Page 28 of Old Flames

Leo flipped open the book. Seeing it, holding it, would always bring him back to those early years when things were simple. “Who should I make it out to?”

“Emily,” he answered. “Book nerd with a blog. Works at the bookstore, can’t wait to meet you. I told her she’d have better luck hanging out here.”

“You just get us,” Matty said with a slap to Jonas’s shoulder. “Is Emily here tonight?”

“Waiting at the bar.”

“Get her over here!” Matty cried, irritated. “We’re dying for the attention.”

Grinning, Leo signed the book and returned it to Jonas. “Give her this and invite her over.”

“Will do!”

Jonas shuffled off and returned a moment later, dragging his girlfriend by the hand. They were both in their early twenties, ash blond, long limbed, and slender. Emily’s gray eyes sparkled with intelligence.

“Alrighty,” Jonas said, and shuffled off again to wait on the next table over.

She approached them with reverence. “Hello. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“That’s enough of that,” Matty warned.

“Sorry. It’s intimidating to find all your heroes gathered in one spot,” she admitted. “Usually, we get actors, singers, reality TV stars.”

“That thing about meeting your heroes,” Leo said, “there’s something to it.”

“Not a chance,” Emily gushed.

Matty said. “We just wrapped up a ghost tour. Is this bar haunted?”

“Nah, all we’ve got are rowdy tourists,” Emily answered. “If you’re interested in ghosts, check out the Hemingway House. They say you can hear him typing in his study. I haven’t experienced it.”

Matty frowned. “If I want to see Hemingway’s ghost, I’ll head over to Sloppy Joe’s. Make a night of it.”

“You’ll have better luck at Captain Tony’s Saloon on Greene Street,” Emily said. “They say he sits at his favorite stool.”

Vicky returned without the others and slipped easily into the conversation. “People do the most random things in the afterlife.”

“You’re Victoria Paraíso!” Emily exclaimed.

“Guess so!” Vicky chimed.

“Who’s they?” Matty asked Emily.

The young woman squinted. “I don’t follow.”

“The people who come up with these stories, the ghost sightings, all that,” Matty said. “It’s got to be the folks on the tourism council. The locals don’t believe it, do they?”

“I can’t speak for the locals,” Emily said. “I’m not a Conch. Few people are, really. I moved down here two years ago when my mom took a job at the naval base.”

“Good enough,” Vicky said. “Some people call themselves New Yorkers the second their movers pull away from the curb.”

“The way I see it, the locals respect the past,” Emily replied. “That creepy doll, for example. They don’t mess with it. They say you can’t take his picture, and they stand firm on that.”

“But what do you make of all this?” Leo asked. “Is it a gimmick, a touch of local color?”

“I’m a chicken. I don’t take the tours, and I won’t step foot in Captain Tony’s Saloon,” she replied. “But not all ghost stories are scary. I’m into the romantic ones, like the ghost of a widow by the shore waiting for her husband’s ship to return. That’s sweet, right? When I first moved here, I started a journal to record every tragic love story. I’ve collected a few now. Maybe I’ll write a book someday.”

“Don’t say maybe, just do it,” Vicky said.