Chapter Ten
Rosalie
My new job is simple enough: answer the phone if it rings—it never does—and keep the printer full of paper and the desk tidy. Most nights, I find myself with my nose in a book, wholly oblivious to the buzz of fans and fluorescents. It's not much different to what I would do at home, save for the occasional summon by a resident for an extra blanket or batteries for their television remote.
Marcella, my stranger, informed me of the job the last time we spoke. "Aspen Glades has an opening," she said. Not our usual topic of conversation. Actually, any conversation was unusual. Most nights, she lingered on the fire escape despite my insistence that she come inside. On the rare occasion that she accepted my invitation, we sat in silence save for the occasional scoff at whatever inane human nonsense I tried to tempt her with. Movies, mostly. Sometimes music if Henry was out, or a warm beverage if she looked especially stressed. Offering career advice wasn't something I was aware was in her repertoire.
"The old folks home?" I asked.
"Old." She snorted. "Easy work, fine pay. Shit hours, but you're awake anyway, aren't you?"
That was weeks ago. I don't have an explanation for her absence—she certainly hasn't offered one—and it gnaws at me. I miss her the way a child would miss an imaginary friend they outgrew.
But she's not imaginary. She proved as much after the confrontation with the other ghost, hauling me into the crowded restaurant and ordering two slices of I don't care, we just need the table, can you manage that?
The middle-aged man behind the register rolled his eyes. Probably not the strangest interaction he'd had that night. She paid, and two paper plates were handed to us. We settled into a booth in the corner. She pushed her plate towards me.
"Because I allowed him to," she said without preamble.
"What?"
"You're wondering why he can see me and your blonde friend couldn't."
I pressed the edge of the plate beneath the nail of my index finger. I could've pushed her, but she probably wouldn't have answered, and if I was being honest, I didn't want to fight with anyone else.
She smiled, but it read more like a grimace. "I don't have an explanation that would satisfy you, flower. Not yet, anyway."
"What about one that won't satisfy me?" I raised my eyes to look at her, but she was staring over my shoulder.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" she murmured.
Movement near the entrance steals my attention. A man, maybe a few years older than I am, paces towards the elevators with his head low, looking like he's in a rush. "Hey!" I call, setting my book face-down on the desk. I didn't hear the doors open. "You can't be in here. Visiting hours end at ten."
He pauses mid-step. I open my mouth to reprimand him again, but he turns slowly, a wrinkle between his brows. Black curls twine haphazardly around his face, scattered like he's been running his hands through him. His eyes, pale-gray and curious, flick towards mine and flare so slightly that I almost don't notice. "What are you doing here?" he asks.
I frown, tempted to throw the question back at him, but hold my temper. Customer service and all. "You have to come back in the…" My voice wavers as he begins walking towards me, "morning." The security guard—Jeremy, I think his name is—is making his rounds upstairs. I could call for him, could pick up the phone or even scream and he'll likely come running, but something in the man's expression makes me pause. The set of his shoulders, the curve of his mouth, the weight of his eyelids— a resident's grandson, maybe. "Who are you here for?"
He tilts his head back and exhales a laugh. "Indeed," he mutters, mostly to himself.
The non-answer is gasoline on my sparking frustration. "Is sneaking around and pestering the elderly your idea of fun?"
"Are you elderly?"
"Did I say you were pestering me?"
He raps his knuckles on the counter and glances over his shoulder, then back to me. “I would love to stay and chat, but I'm in a bit of a rush. We’ll talk again soon, though. I’m sure of it.”
He turns away, nearly jogging towards the elevator. I call out again, but he ignores me. Mumbling obscenities to myself, I pick up the phone and dial the number written on a post-it note stuck to the computer screen. Jeremy— his name is Jeremy, right?— answers on the third ring and assures me that he’ll find the intruder.
Thirty minutes later, Jeremy steps out of the elevator. “Not a soul awake except the two of us,” he says gruffly, then clears his throat. “I called someone in, though. Mr. Thompson— I think he’s— Well, you know how it goes around here.”
In the morning, I brief the receptionist, Josephine, on the otherwise uneventful night. "Poor Mr. Thompson," she sighs. "His daughter will be here soon to collect his things."
I don't look up from packing my bag. "Oh, a strange man came by, too. Jeremy said he didn't see anything upstairs, but the doors were locked, so I'm not sure how he would've left. Keep an eye out, alright?"
She settles at the desk and logs into the computer. "A strange man?"
I sling my bag over my shoulder. "Never mind. I'll see you on Monday." I start to leave, but she lays a hand on my arm to stop me.
"Did Mr. Thompson say anything? Before he passed?"
"I don't know."
"The residents used to talk about seeing a man before they passed. Most of them were so out of it that it was dismissed as a hallucination, but what are the odds that everyone sees the same figure before they go?" A shrug. "You're not superstitious, are you?"
I don't think that's the right word to describe my beliefs, but I can't think of another. "What did he look like?"
She turns her attention back to the monitor, clicking through emails and sighing. "No idea. It's been years since I've even thought about it. Just a ghost story." The glance that follows is one of dismissal, not concern. "Get some sleep."
The next few days pass in a blur of lazy afternoons and quiet evenings. On one of those evenings, while Henry is out with friends and I lounge on the creaking couch, trying to rest my eyes before work, my mind drifts back to that strange man. I should’ve been frightened, alone in the middle of the night with a stranger, but I wasn’t. It felt… I blow out a breath. It felt like I’d met him before, like seeing the same person walk past on the street so often that you begin to meet their eyes, begin to nod in greeting. As familiar as the route back home, something innate, burned into my memory so deeply that I wouldn’t be able to direct someone else, but I could find my way blindfolded.
Marcella might know more about it, but I have no way to call on her. Sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of her eyes on the fire escape or in a crowd or in a dream, but if she's lingering nearby, she hasn't reached out to me.
I can't delude myself into believing that Andrew might haunt me, too. He never appears, not even as a ghost, not even when I beg him to. Even thinking his name makes me feel like I'm being sawed in half, sliced into smaller and smaller pieces until I'm wedged between the couch cushions like debris only discovered when someone sticks their hand in and rummages around, dirtying their fingertips with what's left of me.
I'd crawl on my hands and knees through a garden of broken glass just to hear his voice one more time, to see the half-smile that infuriated me or to tug at the curls that flick up around his ears. I've lost track of the nights I've spent screaming at the sky until my throat was raw, pleading for him to come back, promising that I would do anything if he'd just—
I rub my eyes and stand. This line of thinking never leads anywhere good, and I'm running late.
Josephine leaves not long after I arrive, mumbling something about conflicting appointments and transportation issues and next week's dinner menu. As soon as her back is turned, I reach into my bag and pull out my book, settling in for the night. Andrew had a habit of resting his chin on my shoulder while I read, skimming the pages until he got bored and nudged my ear with his nose.
"You're ignoring me," he'd pout.
"If I am, I'm doing it poorly."
He'd press his cheek against mine. "You've already read this."
"So?"
"So you know how it ends."
From near the elevator, a voice asks, "What are you reading?"
A startled squeak slips out, and I press my hand over my heart to slow it, losing my page. He looks exactly the same as the first time I saw him down to the arrangement of his curls. His hands are shoved into his pockets with lazy grace, shoulders loose and low, but there's something boyish about his smile, something frantic. He stands like Andrew, so sure of himself that he's unsure, fidgeting slightly, watching every twitch of movement and planning his course around it.
"Sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to scare you."
Before I can stop myself, I blurt, "Are you a ghost, too?"
He inclines his head, the movement so familiar that my chest tightens to the point of collapse. I recognize that expression, the taunt masking a soft anxiety. "Too?" Before I can answer, his mouth pops open. "Oh. I didn't think she'd talk to you."
"You know Marcella?"
He strides towards me and leans against the desk. Cheek to shoulder, he turns to me and says, "Unfortunately, I do."
But he still hasn't answered my question, so I say nothing.
He sighs. "I'm not a ghost, and neither is she."
"So what are you?"
"That," he reaches for my book. I wrap my arms around it, holding it against my chest. He frowns, "is a very existential question. Servants of death, I suppose you could say. A tier below Charon."
My brows furrow. "Like the grim reaper?"
He flashes me a grin. "If you prefer."
"You're the grim reaper?"
"A grim reaper," he corrects. "There are many of us."
"How many?"
A laugh. "You want a number? More than a hundred. Less than a thousand. I don't know."
"You don't know."
"We don't exactly keep a roster."
If my stream of questions bothers him, he hides it better than Marcella did. "Where's your cloak?"
"I..." He pauses, a wrinkle forming in the center of his forehead.
"And aren't you supposed to have a scythe?"
He spins to rest his elbows on the desk, leaning towards me. "Am I not scary enough for you?"
"Are you trying to be scary?" He laughs, the sound like rain over a parched plant. "So should I call you Grim? Or Mr. Reaper?"
"Theodore," he says. There's a lightness in his eyes that wasn't there last time. It wasn't there five minutes ago.
"Theodore," I echo, rolling the syllables on my tongue. His answering grin leads with the left side, flashing a dimple. A thought occurs to me, souring the air between us. "Is someone dead?"
He straightens, blinking as the question registers. "No," he snaps. "Do you think I'd—" He exhales, "No." As quickly as it disappeared, the easy smile returns. "Twenty three steady heartbeats, not including your own." He tilts his head. "Ms. Miller has a murmur, though. Might want to get that checked out."
My pulse is anything but steady, but if he notices, he's kind enough not to mention it. "Then why are you here?"
"For you," he says like I asked if a snake has knees. In a dizzying exhale, I realize that I'm alone (Jeremy is probably upstairs, but how quickly could he make it to the lobby if I screamed?) with a strange man (a man that claims to be a supernatural entity, so double strange and half man). Reading my expression, or more likely the increase in my heartrate given the previously offered information, he shows me his palms. "Not like that." He flinches. "Or like that."
He's been forthcoming enough, so I wait.
"It must get lonely," he explains, gesturing to the room, the linoleum floors and plastic plants, "being here all night by yourself."
"I manage," I say, and it's true. I manage, badly.
This, apparently, is the wrong thing to say. His throat jerks as he swallows hard. "I'm only offering company." He lowers his hands but keeps his distance. "If you want me gone, I'll go."
"Company," I repeat, incredulous. He nods, casting a glance over his shoulder and then back at me. "The grim reaper wants to keep me company." Fitting.
"A grim— " He shakes his head. "Yes."
The sun's a few hours out, and this is the most I've spoken to another person since… Well. And he's been honest, or I think he has. I'm too familiar with the subtilties between a grimace and a grin to be fooled by his shrugs and languid words. I push away from the desk, finding my feet. The pot's been on the warmer in the break room since before Josephine left, but I doubt he'll be picky. "Does Charon drink coffee?"