“Calm down. What are you talking about?”
“On your answering machine,” she said. “JUST NOW. Who is she?”
The alarm showed that it was just shy of 3 a.m. I hadn’t heard the phone ring, not even once. But if someone had called, it was either a wrong number…or else Jane calling from wherever she was staying. It certainly wasn’t Tamara anymore. I jumped out of bed and made my way to the answering machine. One message. I pressed play. It was Jane, all right, and from her tone I could tell she had been drinking. I had totally forgotten to call her back and make up with her after I’d left her in such a huff earlier today.
“I keep going over it again and again in my head, Simon,” she said. “So that was it back at the storage place? You just leave me with an armful of balloon animals to fend for myself? I thought you were helping to protect me! You’re not a real man. A real man would have stayed. A real man would have had the guts…”
I didn’t need to hear the rest of it and hit the erase button. The words hurt, even though I discounted them given the drunken slur of her voice. I turned to Irene. “That’s just this girl…she’s part of this project for work.”
“WHO IS SHE?” Irene screeched, causing me to step back. Her reactions were pure over-the-top emotion, with none of the checks or balances that humanity normally provides. She wasn’t making sense. It was true that I had found a lot to like in Irene from our talks. I had even found myself attracted to her, but…she was a ghost. Where could that possibly go for either of us? True, my mixed feelings about both her and Jane were strong enough that I’d been keeping information from Irene. And there was guilt stemming from my attraction to both of them, but even so, this reaction to one tiny answering machine message was way out of proportion. There was no reason for her to behave this way.
“I told you she’s a work thing,” I said. “Not that it should matter. What’s the problem?”
“You have got to be kidding!” Irene said. “You expect me to believe that?”
I was starting to lose patience. “I fail to see how that’s any of your concern.”
Irene’s eyes flared with anger and a cold mysterious force wrapped around me. It lifted me up and flung me across the room. These old buildings were built with endurance in mind and my impact with the solid plaster knocked the wind right out of me. People talk about seeing stars when they suffer trauma to the head. I saw constellations, maybe even a few planets.
My knees buckled when I tried to stand. Dizziness had me and I teetered back against the wall, using what remaining strength and determination I had to keep standing. Irene’s anger was manifesting itself as an unseen physical force, and for the first time, I felt scared.
Still, the fear wasn’t enough to stop me from getting angry myself. Everything was getting to me. I was sick of it. Tamara was dead. Jane’s life was in jeopardy, and right now in the darkness of my bedroom, there was a miniature tornado forming with Irene going all Glenn Close in the middle of it. I had to get control of the situation, and fast.
“May I remind you that you’re a guest in my home?” I said civilly.
“And you’re off running after other women,” she spat out from the center of the room. The bed sheets had blown free and were swirling around her figure hauntingly.
“So what if I am?” I yelled. I didn’t want to, but I was feeling cornered, hurt, and pissed at the same time. I pushed away from the wall, using one hand to steady myself. “So what, Irene? You’re a guest here because ofmy generosity. You’re not my girlfriend, not my wife, not anything. You’re dead! The only thing I owe you is my hospitality, and barely that.”
In the darkness, something the size of my storage bench at the end of the bed-possibly the bench itself-flew within inches of my face and hit the wall with an explosive crash. I squinted my eyes shut as shards of wood flicked across my face, and I felt the tiny sting of several pieces biting into my skin. If I didn’t do something proactive, this was how I would die.
I covered my face and moved for the bedside table. I groped in the darkness until I found my cell phone while I tried to assess the room. Irene was between me and the door, blocking it completely. But before I could decide what to do, a book hit me squarely on the side of my head and another white-hot flash of starlight welled up behind my eyes. Not wanting to endure any further damage, I dashed across the room and into my closet, slamming the door behind me. The heavy clumping of my belongings rained down hard against the closed door. I looked down and was relieved to see that I would be able to hold the door shut by the knob on the inside of it.
I flipped open my phone, grateful for the little bit of light it gave off. Connor had earned the honorable position on my speed dial as number one and I dialed him up.
Although it was nearly 3 a.m., he answered almost immediately.
“This call may be recorded to assureexcellent customer service,” he said. “Please state the nature of your emergency, kid.” It was a joke, but thankfully it was also to the point.
I talked as loudly as I could as the thumping against the door and the howling of the wind in the bedroom grew louder. Connor listened intently as I explained the situation.
When I was done, the doorknob was slick with sweat, but I held on tight.
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“In my closet,” I said.
Irene’s voice assumed a high-pitched wail on the other side of the door and I pressed my head against some of my clothes to drown her out.
“Perfect,” he said. “Get dressed and get the hell out of there, kid. You’re not going to be able to rationalize with her spirit.”
Just like Tamara, I thought, and look what had happened to her. Dammit, I had to get her out of my mind. There would be time for being racked with guilt later.
“You get out of there and meet me down at the Odessa on Avenue A, all right?”
I fumbled in the dark for a pair of pants, using the keypad lights on my phone to help. I grabbed a pair but lost my balance attempting to put them on. My head thumped solidly against the wall and this time I felt the world fall out from under me.
“Kid? Kid?” Connor called out when I didn’t respond. “You there? The Odessa, okay?”
“Ow. Yeah. I’ll meet you there.”
“I can’t stress how careful you should be getting out of there, Simon. You know the expression ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’?”
“Yeah.”
“Times that by ten,” he said. “Ghosts start to degrade in personality over time, and become more like raw emotion. You’re now dealing with an entirely irrational creature, a degraded spirit experiencing rampant mood swings. The logic of regular human conversation is beyond her right now, so don’t think you can talk her down or reason with her. Course, it doesn’t help that she has that telekinetic ability to throw stuff at you.”
“You’re telling me,” I said. “She’s gone totallyTwister over here.”
Tiny blasts of wind began shooting through cracks in my rapidly deteriorating closet door.
“Trust me,” Connor said, “you’ll wish you were only dealing with a scornful woman if she gets ahold of you.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, grabbing a shirt as I prepared to make my escape. “I’m a pretty fast runner when panic sets in.”
“Time to come out of the closet,” Connor said. I could hear him laughing as he said it.
“Sonot the time to make with the funny, boss.”
I threw open what remained of the door just as it ripped away from its hinges and blew right out of my hand. The sound of it tearing to pieces as it smashed against the opposite wall sent me running. I had no desire to be the next thing torn apart.
28
When I breathlessly entered the Odessa Diner, I noticed a flurry of movement coming toward me and my first panicked thought wasMy God, I’m about to get swarmed by ghouls. After the night I had been through, anything was possible, and I did a double take. Upon closer examination, it was merely a group of Greek waiters eager to seat me. They were simply enthusiastic, not the walking dead. I spotted Connor next to a table of plaid-clad punks at the rear of the restaurant and headed back.