Kissing Kara was like coming home. Their bodies melted together, and every caress, every shared breath was a reminder to Nisha of how hard she’d fallen and how right they were together. She’d have gladly stripped naked and enjoyed every inch of Kara’s body for the rest of the night if it weren’t for the ghost and two old ladies playing blackjack in the other room.
“I want you,” Kara murmured as she kissed Nisha’s neck. “I have wanted you since the first time I saw you.”
It wasn’t true. Kara had been on the prowl that night. But Nisha liked the idea of being special enough to make Kara abandon her plans.
“I love you, too,” Nisha said. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“I can’t believe we wasted all that time when we could have been doing this all along.”
“Wait, it wasn’t a waste of time.” She was trying to be serious, which was hard to do when Kara was cupping her breast. “The past month, I really got some things together.”
“Like what?” Kara kissed her way down Nisha’s throat, like her mouth and the hand under the sweater were trying to meet.
“I started a beauty lifestyle brand and a freelance makeup business, and I’m in training to be a yoga teacher.”
Kara stopped and looked up. “You serious?”
Nisha nodded. “It was like suddenly I could just see so clearly what I needed to do to find my way, and now I feel like I’m on track to actually accomplish goals and pursue happiness, not just…exist.”
“You’re incredible,” Kara said. “Really, you’re just so amazing. I want to know all about what a ‘beauty lifestyle brand’ is and I definitely want to see your yoga moves, but—”
“But we should really get back out there before they start talking about us,” Nisha finished. “Or Barb makes herself invisible, so she can watch.”
Kara gave Nisha one last kiss, slow and deep, and they got to their feet to return to the kitchen. “To be continued,” Kara pledged.
Back in the kitchen, the blackjack game was still going. They were betting with real cash, and Barb was putting things she’d bought with Kara’s credit card in the kitty as collateral. Nisha waited to see if Kara got mad, but she just shook her head over the whole thing.
They were dealt into the next hand, but before they could start playing, the intercom buzzed and Barb rushed to push the button to unlock the lobby door.
“Pizza time?” Kara guessed. “Just promise me it’s not that deep dish stuff.”
“Do not mock the Chicago deep dish,” Nisha said with pretend seriousness. “It is sacred.”
“It is a sloppy mess.”
Instead of a delivery person at the door, it was Miss Pythia. She threw her hands wide and yelled, “Surprise!”
Kara gasped. “We were so worried about you. You—you vanished, and nobody knew where you were, and—”
“Rosie, get your ass over here!” Sonia called. “The bet’s a dollar.”
“She was gone,” Nisha said, in case they’d all forgotten or she was losing her mind. “We talked about calling the police and filing a missing person’s report.”
“Jesus Christ, Rosie,” Barb said, “why’d you scare the kids like that?”
Miss Pythia sat in the chair Oleg had vacated. “I relocated to Pilsen because the rent’s cheaper.”
Nisha and Kara looked at each other, stunned.
“Did the rest of you know this?” Kara asked.
“Well, yeah,” Barb admitted. “It’s not such a big whoop.”
“Why on earth didn’t you tell us?”
Miss Pythia shrugged. “If you knew where to find me, you’d come ask me how to get rid of Barb, and we had to make sure you’d have enough time for everything that needed to happen.”
“So this was all some mind game with us?” Kara looked pissed, where Nisha was feeling confused more than anything.
“Sort of, mija,” Sonia said, “except Barb really is a ghost.”
“My last night as a ghost,” Barb said, and the mood in the room soured a little. “But, hey, don’t be sad, okay? Look what we got. These two kids, they got us all back together.”
The four friends put their hands in the middle of the table, one on top of the other.
“Promise me when I’m gone,” Barb said, getting a little choked up, “that you’re not gonna let dumb stuff keep you apart anymore.”
Miss Pythia winked at Nan. “I promise.”
“I promise,” Nan agreed.
Sonia promised in Spanish.
They resumed playing again, nagging when someone didn’t bet correctly and yelling at each other to hurry up. They bickered the way people who had known each other a very long time and loved each other very much could do.
Nisha told them about her idea to record their stories, and they all agreed. She hoped she’d be able to get a few videos of them together, too, because their chemistry really was something special.
“They found out I didn’t really kill Barb,” Sonia told Miss Pythia.
“You tell them what happened between her and me yet?”
“I thought I’d let you do that,” Barb said. “I had to drag it out so they’d have time to figure out their own shit.”
“Are they in love yet?” Nan asked.
Barb looked between Nisha and Kara, standing side by side in the kitchen. “Oh, yeah, I’d say so.”
Nisha could feel her cheeks getting warm.
“Then I guess we can tell them,” Miss Pythia said.
“You know we can hear everything you’re saying, right?” Kara asked.
“Do you want the mysterious, spooky story, or the real one?” Miss Pythia asked her.
“Let’s go with the real one.”
“It’s not very exciting. Sonia and Barb were a thing. Then Sonia moved into her house, and Nan moved in here for a while, but Barb and I were a thing. So Nan moved next door. Then one day when I was at work, Barb had a heart attack and died. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” Kara asked. “Four months of research and running all over the city trying to find information, and—I hired a private investigator! You made it sound like there was some huge, special story waiting to be uncovered.”
Nisha put a hand on her arm. “It is special. It’s their history.”
Kara threw up her hands.
“Better sit down, Susie Q,” Barb said to Kara. “After the pizza, it’s gonna be time for me to check out. Last chance to play a hand with me.”
* * *
When they’d eaten dinner and cleaned up the poker mess, the atmosphere grew somber.
“Rosie, you bring the stuff?” Sonia asked.
Miss Pythia nodded and opened a purple velvet bag. She pulled out the same baggies of herbs and flowers she’d given Nisha and Kara on their first visit to her. She asked Kara to fetch a bowl and a lighter.
It was time to perform the ritual that would send Barb back. Sonia and Barb went into the living room, and Nisha helped Nan follow.
“Kiddos,” Barb said, “because you’re not that bright, I figure you might not have figured it out yet.” Barb had a lot of bravado, but she was clearly shaken up over what was about to happen. “This has been fun. Really. It was kind of cool to get a second chance at life. But it’s time I moved on.”
“You finished your mission,” Kara rephrased.
“I will have soon enough.”
“So—wait—your mission wasn’t to tell me about Nisha and the credit cards?”
“I thought it was to reunite your friends,” Nisha said.
Barb looked at her friends. “What’d I tell you? Dense.” To Kara and Nisha, she said, “My mission was to find the next pair of women who lived here who belonged together and make sure they didn’t screw it up the way we did. Now that you’re together, my work is done.” She clapped her hands together and rubbed them back and forth, the way Kara and Levi used to when they sang, I’m smashing up my baby bumblebee.
“Your mission was to come back, give Nisha the ring, and tell me what Nisha had done,” Kara summarized. “So I’d show her that it didn’t matter to me.”
“Oh, mija, you are so smart sometimes but sometimes so clueless,” Sonia said. “She wasn’t here to give Nisha the ring. She was here to keep the ring hidden.”
“So I’d have to ask for it,” Nisha surmised. “And when I asked for it, I’d meet Kara.”
“You have me to thank,” Barb said.
“And your friends? All the traipsing around I did? All the subterfuge about your past?” Kara asked.
“You brought us back together,” Nan said. “We will never be able to thank you enough for that.”
“And you gave us one last chance to see our beloved Barb.” Rosalind put an arm around Barb’s shoulder. “This has been a real gift.”
“Now, kiddos, this is the hard part. It’s time for me to go.” Barb smiled sadly at Kara. “You’re gonna get what you’ve wanted this whole time.” She began to flicker in and out of view.
“I don’t want you to go.” Kara choked on the words and blinked back tears. “I’m going to miss you too much. I don’t want you to leave.”
Nisha put her arm around Kara’s waist. She was the one who had said they needed to give Barb time. She’d befriended Barb, and she wanted to preserve all her stories from the past. But now she said, “Kara, it’s time to let her go.”
Rosalind started dropping herbs into the bowl, one by one.
“I have one more thing to say,” Barb said to Kara. “You guessed right about the ‘cheat’ part of the message on the mirror, but not about the love part. I didn’t mean that Nisha loved Angie. I meant that you and Nisha loved each other, and I hope you told each other. I want you to promise you’ll be good to each other. Because this thing that we have”—she gestured to them all—“it’s special. It has to be protected. Don’t take it for granted.”
“I won’t,” Kara promised.
“You neither,” Barb added, pointing at Nisha.
“I promise.”
The pace of Barb’s flickering had slowed. She vanished for a full second before she reappeared, clutching her stomach like she was in pain.. “It’s getting hard for me to stay here.”
“We love you, Barb,” Rosalind said.
“Love you, honey.” Nan wiped her eyes with her good arm.
“Te amo.” Sonia’s voice was barely audible.
Barb vanished completely.
“Is she gone?” Nisha asked quietly.
“She’s lost her ability to manifest,” Rosalind said. “We’ll finish this ritual and help her cross to the other side.”
With shaky hands, Kara lit the herbs and stepped back as the smoke began to spiral upward. Rosalind asked them all to stand in a circle holding hands while she and Sonia recited the verse in Latin.
A brilliant ball of light appeared in the middle of the room. In the center of it was Barb’s silhouette. It came and went so quickly Kara wasn’t sure she’d really seen it, and then the light flashed out, the smoke dissipated, and the room was silent.
Nisha stared at the space in the living room where the light had been, transfixed. Rosalind collapsed onto the sofa. Kara felt the loss physically. Barb, the slob she’d never wanted in her house, had become a dear friend. She wasn’t sure what life was going to be like now that she was gone.
As she looked around the room, though, she saw what Barb had given her in exchange. Three amazing, strong women had been reunited in friendship, women Kara hoped she could call her friends. Nisha had forged a new path for herself. And they’d found each other when they least expected it. What a magnificent person Barb had been to have left behind such a legacy.
Finally, Sonia said, “I definitely missed Jeopardy!”