Chapter 6

I was sitting in my bedroom, dreading hearing the knock on the door. It was strange to think of the room as my bedroom, since it was the room I’d had when I was a girl. Now I was an adult and I shouldn’t be at home, but sometimes life throws you curve balls, and there’s not much you can do about it.

Still, I had been thinking about looking into apartments. If I intended to stay here and run the funeral home, I couldn’t live with my mother. One of us wouldn’t survive the experience.

I could also move into the funeral home itself. The upstairs wasn’t used for much more than random storage space, but there was a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. I could renovate it and make it work, but I would still be a bit too close to my mother. The same town was too close to my mother. There was also the fact that living above a funeral home made me a bit uncomfortable, which was strange, given that I could speak with the dead. Or perhaps that was the reason.

The knock I was dreading came just before six. That’s when John was due, according to my mother. John Jones had maybe the most boring name I had ever heard. Surely he did; there was no maybe about it. He went to my mother’s church, which wasn’t a surprise, because I was pretty sure I was the only person who had ever been in her house who hadn’t gone to her church. She liked her churchgoers, and that was that.

Mom had told me of the impromptu dinner date that afternoon. I knew she was trying to set me up and I had complained bitterly, but it didn’t have any effect. I shuddered to think of the type of guy she’d try to set me up with, so it was with growing dread that I stood from my spot on the end of the bed and made my way downstairs, just as my mother was opening the door.

The man who stood there was as forgettable as his name. Plain face, plain brown hair. His beige clothes were plain, and his beige shoes were plain. He wore a smug, sanctimonious, insipid expression on his pasty face, and he had the worst combover I had ever seen. I knew I was probably being hard on him because he was the kind of guy my mother thought I should date, but I didn’t care. I had agreed to stay for dinner, even though when my mother had told me about it, my instincts were screaming at me to run for the hills. I had a pretty good idea how it would all play out.

“Hello,” John Jones said when he saw me, and he put out his hand. I shook it. His handshake was limp. A couple up and downs, a very soft grip. I think I threw up in my mouth, just from all of the plainness.

I liked pizzazz and spice. That was me. I liked to live dangerously—well, somewhere between normally and dangerously. John looked like the kind of guy who ironed his sheets every night before he slept in them, whereas I didn’t even own an iron, or make a list before I went to the grocery store. Yes, I lived dangerously.

“Dinner will be at precisely five-thirty, so you may take John into the living room and get to know each other,” my mother said to me, and it was all I could do not to sigh and roll my eyes. I managed to control my emotions, and I led the man into the living room. We sat opposite each other on voluminous, antique couches, while my mother turned on the gospel music channel on the radio.

The uncomfortable silence stretched on for ages. John didn’t appear as if he were going to say anything, so I started. “What do you do for a living, John?” I asked.

“I enter data into spreadsheets all day.”

I stopped myself before I could say, “Of course you do.”

“Interesting,” I tried instead, even though it wasn’t interesting at all. It was so plain and boring that I thought my eyes would fall out of my head.

“Wow, this guy is neat,” a voice said, and for a wild minute I thought it was my mom, who had disappeared into the kitchen, even though the voice didn’t match hers at all. I looked over to my right and saw Tiffany sitting across from us on an easy chair, her feet propped up on the coffee table.

“Not my idea,” I said, before I could stop myself.

“What’s not your idea?” John asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Oh,” I said, looking back at him. “It wasn’t my idea to have you over, but I’m glad my mother asked you.” I thought that was a bit too strong, so I amended it. “You know, it’s been a while since I lived here, so it’s nice to make friends again.”

“I was under the impression that I’m here to court you,” John said stiffly, “not to be your friend. A man’s friend is another man. A man courts a woman.”

Across the table, Tiffany giggled.

“Right you are, John,” another voice said, and this time it was my mother. “A woman is a helpmeet, not a friend.”

“A help meat?” I said, startled.

“A helpmeet,” my mother said, glaring at me. “A helper. Woman was created as helper for man.” Before I could say something highly impolite, she turned to John. “I’m so sorry that my daughter is not familiar with the King James Version Bible any more. She’s been in the city, so she must’ve gone over to new, radical versions like The Amplified Bible and things like that.”

Both John and my mother screwed up their faces in disgust. I could see why my mother liked John so much. She joined us, sitting in the chair on which Tiffany had been perched, and I got to experience the ghost leaping up through my mother just as she sat down. Somehow I took pleasure from that. If only my mother knew that a spirit had just gone through her. It would freak her out.

“Do you work?” John asked me.

“I had a job in Melbourne, but it looks like I might be moving back to take care of my father’s business now.”

John shook his head, and my mother loudly clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “That won’t do,” the plain man said. “My wife won’t be working.”

“I am no one’s wife, and certainly not yours!” I said angrily, and would have said plenty more, but my mother stood.

“That’s enough, Laurel,” she said. “A woman need not control the conversation. I’ll go check on the dinner.”

I watched her go, and caught Tiffany’s eye. She shrugged her shoulders. “So,” she said, “find my killer, all right?”

I shook my head slightly, hoping John wouldn’t see.

“What else do you have going on? Dating?” the ghost woman asked me. I slyly shooed her away, and then endured another half hour alone with John.

It was a relief when we were finally seated at the dining room table. My mother whisked the dinner out from the kitchen, setting food before us: platters of potatoes, carrots, and green beans. Mom served us all and then sat down. She and John spoke more than I did, and my mother steered and dominated the conversation, even though, according to her, that wasn’t what a woman should do.

Halfway through dinner, John turned to me. “I’m out of water,” he said.

I looked at his glass, which was indeed empty. I nodded. “Yep,” I said cheerfully, wondering if the guy had a screw loose or something.

“A woman should serve a man,” John said.

My mother knew me well enough to speak up before I did. I was half out of my chair, not to fill his glass, but to kick him out of the house.

“Allow me, John,” my mom said, reaching for his glass. “I’m the hostess tonight, so you two get to know each other.”

After that, I had even less than my already zero desire to get to know the guy. It was an awkward and quiet dinner, and when John tried to hug me at the door as he was leaving, I shoved my hand between our bodies and stopped him, and shook his hand instead.

“How rude are you?” my mother said after she shut the door.

I held my finger up, practically waving it in her face. “Don’t do that again. I’m not interested in any men from your church.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I’m trying to save my own daughter’s soul.”

“Mom, I would rather be tormented for eternity than fill up a man’s glass because he ordered me to.”

She folded her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. “You’re never going to find a husband with that attitude.”

I was seething. “I don’t want a husband!” I said angrily. “And most certainly not a rude, sexist one like that!”

“Well, good, then you can work in the funeral home forever, and take care of yourself.”

“I would love that,” I said.

My mother snorted rudely, then turned and headed upstairs to her room. I gave her a few minutes’ head start, and then went up to mine.

Tiffany was waiting for me. She sat on the edge of my bed. “You should have just gotten him some water,” she said with a grin. “You know, to keep the peace.”

“Be quiet,” I said, “and I do hope you’re joking. How long are you going to be here?” I sat down beside the ghost.

“Until you agree to help me,” she said.

“While it’s true that I can talk to you people,” I said, “I don’t run a detective agency or anything.”

Tiffany sighed. “Don’t you want to help someone who needs it, though?”

I felt too grumpy to have this conversation. “You’re past help. You don’t need help. You just need to move on. You’re dead.”

The dead girl with the long platinum blonde hair frowned. “Harsh,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling truly bad. “I didn’t mean that. Sometimes I don’t think before I speak.”

“So you’ll help me?” Tiffany asked.

“I’d like to, but I don’t know what to do,” I said honestly. “Watching Law and Order as much as I did in college wasn’t enough to make me a detective.”

“I just need to know,” Tiffany said, sniffling. I hoped she wasn’t going to cry—but then, do ghosts cry? I thought I was about to find out. “I just need to know exactly what happened to me,” she continued. “I feel like I’m tethered here, and as far as I know, you’re the only person who can see me, much less talk to me.”

I sighed. “Okay, I’ll do what I can. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Tiffany said.

“Why do you guys do such weird stuff? Like haunted houses always have chairs that move by themselves, and shoes that get flung across the room. What’s up with that?”

Tiffany laughed. “I have no idea. I’m a new ghost, remember? I guess some of us are just bored.”

I laughed, too. “Back to solving your murder, I really don’t know where to start.”

“Hey, me neither, but I guess I’ve got all the time in the world,” Tiffany said, and I grinned. She certainly did.

Just then my cell phone rang and I slid it out of my pocket. I checked the caller ID on the screen, worried that John had somehow gotten my number and was calling to set up another ‘date’, but it was Tara and I happily answered. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner tomorrow,” she asked me.

“Well, it can’t be any worse than the dinner company I had tonight,” I said, and when she asked me what I meant, I filled her in. When I had finished and hung up, dropping my cell on the nightstand, I saw that Tiffany had gone. I knew she would be back. I had agreed to help her, and she was going to hold me to it.