“Maybe she’s not used to seeing people who talk to ghosts.”
I stopped stirring.
“What did you just say?” I asked.
“Ghosts. Maybe she isn’t used to seeing people talk to ghosts on Halloween, at a fancy club in the middle of K Street.”
I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open. No, I’m positive my mouth was hanging open.
You gotta be kidding me, I thought, not again.
“Are you telling me you’re a ghost?” I dropped the stupid umbrella back in the drink, planted my hands on the table, readying myself for a physical battle. With who, I’m not sure, because if this guy was a ghost, who was I trying to fight?
“See? Now you’re hip to the groove, baby.”
A ghost. Again. Only, this time, I was grown, about to be divorced, and wearing a stupid costume in the middle of a nightclub in D.C.
“Why are you here? Why me?”
“Well, first of all, I died, not too far from here. And, second of all, why not you?”
“How did you die?”
“Long story, pretty lady. The important thing is: now I have someone to talk to. You.”
“No, no, no. I talked to ghosts before, and it always turns out bad for me. Either someone doesn’t believe me, or the ghost is all belligerent, or something. I’m done with it. For good.”
“Hmm. Maybe. Let’s just see what happens. Maybe it’ll be different this time around.” He leaned even closer, staring right into me with his big, golden-sparkly, shining eyes. Oh, my god, I’m getting turned on by a pimp-ghost.
“Are you really a pimp?”
He laughed out loud, a rumbling, warm sound from deep inside his chest. “Well, I was a ladies’ man back in my day. I s’pose you could call it that.”
“I thought so. Only a pimp would act that way with a total stranger. Especially me.”
“Now, don’t sell yourself short, foxy mama. Any man would be a fool to just let you sit here by your lonely self, staring at that god-awful orange drink.”
“Really? That’s funny, cuz I’ve been sitting here doing just that for about two hours, now. And no ‘man’ came over to talk to me.”
“That’s a real shame,” he said, shaking his head like it was the biggest tragedy since the fall of Rome. “No beautiful woman should be sittin’ by herself, on a night like tonight. Men these days forgot the art of gettin’ a brick house like you back to the crib.”
“A what?”
“Brick house. To the crib. Which thing don’t you get?”
I laughed, loud and hard, for a few minutes. He watched me, curious. After some hiccups and hitching my breath a time or three, I finally calmed down, dabbing at the corner of my eyes with another napkin.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“You. Us. I mean, here I am, talking to a ghost-pimp from the disco days—which, by the way, was only a few decades ago—and it’s like we’re speaking Spanish and Italian at the same time. Some stuff gets through, but a lot of it is ‘lost in translation’.”
He laughed too. It was nice to laugh with a guy, after weeks of fighting with one. Too bad this one was a ghost. Leave it to me to hit it off with the only dead guy in the room, haha.
“I guess we got a lot to work on, if we’re ever gonna get anything done, huh?” he asked, fiddling with his shirt collar.
“Wait, what?”
“We have to work out our differences—”
“No, not that part, the part about getting anything done. What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, worried that I already sort of knew where this was going. “I don’t want to get anything ‘done’ with you.”
“Look, Amber,” he said, “I picked you for a reason. There’s some things we need to get done around here, and you’re the first one who can relate to my kind that doesn’t scare the livin’ hell out of me.”
No. No, no, no. No way. This will be a disaster.
“No!”
“Too late.”
Ugh.
Maybe I could just—
“Don’t bother.”
I looked at him, eyes widening.
“Did you just read my mind?”
“Not exactly, but it’s the same idea.”
Crap. That means the whole time we’ve been talking—
“—I knew what you were thinking. Yep.”
I sat there, frozen in fear.
“Don’t be afraid, Amber. I don’t want to do anything bad to you. Besides, it’ll be fun working with a lovely lady such as yourself, who thinks I’m a stone-cold fox with juicy lips.”
Good grief. Being embarrassed is one thing, but this was starting to feel like one of those ‘at school with no clothes on’ dreams.
“Yeah, I hate those. Unless there’s nothin’ but females in the room, then I’m a little more ‘up for the occasion’ if you know what I mean.” He winked at me, made a click sound with the side of his mouth, and smiled really, really big.
“Stop that!”
“What?” he grinned even bigger, teeth almost glowing in the dark they were so bright. “What’d I do?”
“Get out of my head you big jerk!” I swung to smack him, and caught nothing but air.
He laughed hugely, slapping his leg, tears glistening in his eyes, getting a really good hardy-har-har going, at my expense.
Which is the exact moment the stupid waitress showed up. Staring at me like I was totally insane. To be fair, seeing me yell at—and try to smack—the nobody sitting across from me probably made her think I was just the tiniest bit of crazy.
“Uh, here’s your check, whenever you’re ready. But—no hurry, okay, just, um, take your time, ma’am.” She slid the bill towards me, very slowly, as if—at any second—I might suddenly lunge and devour her eyeballs in a couple of quick bites. As soon as the paper was out of her reach, she snatched her hand back and did a lightning-fast about face to book it out of there.
“Great, now the wait staff here thinks I’m totally bonkers.”
He was still laughing, trying to calm himself down.
“Sorry, sorry, little mama, I’m trying!” He wasn’t really trying.
“No, no, by all means, go ahead and make yourself sick laughing at me. Obviously, I’ve got nothing better to do than sit here being ridiculed by a dead guy.”
That did it.
He instantly stopped laughing and composed himself, glaring at me the whole time he straightened his shirt and leisure suit, smoothed his goatee, and patted his ‘fro.
“So let’s get down to business, then,” he said, totally serious, now.
“We don’t have any business, Mr. — ”
“Jamal. Jamal Turner; hail from right here in good ol’ D.C., southeast.”
“Oh.” That’s not exactly Mr. Roger’s neighborhood, it’s pretty rough.
“Don’t I know it.”
Now it was my turn to glare.
“Sorry, sorry. I spend so much time listening to people’s thoughts, it’s hard to shut it off.”
“Seriously? What are you, some kind of disco-ghost-spy?”
“Nah, nothin’ that serious. Just comes with the whole ‘being dead’ thing.”