by Tarr, Hope
She slipped on the right shoe. Given the high arch and narrow toe, she’d expected it to pinch, but instead her foot sank into the rich velvet as though it were a vat of butter. She put on the second, and then leaned forward to buckle both ankle straps. Feet propped on the edge of the glass-top coffee table, she sat back and admired the effect.
She’d never before thought of her feet as dainty, but silhouetted by the rich red velvet, they looked it. The tiny amber topaz rhinestones caught the light, winking up at her like tiny stars, or maybe even the Bethlehem Star after which she was nicknamed. The shoes were so exquisitely unique she was half tempted to keep them. But no, she didn’t accept gifts, not for her birthday, not for Christmas, and certainly not for the sake of a backstabber looking to ease her conscience at the holidays. She carefully unbuckled each shoe, rewrapped them in the tissue paper, and put them back in the box.
“Better to have loved and lost,” she said, closing the box and sliding it beneath the table.
Hungry, she broke open the containers of lukewarm Thai food, snapped apart the set of wooden chopsticks, and dug in. Molly Jane sniffed appreciatively, pink nose working, and head butted Starr’s hand.
“Sorry sweetie, no people food for you,” she said, moving a container out of range.
Shoveling up Shrimp Pad Thai, Starr stretched out her free hand for the TV remote. Surfing the channels yielded one crap Christmas program after another. From animated children’s classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to Christian choirs and choral groups to evening services broadcast from notable churches and cathedrals, there was no escaping. Even her trusty standby, the classic film channel, had caved, showing a black-and-white version of A Christmas Carol.
Yawning, she popped open the beer and sat back to watch for a while. Cynic though she was, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Scrooge. From where she sat, he wasn’t so much a villain as a Type A personality trying to get his shit done. He had also probably really, really needed to get laid. Starr could relate.
Her thoughts circled back to Landry. Recalling the way his jeans clung to his trim waist, hugging his slender hips just so, made her mouth water. She eyed the Crumbs cupcake set out along with the other food containers and licked her lips. Visible inside its clear plastic container, it was as yet untouched. Screw sticking in the candle and making some stupid wish that wasn’t going to come true. Screw delaying gratification until her birthday’s official start. Screw it, or better yet, humbug on it all. She snapped open the plastic lid, lifted out the icing-drenched confection, peeled away the waxed paper wrapper, and bit in.
So…freakin’…good.
The first big sloppy bite was followed by another and another. The birthday cupcake was quickly gone. Sucking frosting from her thumb, she glanced back at the TV, where one of the visiting ghosts—a large bearded Bacchus-like take on Father Christmas—gorged on his conjured Christmas feast while two rail-thin child spirits, “Ignorance” and “Want,” looked forlornly on.
Starr took a swig of beer. “Fabulous, now I can be thirty-five and fat.”
Midnight and her Christmas birthday were fast approaching. She usually stayed up to toast it, but this year she wasn’t so sure she’d make it. Not sure at all. Maybe it was the tryptophan from the chicken satay or the recent combination of too many early mornings and late nights, but suddenly she couldn’t seem to hold her eyes open.
Onscreen, Scrooge had taken hold of the spirit’s robe as directed and was being flown over a snow-sheathed London skyline. The actor playing Scrooge put on an impressive performance of looking cold. Starr didn’t have to act. The temperature outside must have dropped dramatically because the apartment felt as though, like Bob Cratchit, she was making do with a single lump of coal.
She shivered and hugged herself. “For this I pay four grand a month.”
Too tired to get up and go to bed, she reached for the throw blanket, pulled it over her, and stretched out across the couch cushions, Molly Jane burrowing against her. She slipped off to sleep just as the bell of nearby Grace Church struck the first of twelve chimes—midnight.
Chapter Three
“Psst, Starr, wake up.”
Starr cracked open an eye and then quickly closed it again. What was Matt Landry doing in her apartment in the middle of the night? And was he…glowing?
I am so dreaming.
Even though she hadn’t spoken, Matt’s voice answered her. “No, you’re not. Open your eyes and look at me.”
Though used to giving orders, not taking them, Starr complied. She opened her eyes—and bolted upright. Landry squatted beside her sofa. His handsome face wore the same expression of unflappable patience she’d seen in staff meetings when she was being a particular bitch.
He lifted a brow. “I don’t think you’re a bitch. You’re just…very clear on your goals.”
“Jesus, how do you do that?”
He smiled. “You’re easier to read than you might think. All I have to do is look into your eyes. They’re the windows to the soul, you know.”
He’d said almost the exact words to her at work last week when they’d crossed paths in the break room—on purpose, or at least it had been on her part. Like the Pied Piper, he’d been too irresistible not to follow, even if she’d done so on the pretense of refilling her water bottle.
She fitted a hand across her forehead. “If I’m awake, if we’re really having this conversation, then you’re a visual and auditory hallucination. I repeat, visual and auditory. Not winning!”
He chuckled. “That bad, huh?”
“It means I’m bat shit crazy, schizophrenic at the very least. Thanks but no thanks. I’ll take dreaming over a life lived on antipsychotics any day. Good night.” She made a grab for the cover.
His hand shot out, pulling it back. “If I’m a dream figure or a hallucination, then I wouldn’t feel solid, would I?”
Starr hesitated. Before now, she’d never considered what the rules might be. “I…guess not.”
He held out his hand palm up. Like the rest of him, it was rimmed in a gently pulsing white light. “Touch me.”
She hesitated. If only he knew how she’d ached to do just that ever since he’d started at On Top—then again, if he could read her mind, no doubt he did know. Suddenly being schizophrenic seemed the better bargain. Dodging his gaze, she gingerly stretched out her hand and wrapped it about his bigger one.
“Holy shit.”
He was flesh and blood, warm and solid, so solid that she could detect the hint of calluses rimming the inside of his knuckles. Vaguely she recalled from reading his résumé that, before moving to New York, he’d worked on old cars. The factoid had been listed at the end under “Interests and Hobbies.” Before Landry, she’d never bothered reading that far.
She pulled away. “Who are you? What are you? And what have you done with Matt?”
Growing up as a latchkey kid, she’d had the Sci-Fi Channel as her babysitter and Invasion of the Body Snatchers as her favorite cult classic film. Still, even with her child’s imagination, the prospect of alien life had seemed a farfetched fantasy—until now.
“I’m Matt, or at least an aspect of him. For tonight, think of me as your Spirit of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.”
“I hate to sound like a stickler, but aren’t those supposed to be three separate spirits?”
A faint frown creased his handsome face. “Well, technically, yes, but this is a very busy time of year. Besides, haven’t you heard? There’s a recession on,” he added with a wink. No doubt about it, he had Landry’s trademark humor and unflappable charm down pat.
“You look like Landry, only more…shimmery,” she admitted.
Even blinged out in a glittering silver-sequined three-piece suit that the late Liberace would have coveted, he looked pretty freakin’ fabulous. Still, the Landry she knew was strictly a jeans and T-shirt guy.
He frowned. “The Powers That Be fashioned me in the form they knew you would be most receptive to.�
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Starr didn’t have a comeback to that. Privately she acknowledged that The Powers That Be must be pretty smart cookies.
Matt surveyed the coffee table littered with half-finished takeout containers and shook his head. “Holed up at home, alone, eating greasy Thai take-out when you could have been out enjoying yourself with friends.”
Despite their bizarre situation, Starr bristled. Just because he’d styled himself as some sort of…Christmas ghost guide didn’t mean he got to barge into her life and criticize it. “First, that Thai food isn’t greasy. It’s some of the best in the city, much more nutritious than the fried pub grub I would have ended up eating had I gone along for drinks. Second, I don’t have friends.”
He leaned in. “Are you so sure about that?”
Starr caught her breath. He dazzled her and not because of the glowworm thing. Get a freakin’ grip, Starling. Repeat: this is not the real Matt, this is not the real Matt, this is not the real Matt…
“Besides, they didn’t really want me there. You—Matt—just asked me along to be…nice.”
For a few seconds, he looked as though he might argue. Instead he stood and stretched out his hand to her again. “Come on, we have a packed schedule of Christmases to power through and not a lot of time.”
Starr groaned. Packed schedules, deadlines—even in her delusions, she couldn’t catch a break. “Jesus, Casper, what gives? Do you turn into a pumpkin? Did The Powers That Be give you a curfew—be back by dawn or no wings for you?”
“Wings are for angels. You’ve mixed up your Christmas classics. You’re thinking of It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“My bad,” she admitted. “But spirits or angels, what does it matter? Neither exists.”
He rolled his glowing eyes, and despite the shadows, Starr could make out the distinct green and gold flecks. Just as with the real Matt, staring into his eyes made her feel all…melty.
He shook his head, sending his loose chestnut-colored hair billowing like a cloud. “You’re not about to make this easy on me, are you? Why does that not surprise me?”
“Okay, I’ll humor you and go. Only what am I supposed to call you?”
“Call me?” He sent her a puzzled look.
“Yeah, ‘Ghost’ sounds kind of generic. And you’ve already suggested you’re not so keen on Casper. Can I call you Matt? Since you’re kind of borrowing his body and voice for the night, it seems only fair.”
“Sure, you can call me Matt, but not Landry. He really hates that, by the way.”
Starr was sincerely surprised. “He does? He’s never said anything. I call everyone on my team by their last name.”
“I know you do. It’s one of the many tactics you use for keeping other people at a distance.”
She snorted. “Well, excuse me, Dr. Freud.”
Ignoring the interruption, he continued. “He’s hoping you’ll give it up in time and come around to not only calling him by his first name but letting him into your life.”
Landry—Matt—wanted into her life? This was news. Her pants maybe, but her life was a tall order. Still, the possibility that he might see her as more than his boss or a quick no-strings-attached office fling was…intriguing. Starr had hoped to let the subject drop, but Spirit Matt persisted. “He asked you out tonight, didn’t he?”
She forced a shrug. “A bunch of people were grabbing drinks after work, that’s it. It wasn’t like you—I mean, he was asking me out on an actual date.”
Again that telltale brow lifted. “Are you so sure about that?”
Starr hesitated. Was she? If she’d given in and gone out with them, might the casual group meet-up have segued to a real date? She’d never know now.
“Take my hand and whatever you do, don’t let go.”
Starr barely had time to wrap her hand around his wrist before their feet left the ground. The apartment floor-to-ceiling glass window blew open despite her having secured it earlier. As if entering a wind tunnel, they were sucked through.
Batting curls out of her eyes with her free hand, a terrifying thought—even more terrifying than being levitated and now flown several hundred feet above ground—seized her. “The window…my cat…if she jumps up on the sill, she could fall out.”
“Don’t worry, I closed it.” As in their real, at work lives, he seemed to not only think of everything but take care of it, too.
She let out a relieved breath and dared a look down. The Manhattan skyline stretched out beneath them like a glittering urban Christmas canopy. Far removed from the din of car horns and ambulance sirens and cursing cabbies, the silent city seemed serenely, surreally beautiful. Although she’d been born and raised here, Starr felt as if she were seeing New York for the first time through fresh, gentler eyes. Caught up, it took her a few minutes before realizing they were leaving the city behind.
“Where are you taking me?” she called over the rushing wind.
Matt kept his gaze straight ahead—a good thing, she guessed, since he was, technically, “driving” them. “You’ll see soon enough.”
The East River came into view. They headed toward and then over it. Starr spotted the Triborough Bridge and suddenly she knew. “You’re taking me to Queens, aren’t you?”
He didn’t deny it.
They set down at Astoria Boulevard. Above them, the N Train powered past. Having grown up less than a block away, Starr remembered the bone-rattling rumble all too well.
“That was one smooth landing,” she said, shaking snow from her hair. Despite being dusted with the stuff, she felt pleasantly warm.
He smiled. “Thanks, I’ll pass on the compliment to The Powers That Be.”
“Please do. While you’re at it, remind me to fill out the comment card,” she joked.
Dream or delusion, she might as well have fun with it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so light or carefree, the last time she’d allowed herself to let go and have a real…adventure.
“Will do.” His expression sobered. “Compliments lift everyone’s spirits, especially when they’re sincerely meant. If you spent half as much time praising your team members as you do tearing them down, the results might surprise you—pleasantly.”
Starr stiffened. Just when she was beginning to loosen up and enjoy her dream—delusion, whatever it was—he had to get all preachy. “Whipping a magazine team into shape is a lot like training in the military—sometimes you have to break people down before you can build them back up again, better and stronger.”
His glowing gaze dimmed. “Suit yourself.” Turning away, he started walking. Afraid he might decide to leave her there, sans Metro card or money—or shoes, for that matter—Starr started after him.
“Hey, wait up. Don’t be pissed off. I mean, it’s my management style, that’s all. It’s not personal.”
“Maybe it should be,” he said softly, gliding across the slippery snow-banked street with ease. Then again, his feet didn’t exactly touch the ground.
Gingerly following a few steps behind, she opened her mouth to answer when a familiar sight stopped her in her tracks. “Oh my God, is that what I think it is?”
He halted. “Yes, your first home.”
The charred-colored brick building looked exactly like the apartment house where she’d spent most of her childhood. “But they bulldozed it years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then how—”
A wave of dizziness washed over her, causing her to leave the thought unfinished. She blinked against the sudden head rush. Opening her eyes, she saw they no longer stood outside the building but within it—in the kitchen of her former fifth floor walkup.
Crossing the linoleum, she reached out and touched the peeling gold-brown wallpaper with gentle fingers. “This is…amazing,” she said.
And it was. From the grease-splattered cabinets to the buckled tile to the aroma of garlic and frying onions wafting through the vent from the apartment below, everything looked and even smelled exactly as she remember
ed.
The rent-controlled studio apartment had been the best her single mother could afford, small for even just two people, although given her mom’s schedule of racing from one low-paying part-time job to the next, it wasn’t like she’d logged in enough at-home time for Starr to feel crowded. What she had felt was lonely. Even a studio space felt big and empty when you were the only one in it. Library books, magazines recovered from the recycling bin, and the trusty TV had been her windows to a larger, brighter world—brighter, or so she’d thought.
“How did you manage to…recreate all this?” she asked.
He beckoned her to follow him farther inside. “I didn’t recreate anything. These are all your memories. They live inside you always. Come and see for yourself.” They entered the main room to the iconic introduction to Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone.
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension…
Starr mouthed the words, following along with the announcer. Having grown up watching reruns of the original black-and-white sci-fi/fantasy series, now a cult classic, she knew the introduction by heart and had seen most of the episodes countless times.
A land of shadow and substance…
Once relegated to her fantasies of space and time travel, those words suddenly felt strangely prophetic, fitting.
Caught up, it took her a moment to notice that the apartment wasn’t as empty as she’d first thought. A red-haired child in pink PJ’s sat cross-legged on a blanket spread over the uncarpeted floor, her back to them and her attention riveted on the flickering TV screen.