Maybe This Time (24 page)

“I don't see why we can't do this in the dining room,” Andie told him as they shoved an old round table into the middle of the Great Hall.

“Kelly wants it here.” Southie looked around the room. “It's probably a good place for it. Hard to fake results in here. Not impossible, but not as easy as in a smaller room with lots of furniture.”

“I thought this Isolde woman was the best medium in Ohio.” Andie frowned. “Which, come to think of it, probably isn't that great a distinction. How many mediums does Ohio have, anyway?”

“I think Kelly wants it in here for the filming,” Southie said.
“She's interested in ratings.” He smiled at Andie. “I, on the other hand, am interested in ghosts.”

Andie raised her eyebrows. “Don't tell me. Your newest hobby is séances?”

“Hauntings,” Southie said. “I don't know if there's anything in it, but researching it has been interesting.”

“There's something in it,” Andie said, and waited for him to laugh.

“Really.” He sat on the edge of the table. “You've seen them?”

“Yes. So if you've seen anything weird here, it's not you. It's real.”

“I had weird sex last night.”

“You had sex with Kelly?”

“She showed up in my room, acting strangely. It wasn't because of the Bert and Ernie bedspread. The lights were off.”

“So of course you slept with her.”
And now the cameraman is furious.
Andie shook her head, picturing May sucking up power like a milkshake, making that scraping noise with the straw when she got to the bottom.

“She was naked,” Southie said, as if that explained everything. Then he frowned. “So, you really think there are ghosts here.”

“Yes, and I want them out, which is why I let you and Dennis in. It's a shame we had to let Kelly in, too, but as you said, package deal.” She watched him, wondering if it was kinder not to tell him that Kelly was also sleeping with the cameraman or better to clue him in. May was probably already glutted from last night, maybe now was the time.

He smiled at her cheerfully: happy, uncomplicated Southie.

“Southie,” she began, and then Kelly came in looking hungover and said, “So, are we
ready
?”

“For what?” Andie said, looking at her with distaste.

Kelly frowned at the table. “We need
candles,
” she told Southie. “Go find
a lot
of them.”

He nodded and ambled off, and Kelly smiled brightly at Andie. “Now we'll be
filming
this, and I think it would be really
interesting
if the
children
were here.”

“Over my dead body,” Andie said.

“Okay then,” Kelly said brightly. “I'll just
interview
them before—”

“You will not go near my kids.”

“
Your
kids?” Kelly arched her eyebrows. “So you and North are
adopting
them?”

“Stay away from the children,” Andie said, and the note of dead seriousness must have soaked in through Kelly's big hair because she lost her smile.

“Well, really, Andie, I'm just trying to give as
unbiased
a report on the ghosts as
possible
. The children have lived in this house longer than anyone except
Mrs. Crumb
. They'll have
many
insights.” She flashed her toothy smile again. “So you
see
—”

“Suppose I give you a choice,” Andie said, watching her. “You can film the séance or you can interview the kids.”

“Oh.” Kelly brightened. “Well, I'd prefer
both,
of course, but if I had to
choose,
interviews are
always
better,
human interest
and all, and the kids are so
bright
that I'm
sure
my viewers will prefer that.” She patted Andie's arm. “I'll take the kids.”

Andie bit back the urge to snarl. “That's what I thought. You don't give a rat's ass about ghosts, you're here to get at those kids. I don't know why, but trust me, if I find you anywhere near them, I'll have your ass out on the driveway faster than Southie had you in bed last night.”

Kelly drew back, outraged, and Andie plunged on.

“You cannot talk to them, you cannot approach them, hell, I don't want you waving to them across the Great Hall. They are forever off limits to you.”

Kelly stared at her for a long minute and then said, “I would have thought a
woman
would have more
sympathy
for me.”

“What?”

“I'm trying to
rebuild my career,
” Kelly said, stepping closer. “You make one mistake and it's
gone
—”

“You made a woman throw up on television.”

“—but all I need is
one great story
and I could be
back
again. I just want to do a
little ghost story,
Andie, is that
so much
to ask?” She put her hand on Andie's arm.
“One woman to another?”

“You go near my kids and I promise you,
you'll
throw up on TV.”

Kelly pulled her hand back. “So that offer of the kids or the séance wasn't an
offer
at all. I took your offer as a
contract,
and a verbal contract is
binding,
you know.”

“So is my foot up your ass,” Andie said, as Southie came back into the Great Hall with a box of candles.

“Mrs. Crumb gave me these,” he said. “We're all set.”

“Would you like to discuss legally binding verbal contracts with my lawyer?” Andie said to Kelly, gesturing to Southie. “Or would you like to quit now?”

Kelly glared at them both and left the room.

“You want to catch me up?” Southie said to Andie.

“I won't let her near the kids,” Andie said.

“Of course not. She'd probably suck their souls out.” Southie started to take pillar candles out of the box.

“Isn't this the woman you're sleeping with?”

“Yes. She sucked my soul out last night.”

“That I didn't need to know,” Andie said, feeling nauseated.

“Oh, no, I meant the weird, cold sex, not that she . . . although she did that, too.”

“Southie, I'm having a bad day—”

“Mother kept talking about her teeth but I never really thought about them until she was—”

“Southie!”

“Now I can't stop thinking about them.”

“Southie, please stop.”

“I'm just saying, that's a scary woman.” He pulled out a Precious Moments candle and looked at it, frowning, and then put it on the table.

“So you're not going to sleep with her anymore,” Andie said, thinking,
Good, I don't have to tell him she was doing the cameraman, too. That'll cool May's jets.

“Of course I'll sleep with her again,” Southie said. “I'll keep the lights off. Can't see her teeth then.”

Andie shook her head and helped him unload the last of the candle assortment onto the table, and when they were done, he hesitated, and then he said, “You know North still loves you, right?”

Andie stepped back. “What?”

“I'm not going to tell you there haven't been other women because there have been. Quite a few, to tell you the truth.”

“Good for him,” Andie said, frowning at him while she ignored the little leap her heart had taken when he'd said “still loves you.” “Although not information I really wanted. I have other problems right now—”

“But it's always going to be you for him,” Southie said, sounding mystified. “I do not understand this one-woman-for-life thing, but then we're different, North and me.”

“Really? I never noticed.” Andie jerked her head toward the dining room, pretending she didn't care. “I have to get the chairs. Want to help?”

“I'm trying to help,” Southie said, sounding exasperated. “If you and North would stop being so damn civilized and just have that knock-down-drag-out fight you've been spoiling for for ten years—”

“We've been fighting.”

“You've been bitching at each other. You need to just let it all out. And then everything will be fine.”

“You're delusional,” Andie said, and went to get the chairs.

“The makeup sex would be phenomenal,” Southie called after her.

The sex was always phenomenal,
Andie thought.
But now there are ghosts, so no, thanks.

She picked up the first dining room chair and carried it into the Great Hall as Southie went in to get another one, trying really hard not to feel good about the idea that North still loved her. Southie was such a romantic, it was probably all in his head. Where it should have stayed.

When he came back, she said, “You annoy me.”

“Good. I'll stop when you and North get back together.”

“Never gonna happen,” Andie said.

“Then why are you wearing his ring?”

Andie looked down at the ring she'd forgotten she was wearing. “Because I'm pretending to be married to him.”

“And why are you doing that?”

“Because . . .” She glared at Southie. “Hey, this is none of your business.” She didn't have to explain anything to Southie, especially now, when she was trying to evict ghosts.

She went back to the dining room for more seating.

“Okay, fine, tell me about the ghosts,” Southie said, following her, and grateful for the change in subject, she told him everything as they set up the séance.

 

The medium arrived at six, just after Andie settled the kids in the library with Coke, cheese sandwiches, carrots and ranch dressing, potato chips, and strict instructions not to come into the Great Hall for any reason. Then she heard the doorknocker and went to get it, but Kelly beat her to it, letting in a lot of the storm along with her hired ghost wrangler.

“This is
Isolde Hammersmith,
” Kelly said, as if she'd just invented her and they should applaud.

Andie wasn't sure what she'd been expecting a medium to look like—probably something between Madame Arcati and Miss
Havisham. Kelly's medium was somewhere between forty and death with a face like a hatchet: high forehead, high cheekbones, long nose, long chin, the verticality broken only by Cleopatra eyes, narrow green leopard-print glasses, and lips so huge and red they practically ran from ear to ear even though Isolde was not smiling. “Fucking Motel Six,” she said to Kelly, pulling a wildly patterned scarf from her explosion of black, teased Farrah hair and shaking the rain from it. “Fucking storm.”

“You should stay here for the night,” Andie said, hanging up Isolde's coat. Putting one more person to bed on the second floor wasn't going to cause a blip in her life at this point.

“Oh, yeah, I'll stay
here.
” Isolde snorted, her blouse glittering as she turned to survey the place. She was wearing an orange, red, and yellow Picasso-print silk shirt dotted with sequins and tiny glittery beads over skintight black pants and black stilettos.

Alice was going to shriek with envy when she saw the blouse.

Isolde jerked her head in the direction of the front of the house, making her big gold bangle earrings swing. “Fucking driveway. Almost took my bumper off. And your phone is out. Harold doesn't like it.”

Andie looked around for Harold, but Kelly said, “Harold's her
spirit guide
.”

“Of course he is.” Andie tried smiling at the medium, who was surveying the stone corridor with suspicion. “Kelly thought you'd want to hold the séance in the Great Hall. We have smaller rooms if you'd rather.”

Kelly beamed at Isolde. “Oh, I'm
sure
the Great Hall will be
perfect
.”

“We'll see,” Isolde said flatly. “Who's this?”

Andie turned to see Dennis coming toward them, argyle-covered once more, probably trying to maintain a façade of polite neutrality but just looking academically snotty behind his glasses instead. At least his sweater wasn't tomato-stained anymore.

“This is Professor Dennis Graff,” Andie told Isolde. “He's a parapsychologist.”

Isolde snorted.

“Very pleased to meet you,” Dennis said, but inside, Andie was sure, he was snorting back.

“And this is Sullivan Archer,” Andie went on as Southie came out of the Great Hall to join them.

Southie stuck out his hand, flashing that charming smile.

“Very glad to have you here, Ms. Hammersmith.”

“Mrs.” Isolde ignored the smile and the hand. “So this is the full bunch?” She surveyed them all. “I don't know.” She looked at Dennis. “Harold says you don't believe. You should go.”

“No,” Dennis said, managing to sound polite and pig-stubborn at the same time, and Andie looked at him again and realized he was angry.

Doesn't like charlatans,
she remembered.
Boston Ulrich and Mrs. Hammersmith, enemies to the death.
Of course, death wasn't what it used to be in her world . . .

Isolde looked at Southie. “You don't know what you believe.”

“Open mind,” he said genially.

Isolde nodded and looked at Kelly. “You don't believe, either. Jesus, what a mess.”

“No, no,
open mind,
” Kelly said brightly, but Isolde was already looking at Andie.

“And, finally we have a winner.”

“Just get rid of them,” Andie said.

“We'll see what Harold can do,” Isolde said. “How many of them are there?”

Andie opened her mouth, but Dennis said, “You tell us.”

“Oh, sure,” Isolde said, looking unsurprised and unimpressed by Dennis. “No problem.” She paused. “Harold says you're a putz.”

“Well,
come on,
” Kelly said, “Dr. Graff is our
expert
—”