Is there some relative I can call to come and pick you up?” Where has this loony escaped from and how can I get her to voluntarily go back there? Soon. Now.
“I’m dead. I don’t know any other way of explaining it to you. Your reaction is really predictable and I can certainly understand your reluctance to accept me. Actually I’ve met several women in the last few years and each one of them has reacted the same way.” She gazed into space. “I’ve got to think of a better way to break the news about myself. I’ll have to think about that. Maybe in the future I should just say that I’m a fairy godmother.” She returned her gaze to Ellen. “Any way you slice it, however, I’m a ghost, sent here to help you with your life.”
“I don’t need any help with my life, and I don’t care whether you think you’re Napoleon or Moses. It’s time for you to leave.” Ellen rose from the sofa and started toward the apartment door.
Maggie shrugged. “I told you I can’t leave and, for the moment, neither can you, but you can give it a try. It might help clarify a few things.” She motioned toward the door so Ellen crossed the room and turned the knob. Nothing happened. The knob turned beneath her hand as it was supposed to, but the latch didn’t move. She pulled at the door but it wouldn’t open. “Open this door!” she shouted.
“I can’t. It’s not under my control. We’re stuck here until we understand each other.”
“Okay. I’m calling the cops.”
“That won’t work either, but you’re welcome to try. Go for it.”
Ellen picked up the phone and heard the familiar dial tone, yet when she pushed the buttons, nothing happened. The dial tone continued as though she hadn’t dialed at all. “Who set this all up? Are you here to rob me? You obviously know about the money so how much do you want?”
“I told you, I don’t want money. I only want to help you.”
Since the apartment was only on the second floor and overlooked a busy street she could shout for help. Ellen tried the window but, like the door, it wouldn’t open. Maggie gracefully settled on the far end of the long sofa, spread her skirt around her, and sipped her wine, making an ugly face as she did so. “Now, can we talk?”
Ellen looked from the door to the window to the phone, then dropped onto the far end of the couch with her hand on the telephone. As soon as this was all ironed out she was calling the cops and that was that. “Okay, talk but just make it quick. And please, no ‘I’m dead’ stuff. I’m not that crazy yet.”
“I am dead and there’s no help for that. I died in 1995 of a sudden heart attack.”
Just humor her, then she’ll go away. “Okay, you’re dead. I believe you.” Just let her talk until she’s ready to get the hell out of here.
“I can prove that part if you’ll just come with me into the bathroom.” When Maggie stood and walked toward the small bath Ellen reluctantly followed. Maggie directed her to stand in front of the mirror and Maggie positioned herself behind her. Ellen gazed into the mirror and saw her reflection clearly, but in the mirror she was alone. She turned and, sure enough, the woman stood just behind her shoulder, but, as Ellen’s gaze returned to the mirror she was by herself. No Maggie, no wineglass, no nothing.
“I don’t reflect,” Maggie said, “because I’m dead. Only you can see or hear me.”
Ellen stared, then turned several times to assure herself that the woman was right. Maggie didn’t reflect. What the hell was going on? Ellen rubbed her forehead, now totally confused.
Together the two women walked back into the living room. “Okay. Let’s say I believe that,” Ellen said. Although I don’t.
“I know you don’t but you will, eventually. Let me try to explain a bit more. Before I died, I was a very high-priced call girl—or I guess you’d say a call woman in my case.” They settled onto opposite ends of the sofa.
“A hooker?” Sure, right. Fine. That tops it all. A dead prostitute. Right.
“You know, I’ve learned to hate the word hooker. I was a wonderful woman who just happened to have sex for money. Some women will put out for dinner and a movie, I just took the cash.”
“Well, that’s a unique attitude,” Ellen said her voice heavy with sarcasm.
“It’s not unique at all. I merely entertained lonely men. We went to dinner, had great conversations, shared lots of laughs and ended up in bed together—actually in bed and other places. They gave me money because they enjoyed what we did together and wanted to reward me, compensate me for my time. It was just that simple.”
Ellen looked a bit less incredulous as she said, “You make it sound like a lark. What about love and marriage?”
“Love is wonderful, don’t get me wrong.” Maggie uncrossed and recrossed her legs spreading her skirt artfully around her. “I have loved several men in my time but good hot sex has little to do with love with a capital L. It’s loving of a different sort. I cared about my clients. I wanted to make them happy and they wanted the same for me. We cared about one another. That didn’t mean, however, that we wanted to spend our lives together, walking hand in hand down the yellow brick road. A great roll in the hay on occasion was enough.”
What the woman was saying seemed to make sense, somehow, at least for her. “Okay, okay. You don’t need to get up on your soapbox. Whatever you did, you did, but that still doesn’t answer the basic question. What the heck are you doing here? I certainly have no intention of becoming a hooker—sorry, call woman—so what’s this all about?” Ellen listened to what she had just said. Had she really accepted that she was talking to the ghost of a dead prostitute?
“You’re my latest case. Lucy and Angela sent me to try to wake you up to the possibilities in your life.”
“I don’t need any help, thank you. I’m doing just fine.”
“If you’re so fine, then why did you just have that long conversation with your sister?”
“How the hell…?” Ellen saw the small smile on Maggie’s face. “Okay, but I’m fine. Tell your friends to butt out!”
“Lucy and Angela don’t butt out easily. They send me on assignment and I’m stuck until they decide I’ve done my job. If I don’t complete my mission I have no idea what happens. Maybe I end up in Hell after all.”
“End up in Hell?” Ellen tucked her legs beneath her and held her wineglass in front of her, almost as protection against what she was going to hear. “Okay, explain. I’m listening.”
“Where to begin? More than four years ago, I had a fatal heart attack, after which I just appeared in the computer room.” As Ellen started to interrupt, Maggie held up her hand. “Let me tell this in my own way. It’s difficult enough to believe any way you slice it, but it’s all true.” Ellen’s body relaxed.
“The computer room is the place where the ‘up or down’ decisions are made about everyone who dies. You understand, Heaven or Hell. Most cases are easy, I gather. Either Angela, she’s an angel you understand, or Lucy, she’s a representative of Lucifer, gets the poor slob and it’s off to transportation. Then what? I’ve no idea.
“Anyway, they had a problem with me. I was a prostitute so by rights should have gone…” Maggie made a thumbs-down gesture. “However, I was a really good
person, helping people sexually and other ways. I was kind to children and animals, well you get the idea. So Angela argued on my behalf as I sat there about as confused as you are now. Finally the two women decided on a test for me. They sent me down to earth to help a woman named Barbara to learn about her sexuality. Barbara blossomed, with my help of course, but in the end that didn’t really make the decision for them. So Lucy and Angela decided to keep me on for a while as a consultant. They send me to earth from time to time to help someone.” Maggie took a swallow of wine, and grimaced. “We really have to improve your taste in wine.” She set the glass on the coffee table. “You are my latest assignment.”
“Why me? What did I do to warrant this attention? Whatever it was, I want to undo it.”
“Actually Lucy frequently plays the lottery, or plays with it, and she’s particularly interested in winning numbers that add up to 66 like yours did.”
“I’ll bite. Why 66?”
“Second cousin to 666, the devil’s number. When you won, she brought you up on her computer and thought you and I would get along well.”
“She thought that I needed someone to tinker with my life? You can tell her that my life is just fine, thank you.” Ellen cupped her hands around her mouth and faced the ceiling. “Listen, Lucy, Angela, take your minion and go,” she called loudly. “Vamoose, scram. Find someone else to play with. I’m just fine.”
“You’re really not as fine as you could be. Your sex life is a mess and that’s what I’m here to correct. Lucy told me about your fantasies.”
Ellen bolted from the sofa. “They know my fantasies?”
“They know just about everything, and Lucy isn’t a great fan of your dreams. She tweaked your last one, you know.”
Ellen remembered the dream she was having right before Maggie’s appearance. It had been different from her usual. Vastly different. Shit. “Shit!” She swallowed hard. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ve heard all those words before and sometimes they can add spice to your language.”
“Assuming I believe all this, which I’m still not sure I do, I don’t want you. I like my sex life the way it is. Just go away.”
“You may not want me, but you need me, and I need you. I have a job to do and you’re it.”
“Okay, so what exactly is your job? What do I have to do to get you to go away?”
“It’s really what we have to do. We have to help you understand about sex.”
“I already understand about sex; my mother educated me just fine. I know about intercourse, condoms, the whole nine yards. What else is there?”
“Oh, my darling,” Maggie said, “there’s so much. As the Carpenters said, ‘We’ve only just begun.’”
Ellen sighed. “I will admit that right now my sex life is a bit on the thin side, but that’s bound to change in the near future.”
“Thin?” Maggie stood and began to prowl the room. “Your sex life is non-existent and if you continue the way you’re going it won’t improve anytime during this millennium or the next. You’re stuck in a sexless rut. You have a tiny opinion of yourself so you’re defeated before you start. Your fantasies are unrealistic and you’re constantly disappointed that the real world isn’t like the one you imagine.”
“Thanks,” Ellen said dryly.
“It’s the truth. You sit here with all the resources of the city spread in front of you, and enough money to enjoy them to the fullest.” She stopped and focused on Ellen. “Look at this room. It looks like no one lives here. No plants, no pictures, no old magazines. No old anything. It’s all sterile, as if you’re just waiting to run back to your small town.”
“I really don’t want your opinion.”
“I don’t care what you want. I’m going to tell you a few things you need to hear. You’re like a butterfly, too afraid of the outside world to come out. You peek out of your cocoon with a little periscope and you never experience anything.”
“Oh, please. Really.”
“That’s you. Miss Sexual Underachiever of the Month—of the Decade. Now, however, you have the opportunity to change all that with me to help you every step of the way.” She sat back down on the sofa and took Ellen’s hand. “Be honest with yourself just this once. Wouldn’t you like to be a bit more interesting to men? Wouldn’t you like to have a few dates, go out for dinner occasionally, climb into bed with a horny guy and let him make you seriously crazy for an entire night? Doesn’t that thought curl your toes?”
As Ellen started to give the standard answer, she looked into Maggie’s eyes. If she were to be completely honest, what Maggie was suggesting sounded really good. She wanted to be attractive to men. She wanted a man to look at her the way Kevin had but not, as she accepted, because she was a potential client with an open wallet. She wanted a real sex life.
When she didn’t respond, Maggie continued, “I thought so. I’m grateful that, at least inside your head, you’re being honest.” She reached over and held Ellen’s hand tightly. “Let me do what I know how to do. It won’t hurt and I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. I can help, really I can, with your looks, your clothes, but most of all with your attitude. Please.”
Ellen sighed. She realized that she had accepted everything this woman said. Maggie was the spirit of a dead prostitute who had been sent to help her become a sex goddess.
“Not a sex goddess, just a woman who knows her own worth, in and out of bed.”
Ellen expelled a long breath, then lifted her glass. “I guess I have nothing to lose.”
Maggie picked up her wineglass and the two women touched rims. “To the future, and how we can improve it together.” They sipped and Maggie made a face. “And here’s to better wine.”
Ellen sipped. “Better wine? Isn’t this the way wine is supposed to taste?”
“Not on your life. Let me give you a demonstration of what we can achieve together.”
Ellen’s eyes brightened. This could be really good. “Are you going to zap up a bottle of something terrific?”
“I don’t zap anything. Actually I’ve been after Lucy and Angela to give me the power, you know, like Michael Landon in Highway to Heaven, but so far, nothing.” She looked at Ellen seriously. “What I meant was let’s go to the wine store and buy something special. Then we can have a taste comparison and you’ll see what you’ve been missing. Let’s make that a symbol of what you’ve been missing in the rest of your life. It’s getting late but in this neighborhood there’s always an open liquor store.”
With a great sigh, Ellen decided to go along with Maggie, at least for the moment. As they left the apartment, Ellen noticed that the door opened without any problem. She guessed that Lucy and Angela were satisfied that she wouldn’t run away and spoil Maggie’s plans.
A few minutes later the two women were inside a small neighborhood store. “Let’s get something a bit pricey for our first try. Later I can teach you how to get a nice wine for under twenty dollars a bottle.” Maggie puttered around the racks on the wall. “For now, however,” she said, returning to Ellen’s side, let’s splurge.”
“Okay. What should I get?”
“Are you talking to me?” A small man with a potbelly strode over, his balding head sweating slightly. Puffing, he said, “Can I help you with something?”
“I’d like a bottle of nice red wine,” Ellen said. She turned to Maggie. “Did you see anything you liked?”
“I like everything we stock,” the man said.
“Remember that he can’t see me so he has no idea you’re not talking to him,” Maggie said. “Just let him suggest and I’ll steer you to something sensational.” She paused. “Tell him you need a really nice bottle of red wine for a really fancy dinner you’re attending. Maybe a cabernet sauvignon.”
Ellen repeated Maggie’s words, stumbling slightly over the word sauvignon.
“Of course,” the clerk said, obviously dubious about her knowledge of wine. “How about this?” He led her to a rack on one wal
l. “We have some nice Australian cabs, not quite as expensive as the really fine Californias. These are nice wines with good fruit and well within the average pocketbook.”
“Nope,” Maggie said. “Tell him you want a good California cab.”
“Cab?” Ellen whispered.
“Short for cabernet,” Maggie explained.
“Excuse me?” the clerk said, totally confused by Ellen’s apparent talking to herself.
“I’d like a good California cab.”
“Of course.” He bustled to another area of the store and pulled out another bottle. “How about this?”
Maggie leaned over and read the label. “Not bad. Ask him whether he has a 1990. That was a superb year. It might be a bit over the hill, but I loved the nineties.”
“Do you have a 1990? That was a superb year.”
The clerk’s body straightened. “Nothing quite that old, I’m afraid but some of the more recent vintages are just wonderful. I might have something you’d enjoy over here.” He walked to a corner and touched a rack of bottles reverently. “These aren’t cheap, but you should like them if you’re looking for a really good cab. I can, of course, take you into the cellar in the back for the really fine wines.”
Maggie gazed at the rack and grinned. She pointed to one bottle, a Mount Eden Estate Bottled cabernet. “Take that one.”
Ellen looked at the price. “Fifty-five dollars?” she gasped.
“I told you it would be a bit high-priced,” the clerk said. “I can certainly find something else. You can have the regular estate bottled, rather than the Old Vine Reserve. It’s only thirty-five.”
“Take the Old Vine,” Maggie said.
Ellen looked doubtful but Maggie vehemently nodded. With a shrug Ellen pointed to the more expensive bottle and said, “Okay. I’ll take this one.”
A bit bemused at the double conversations, the clerk lifted the bottle and took it to the cash register. “Cash or credit?”
Ellen pulled out her credit card and handed it to the clerk. “You know,” Ellen said to Maggie, “I’m not sure I have a corkscrew.”
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