Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
O ctober 15 th
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Haunting.
Haunting who?
Haunting you.
Maybe Paige shouldn’t have watched Ghostbusters as she got ready for the séance tonight. However, it seemed appropriate. Paige cleared off her coffee table and moved her furniture back as much as she could before placing the pillows on the floor around the table.
One hundred percent this wasn’t real. And she one hundred percent didn’t care. This was going to be fun and she was going to embrace this trope with everything she had.
“This looks nice. Perfect for a sexy ghost,” Leah said, walking in with four pints of ice cream. “I got everyone’s favorite for afterward. I didn’t know the ghost’s favorite though, so he’ll have to share.”
“I brought chocolate to offer the ghost,” Eli said, coming in a second behind Leah.
“I brought tea. After this, I’m going to need a strong cup,” Amelia told them, carrying in a box of her favorite tea.
“I brought news. Jack was able to get me into WET for Halloween,” Paige told them as they finished setting up.
“What are you going to wear?” Amelia asked.
“This is not the time to go as a pithy play on words. This is time to sex it up,” Leah said.
“I don’t know yet,” Paige admitted. She’d been thinking of ideas, but none of them had stuck.
“Don’t you dare go as a bookworm unless you’re nearly naked and have cute antennas on. Otherwise, no,” Eli lectured.
“What about Venus or her Greek counterpart, Aphrodite? They’re the goddesses of love and sex, right?” Amelia suggested.
“Oh, I love that idea,” Eli said, glancing over her. “Short white dress, gold thigh-high boots . . . Yes!”
“Okay, that actually does sound cute. I like it,” Paige told Amelia as the knock on the door sounded. It was time to meet her ghost.
Paige opened the door and Madam Jane didn’t disappoint. Sixtyish, her blonde hair was streaked with white and was pulled back with a scrunchie with little bells on it. It tinkled as she walked into the apartment. She wore at least six necklaces with various crystals on them and just as many rings.
“Hello, I’m Madam Jane.”
“Did you get that outfit from the Broadway used costume shop?” Eli asked.
“I did,” Jane told him after a pause where Paige could tell Jane was trying to decide if she would lie or not. “I find that if I came as I normally am, most people don’t believe my visions.”
“Really? What are you like, normally?” Paige asked.
“I’m a CPA and wear suits every day. However, I have a long maternal family history of being connected to the other side, so please believe that this will be an authentic reading.”
“Actually, I think I believe you more now.” Knowing Jane was a professional accountant somehow made Paige take her more seriously. “Are there any ghosts here now?”
“Honey, this is New York. There are ghosts everywhere. I can’t turn my head without seeing them. Now, have a seat and let’s talk.”
Paige and her friends all took seats on the various pillows around the table. Jane reached into her bag and pulled out a candle, placing it in the middle of the table and lighting it. “Why do you believe you have a ghost in your apartment?”
“I can’t get laid and I think I’ve been cursed by my apartment ghost or maybe he loves me and doesn’t want me to be with anyone else,” Paige said, reciting the plot to one of the books she’d read.
Jane looked at her in disbelief. “Well, that’s a new one. Let’s find out. Everyone hold hands and take slow deep breaths. I feed off of your energy and it helps me see the spirits more clearly.” Paige reached out and placed one hand in Jane’s and the other in Leah’s. “As you breathe in and out, envision the energy traveling from you and into your hand.”
Paige did so and her hand warmed. Amelia gasped, so she was sure she wasn’t the only one feeling this.
“Spirits of apartment 5A, step forward to be heard.”
Paige was expecting the table to shake or gusts of wind. None of that happened. Jane looked above the candle, her eyes slightly out of focus and nodded. “You do have a spirit, but it’s an eighty-four-year-old Polish woman named Zofia, or Sophie in English. She hasn’t put a curse on you and doesn’t have a crush on you. She also says you read too many dirty books and your life is going to hell in a handbasket. But if you could leave the one about the duke out for her, she’d appreciate it.”
“Yasss, ghost Zofia,” Eli chuckled. “I know that book and it’s a good one. Any book with a duke is going to be good.”
“Seriously? I’m being haunted by a Polish grandmother?” Paige didn’t believe it for one second. Maybe she’d secretly hoped for a funny, horny ghost story and was kinda bummed about the two hundred dollars spent on this.
“She said she’s exactly what you need and should listen to her more often. She knew the doctor was too smooth, but that copper is the bee’s knees. She wants you to call her Babcia Zofia , or Grandma Sophie if you’re not up on Polish. Also, would it kill you to make some babka bread or some pierogis for her to smell?” Jane’s eyes came back into focus as Paige and all her friends stared at her with shock. “Does any of that make sense?”
“Yeah,” Paige said, looking around the room. “It makes too much sense. How did you do that?”
Jane dropped her hand and gave her shoulders a couple of rolls. “I told you, being a spiritual medium runs in my family. Is there anything else?”
“Will my grandma ghost always be here? Like, does Zofia watch everything I do?”
“She just pops in and out when she’s bored.”
“How can we prevent them from popping in and out? I don’t want a ghost watching me,” Amelia looked on the verge of freaking out.
“Just talk to them,” Jane said before blowing out her candle. “People always say to burn sage and such, which you can, but it’s a little rude. They can hear you. Introduce yourself, tell them when you’re cool with them hanging out and when you need privacy.”
“That sounds . . . reasonable,” Amelia admitted.
“Unless you have an asshole ghost. Then you have to sage, salt, and crystal your place. However, I didn’t feel any kind of that presence around you all. Like tends to find like, even on a spiritual plane. You enter a house or apartment when you’re looking around and it vibes with you. That’s you and your ghost vibing.”
“You expect me to believe I bought this place because I vibe with an eighty-year-old Polish grandma?” Paige asked, completely insulted. She looked to her friends for support, but they wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Eli cleared his throat. “Babe, you like to stay at home, eat, read, and you’re not having sex. Your ghost likes to stay home, cook, and read about dukes while, I’m assuming, also not having sex. I’m not saying you’re the same. I’m just saying you mentioned learning how to knit a couple of weeks ago.”
“Oh my gosh! I’m a grandma ghost.” Paige fell back to rest her head on her couch.
“Don’t worry, honey,” Jane told her. “Your ghost had seven children. You don’t get that without sex. You’ll get yours. Call if you need another reading.”
Paige showed Jane out and then turned to her friends. “That wasn’t how I was expecting tonight to go.”
“I’m relieved,” Amelia said as she began to make the tea. “I can’t wait to get home and introduce myself to my ghost.”
Eli pulled out the chocolate. “Sorry, Grandma Sophie. I’ll bring babka next time.”
“Well, I have an announcement,” Leah said, handing everyone their pints of ice cream. “Noah and I are official.”
“Yeah, we know.” Paige didn’t know where Leah was going with this. She and Noah have been dating for months.
“No, like official, official. As in he’s my boyfriend and I’m his girlfriend, and we said the L word to each other.”
Everyone went quiet and then they screamed and tackled Leah.
“You took most of the year to even admit you two were dating and then Boom! You flew right to I love you! I’m so happy for you,” Paige told her as they all hugged her.
“You all were right. Noah is perfect for me. He doesn’t try to pull me back. He lets me be me, freak-outs and all. He shows up. Every time I need him, he shows up. I’ve never had that before.” Leah looked so happy that she was glowing.
“What about the whole Red Door thing?” Amelia asked. “Doesn’t that bother you that he goes without you and, well, you’re not exactly submissive.”
Leah blushed up to her hairline and Eli zeroed in on it. “You better tell us whatever it is that made you blush like that.”
“His membership is up at the end of the year and he’s not renewing. And, well, maybe I might have been pushing him the other day and he pulled me over his knee, spanked me, and called me a brat, but a brat he loves. He told me to stop fighting and just admit my feelings for him. On the third spank I was spilling everything—how I felt for him, my fears, my worries, what I loved and didn’t love, then begged him to finish what he started.” Leah smirked as if remembering the night. “Let’s just say he doesn’t need to go to the club anymore.”
Amelia turned red. Eli fanned his face with his hand. Paige just stared. “You let him spank you?” Paige finally asked.
“And I will let him do it again and again and again. I was being a brat. I was scared to be honest with him about everything. He finally found a way to get me to say everything I felt. And well, let’s just say I’m not staying here long tonight because I have a naked boyfriend in my bed who loves me, waiting for me. I’ve never been happier.”
Paige felt tears start to well up in her eyes. “I am so happy seeing my best friends so much in love.”
“You’re next. Grandma Sophie says so, right?” Eli called out.
Paige laughed along with her friends. She hoped she was next. She didn’t necessarily want to look too deeply at it, but Max had been right. She was meeting people and having these experiences, most of them were wonderful experiences. But she wanted what her friends had. Love. Maybe it wasn’t her time and she just needed to settle for lust. What she did know was she was ready to grab the books by the spine and live adventurously, no matter where that took her.