Amanda dressed, went to the kitchen, and set a kettle of water on to heat. It was a hot tea morning.
Charley followed on her heels and continued to rant.
The refrigerator yielded half a package of cheese with only a little mold which could easily be scraped off. She opened the pantry door to search for the tortilla chips.
“Are you listening to me?” Charley appeared inside the pantry. His head perched on the top shelf with one ear through a bottle of wine. A package of Peanut Butter Oreos on the second shelf protruded through his chest. One arm waved through a package of tortilla chips, the other through a cannister of hot chocolate mix.
“No.” Amanda yanked out the chips, stepped aside and turned on the oven.
“Some drunk passed out in your parking lot.”
Amanda took down a cookie sheet. “Still not listening.”
“There is a man laying in your parking lot. I saw him on my way in.”
“Lying, not laying.” She spread the chips in the pan. “I’m laying cheese on the chips. Your fictitious man is lying there all by himself.”
“Whatever. You need to run him off before your customers get here.”
Amanda added jalapeno slices and slid her breakfast nachos into the oven. “Is there really somebody passed out drunk in my parking lot?”
“I can’t lie anymore. Remember?”
“That must really suck, to have one of your favorite activities taken away from you.”
“I can’t eat or drink either. I can’t even stop my wife from going off on a trip with another man.”
“I liked it better when you were talking about the drunk in the parking lot. Is he still there?”
Charley left the room then returned. “Yes. He’s laying under the catalpa tree out by the street.”
Amanda resisted the urge to correct Charley’s grammar again. He was dead. Too late to learn correct English. “It’s almost seven o’clock. Surely that guy will sober up enough to leave before daylight.” She took her nachos from the oven and sat down at her antique/old enamel-top table.
Charley took a seat across from her, leaned his elbows a couple of inches into the table, and dropped his head into his hands. “I guess this is how you felt when I cheated with all those other women.”
“We were married when you cheated with those other women. We’d have been divorced before you were killed if you hadn’t been a total jerk about signing the papers. Death and an almost-divorce. That makes us twice unmarried.” She bit into a nacho, savoring the heat from the oven and the jalapeno slice.
“That damned detective will cheat on you. I’ve seen the look in his eyes.”
“Would that be the same look you used to see in the mirror?” She ate another nacho.
“You know I’m right. You don’t trust him. That’s why you haven’t told him about me.”
The kettle whistled. Amanda got up to pour hot water over a tea bag.
It was true she hadn’t told Jake about Charley.
The right moment had not presented itself.
Yes, I’d love to go to dinner with you, Jake. By the way, my ex-husband’s ghost lives with me. Okay if we bring him along? He doesn’t eat much.
That could end in a couple of ways.
He wouldn’t believe her.
He’d think she was crazy.
There was, of course, a third possibility...that he’d believe her and everything would be fine.
Yeah, and she was going to be the next big lottery winner.
She hadn’t even bought a ticket, but that possibility still seemed more likely than Jake accepting her story without reservations and continuing to have a relationship with her.
Teresa knew about Charley, of course. Teresa had seen him herself. Teresa talked to dead people for a living. Teresa was able to hold Charley against his will so he wasn’t with Amanda twenty-four/seven.
Someday she’d have to tell Jake about Charley if things kept progressing in the direction they were going.
Unless Charley went away.
Unless he advanced into the light.
Or descended into the dark.
Whatever.
“Don’t have anything to say to that, do you?” Charley taunted.
Amanda set her cup on the table and had another nacho.
“You spend the night...seven nights!...with another man, you at least ought to let him know you’re still living with your husband!”
Amanda finished her nachos and sipped her tea while Charley ranted and flitted about the apartment in a strobe effect.
At seven thirty Amanda put her dishes in the sink and headed for the door. Charley wasn’t going to shut up. She couldn’t relax. She might as well go downstairs and get some work done.
“Where are you going?” Charley demanded.
“To work. It’s what those of us in the land of the living do. Oh, but you didn’t do that even when you were among the living, did you?”
Charley’s face twisted in frustration. He was trying to lie. He couldn’t. A prohibition from beyond.
Amanda started down the stairs. The outside temperature was only a few degrees colder than when she’d come up those stairs with Jake beside her the night before, but it felt a lot colder.
The blackness of night had melted into the gray of early morning, a gray barely light enough to see a crumpled form under the catalpa tree near the street.
She paused two steps from the bottom. “There really is somebody out there.”
“I told you so,” Charley said. “He’s completely out of it. Not going anywhere. You need to pour cold water on him or kick him or something.”
“Why don’t you go down there and run your hand through him a couple of times? That will give the guy such a chill, he’ll sober right up.”
Charley shuddered. “I don’t want to stick my hand through some drunk stranger.”
Amanda stepped onto the pavement. “Fine. I’ll take care of it myself.” She stalked across the parking lot.
A man lay on his side, face turned away from her. His clothes were decent...jeans and a denim jacket. Shoes without holes in them. Hair a little shaggy, but only a few weeks overdue for a trim. Probably not a homeless person. More likely a drunk from the bar down the street, as Charley had said.
“Sir,” she said loudly. “Sir! You have to get up. It’s time to go home. You can’t sleep here all day.”
He didn’t move.
Charley joined her and leaned over to shout in the man’s face then straightened abruptly. “Amanda, I don’t want you to panic or anything, but you need to see him from this side.”
“I’m pretty sure I don’t need to.” Nevertheless, Amanda walked around the man, expecting to see vomit or spilled alcohol.
A dark stain spread from his neck along his chest, pooling on the pavement.
Not vomit.
Not alcohol.
Charley’s glow flashed brighter then dimmer then brighter again. He was panicking. “Amanda,” he whispered, “I think he’s...he’s dead.”
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