Unfinished Business An Angela Panther Novel (A Chick-lit Paranormal book) (The Angela Panther Series)

by Aspenson, Carolyn Ridder

  I glanced at my cup. “Oh, I know. Thanks though.” I shuffled my body weight from one foot to the other. “Um, do you have a break coming up soon? I need to talk to you about something.”

  She checked her watch, then held her finger up in the one sec pose, and turned to her Zoe, the manager. “Hey, Zoe, can I take my ten now?”

  The manager nodded her response and Jenn said she’d meet me outside.

  I went back and sat in the chair outside. Mel and the ghost followed like my little minions. Okay, so that was kind of fun. We waited for Jenn to come out.

  When she did, Mel let out a little squeak of excitement and I kicked her under the table. She got the message.

  “Okay. This is going to sound really strange, but I have to tell you something.”

  Jenn raised her eyebrows.

  "Your cousin Karen...Karen McCallister? She wants me to tell you that her mother really misses your mom, and she’s hoping you’ll convince your mom to call your aunt and work out this fight they’ve been in for ten years,” without a pause.

  Jenn tilted her head in question, and checked the area. “Is Karen here?”

  Oh boy. “Um, yes. She’s here.”

  She pivoted in a circle and asked, “Where?”

  I was pretty sure this is the part about this kind of thing I was always going hate. “She’s um...she’s standing next to you.”

  Jenn shifted her head back and forth. “Um, Angela? There’s no one here but the three of us.”

  Mel lifted her eyebrows. I snuck a peek at Karen.

  “I don’t think she knows I’m dead."

  Seriously? I leaned my head down. “You might have told me that before.”

  Jenn heard me. "What?"

  I shook my head to clear the panic. “Okay. I know you only have ten minutes so I’m going to say this as quickly as possible, and you just need to listen, okay?”

  She stared at me.

  “When did this happen?” I asked the ghost.

  “Three weeks ago. Car accident. It was instant. I didn’t feel anything.”

  Jen gave me a blank stare. I was absolutely certain this wasn’t going to be pretty, but I gathered my courage and gave it a shot. “Your cousin Karen? She here, but you can’t see her.”

  She checked behind her. “Why? Is she uncomfortable to approach me because of the fight with our moms?”

  I shook my head and Mel squeaked again, so I kicked her again. She was going to have monstrous bruises on her legs and she totally deserved them. “You can’t see her because she’s dead. She died in a car accident three weeks ago. She said she died on impact and didn’t feel anything, but she’s here because she wants you to tell your mother that your aunt really misses her and needs her now.” I exhaled and scrunched my eyebrows at a woman I’m sure was thinking I was a lunatic, and then quickly added, “She said she’s been trying to tell you for a while now, and the other day she messed with your lights, and you said to your husband that you thought there was a ghost in the house.” I let out another long, exasperated breath.

  Jenn stared at me. Karen stared at Jenn. And Mel was about to wet herself. “This is the real deal, Jenn. She’s not crazy.”

  I loved that Mel had my back.

  “Is Karen really dead?”

  This wasn’t the reaction I’d expected. I was relieved she wasn’t freaked out, but the look of confusion and sadness on her face made me feel horrible.

  “I’m so sorry, Jenn. I’m sure this has got to be really hard for you, but Karen feels it’s really important you tell your mom. She’s really worried about her mother.”

  “Can she hear me?"

  “Yes, she can hear you, and if you want to talk to her, I can tell you what she says.”

  “Oh my, yes. Thank you.” Jenn shifted her stance and talked to the air. I considered saying something but didn’t want to make her feel any more uncomfortable than she probably already did.

  “Um, Karen, I’m so sorry we got caught in all of our mothers’ mess. I hate that we lost touch because of it. I will tell my mom what you said. In fact, I’m going to pick up the phone and call your mother for her and make them talk. This is horrible. Your family, your kids, they must be a wreck.”

  She broke down and cried after her last sentence. Mel stood up and hugged her.

  The ghost cried, too. “Karen, what do you want me to tell her?”

  She told me all about her accident, how her family was holding up and more details about her mother. I relayed it all to Jenn, who stood and listened intently.

  After I finished, Jenn’s manager came out and told her she needed to come back from break.

  “Is there anything else you want me to tell her, Karen?”

  “No, you said it all. Thank you.”

  I nodded to Jenn. “She’s finished.”

  She hugged me. "Thank you, Angela. Karen? I’m calling our moms when I get home. I love you.” She went back inside.

  Karen winked at me, said thank you again and then turned into a bright, shimmering light, and disappeared. Mel's mouth hung open and she didn’t even see the light display. I acted all calm and collected but my heartbeat soared. “You trying to catch flies?”

  “Holy crap, Ang. That was amazing.”

  Damn her for always being right.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jake was mowing the front yard when I got home.

  I unloaded the groceries I’d picked up on the way back from Starbucks. He turned off the mower and gave me a quick kiss. “Need some help?”

  “Nope, thanks. I’ve got it. Is Em still home?”

  “Yup. Still in her room last I saw.”

  “Did she eat anything for breakfast or lunch for that matter?”

  “I made her eat a yogurt at eleven o’clock but that’s it as far as I know.”

  “Humph. Did you check her FaceBook account?”

  “Yup. I didn’t go through everything but from what I saw, there’s nothing going on. I’ll check again later, though. I didn’t want to be on it too long in case she came downstairs.”

  Alright, so I felt a little bad for telling Mel I didn’t think he’d check it, but I didn’t admit that to him. What he didn’t know wouldn’t come back to bite me in the butt. “Cool. Thanks for checking. I’m going to put this stuff away and go talk to her. Is Josh at the basketball courts?”

  “Nope. He’s in his room playing Legos.”

  “Oh. Not helping with the yard?”

  “He mowed the back so I told him I’d do the front. I don’t feel like dealing with work crap today.”

  “Cool." I carried arms full of groceries into the house. Jake followed behind with the rest of the bags. I loved that he helped even when he didn't need to. What a guy. Probably thought this would earn him points for sex later and probably he was right.

  While putting the groceries away, Ma popped in. Literally. I jumped and dropped the bag of groceries on the floor. Yogurt containers splattered and rolled around and I chased after them. “Cheese and rice, Ma! Don’t scare me like that.”

  She was surprised. “Whaddya you mean scare you? I didn’t say boo or anything.”

  “Don’t be a smarty pants. You know what I mean.” I grabbed a handful of paper towels and wiped up the splattered yogurt. Of course it was mine that splattered. “You can’t just pop in in front of me like that, Ma. It scares the crap out of me, and I don’t want to freak out and have Emily hear me, you know?”

  “Oh, fine. Ruin all of my fun.” She frowned and huffed.

  I giggled and put away the rest of the groceries.

  “I’m proud of you, Ang.”

  “And you’ve decided to finally tell me this after you’ve died, because why?”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “Ah Madone. I’ve told you I’m proud of you before, so don’t act like I never did.”

  I laughed out loud. “I know. I’m kidding. What are you proud of me for, Ma?” I put the cereal in the pantry and pretended like I didn’t actually need to hear
what she was proud about when really I still loved when I made her proud.

  “I saw what you did for that woman at Starbucks today. You did good, Ang. You did good.”

  I stopped putting the groceries away and peered at my mom. “What do you mean, you saw?”

  Her head dropped. “I saw. That’s what I mean.”

  “Are you following me? You are. You’re following me, aren’t you?”

  Ma busied herself checking out the ceiling. “Have you ever thought about painting your ceiling? It looks a little dirty, Ang. Maybe a nice gray. Yeah, a nice gray would look good.”

  “Oh no. No. No. No. You are not going to avoid this one, Ma, so you might as well admit it.”

  “I wasn’t following you, Angela. I...I just saw, that’s all. Besides, that’s not the point. The point is that you made me proud. Can’t you just take that and leave the rest be?”

  “Actually, Ma, no, I can’t. You cannot follow me around, Ma. This is my life, not yours.”

  “I know it’s your life, Ang. I just –”

  I cut her off. “No, Ma. My life is just that, mine. You have your own life.” I stopped because I realized she didn’t anymore.

  “That’s the thing, Ang. I don’t have my life anymore.”

  I pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down with a thump. “I’m sorry, Ma. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I know.”

  “But Ma, it’s not right, you following me around. You know that.”

  “I’m not following you around all the time, Ang. I can’t explain it to you so you just gotta trust me. I’m not snooping. I see things...they let me see things to help you.”

  “They? Who are they?”

  “I can’t tell you that, either.”

  I threw my hands up in the air and sighed. “You lost me, Ma.”

  “There’s rules I gotta follow, Ang. I told you that ya know, and I’m not even supposed to be telling you this much, Angela. But I promise you, on my mother’s grave, I’m not snooping or following you around all day or anything. I’m not watching you have sex. I’m not watching you change or take a shower, not that it would matter because I gave birth to you and I’ve seen your ass, okay? I just know about certain things so I can help you.”

  “Help me with what, Ma?”

  “Your gift, Angela.”

  I pulled my hair out of its band and ran my fingers through it. It was still a little wet from earlier. “It’s not a gift, Ma. Don’t call it that.”

  “It is a gift, Ang, and you’ll realize that when you have more experiences like today.”

  I didn’t want to have more experiences like today. I wanted to dig a hole and hide in it every time an experience like today happened.

  “Whatever.” I rested my head against the back of the chair. “Okay, so today was kind of cool, I’ll admit it. But that’s because Jenn didn’t question anything I said to her, but I don’t think that’s how it would always be. Jenn is someone I know, so she’s likely to believe me or at least not think I’m totally whacked. A stranger won’t be so kind. Don’t call this a gift, Ma, because it’s not. It’s more like a curse.”

  Ma floated to me. “No, honey. They won’t all be that easy, but you did good. You made me proud. And it will get easier. Besides, you’re tough. You got Palanca genes so you can handle this.”

  I wished I could touch my mother. I wanted to hug her, or more so, I wanted her to hug me. I missed that. I never understood the power of a mother’s hug until I couldn’t have them anymore. “Thanks, Ma.”

  “Now, we need to talk about what’s going on with Emily. That Taylor girl is not her friend, Angela, and I don’t think you should let her hang around her anymore.”

  “What do you mean, she’s not her friend? How do you know that?”

  Ma stared at me but kept quiet.

  “Oh Ma, what did you do now?”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “Okay. Okay. So I snooped a little. She’s my granddaughter. I’m allowed. Besides, she didn’t know I was there, and you can’t tell her, so it doesn’t really count. Plus, I found out what’s going on, and now you gotta fix it.”

  Okay, so she did sort of have a point. I didn’t necessarily think she should snoop around my daughter’s life, but if I could be a fly on her wall sometimes, I would, so wasn’t a ghost sort of the next best thing? “So what did you find out?”

  “I’ll tell you what I found out. I found out that Taylor girl, she’s a little cagna. Bad news, that girl.”

  Cagna is Italian for bitch. I spent my teen years looking up swear words in my Italian dictionary to no avail. I ended up asking my Auntie Rita what Ma was saying. What I would have given for Google in the ’80s. I nodded my head at her, because I’d already kind of thought that about Taylor. I know that sounds terrible but I never actually said it out loud so I figured it was okay. “And?”

  “She’s doing drugs and wants our little Emily to, too. Luckily Emily’s smarter than that but that little cagna is putting the pressure on her somethin’ fierce. I even heard her tell her friends that our little Emily is a prude. I wanted to give that Taylor a what for, let me tell you.” Ma was so excited she spun around in quick circles and it made me dizzy.

  “Ma, stop spinning. I can’t focus when you do that.”

  She stopped and I swear I saw her sway a little. “Did you actually see Taylor doing drugs or did she just say she was?” I knew kids talked a good talk but sometimes that’s all it was, talk.

  “You remember the day she came home from Taylor’s? When was that? Last week? I don’t know. Time is different for me now and I can’t get a handle on it. It feels like yesterday when I died but I know it wasn’t. I’m gonna have to ask them about that.” She stood in thought for a moment and I lost my patience.

  “Ma, focus. Emily.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry. That day she came home? She was so upset. She sat and cried in her room and my heart just ached for her. I tried so hard to get her to see me, so I could, you know, tell her what a good girl she is and all, but I couldn’t so I went over to Taylor’s to see what happened, see if there was something going on there that upset Emily. And you know what I heard." She spun in another circle. “I heard that nasty girl call at least five people and say terrible things about Emily. She said she’s a prude and still sleeps with her teddy bear and that she’s a virgin. A virgin. Of course she’s a virgin. She’s a child for Heaven’s sake. Madone, this world. It’s going to hell in a hand basket ever since that MTV came to cable. I knew this was gonna happen. What’s wrong with being a virgin at fifteen?”

  I considered addressing the MTV comment but she was on a roll and I wanted her to finish.

  “After about thirty minutes of listening to her spit out that filth about my darling granddaughter, I’d had enough. I got so angry, Angela. I don’t know what came over me, but I gathered up all that anger and threw it out into her room, and you’re never gonna believe what happened.”

  Oh boy. I was pretty sure I’d believe it but I wouldn’t like it.

  “Ma, tell me you didn’t do anything to hurt that girl.”

  “Of course I didn’t hurt her, but believe you me, I wanted to. If I could have, I would have smacked the living daylights out of her. No one should talk like that, especially not some little girl, and not about my granddaughter. No, I didn’t hurt her, but I did toss a few things around her room, and you know what? I loved it.” I think she might have glowed a little. It was creepy.

  “What do you mean, you tossed a few things around her room, Ma?”

  “Ah Madone, it was nothing, really but it sure felt good. I didn’t break anything, but I betcha I could have. I just tossed the pillows from her bed against the wall, and maybe I tossed a few books at the bed, but I didn’t hit her or nothing. She’s lucky, too.”

  I didn’t hit her or nothing. My mother was never a hitter, she was more like a threatener. She’d say things like, “wait until your father comes home” and “I oughta throw you into
next week,” but she never followed through on most of it. Not that she could have thrown me into the next week anyway, but you get the point.

  “Hold on. You tossed books at the bed? Was she sitting on the bed, Ma?”

  Ma's head dropped toward the floor, a sure sign I wouldn’t like what she was about to say. “Well, uh...she might have been sitting on the bed, but I didn’t throw them where she was sitting. I threw them on the other side. And it’s not like I actually tried to throw the books. It just sort of happened and I didn’t know how to stop it. The books didn’t even touch her. I just wanted to scare her a bit, make her stop talking about Emily, you know? Nobody gets to talk about my granddaughter that way.”

  “Jeez, Ma! You can’t go around throwing things at people. What were you thinking?”

  Ma stopped glowing. “I was thinking about my granddaughter, Angela, that’s what I was thinking. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like that and I made sure that little brat stopped. She deserved it, and I didn’t hurt her. So her phone is broken, what’s wrong with that? She shouldn’t be on it talking like that. Not about my granddaughter, anyway.”

  “Her phone is broken? I thought you said you didn’t break anything?” I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like this. “What did you do to her phone?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t do anything to her phone. She broke it herself. She overreacted a little when the books came flying at the bed and her phone flew out of her hands when she shot out of bed screaming. It’s not my fault the girl scares easily. She should take better care of that phone. I bet it’s expensive.”

  I stared at my mother and then against my better judgment, burst out laughing. Maybe it was inappropriate but she was right. No one gets to mess with my daughter, except me...and Jake, sometimes. Ma did too.

  “So what did she do?” I got control of myself.

  “Beats me. I was laughing so hard I disappeared. It was the strangest thing, too. I’m gonna have to learn to control that. But I gotta tell you, it was so funny to watch that little snot shoot out of her bed like that, I almost peed myself. Well, not literally. Wouldn’t that have been a big surprise, though? She’d come back in her room to a puddle and smell piss. Dang that would have been great.” Ma laughed so hard she snorted and I got the giggles all over again.