by Devon Glenn
Emily shrugged. “We’ll see who shows up.” She grabbed two bottles of beer and passed one to her sister, who was technically her niece, and technically not of legal drinking age.
Sadie turned around and pulled a sweater off the back of her chair. “It’s a little cold in here.”
Emily looked at the sweater—an olive-green cardigan. Pinned to the front was an enamel brooch set with sapphires and pearls. As soon as Emily set her gaze on the jewelry, a spark appeared on one of its gems. Emily felt a faint thumping on the floor as if music were playing in another room. She saw her right hand fly out to grab the brooch, but she could still feel both of her hands in her lap.
“I think someone’s here,” she said. “Whoever it is, she likes your brooch. It’s super cute, by the way.” Emily closed her eyes, and the image of a tall, slender woman with bobbed hair and a flapper costume danced into her thoughts. “Who’s this?” she asked the woman. Sadie continued to humor Emily by looking around the crowded room for the spirit as if she didn’t know that Emily alone would be able to see her.
Emily was grateful for Sadie’s flair for drama, but she wasn’t kidding about the spirit, who smiled at both of them and raised her hand. She drew a line across the air, and her words flew out like title cards:
“LORELEI LEMKE, UNTOLD TRAGEDY OF THE SILVER SCREEN.”
Emily watched as the spirit projected images from her life as if in a film on an imaginary screen before them. Lorelei had worked as a stage actress in New York City until her mother, a round character with wide eyes and a hat, insisted that she come home to New Jersey to work as a seamstress at her family’s tailor shop. Lorelei was a wizard with a needle and thread, but she hated the reality of sitting indoors where no one paid attention to her.
Unwilling to give up her dreams of stardom, Lorelei stole away on the next train to California. As fate would have it, she met Mr. Lemke, who was en route to Hollywood to produce a silent film. He was enchanted by Lorelei’s beauty. He brought her to Hollywood for an audition. The former stage actress took to the screen like a needle to a phonograph. She didn’t need color or sound—her face was unforgettable. Lorelei married Mr. Lemke in a lavish ceremony by the sea. Lorelei’s mother had given her a brooch for her eighteenth birthday, and when Lorelei appeared in her first motion picture, she pinned it to her dress in the hope that her mother, wherever she was, would see the film and know that Lorelei hadn’t forgotten about her.
Lorelei got her wish for stardom, but it hadn’t lasted long enough for her to return home. (The starlet drew a handkerchief to her mouth and pulled it back to reveal a small bloodstain in the shape of a heart.) Lorelei died of tuberculosis two years later. So she came back after death to console her mother, who had seen the film and regretted missing her daughter’s wedding in California. When her mother passed, they took turns visiting each other—Lorelei’s mother enjoyed watching new films in the plush theaters of Los Angeles; Lorelei always stopped by her parents’ old shop on her way to their favorite vacation spot in Cape May. When Lorelei saw a brooch just like hers in Sadie’s drawer, she wanted to touch it, just to remember.
“Maybe it’s hers,” Sadie said. “I got it at a vintage shop in Los Angeles when I was out there touring colleges.”
Emily flinched.
“Sorry,” Sadie said quickly, lowering her voice so as not to attract attention to the personal turn the conversation had taken. “I still can’t believe they didn’t let you in. It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, I know,” Emily said. “I’m sure I’ll…”
But Lorelei would not be interrupted. She put her hands on her heart and smiled, and as she did, the lights in the lounge flickered.
“She’s happy that you have it,” Emily said, returning her focus to the starlet.
“Is she the one moving the drawers around in my room?” Sadie asked.
“Yes, and she’s sorry if she woke you up,” Emily said. She watched Lorelei’s face for further instructions. “But she does think it’s funny that in her life as a silent-film actress, she was seen but never heard, while in death, she is heard but not seen.”
Sadie pulled out a clothing catalog dated 1924. Lorelei’s eyes lit up.
“What’s that?” Emily asked.
Sadie was spending the winter as a costume designer for the local theater in Cape May. It helped that Joan was the chair of the arts commission. “I’m doing a production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan,” she said for the benefit of the spirit. “We’re setting it in 1924 when the play premiered, which is also the year that the Catholic Church made Joan a saint, and we’re doing it as if she had lived at the time.”
Emily fingered the catalog, her hand resting on a drawing of a brassiere with laces on each side. “That looks complicated.”
“Yeah, it’s a Symington Side Lacer,” Sadie replied. “It makes your chest look flatter. Boyish figures were hot back then—so I guess Joan of Arc was a fashion hero as well as a saint. I need to find some kind of undergarment for when she puts on her armor.” Sadie pointed to a shapeless cotton nightgown with lace embroidery in the shape of a cross. “What does the spirit think of this?”
“No one in the audience will be able to see the embroidery on stage,” Lorelei wrote on her imaginary screen. “And that will never fit under her armor.” She raised her arms in the air and slid her hands down the sides of her waist, then up and down each arm and across her chest like she was bathing herself.
Emily nodded. “She says, ‘go with the art silk—it drips off your body like water after a hot bath.’”
“Art silk…that’s what they used to call rayon,” Sadie said. She reached into her purse and got out a pencil and notepad. “Don’t you think it’s a little prissy for the character? I mean, this is Joan of Arc.”
Lorelei shrugged. “Who’s more fun to look at, Joan the saint or Joan the country girl?” she wrote. “They can see her armor in a museum. You need to show them her teddy!” she finished with a flourish and a shimmy.
Emily leaned forward in her chair as she told Sadie about Joan of Arc’s underpants.
Sadie laughed and pointed to a drawing of a silky chemise that fell to the model’s midthigh; a delicate sliver of lace ran along the décolletage. It wasn’t too risqué by today’s standards, but it was definitely prettier than the granny gown she had originally envisioned. “How’s this?”
The starlet nodded, tapped Sadie’s brooch, and smiled, then faded into the atmosphere like a trail of cigarette smoke.
“It’s perfect,” Emily said. “Lorelei’s gone now, but she likes you. She said you’re destined for a wider audience than Jersey community theater, and she’s showed me a movie camera—I’m sure you can figure out the symbolism.” Sadie set down the catalog. Sometimes spirits who come back to earth will latch on to people they can help. Lorelei had good timing, connecting to Sadie just as she was about to attend a school for the arts. “I think you’ve found yourself a spirit guide,” Emily said.
“Really?” Sadie asked.
Emily nodded. “So if you ever have a question about your play or something, just ask Lorelei before you go to sleep. If she’s around, she’ll give you an answer in your dreams.”
Sadie stared wistfully out the window. “I don’t know if what you’ve said is total bullshit, but that’s probably the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me.”
Emily had to admit that it felt good to take part in Sadie’s happiness, even if she was jealous that the spirit world had yet to successfully guide her to a brighter future.
Sadie and Emily looked around the room again, this time to inspect the lounge for other people who might try to listen in on their conversation. Most of them were starting to shuffle back to their rooms, except for a gray-haired man who was dozing on a barstool a few seats down from them. “What happened with Elerick?” Sadie asked. “He seemed pretty into you when we were on t
he tour. It was like the rest of us were invisible.”
“I don’t know yet,” Emily stammered. “I went to his room to visit him. I mean, I thought he was interested in me. But he just wanted to talk. You know, about the ghosts in the inn.”
Sadie’s jaw dropped. “You went to his room?” she asked. “Not the spa, not the lounge, but straight to the place where he takes off his clothes and gets into the shower after a long day of rubbing people down with lotion?”
Emily nodded, gaze averted. There had been three or four steps missing from that plan, she knew, but she could explain. “I meant to catch him on his way up the stairs and ask him if he wanted to pick out a bicycle to use while he’s here,” she said. “You know, before all the good ones are gone and you’re left with the ones with the wonky wheels. But he was too fast. He went straight to his room. So I used the trapdoor to climb in.”
Sadie laughed so hard that beer shot into her nose. She covered her face with her hand and choked with mirth. When she recovered, she looked at Emily seriously. “How did he react to that? He hasn’t seen you since you were a little girl, and suddenly you’re sneaking into his room from the ceiling? I’m surprised he didn’t tackle you, thinking you were a murderer.”
Emily shook her head. “I wish he had tackled me,” she said. “But no, he took it very well. I can’t explain it. I know we only spent that one summer together, but I feel like we’re old friends who are just picking up where we left off.”
“We were kids,” Sadie pressed. “Remember? You and I dressed up as fortunetellers and had that séance at your old house. Very unsexy. He probably wants to gouge his eyes out after looking at you the way he did earlier today.”
“Not just his eyes,” Emily said slowly, savoring the last detail of her story. “There was a moment when he put his hand on my knee. It wasn’t a pat; it was more of a caress. And I think if someone hadn’t knocked on the door just then, he would have gotten all the way up to my thigh.”
Sadie squealed. “I am so jealous! The only hot guy who has ever come to Cape May in the winter has already fondled your leg in his room.”
Emily laughed, glad that Sadie understood what the moment meant to her, even if it was cut tragically short. “You’ll go off to school, and there will be tons of guys,” she assured Sadie. “This may be my only chance.”
A long shadow stretched across the floor, and Joan appeared in the doorway. She looked at the beer in Emily’s hand and then the one in front of Sadie. “Happy hour isn’t over yet, Emily,” she said. “And you’re here for spirits, not spirits.”
“I’m doing a reading for Sadie right now,” Emily said. “I’m also twenty-one years old and can make my own decisions about when to drink.” Unfortunately, Sadie wasn’t twenty-one yet.
From the barstool, a man about Joan’s age looked up from his sherry in surprise.
Joan took a deep breath for what Emily assumed was an enormous speech before shaking away whatever she had planned to say with a nod of her head. “I’m not in the mood for this,” she said, lowering her voice so only the two girls could hear. “If Sadie drinks in our bar, we could lose our liquor license, and who wants to be stuck indoors in the middle of winter without liquor?”
“That’s a decent point,” Emily said. The fewer options people had for entertainment after hours, the more late-night complaints they’d have to field at the front desk. There was something about the “ring for service” bell at the counter that tapped into every person’s subconscious desire to be waited upon, listened to, or talked off a ledge. “Sorry, Mom.”
Joan cleared the table in front of Emily and Sadie, tossing both of their beers in the trash can behind the bar. “I don’t want you riding your bike home in this condition,” she told Sadie. “Let’s go find an empty room for you. I’ll call your parents.”
Sadie rolled her eyes, but she followed Joan into the hallway.
Emily sat alone at her table, thinking about college and everything else she was missing out on now that she was twenty-one years old and still living at home. She had looked up the going rate for psychic mediums, a job she had been doing since childhood. Some of the hourly rates were more than a fast food worker made in a week, at least according to a few profiles she had clicked on. Emily could leave home and spend her life translating messages from the Other Side to lonely people who missed their families. She wouldn’t have to go to a prestigious school for that—no one but her even knew that what she did was real. So what if nothing better came along?
Ghosts were supposed to make people feel cold and prickly, but Emily rarely got goose bumps. For her it was a warm feeling that bore into her forehead like a laser beam, or like a hand on her shoulder to let her know that someone else was with her, that her thoughts were not entirely her own. Emily stared into the window and saw a familiar face reflected in the glass: Darthilda, with her white hair and expressive features, but this time, her eyes looked a little softer. “Maybe something better is out there,” Darthilda said.
Point the way, dead woman.
Emily tried to conjure an image that would give her a clue. She saw a circle. No, an oval. It was made of…deflated rubber and twisted metal? Well, that wasn’t promising.
“Sorry to crash your party,” said a dead boy who was holding a mangled bicycle wheel for Emily to see. “Did you say you have bicycles for rent?”
“What happened to you?” Emily asked.
He shrugged and lifted one leg with his hands to show Emily where the bone was jutting out. Emily gagged. “Some lady hit me with her car,” he said. “I’m settling up before I get out of here.” Seeing the expression on Emily’s face, the ghost quickly sat down next to her and covered his legs with his jacket.
“On purpose?” Emily asked in alarm.
The ghost laughed. “No, she was pretty horrified when it happened. She was standing over my body, saying, ‘Please, don’t be dead. I can’t kill a student before school even starts,’” he explained, mimicking the driver with a high-pitched voice.
“She was a teacher?” Emily asked. “In Cape May?”
“You can call me Wheels,” he said. “And no, I was in Weehawken when it happened. The driver was pretty hot back then.” Wheels leaned in to Emily. “She was supposed to go back to school that fall, until I rolled into her life.” He sighed. “And out of mine.”
Wheels pulled a rolled-up newspaper out of his pocket and showed Emily the front page, which was stained with tears. There was his school picture placed side by side with a picture of the car he had tangled with: a Ford Fiesta.
Ghost articles were nearly impossible for the living to read, so Wheels explained how the teacher had clipped him from the side, knocking him to the ground and running over his back wheel, then his legs, and then his abdomen. He died in the hospital later that afternoon. The cops had tested the teacher’s blood alcohol level and had determined that she was sober when it happened.
“The state of New Jersey doesn’t send people to prison for accidents,” said Wheels. “All she got was a ticket. But she quit her job in North Jersey and came down here to stay. She’s been beating herself up every day since.”
Emily felt sick to her stomach all over again. “That’s awful,” she said. “What do you want me to say to her?”
“The cops gave her a blood test, but no one thought to test me,” he said. “I guess they don’t care about biking under the influence.”
Emily raised her eyebrows. “Were you drunk?”
Wheels nodded. “Did you ever drink a Four Loko?”
“Not all of one,” Emily admitted. “I wanted to puke after half a can.”
“Exactly.” He laughed. “I had been drinking those all day when I decided to build a ramp in the middle of the street. I was too busy popping wheelies and yelling at people on the sidewalk to notice the Ford Fiesta turning the corner. There’s no way she could have swerved in time.” Wh
eels shook his head again. “I can’t believe I died on the front end of a Ford Fiesta.”
Emily looked nonplussed. “That’s what you regret?”
“Hey!” Wheels protested. “I’m trying to deliver a message here.”
“Sorry. What’s your teacher’s name? If she lives close by, I probably know her.”
He paused, seeming to mull over one answer before choosing another. “You’ll know her when you see her.” Emily wondered why he didn’t offer a name. “But this message isn’t for her; it’s for you. Pretty soon, you’ll get an email. One with really good news. Don’t think about it too much; just say yes. Live your life. I promise it’s exactly what you want.”
“How do you know that if you haven’t crossed over yet?” Emily asked, but the skepticism in her voice did nothing to stop the hope that was already stirring in her chest.
Wheels shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I have my ways,” he said. “But I’m serious about the letter. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
“The letter—will it help me get out of Cape May?”
Wheels looked around him slowly, slouching in his seat and leaning close to Emily’s ear. “Don’t let them hear you say that.”
“Who?” Emily asked.
“Edgar.”
“Edgar and who else?”
“They’re townies like us, but they’re dead.”
Emily opened her mouth to press Wheels for more, but he put his fingers to his lips and shook his head. It didn’t matter. This was the channeling session she’d been waiting for all night. She looked at her phone, willing it to beep the news of a new email.
“May I borrow you for a minute?” she heard someone say. Looking over her shoulder, Emily saw Elerick standing in the doorway. He had traded his jeans for a pair of black pants and a button-down shirt.
“I knew this was too good to last,” Wheels said, standing up to let Emily pass.