Ya don’t say?
“That sounds fun. You two enjoy yourselves, now. Go have a couple of ghost babies, maybe buy a ghost house, just don’t get that stupid ghost-ARM rate, you know how it spikes after the first few years. Murder on the budget.”
“Damn, girl, you ain’t changed a lick,” Jamal said, shaking his head and smiling. “I see you and your man are doin’ good, with his kids and all?”
“Yeah, they’re great kids. I’m terrible at the whole babysitting, cooking, disciplining thing, but we’ll make it work.”
“Groovy,” Daisy Chain said, kind of waving her head a little bit. Her long dark hair was straight as a board, held back by—you guessed it—a chain of daisies woven into a headband.
“She says that a lot, doesn’t she?”
Jamal just smiled, shaking his head.
“So, you in town for a while, or just passing through?” I asked, raising an eyebrow to Jamal.
“Funny you asked,” he said, walking towards me. “You see, Daisy Chain and me were kinda talking the other day, and we thought maybe we could help you—help other people—by helping the ghosts.”
“Wow, Jamal, there’s a lot of helping in that sentence.”
“Yeah, well, that’s my new thang, girl!” he said, turning in a circle, like James Brown was famous for doing onstage.
Work with these two twits, helping people with real problems?
“Yeah, why not? I don’t know what a twit is, but I’m pretty sure we could be that for ya, too, little foxy lady.”
You already are, Jamal. You just don’t know it.
I thought about it for a while, looking at the kids and Esteban romping all over the yard with the dogs. Happiness. Sheer happiness.
“Okay,” I said, picking up the pan of now-burnt chicken and unceremoniously dumping it in the sink. “When do we start?”