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“Wait. Just…okay.” I lifted the banana to point it at his long nose. “We’ve discussed you using my phone to talk to other entities online.”
“Yes, well, we’ve discussed these ghastly cereals before as well, but you keep bringing them into our home, so there we are. Tit for tat.”
“No, we are not tit for tat.” He tossed the box of cereal in his hands into the sink and turned on the spigot. “Fine. Great.” I lobbed a banana at him. It sailed through him, but he squealed like a little girl with a spider sharing her tuffet. “Now we’re tit for tat. I won’t buy them anymore if you promise to stop talking to otherworldly men on my phone.”
I cranked the water off as he dusted off his uniform as if he’d been hit with a cannonball. Then his gaze met mine. “If I don’t use your phone, how will I ever speak to anyone outside of this shop? You’re grown now and have no use of me as a friend. You’re in love with Phil. Yeye has Monique who has dragged him off to some bayou where he’s likely to be eaten by one of those big lizard things they have down south.”
“Gators.”
“Yes! Those. And here I sit twiddling my gorget alone and pining for interactions with others.”
Oh man. Now I felt like shit. “You have visitors all the time. And the twins next door.” Not that I liked him conversing with the UIAs—unfriendly interactive apparitions—like the Tewberry twins.
“Yes, I know that, but I long for something more. Something deep. Something with emotion and romance.” He sighed forlornly. “Being a resident ghost is a lonely thing, young Archie.”
“I can imagine. Look, if you’re yearning for a romantic relationship, why not ask Caleb out?”
His brows shot up his forehead. “Archimedes, he’s a servant, a commoner, a man who delivers dairy products to the masses. I am Marquis Reginald Charles Richard Birkenhead. My bloodline is blue. My father and mother once dined on quail in puff pastry with Prince George! Now there was a randy one. Famed for his love affairs in the Big Smoke. Oh to be wound in the arms of a strong man who would look upon me with affection…”
“Reg, seriously, stop being so damn uppity.” I threw a banana into the blender. He gasped. “I mean it. This is America. Stop acting like you’re better than a milkman and ask him out. He’s obviously attracted to you.”
“Well, of course he is. I’m adorable and hung like a prized Suffolk Punch stallion.” I rolled my eyes. “Do you think he is attracted to me, though? No joshing.”
“Yeah, I really do.” I had to smile just a little. Beneath all the swagger was a tender-hearted man. Seeing this side of him made me love him even more. Despite our little tiffs here and there, Reggie had been my only friend as a child for many years. Other kids thought I was some weird Asian goober who said he could talk to ghosts. As a little guy, I learned not to reveal my gift to others real fast, but the damage had already been done and followed me throughout high school. Reggie had seen it all. “Just lower yourself down from the aristocracy and live like a Yank.”
“If you say such things again, I shall wash your mouth out with lye soap.” He floated to the doorway. “I shall ponder on what you said about Caleb, though. Perhaps a little bit of tea and a sliver of sponge cake with warm custard wouldn’t be too scandalous.”
I nodded. He phased through the wall. I didn’t call out to remind him that neither he nor Caleb could eat or drink. I’d just added the protein powder to the blender when my phone buzzed.
“Please don’t let it be a horny leprechaun,” I mumbled as I plucked the phone out from under a mound of banana peels. Seeing it was a call that left only one person. I accepted the video call and had to smile widely at the image in the corner of my screen. Yeye, an old, bald Chinese man, was the only pale face in a sea of beautiful Black faces.
“Archie! Hello. Can you hear me?” Yeye yelled as the others, young and old alike, chuckled. Monique leaned into the frame to blow me a kiss as she sat down beside my grandfather.
“I can hear you just fine,” I replied, hoisting myself up onto the counter, nearly landing on the peels before I aimed my ass to the left just a hair. A soggy box of cereal lay in the sink. I’d have to toss that later. “You look good! Are you having fun in Louisiana?”
“Oh, I can hear you good too! Yes, we’re having a good time. There’s so much to see and eat. Monique’s auntie thought they could make me cry last night with some hot jambalaya, but not one tear did I shed. I told them it would take more than a hot pepper, some sausage, and pepper. They asked why is that, and I told them we eat mala hot pot with latiao for dessert.”
That made me laugh. Both of those dishes were incredibly hot and spicy. Phil had once wanted to try a bowl of the fiery red soup. It took him two days to fully recover. We’d not talk about his trips to the bathroom during that time. Suffice it to say he used a lot of his special “Archie Loved Me Too Well” butt-numbing cream.
“I’m glad you’re having fun.” And I was, even though I missed them both terribly.
“We miss you too,” Yeye and Monique said in unison.
“Where is Phil?” Yeye asked as someone arrived with a frying pan filled with fat sausages and another packed full of fried eggs.
“Sleeping.”
“Oh, he played yesterday. Did he get some home runs?” Yeye asked as he forked a sausage from the pan and bowed slightly to the plump woman serving them breakfast.
Shit. Now I had to lie. “No, he, uhm, didn’t play much. Twisted an ankle.” Yeye and Monique’s brows both wrinkled with worry. “It’s fine. Just a little twist. He’ll probably just miss a few games.”
The lies tasted really putrid.
“Poor boy,” Monique said, adjusting her grip on the phone. “Jaw-Long was worried about us calling so early, but we have plans for the day and might be out of range. Would you be very upset if we stayed a little longer?”
“Oh, no, of course not.” That would probably work out for us. We could take this camp case for Senator Kestrel and be back before Yeye would. Then we’d send off the files to Phil’s father, get the money for Yeye, and life would go back to normal. Well, normal for us anyway. “Stay and enjoy yourselves. This is the first vacation you’ve ever had.”
“Well, keeping a little boy with the seeing eye happy and healthy was more important than renting a tent to go camping by Lake Killikee,” Yeye said, bowing softly to an older man with a thick gray mustache and placing some eggs on his plate.
