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“It is when I’ve been bewitched,” I mutter.
“Well, I’ll take care of that tonight. I promise,” Eleanor purrs. I motion to grab her ass, but she turns on her heel, leaving me grasping at the empty air.
“I have to get back to work,” she calls over her shoulder. She winks.
“What if I give you the day off?” I call.
“You’re not the boss of me! These pages won’t digitize themselves.”
“Make Beatrix do it!”
Eleanor’s face pales. “Don’t joke about that.”
I listen to her footsteps traipse downstairs and shake my head. I thought Eleanor was a skeptic, but something changed after that night in the basement. She says it wasn’t a spasm. She says she could feel each finger digging into her scalp like someone was trying to stop or shove her down onto the ground.
I don’t know what to believe because I also felt a presence in the basement that night. I haven’t been back down there since part of me doesn’t want to know what’s waiting for me. Maybe that’s cowardly. Maybe I want to protect what little peace I have in this fucking house.
It’s bad enough that I have to run into my elementary school math teacher at the post office. I don’t want to confront the spirits that haunted my childhood.
It sounds like aGoosebumps novel, but my first crush was probably a ghost.
She was a blonde woman with honey-gold ringlets she wore in an updo and a cornflower blue silk dress that swished as she walked.
She first appeared to me when I was five. I’d see her shadow outside my door, the voluminous bell of her skirt, and smell the scent of lilacs. When I poked my head out in the hall, she’d wave.
She wasn’t scary; she had large brown eyes, a coy smile, and round cheeks covered in bright blush. She was beautiful. I longed to touch her, but she’d disappear before I could gather the courage to ask her any questions.
The week before I was supposed to start first grade, we acquired her portrait from a local art historian. I recognized her the moment I saw it, and it was only then I got to put a name to the face: Adelaide Idylewylde, Martin’s wife.
She wore the same dress as her portrait; I could recognize that shade of blue anywhere. But after her portrait showed up, things started to seem a little off with her. She’d still show up at my door every night but seemed moody. She was paler. She seemed vaporous. Her shadow was weaker. On some nights, she’d knock on my door, and I’d open it to see that a hunk of her cheek was missing, or an eyeball was dangling from the socket like a loose button on a winter coat.
One of my friends at school told me that people can tell ghosts to leave them alone, so that’s what I did.
Adelaide gave me one last wistful look; her once bright blue eyes were now a murky gray. Then, she disappeared.
I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately. I blocked it out for years, but I think a part of me will always associate falling in love with the bright, penetrating clarity of terror.
My mother’s out for the evening at a play at a local theater, which means Eleanor and I have the house to ourselves.
I decided to make her a proper dinner. Once I knew my mother would be gone for the night, I went to the store and gathered the ingredients for spaghetti and meatballs. I use my great-grandmother’s meatball recipe: mixing egg, breadcrumbs, parsley, and ground beef in the bowl before I roll it out into individual balls on a cookie sheet.
“You’re going all out,” Eleanor observes as she walks into the kitchen. She’s changed from her usual tweed work clothes into a low-cut red silk dress. I almost drop a meatball when I take in her cleavage straining against the silk.
Eleanor grins wickedly. “I wanted tonight to be special. Do you want me to start the pasta or anything?”
“I won’t cook the pasta until the meatballs are close to done, but you can get started on the sauce.” I nod toward two cans of tomato sauce and the accompanying recipe on the counter.
Eleanor and I cook side by side. We move in synch. I stir the sauce as she pops the meatballs into the oven. When the sauce starts to bubble, she hands me a container of heavy cream.
Eleanor prepares a salad with the leftover vegetables we find in the refrigerator. I prepare a simple dressing with salt, olive oil, pepper, and a bit of balsamic vinegar. I put a record on, awakening the ancient record player that dominates the living room. The sound of Nina Simone floods the house as Eleanor, and I dish up pasta and meatballs onto plates.
Eleanor brings the salad out to the dining room.
We eat, and it’s silent for a bit, save for the sound of Nina Simone and plates scraping against forks.
“You’d tell me if it’s bad, right?” I say as I uncork a bottle of red wine.
“It’s delicious. I promise.”
