Goodnight Blackbird (5 page)

"Bummer. But I think you're better off. I believe in psychic stuff but I prefer to stick with the A-listers. Like George Anderson and Michael Percival. Now tell me about your ghost."

As they wended their way through produce, bakery and deli meats, Darren laid it out for her. She was impressed with his storyteller's almost sensual grasp of pacing and suspense, from the understated foreplay of the telephone hijinks and strange e-mails to the heavy petting of the pizza girl's inexplicable scream to the explosive climax of the books and the levitating table.

Jacqueline stopped her cart halfway down the frozen food aisle and looked at him. "That's quite a story."

"I didn't even mention the rose petals. Sometimes I'll find them in the house. In the sink, on the carpet. One time I found a few of them sticking to my clothes when I took them out of the dryer. There aren't any rose bushes on the property." Darren seemed to be studying his reflection in the glass of the freezer case. "So how long do you think I have before this thing kills me?"

"Maybe this thing isn't an enemy. Maybe it's an ally."

"How so?"

Jacqueline tossed a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables in her cart. "When you were talking about that girl Laurie, you made a point of saying how foolish it was, someone like you trying to get involved with a college girl. Almost like you were relieved not to have to deal with it. And you said yourself you took great satisfaction in seeing this thing attack your redneck brother-in-law. Maybe this thing thinks it's protecting you."

Darren grunted. "Stalin was our ally in World War II. For about fifteen minutes. Now what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Your turn. Your ghost."

Jacqueline lingered in front of the case full of frozen pizza rolls and garlic bread. "One summer afternoon about six years ago, I was down in the basement, doing laundry and emptying the dryer, folding up clothes. Kevin—my husband—was at work. My daughter, Michelle, was six at the time. She was upstairs, playing in the living room." She glanced at Darren. "We have a pool. You get to it by the sliding glass patio door."

She selected a box of frozen garlic bread and before she could put it in her cart she decided she didn't want it and put it back. "Michelle had been learning to swim a little bit that summer, but she still wasn't ready. I mean, she could get in the shallow end with me and flop around, but she couldn't really swim. Still, I was surprised by how much she liked it. The pool. She wasn't intimidated. Wasn't really afraid of the water. She always wanted to go into the deep end, but of course she wasn't ready."

Her throat was dry. She coughed briefly, clearing it. She told the rest in as matter-of-fact a way as she could, as if she were reciting the dull details of a fender-bender to a cop: the rumbling noise of the washing machine and dryer which must have prevented her from hearing Michelle go out onto the patio; Jacqueline toting a basket of clean towels upstairs and putting them away in the bathroom before she bothered to stroll back into the living room to ask Michelle if she was ready for lunch; the sight of the patio door open; the wavering, hypnotic blue of the pool. The pool had looked so peaceful that Jacqueline at first didn't think anything was wrong. Michelle was probably playing in her bedroom. Jacqueline was even about to turn away when the lumpy shadow at the bottom of the deep end caught her eye. At first she thought it was a clump of beach towels.

Jacqueline turned from Darren and faced the freezer full of Stouffer's entrées. Her voice was bland and bloodless as she talked about diving in, pulling Michelle to the surface. She talked about the CPR, the frantic 911 call. Her throat tightened up a few times and at one point her vision became momentarily bleary with tears, but she kept it together. That was something.

She had gotten through the worst of it, now she hurriedly told him about the events of the last year or so: the smell of chlorine, the gentle sensation of Michelle's presence. The dream about the lightning.

Darren took it all in silently. Finally, he said, "I'm very sorry."

She looked at her shoes. "I don't know why she didn't scream. Or maybe she did and I just didn't hear it when I was in the basement." She coughed again. "So," she said, adopting a chirpy, faux-happy tone that sounded brittle and totally unconvincing, "what exactly does a media director for Northeast Aerospace do?"

"It's extremely complicated and technical and it would be way above your head. I write press releases. And I make sure the trade journals aren't screwing us on the ad rates."

"I take it this isn't your dream job."

"It pays the bills. In school I wanted to be a novelist. Even wrote a novel the year I got out of college."

"Impressive," Jacqueline said. "Was it published?"

"Nope. Thank God. At the time I thought it was very avant-garde. Written in the present tense. 'He walks to the window, scratching his stomach, wondering if Jessica would bring the heroin tonight.'" They were heading up the crackers and cookies aisle now. "I think my talents are better suited to writing press releases about cockpit data modules."

"I think it's pretty rare for a person to end up where he wants to be in life."

She felt him touch her briefly on the elbow. "I'm sorry," Darren said again.

"Thank you." She nodded at the chairs in the waiting area of the in-store pharmacy and they sat.

"How is your husband dealing with the... presence?"

"He doesn't know about it. We're separated. I'm not sure I want him to know."

"Because he won't believe you?"

Jacqueline shrugged. "Partly that, partly because... these things started happening after he moved out. Maybe these things are just meant for me. I'm... protective of them. Do you think that's selfish?"

"I don't know. I think both of us are in uncharted waters here."

With her foot, Jacqueline nudged the shopping cart to and fro, like a mother on a park bench with her baby carriage. "What do you want most out of life?" she asked.

Darren's brow furrowed as if he were doing math in his head. "To be loved," he said finally. "I know that sounds like a Hallmark card, but it's true. I'd like to matter to someone. Not just a little, but a lot. What about you? What do you want most of all?"

"I don't know. I really don't." The truth of that statement was starting to make her uneasy. At an age when most women were well into the productive swing of their lives, with kids and husbands and careers, Jacqueline felt as if layers of her life had been stripped away—first Michelle, then Kevin, then her friends. What was left? There was her job, and there were her nights alone, listening to the sounds of her own thoughts and reading book after book about communicating with the dead. It was a morbid joke.

"When I was a senior at John Carroll," she said, "a few days before graduation, one night a few of my girlfriends and I went and laid out on the quad and looked up at the stars and we planned out our lives. 'I'm gonna be married two years from now and I'll have the executive vice presidency of a leading advertising firm.' 'I'm gonna have two kids and my husband will look like Richard Gere and every year we'll spend a week in the Caymans.' Like we were a bunch of spoiled country club darlings ordering off a menu. Makes me sick to think about that now."

"It's not sick. It's kind of sweet."

Darren seemed to sense her darkening mood and he changed the subject, lightening things up with some funny workplace anecdotes. He told her about one of the executive assistants, a fussy old pain in the ass named Annie Burlana ("We call her Anal Rub, because that's her last name spelled backwards. It's also extremely fitting") who always complained that Darren typed too loudly. He told her about Khabir Hassani's disturbing and vaguely horrifying karaoke rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" at last year's Christmas party. After a while Jacqueline's stomach hurt from laughing so hard. As numb as she had felt lately, as numb as she had wanted herself to feel, this felt nice—having a man try to make her laugh, make her feel better.

"Come on," Darren said. "Gonna take you somewhere."

"Where?"

He was already pushing her cart to the checkout.

She told him she didn't like surprises but still she followed behind him in her car. They drove down Warrensville Center Road for a mile or so, then Darren took a left. He parked at the curb beside the John Carroll University freshman dorms.

"All right, what's the big idea?"

He took her reluctant hand and they strolled into the deserted quad. She hadn't been here in years. There were more dorms, and the unsightly new Arts and Sciences building at one end of the quad made the small campus feel even more crowded. But the place was much the same as it had been in the nineties—tidy lawns, lots of red brick in the Tudor style. It could have been the set for any low-budget TV show about rich kids and their college angst.

Darren sprawled out awkwardly on his back on the quad's grass, his tie flopping up over his shoulder. She laughed and lay down near him. "We're gonna get picked up for trespassing," she said. "If we do, I'm gonna tell them you exposed yourself to me, too."

"For me that's just a typical Tuesday." He pointed at the stars. "Big Dipper."

The stars were clear and bright, like sequins in some cosmic little black dress. The light from some of them hitting her eyes now had probably originated fifteen years ago when Jacqueline had been laying on this very grass as a twenty-two year-old. The idea was eerie in a way.

"So, someone has hit the reset button on your life," Darren said. "What do you wish for now?"

"I can order anything off the menu I like?"

"Sky's the limit."

"I don't know," she said. "I just don't. Silence, maybe."

"Not to be too critical, but that's a pretty goddamned lousy wish. What about love? Don't you want that?"

Jacqueline couldn't even imagine being in love again. That was another language she'd forgotten how to speak. She got to her feet and helped Darren up. "Come on. My groceries are melting."

"Don't you even want to wish for ten million dollars?"

"Why? I'd just be the same bitch with better shoes."

As they made their way back to their cars, a dark SUV peeled away from the curb farther down the street from them in a tire-squealing huff. Jacqueline's stomach turned over, squashing her mellow mood.

"Wonder what that was about," Darren said.

"That was Kevin," Jacqueline said. "My husband."

E
-mail exchange between [email protected] and [email protected], June 18-19:

dciccone: You are cordially invited to the social event of the season, the ceremonial Blessing of the House, on Wed., June 24, 7 p.m., 1661 Shadeland. In light of the high level of supernatural activity in said House, the Lord of the Manor has enlisted the services of three—count 'em—three men of the cloth, a priest, a rabbi and an imam. I know it sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but whatever. Refreshments will be served. Dress: casual. By the way, sorry I kept you out so late last week. Hope I didn't cause any problems for you.

jprentiss: Would not miss this gala for the world. No apology necessary. I enjoyed that night. I have not heard from Kevin about it, so maybe it was someone else's car.

Even still, Darren found himself checking the street for any dark SUVs when he welcomed Jacqueline inside on the swelteringly humid evening of June 24.

Jacqueline presented him with a store-made apple pie. "I bought it myself."

"You're a doll. Come in and meet the gang." Darren led her into the dining room. The gang consisted of Father Baricek, "who came highly recommended from some folks at work," Darren said, "and that fine figure of a man over there is Khabir, our IT guy."

Khabir Hassani, his flabby, dour form clad in jeans and a t-shirt promoting a Who concert from 1980, had parked himself at the table in front of the deli spread, making what was probably the largest sandwich outside of a Dagwood Bumstead cartoon. He was even ladling potato salad onto it before topping it off with a slice of rye.

"Nice to meet you," Jacqueline said. "Wasn't there supposed to be a couple others?"

"Rabbi Rosenthal from downtown canceled on me a couple days ago," Darren said. "He wasn't pleased that I invited Abu Shiraz, the imam of the Lorain Avenue mosque and Khabir's cousin. Apparently they were in some interfaith basketball pickup game a few months ago and Shiraz threw an elbow. Shiraz canceled on me this morning. Strep throat."

"Just as well," Baricek said. "The whole thing was shaping up to be a goddamned sitcom." The old priest sniffed the tub of potato salad and recoiled. "When was this made, the Carter administration? Lord, take this cup from my lips."

"I wasn't doing this for comic relief," Darren said. "I figured with three of you here, it's three times the protection."

"This isn't like putting three layers of undercoating on your car," Baricek said. "Out of curiosity, do you even believe in God?"

"I'm not really sure. I guess I'm not married to the idea."

"Big surprise. Your irony, smugness and lack of belief could be part of the problem here. I can throw all the holy water in the world at this place, it won't do a damned bit of good if you're creating an atmosphere of negativity here. Ever heard of the law of attraction?"

"Sorry, I must have missed that day in Picking Up Chicks 101."

"What we project, we attract. Peace invites peace. Misery calls out to misery. It's worth keeping in mind."

"Are you saying Darren is causing this?" Jacqueline asked.

"No," the priest said, "but I think there are a lot of occasions in life when we end up with exactly what we ask for, whether we know it consciously or not." He frowned over the sheaf of newspaper articles Darren had printed out from the Internet on the killings. "So McAvoy killed his wife and daughter here. Any idea what set him off?"

"He lost his job," Darren said. "He was a salesman. Apparently not a very good one. He was on antidepressants and they weren't working. And it looked like he was on the outs with his wife. She told a friend they were thinking of separating."

Baricek looked at him over his bifocals. "He leave a note?"

"'Darkling I listen; and, for many a time / I have been half in love with easeful Death,'"
Darren said. "That's all he wrote."

"Why does that sound familiar?" Jacqueline asked.

"It's Keats," Darren said. "'Ode to a Nightingale.'"

The priest clucked his tongue. "Seems to me that if he was half in love with death he wouldn't want to cling to this house."

"Maybe it's not the guy," Khabir said through a mouthful of sandwich.

Everyone looked at him.

"His wife and daughter were killed, too," Khabir said. "Could be either of them."

From his battered valise, Father Baricek removed his purple stole and vial of holy water. "Let's find out."

They started in the living room, then moved to the dining room and kitchen. Although Baricek did most of the recitations, he insisted Darren play a role too. Darren felt incredibly silly and nervous and his voice sounded thin and raspy as he read a few passages from Paul's letter to the Colossians.

They blessed the downstairs; they blessed the upstairs. In the spare bedroom, the priest flung his holy water and said, "Protect us, Lord, as we stay awake. Watch over us as we sleep, that awake we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep, we may rest in his peace."

As they left the spare bedroom, Darren briefly felt the sensation of being watched—that uneasy, prickly feeling on the back of your neck when someone is staring at you. But it was just his imagination. The house was quiet and well-behaved. Books remained on their shelves. The furniture did not move.

The blessing was over in twenty minutes. Everyone shook hands, Baricek had a diet Coke and left, and a few minutes later so did Khabir. Jacqueline helped Darren clean up. He felt oddly disappointed. It was as if some masochistic side of himself wanted something to happen tonight. To force the moment to its crisis, as T. S. Eliot said. But the house felt empty—a soulless box of sticks and bricks and the cheapest grade of carpet Home Depot had to offer.

"Feel like taking a walk?" he asked Jacqueline. "There's an ice cream stand a couple blocks away."

The humid evening had attracted a small mob of suburbanites to the Dairy Freeze. Darren and Jacqueline sat on a bench and people-watched as young mothers wiped chocolate sauce from the faces of their kids and teen girls with bare midriffs let their boyfriends pay for their frozen yogurts.

Maybe it's not the guy,
Khabir had said.

Darren recalled the grainy photos of McAvoy's wife, Shannon, and his daughter, Rachel. What was a more preferable ghost to have—the spirit of a suicidally depressed and clearly off-his-rocker salesman or the ghosts of his sane and undoubtedly resentful victims?

And why wouldn't they be resentful? Their lives had been cut short and now a stranger lived in their home. He remembered when he was about eight years old and his dad had sold their old Chevy Impala to the man three streets over. Darren had loved that old car... had even taken walks around the neighborhood so he could look at it again in the guy's driveway. Maybe ghosts were the same way—reluctant to let it all go. So reluctant they'd stalk their former lives.

"I wonder how the house is going to treat you after tonight," Jacqueline said, sipping her vanilla shake. "Think you'll have to start sleeping with one eye open?"

"I've been taking Ambien. I could probably sleep through the London Philharmonic doing Wagner's
Ring
cycle. Oh damn."

"What?"

"Nothing. That girl over there. Dark hair. For a second I thought it was Laurie."

Jacqueline squeezed his knee. "You're better off. Believe me. Girls in their twenties are as deep as a comic book. They all read
Pride and Prejudice
and think they're Elizabeth Bennet, but they're more like Lydia and Kitty, the sillier sisters. Look for someone with an interior life."

"Ouch. Someone had a big bowl of bitter this morning."

They watched a young couple approach the order window, each spouse holding the hand of their terrified-looking little girl. The wife wore Bermuda shorts and a baseball cap; the husband wore the uniform of suburban men everywhere, a polo shirt and khakis. The sweet reassurances of the young couple and the promise of chocolate fudge and whipped cream apparently weren't enough to assuage the little girl's suspicion of streetside commerce. Her lower lip trembled and tears spilled from her blue eyes.

Darren smiled faintly. Even though he wasn't sure he wanted kids, sometimes when he saw these Norman Rockwell scenes he couldn't help wishing they were scenes from his own life. He glanced at Jacqueline and felt a twinge of shame. It was much easier to cope with the loss of children who were purely theoretical. Jacqueline had had to deal with the real thing.

"Come on, sweetie," the young mother said, "you like chocolate ice cream, don't you? Yes, that's right, Michelle loves chocolate ice cream!"

Darren could see Jacqueline's wan face harden and her eyes grow distant. Then they seemed to widen and burn with suppressed rage.

Jacqueline said little on the walk back to the house. Darren's attempts at witty banter fell flat. He touched her on the elbow as she was climbing into her car. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Just tired." She mustered a limp smile. "Let me know if the blessing did the trick."

Darren had an answer to that when he walked into the living room a few minutes later. Somehow the plastic squeeze bottle of ketchup had moved from the back of the refrigerator and now sat half-empty on the coffee table. Much of the contents had been squirted out on the carpet, forming sloppy but readable words: DON'T EVER LET THAT BITCH IN THIS HOUSE AGAIN.