Well, except for one thing.
But I've been making a concerted effort not to think about that.
Or rather, him.
"A mediator," I explained to Jack, "is someone who helps people who have died to move on, into their next life." Or wherever people go when they kick the bucket. But I didn't want to get into a whole metaphysical discussion with this kid. I mean, he is, after all, only eight.
"You mean like I'm supposed to help them go to heaven?" Jack asked.
"Well, yeah, I guess." If there is one.
"But ... " Jack shook his head. "I don't know anything about heaven."
"You don't have to." I tried to think how to explain it to him, then decided showing was better than telling. That's what Mr. Walden, who I had last year for English and World Civ, was always saying, anyway.
"Look," I said, taking Jack by the hand. "Come on. Watch me, and you can see how it works."
Jack put the brakes on right away, though.
"No," he gasped, his brown eyes, so like his brother's, wild with fear. "No, I don't want to."
I yanked him to his feet. Hey, I never said I was cut out for this baby-sitting thing, remember?
"Come on," I said again. "Jorge won't hurt you. He's really nice. Let's see what he wants."
I practically had to carry him, but I finally got Jack over to where we'd last seen Jorge. A moment later the gardener - or, I should say, his spirit - reappeared, and after a lot of polite nodding and smiling, we got down to business. It was kind of hard, considering that Jorge's English was about as good as my Spanish - which is to say, not good at all - but eventually, I was able to figure out what was keeping Jorge from moving on from this life to his next - whatever that might be: His sister had appropriated a rosary left by their mother for her first grandchild, Jorge's daughter.
"So," I explained to Jack, as I steered him into the hotel lobby, "what we have to do is get Jorge's sister to give the rosary back to Teresa, his daughter. Otherwise, Jorge will just keep hanging around and pestering us. Oh, and he won't be able to find eternal rest. Got it?"
Jack said nothing. He just wandered behind me in a daze. He had been silent as death during my conversation with Jorge, and now he looked as if someone had whacked him on the back of the head with a Wiffle bat a couple hundred times.
"Come here," I said, and steered Jack into a fancy mahogany phone booth with a sliding glass door. After we'd both slipped through it, I pulled the door shut, then picked up the phone and fed a quarter into the slot. "Watch and learn, grasshopper," I said to him.
What followed was a fairly typical example of what I do on an almost daily basis. I called information, got the guilty parry's phone number, then phoned her. When she picked up, and I ascertained that she spoke enough English to understand me, I informed her of the facts as I knew them, without the least embellishment. When you are dealing with the undead, there's no need for exaggeration of any kind. The fact that someone who has died has contacted you with details no one but the deceased could know is generally enough. By the end of our conversation, an obviously flustered Marisol had assured me that the rosary would be delivered, that day, into Teresa's hands.
End of conversation. I thanked Jorge's sister and hung up.
"Now," I explained, to Jack, "if Marisol doesn't do it, we'll hear from Jorge again, and we'll have to resort to something a little more persuasive than a mere phone call. But she sounded pretty scared. It's spooky when a perfect stranger calls you and tells you she's spoken to your dead brother, and that he's mad at you. I bet she'll do it."
Jack stared up at me. "That's it?" he asked. "That's all he wanted you to do? Get his sister to give the necklace back?"
"Rosary," I corrected him. "And yes, that was it."
I didn't think it was important to add that this had been a particularly simple case. Usually, the problems associated with people speaking from beyond the grave are a little more complicated and take a lot more than a simple phone call to settle. In fact, oftentimes fisticuffs are involved. I had only just recently recovered from a few broken ribs given to me by a group of ghosts who hadn't appreciated my attempts to help them into the afterlife one little bit, and had, in fact, ended up putting me in the hospital.
But Jack had plenty of time to learn that not all the undead were like Jorge. Besides, it was his birthday. I didn't want to bum him out.
So instead, I slid the phone booth door open again and said, "Let's go swimming."
Jack was so stunned by the whole thing he didn't even protest. He still had questions, of course . . . questions I answered as patiently and thoroughly as I could. In between questions, I taught him to freestyle.
And I don't want to brag, or anything, but I have to say that, thanks to my careful instructions and calming influence, by the end of the day Jack Slater was acting like - and even swimming like - a normal eight-year-old.
I'm not kidding. The little dude had completely lightened up. He was even laughing. It was as if showing him that he had nothing to fear from the ghosts who had been plaguing him his whole life had lifted from him his fear of ... well, everything. It wasn't long before he was running around the pool deck, doing cannonballs off the side, and annoying all the doctors' wives who were trying to tan themselves in the nearby lounge chairs. Just like any other eight-year-old boy.
He even struck up a conversation with a group of other kids who were being tended by one of my fellow sitters. And when one of them splashed water in Jack's face, instead of bursting into tears, as he would have done the day before, Jack splashed the kid back, causing Kim, my fellow sitter, who was treading water beside me, to ask, "My God, Suze, what did you do to Jack Slater? He's acting almost... normal."
I tried not to let my pride show.
"Oh, you know," I said with a shrug. "I just taught him to swim, is all. I guess that gave him some confidence."
Kim watched as Jack and another boy, just to be irritating, did double cannonballs into a group of little girls, who shrieked and then tried to hit the boys with their foam floaties.
"God," Kim said. "I'll say. I can't believe it's even the same kid."
Neither, it became apparent, could Jack's own family. I was teaching him the backstroke when I heard someone whistle, low and long, from the far side of the pool. Jack and I both looked up and saw Paul standing there, looking all Pete Sampras-y in white and holding a tennis racquet.
"Well, would you look at that," Paul drawled. "My brother, in a pool. And enjoying himself, no less. Has hell frozen over, or something?"
"Paul," Jack screamed. "Watch me! Watch me!"
And the next thing any of us knew, Jack was racing through the water toward his brother. I wouldn't exactly call what Jack was doing a proper crawl, but it was a close enough imitation of it to pass, even in an older brother's eyes. And if it wasn't pretty, there was no denying the kid was staying afloat. You had to give him that.
And Paul did. He squatted down and, when Jack's head bobbed up just beneath him, he reached down and pushed it under again. You know, in a playful way.
"Congrats, champ," Paul said, when Jack resurfaced. "I never thought I'd live to see the day you wouldn't be afraid to get your face wet."
Jack, beaming, said, "Watch me swim back!" and began to thrash through the water to the other side of the pool. Again, not pretty, but effective.
But Paul, instead of watching his brother swim, looked down at me, standing chest-high in the clear blue water.