Emily's Ghost (4 page)

From over her shoulder she
heard Cara say, "What a funky piece. I like it."

The words struck dread in
Emily's heart. Until this moment she had not known she wanted the
necklace. "I like it, too," she said, a little fiercely.

"Let's go in and try it
on, then," said Cara, oblivious to the fact that there were two
of
them
and only
one of
it
. She
looped her arm through Emily's and tugged. "Maybe it's some rare
and exotic stone."

"You mean rare and
expensive stone," Emily said wryly.
This
is going to be it
, she thought.
The thing that finally does in this screwy,
illogical friendship
. But she went in with
Cara anyway, trying desperately not to resent her money.

The saleswoman, a Coco
Chanel lookalike, passed immediately over Emily to focus on the
Possible Sale. "May I help you?" she asked Cara in a cultivated
voice.

"Yes, that funny
pink-stone necklace in the window," said Cara. "We'd like to see
it."

The saleswoman wasn't
quick enough to hide her surprise and -- Emily thought --
disappointment. "Oh. That one. Certainly."

By the time she laid it
out carefully on a swatch of black velvet, though, the woman was
back in business. "It's a charming little trinket, don't you think?
It's turned quite a few heads. Very unusual."

Cara lifted it from it
from the velvet and said, "Heavy; is the chain solid
gold?"

Emily's hopes
sank.

"Oh, no," said the
saleswoman, releasing a tiny smile. "Some sort of plating. The
stone is possibly rose quartz, or maybe pink tourmaline. It's
costume, which is why the price is so reasonable."

Emily's hopes
rose.

Cara turned over the tiny
white stringed tag. "Five hundred dollars?"

Emily's hopes
sank.

"It really
is
just costume, then,"
Cara said, disappointed.

Emily's hopes
rose.

Why, why, why, you dopey
fool! You don't keep five hundred dollars in your sugar bowl; Cara
does
.

Cara held the necklace up
around her throat and gazed at herself in a gilded mirror on the
wall. "Pretty," she said musingly.

"Your color sets it off
well," said Ms. Chanel, tilting her head and touching one red
fingernail to her chin.

Emily thought she might
possibly explode. "May I?" she asked through clenched teeth. Never
had she wanted to possess the way she was wanting now.

Cara smiled and handed it
over with an "I can't decide, I really can't." Clearly she did not
consider that Emily was in the competition for the
purchase.

Emily felt the sheer
weight of the necklace in her hand, held it up before her, stared
at the odd shafts of light in the pinkish crystal. Her hand was
trembling.

"Oh, look, the stone is
chipped!" cried Cara. "On the back. How really too bad!"

"Well, of course it isn't
a
diamond
. And
it's old," said the saleswoman, a little irritated. "But if you
were really interested," she said to Cara, still pitching to her
alone, "I suppose I could --"

"I want it," Emily said
suddenly. "I want the necklace."

"You
do
! Oh, I'm so glad," Cara said,
breaking into a surprised and beautiful smile. "It suits what
you're wearing so well."

"Cara, these are not my
normal --" Emily began, and then gave it up. It didn't matter to
her whether the necklace suited or not. It didn't matter whether it
was chipped or not. It almost didn't matter whether it cost five
hundred dollars or not. It only mattered that when she held it in
her hand, she felt completely, bizarrely satisfied.

"And how will you be
paying for that?" asked the saleswoman politely. She had dropped
all mention of what she could or could not do, seeing as it was
chipped and all, but Emily did not dare or even want to
re-negotiate the price.

"VISA," she answered
faintly, handing over her card.

"Let's put it on you,"
said Cara excitedly as the clerk wrote up the sale.

She undid the heavy clasp
and lifted the chain over Emily's head. Emily watched the big pink
stone pass in front of her and come to rest on her breastbone. The
necklace felt heavy and icy cold. She caught her breath -- she
couldn't breathe -- and let out a sharp, frightened cry.

"Oh, sorry; did I catch
your hair?" asked Cara off-handedly as she struggled to close the
lock. "This clasp is a wicked thing to work."

"No ... no, it surprised
me ... with its weight, that's all."

"Okay, turn around and
let's see what we've got," said Cara, ready to be amused. Emily did
so, and Cara said in an altogether different voice,
"
Emily
. It's
wonderful on you -- strange, and overwrought, and --wonderful. I
can't get over the change it makes in you," she said, sounding
puzzled. "It makes your cheeks glow, your eyes shine --"

"Embarrassment is making
my cheeks glow, Cara; stop it," Emily murmured as she eyed the
saleswoman approaching with a tissue slip for signing. "It's just a
piece of jewelry. Nothing more. Nothing less."

When Emily was finished,
they stood outside on the brick sidewalk in the late warm sun,
deciding what to do.

"I'm shopped out; how
about you?" Cara asked. "Maybe a cup of coffee before we split
up?"

Emily, suddenly exhausted,
agreed. "I think I'm having an attack of buyer's remorse," she
admitted. But even as she said it she brought her hand up to the
rose-colored stone and was comforted by its being there.

Her ambivalent mood lasted
through coffee with Cara, and on the subway ride home to
Charlestown, and all though supper and an evening of dull summer
reruns. The facts were undeniable: Five hundred dollars would've
paid for a toaster oven, a new muffler for the Corolla, a year of
cable T.V.., a whale-watching trip in Provincetown and, say, half a
dozen seafood dinners at the No-Name Restaurant. Instead she'd
blown it on -- what? A chipped crystal and a lead-heavy
chain.

So why did it feel so good
to have it? Was it because for once in her life she'd bought with
her heart instead of her head? And got one big treat, instead of a
dozen little ones? Was it because she'd thumbed her nose at Miss
Coco Chanel? Or was it just because -- she desperately hoped not --
it felt so satisfying to behave like a rich girl instead of a
working one.

She stared down at the
rose crystal that she'd been idly rubbing. Emily did not care for
jewelry very much, but she cared for this. There was something
soothing about the feel of its clean-cut facets, and the filigree
work really was quite intricate and very pretty. In the soft light
of her deco lamp the stone gleamed more amber than pink. She gazed
at it in half-dreamy pleasure. She'd once had a cat with eyes that
shade of amber. She could almost hear him purring in her lap as she
rubbed his chin; feel his silky fur as she stroked his back. Spooky
had been gone for fifteen years, but, oh, Spooky was there with her
now.

At eight o'clock the next
morning Emily placed a jelly doughnut and a large black coffee from
Dunkin' Donuts side by side on Stanley Cooper's desk. "For you,"
she said. "Because life is good."

"Meaning, you actually got
somewhere with the senator yesterday." Stan wasn't
surprised.

But Emily was. "How did
you know I met with the senator yesterday?"

Stan popped the lid on his
coffee. "For one thing, I heard that Lee Alden's mother had some
kind of attack. Alden's brother was away on business in
Czechoslovakia and couldn't get a flight over. That left the
senator to fly back up. They thought it was her heart; turned out
it was her stomach."

"And for another thing,"
he said, sipping the hot stuff gingerly, "you took a vacation day:
out of guilt, because you were about to do a nutty thing. So. You
really nailed down the interview?"

Emily busied herself with
unfolding the wrapping from her croissant. "What d'you do, read tea
leaves?" It was vastly annoying that Stan went to bed last night
knowing more about the senator than she did.

Stan shrugged. "I
observe." He took a monstrous bite out of his jelly doughnut; a
blob of bright red filling oozed out and landed in a plop on his
knee.

"Ah, hell," he said from
under a powdered-sugar mustache. He dabbed uselessly at his pants
leg and said in irritation, "I mean, why else would you have bought
that absurd bauble you're wearing around your neck, unless you were
feeling mighty pleased with yourself over something?"

Automatically Emily's hand
went to the crystal necklace. She hadn't taken it off since she
bought it, nor was she about to. "Tsk, tsk; you're taking out your
jelly on my jewelry, Stan."

Stan was heading with a
napkin for the water cooler, still muttering, when the phone on
Emily's desk rang. She picked up the receiver. It was Jim
Whitewood, the senator's aide, wanting to know whether she'd be
available for a twelve-thirty call from the senator. "Of course,"
Emily answered, and he rang off.

Emily considered whether
to brag to Stan about her continuing contact with the senator and
then thought better of it. Maybe Senator Alden was canceling. In
any case, she didn't want Stan sitting with one ear hanging over
her desk at lunchtime.

Luckily it was a slow news
day; at twelve-thirty the newsroom was pretty empty. When the phone
rang promptly at the half-hour, Emily lunged for it, aware of a
kind of first-date giddiness. If she were, oh, a hall monitor, then
Arthur Lee Alden III was the high-school quarterback.

"Miss
Bowditch?"

"Yessir."

"Ah. You're in." It was
his voice all right; but something was wrong.

Canceling, dammit. She saw
her Pulitzer Prize going straight down the tubes. "Senator? You
sound very ... tentative," she hazarded. "Are you having second
thoughts?" She closed her eyes and grimaced. Idiot! Give him an
opening, why don't you?

His laugh was low and
rueful. "I'm having second thoughts, third, maybe even fourth. Not
about the interview, though, but over what I'm about to
suggest."

"Sa-a-y," she said, trying
to lighten the mood, "this wouldn't be nothin' illegal, would
it?"

"Obviously not," he
answered, a little testily. "But I'm putting myself very much on
the line, something no elected official likes to do. Look -- this
conversation is off the record. Agreed?"

"Sure." She said it
without thinking, then wished she hadn't.

Because his next question
set the hair on the back of her neck on end.

"Have you ever been in the
presence of a 'sensitive'?"

Emily chose her answer
very, very carefully. "Well, no," she said, "I have not." She felt
obliged to add, "I don't believe in 'sensitives'."

There was a pause. "So
you've never been in a position to judge whether a psychic is a
fraud or genuine? Because you've never seen one?"

"That's right, Senator,"
Emily. "Wait, I'm a liar. Once I went with two of my friends to see
a palmist, on a lark. The palmist was definitely a
fraud."

You will struggle between
life and death, child,
the psychic had
said.
In the end, you will have what you
want.
The others had got nice, cheery,
tall-dark-and-handsome type readings, but her? No such luck. The
palmist had practically shoved her out the door. No doubt she knew
an investigative reporter when she saw one.

Emily shook off the
unpleasant remembrance and said, "Why do you ask?"

"I ask, because I'm
seriously considering doing something impolitic: inviting you to a
s
é
ance."

"Get outta here," Emily
said, grinning.
A s
é
ance
!

His voice became suddenly
reserved, almost cold. "You're right. Dumb idea."

"No. No, it's not," she
said quickly. "I've never been to a s
é
ance because, well, I guess no
one's ever asked me before. I mean, how do you find out about these
things? It must be word of mouth. It can't be in the Yellow Pages.
What would you look under? Recycling? If you wanted a mere palmist,
that's easy enough. They advertise; they're available for parties.
But let's face it: a person who channels spirits, well, that's
pretty heavy stuff. I wish you
would
consider asking me, Senator,"
she pleaded, at a loss how to seem more like a believer to him. She
could feel the story slipping through her fingers, and it horrified
her.

When he said nothing she
added, "I hope I haven't offended you, Senator. "I suppose I'm what
you people would call a 'goat,' but--"

"No, no, that's no
problem," he interrupted, still thoughtful. "I've been to a few of
these things, and nothing's ever happened. But people whose
opinions I very much respect have talked about this particular girl
-- she's just a girl, eighteeen or nineteen -- in a way that
intrigues me. Unsettles me, even. Apparently she has power,
undeniable power ...."