Aunt Jettie, who never saw the point in getting married, was all too happy to have me for entire summers at River Oaks.
We’d spend all day fishing in the stagnant little pasture pond if we felt like it, or I’d read as she puttered around her garden. (It was better if I didn’t help. I have what’s known as a black thumb.) We ate s’mores for dinner if we wanted them. Or we’d spend evenings going through the attic, searching for treasures among the camphor-scented trunks of clothes and broken furniture.
Don’t get the wrong idea. My family isn’t rich, just able to hold on to real estate for an incredibly long time.
While Daddy took care of my classical education, Jettie introduced me to Matilda, Nancy Drew, and Little Men. ( Little Women irritated me. I just wanted to punch Amy in the face.) Jettie took me to museums, UK basketball games, overnight camping trips. Jettie was included in every major event in my life. Jettie was the one who undid some of the damage from my mother’s “birds and bees” talk, entitled “Nice Girls Don’t Do That. Ever.” She helped me move into my first apartment. Anyone can show up for stuff like graduations and birthdays. Only the people who truly love you will help you move.
Despite her age and affection for fried food, I was knocked flat by Jettie ’s death. It was months before I could move her hairbrush and Oil of Olay from the bathroom. Months before I could admit that as the owner of River Oaks, I should probably move out of my little bedroom with the peppermint-striped wallpaper and into the master suite. So, seeing her, crouching next to me, with that “Tell me your troubles” expression was enough to push me over the mental-health borderline.
“Oh, good, it’s psychotic-delusion time,” I moaned.
Jettie chuckled. “I’m not delusion, Jane, I’m a ghost.”
I squinted as she became less translucent. “I would say that’s impossible. But given my evening, why don’t you explain it to me in very small words?”
It was good to see that Jettie’s deeply etched laugh lines could not be defeated by death. “I’m a ghost, a spirit, a phantom, a noncorporeal entity. I’ve been hanging around here since the funeral.”
“So you’ve seen everything?”
She nodded.
I stared at her, considering. “So you know about my disastrous fourteen-minute first date with Jason Brandt.”
She looked irritated as she said, “’Fraid so.”
“That’s…unfortunate.” I blinked as my eyes flushed hot and moist. “I can’t believe I’m actually sitting here talking to you.
I’ve really missed you, Aunt Jettie. I didn’t get to say good-bye before you…It was over so fast. I went to the hospital, and you were gone, and then Grandma Ruthie started talking about moving all of your stuff out of the house. I felt so lost, and everybody just seemed to be talking over me—Mama and Grandma Ruthie, they just acted as if my opinion didn’t matter, even though I was the closest to you. And then the will was read, and Grandma Ruthie just lost her mind in the middle of the lawyer ’s office and told me I had no right to the house, and it wasn’t supposed to go to me, and she was going to contest the will as invalid because you were obviously mentally incompetent. And I didn’t care about any of it, because none of it was going to bring you back—”
“Honey.” Aunt Jettie chuckled. “Take a breath.”
“I don’t need to anymore!” I cried.
In my years with Aunt Jettie, I’d learned to recognize her “trying not to laugh” face. She wasn’t even making an attempt at it.
She was just rolling around on the ground, braying like a hyena.
“It’s not funny!” I cried, swatting through her insubstantial form.
Jettie continued to cackle while I pouted.
“It’s a little bit funny,” I admitted. “Dang it. Change of subject. Did you get to see your whole life played over instrumental soft rock before you died? What about your funeral? I didn’t get one, because no one knows I’m dead. But did you get to see your funeral?”
“Yeah.” Jettie grinned. “Great turnout. Shame about the suit, though. Couldn’t talk your grandma out of it, huh?”
I shrugged. “She wanted to send you to your grave with some semblance of decorum, or so she said.”
“I looked like Barbara Bush in drag,” Jettie snorted.
“Barbara Bush is dignified no matter what,” I offered. “Hey, if you’ve been here all along, why can I see you now?”
“Because I wanted you to see me.” Jettie seemed pained, brushing her icy fingers along my cheeks. “And because you’re different. Your senses have changed. You’re more open to what’s beyond the senses of normal, living people. I don ’t know whether to be happy that you can see me or sad about what’s happened to you, sugar pie.”
I groaned. “See, now I know it’s bad, because the last time you called me sugar pie was right before telling me my turtle died.”
Awkward pause.
“So, what’s it like being dead?” I asked.
“What’s it like for you?” she countered.
I sighed, even though I didn’t have to, technically. “Unsettling.”
“Good word.” She nodded.
“What do you do? I mean, is there some sort of unfinished business I need to help you complete in order to move on to the next plane?”
Her voice rose to a Vincent Price octave. “Yes, I’m wandering the earth, seeking revenge on Ben and Jerry for giving me the fat ass and massive coronary. And I give out love advice to the tragically lonely.”
“Is that an ironic eternal punishment for the lady who died an eighty-one-year-old spinster?” I grinned.
“Single by choice, you twerp.”
“Banshee,” I shot back.
“Bloodsucker.”
I leaned my head against her insubstantial shoulder. “I missed you, a lot. Did I mention that?”
“A time or two,” she said. “I missed you like crazy, too. Even though I saw you every day, not being able to talk to you was just horrible. That’s part of the reason I just couldn’t let go. I wanted to keep an eye on you.”
“Well, good job, Aunt Jettie.” I rolled my eyes. “I lost my car keys three times last week, and I got turned into a vampire.”
“I know, as a guardian angel I leave much to be desired,” she said. “But if it makes you feel any better, the car keys were my doing.”
“You hid my car keys?”
“Had to amuse myself somehow,” Jettie said, her eyes twinkling with ghostly mischief. “I may be dead, but I’m still me.”
“Remind me to have that stitched on a sampler,” I muttered. “Though this certainly explains the vaguely obscene limericks composed with my refrigerator poetry magnets.”
Jettie shrugged but seemed pleased to have been noticed. I looked out the window and saw the pink streaks of dawn curling into the clouds. I felt my strength leeching from my bones. I was so tired even yawning seemed like a heroic effort. I couldn ’t think about how I was going to explain my three-day disappearance to my parents or that I may have started a badly fated relationship with a guy who regularly bites people. I couldn ’t think about the fact that I couldn’t die or get a tan anymore. All I wanted was sleep.
I climbed the stairs, drew the shades tight, and then threw a thick quilt over the curtain rod. I dropped into bed and felt Jettie’s clammy hands brush my face as she pulled the quilts up to my chin. In a few minutes, I was, to use a bad pun, dead to the world.
4
Loved ones may be upset by your unexplained three-day absence. If you’re not comfortable talking about your newly risen condition, try plausible explanations like a severe stomach flu, emergency dental surgery, or temporary amnesia.
—From The Guide for the Newly Undead
When the phone started ringing at around seven A.M., I realized the wisdom of sleeping in a soundproof coffin.
“It’s jealousy, sweetheart, nothing but pure jealousy,” Mama was saying when I pressed the receiver to my ear. Mama had dispensed with phone greetings years ago, when I started giving her reasons I couldn’t stay on the phone as soon as she said hello.
“Mavis Stubblefield has had it in for me ever since I beat her in the Miss Half -Moon Hollow Pageant in 1967. She’s been waiting for years to get back at me, and now she’s gone and fired you. Jealousy.”
“Yeah, Mama, I’m sure that’s what it’s all about,” I said, straining to see the clock.
Wait, why wasn’t Mama screaming at me for disappearing? Why wasn’t she reliving the twenty-six hours of labor she suffered only to birth a child who didn’t call her every day? Why wasn’t she reminding me that it was seven A.M. and I was still unmarried? In my head, I cobbled together an explanation, which was impressive considering the whopping two hours of sleep.
“Mama, did you get a phone call this morning?” I asked, burrowing under the quilts. “A really early phone call?”
“Oh, yes, honey, from your Gabriel,” she chirped, as if she and the sexiest man not -quite-alive were exchanging recipes before dawn. And when did he become “my” Gabriel?
“He explained…well, I can’t remember what he said exactly, but I understood that you needed some time to yourself after you were so unfairly let go. I’m just happy that you found someone so charming to spend your time with.”
“Mmm-kay,” I murmured, deeply sorry that I’d cast aspersions on the ethics of mind wiping. I owed Gabriel a fruit basket and a membership in the Blood Type of the Month Club.
“Since you’re free today, why don’t you meet Jenny and me for lunch?” Mama asked.
“I don’t think I’ll be getting out much today, Mama.”
Mama gasped. “Why, honey, are you sick? Broke? Hurt?”
“Mama!” I shouted over the din of loving maternal intrusion. “Just come over, after dinner, and we’ll talk.”