Part 8 (2/2)
He wore a suit and tie. I stood frozen in place. We stared at each other until he lifted an arm and waved to me, slowly, from side to side. The kind of exaggerated wave you give someone who is driving off in a car and you want to be sure they see you until the very last second.
Without thinking, I started out into traffic and was met by screeching brakes and angry horns. When I was halfway across, he began to walk away. By the time I reached the other side he was already far ahead. I began running, but somehow he stayed way in front of me. He went around a corner. When I got there and made the turn, he was twice as far as before. There was no way I could catch up. When I stopped he did too. He turned and did something that was pure James Stillman: He put his open hand against his forehead, then moved it down to his mouth and blew me a big kiss. Whenever we parted he would do that. He'd seen it in an old Arabian Nights film and thought it the coolest gesture-hand to the forehead, to the lips, big kiss. My Arabian Knight, back from the dead.
”I saw a ghost and I'm in love with a married man.”
”Welcome to the club.”
”Zoe, I'm serious.”
”Married men are always more delicious than single, Miranda. That's where the challenge is. And I've believed in ghosts all my life. But tell me about Mr. Married first because I'm the expert on that subject.”
We were having lunch. She had come into town for the day. Married boyfriend Hector had ended their relations.h.i.+p and she was at the end of her period of mourning. For weeks I'd suggested a day in the city doing girl things together to take her mind off him and finally she said yes. Now I was doubly glad to meet so I could get her input on my new twilight zones.
”The ghost was James Stillman.”
”Great! Where?”
”On the street near my apartment. He waved to me in that old way, remember?” I did the gesture and she smiled.
”A very romantic fellow, no doubt about it.”
”But Zoe, I saw him. He looked exactly like he did in high school.”
She folded her napkin a few times and put it on the table. ”Remember when we used to do the Ouija board and contacted all those old spirits, or whatever they were? My mother believed when some people die, their souls get tossed into a limbo between life and death. That's why you can talk to them on a Ouija board or in a seance-they're half here and half there.”
”Do you believe that?”
”Why else would you want to hang around life if it's over for you?”
”He was so real. Solid. No ectoplasm or Caspar the Friendly Ghost, hovering a foot above the ground in a white sheet. It was James. Completely real.”
”Maybe it was. You'd have to ask an expert. Why would he come back now? Why not before?”
We didn't talk about it much beyond that. Neither of us knew what it meant, so further discussion was pointless.
”Tell me about your new man. The alive one.”
I told her in great detail, and along the way we kept having more drinks to help us a.n.a.lyze my new situation.
”You know what just hit me? What if James came back as a sign to tell me not to do this?”
Zoe threw up her hands in exasperation. ”Oh, for G.o.d's sake! If you're going to feel guilty, don't blame ghosts. I'm sure they've got better things to do than keep tabs on your s.e.xual behaviour.”
”But I haven't slept with him yet!”
”Miranda?”
Hearing my name spoken in a familiar voice, I turned and saw Doug Auerbach. He was staring at Zoe.
”Dog! What are you doing here? Why didn't you call?”
”I didn't know I was coming till yesterday. I was going to call later. I'm supposed to have lunch here with a client.”
I introduced him to Zoe and he sat down. Soon it was clear he was interested only in my oldest friend. At first she smiled and laughed politely at his jokes. When his interest hit her, she transformed into a s.e.xy fox. I had never seen her like that. It was fascinating how deftly she handled both Doug and her new role.
Naturally I was disconcerted. Part of me was jealous, possessive. How dare they! The rest remembered Doug's small place in my life, and Zoe's goodness. At the appropriate moment, I ”suddenly remembered” I had another appointment-and would they mind if I left?
Out on the street again looking for a cab, I felt like Charlotte Oakley, the unwanted third. I shuddered and started walking as fast as I could.
One afternoon when his family was away for the weekend, Hugh invited me to their apartment. Easy the bullterrier followed me from room to room. I had on tennis shoes, so the only noise was the tick-tick of Easy's long toenails on the wooden floors.
This is where he lives. Where she lives. Each object had its own importance and memories. I kept looking at things and asking myself why the Oakleys had them or what they meant. It was a strange archaeology of the living. The man who could decipher it all for me sat in another room, reading the newspaper, but I wasn't about to ask any questions. Pictures of his children, Charlotte, the family together. On a yellow sailboat, skiing, sitting beneath a large Christmas tree. This was his home, his family, his life. Why was I here? Why put faces to his stories, or see gifts brought back from trips for these people he loved? On the piano was a crystal box full of cigarettes. I picked it up and read the name Waterford on the underside. A large red-and-white stone ball stood beside it. Crystal and stone. I stroked the cold ball and kept moving.
When I'd asked to see his home, Hugh had not hesitated a moment. They owned a house in East Hampton. The family usually went there on weekends in summer. The first time they went without Hugh, he called and told me the coast was clear. And it was a coast of sorts; they lived on the east, I lived on the west. If I had been his wife, I would have been enraged to know another woman was in my home, looking at my life, touching it.
So why was I here? If I was going to be with Hugh, why didn't I work to keep his two worlds separate and be satisfied with what I had? Because I was greedy. I wanted to know as much about him as I could. That included how he lived when I wasn't around. By seeing his apartment, I figured, I would be less afraid of what went on there.
I was right: walking through the rooms, I felt calmer seeing that only people lived here, no master race or G.o.ds, all impossibly better, stronger, and more heroic than I could ever hope to be.
As a girl, I read every fairy tale and folktale I could find. A story that began, ”In an ancient time, when animals spoke the speech of men and even the trees talked together...” was my chocolate pudding. More than anything, I wished my own small world contained such magic. But growing up means learning the world has little magic, animals talk only to each other, and our years go over the tops of the mountains without many marvels ever happening.
What carried over from my childhood was the secret hope that wonders lived somewhere nearby. Dragons and pixies, Difs, Cu Chulainn, Iron Henry, and Mamadreqja, grandmother of witches... I wanted them to be and was still mesmerized by TV shows about angels, yetis, and miracles. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up any copy of the National Enquirer that headlined sheep born with Elvis's face, or sightings of the Virgin at a souvlaki stand in Oregon. On the surface I was a briefcase and a business suit, but my heart was always looking for wings.
They were in his study waiting for me, but I wouldn't know that until many years later. The room was large and bare except for a pine table Hugh used as a desk. It was piled with papers, books, and a computer. On the wall facing the desk were four small paintings of the same woman.
”What do you think?”
I was so involved in looking at them that I hadn't heard him come in. ”I don't know. I don't know if they're fascinating or they scare me.”
”Scare you? Why?” There was no amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice.
”Who is she?”
He put his hands on my shoulders. ”I don't know. Around the time we met, a man came into the office and asked if I wanted to buy them. He didn't know anything about them. He'd just bought a house in Mississippi and they were in the attic with a bunch of other stuff. I didn't even haggle about the price.”
”Why do I feel like I know her?”
”Me too! There's something very familiar about her. None of them are signed or dated. I have no idea who the artist was. I spent a good deal of time researching. It makes them even more mysterious.”
She was young-in her twenties-and wore her hair down, but not in any special fas.h.i.+on that gave you an idea of the time period. She was attractive but not so much so that it would stop you for a second look.
In one picture she sat on a couch staring straight ahead. In another she was sitting in a garden looking slightly off to the right. The painter was excellent and had genuinely caught her spirit. So often I looked at paintings, even famous ones, and felt a kind of lifelessness in the work, as if beyond a certain invisible point the subject died and became a painting. Not so here.
”Hugh, do you realize that since we met, I got beat up, saw a ghost, made out in a Gap store, and now am looking at pictures of someone I've never seen but know I know.”
”It's the story of Zitterbart. Do you know it?”
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