little girl was smiling, her hair in pigtails or braids, her dimples showing.
“This is you,” he said to Kate. “And this must be your dad.” She didn’t react. Julian looked at the pictures again. Her father was tall, with dark hair, a little bit of gray at the temples. He had brown eyes and a big smile, just the slightest hint of a smirk, like he knew an inside joke he just had to tell you. Over to the left was a picture of her father in a fireman’s dress uniform. Ladder 10.
“Is this how he died?” Julian asked, remembering her whispered prayer. She told God that her father was dead. “Did he die in a fire?”
Julian walked over to the couch, near where Kate lay on the floor, sniffling.
“My father used to beat the crap out of me,” he said. He stood over her, looking down, trying to fathom what was in her mind. He was hoping that being in Neither Here Nor There would gain him some sort of psychic power. Then he could figure out all her problems, go back to his body, and hopefully go home. To the living. But he found he had no idea what she was thinking. He had no special powers. “My dad was a prick. Nothing like your dad, I suppose. He looks like a good guy in the pictures. You’re lucky. I mean, he may be dead, but while he was here, he loved you. Right?” He was just guessing, filling in the blanks. But she had so many pictures of him. She missed him. He had no pictures of his father anywhere. So her dad must have loved her.
Julian sat down and leaned back on the velour rollback couch. He scanned the ceiling, hoping for a cue from someone celestial—a guardian angel or something. “Now what? Now what? What the hell does ‘discern what she needs to do’ mean? Christ, I miss my life. I even miss my obnoxious sidekick, Frank. I wonder how he’s doing. I wonder if my mother and father even bothered to come to the hospital.”
Kate rolled over and stood up. She had the remote for the CD player in her hand.
“Shit. Don’t play that song again, Kate. Put on something cool…something upbeat. Something that will make you smile just a little bit.”
Julian stood and followed Kate over to the stereo system and said, over and over again, “Something happy. Play something happy.”
He repeated it ten times, twenty, thirty.
“Play something happy. Play something happy.”
He kept at it, and then he watched in amazement as she stopped, her finger poised on the “Repeat” button for that hopelessly depressing Stevie Nicks’s song. Kate looked conflicted, and she bit her lip. Then she started running her fingers over her CD collection, her lips moving silently as she read the spines of her CDs, looking for something.
“That’s it,” Julian urged. “Pick something else. This is so cool. Like you can hear me.”
He was inches away from her face. He reached out his hand to touch her, but she didn’t flinch. He could feel her skin, could tell he was touching her, but it didn’t translate to his senses in the way things had before he got to Neither Here Nor There. Julian took his hand away and looked at his own fingertips. He didn’t feel warmth or coolness, but instead a vague numbness, like he had been shot with Novocain through his whole body.
He leaned still closer to Kate, close to her ear, and whispered again, “Choose something happy.”
He watched as her face crinkled into a smile. Her eyes grew shiny for a split second.
“Here it is,” she said aloud. She took a CD from the shelf, opened it, and pressed a few buttons until the CD player came to a stop on the ninth song.
A bass being plucked. A little jazzy sound.
“What the hell is this?” Julian asked. “Christ, girl, have you ever heard of the Sex Pistols, the Clas or the Who? What is this shit?”
Then a voice, unmistakable, began singing the tune, “Fly Me to the Moon.”
“Sinatra? Frank Sinatra?” Julian looked at Kate. “I asked for a happy tune, but Sinatra?”
He studied her face as she smiled and then hummed, and then even sang a line or two. She swayed.
“This makes you happy?” Julian asked her, knowing no response was forthcoming. He decided being her caseworker was like being a detective. He looked up toward the ceiling, assuming he was speaking to the Boss, wherever She was. “You know, it would be a lot easier if you would just let me talk to her. Let her have a vision or something. Let me ask her stuff.”
He received no reply. What did he expect, lightning bolts? A voice from on high? A chorus of angels?
Kate wandered over to the mantle, to the picture of the fireman in his dress blues. She ran her index finger along the top of the frame.
“That’s it,” Julian said. “Sinatra reminds you of your dad.” He was pleased with himself for figuring that out.
Kate stroked the picture. “Aw, Daddy,” she whispered. “I wish you were here.”
Then she moved over to the bookshelves and took down a photograph in a simple brass frame. Julian hurried to follow her, to try to see what this picture was.
But the photograph wasn’t of a human being. It wasn’t her father at all. Or the loser who’d cheated on her. Or even her missing dog. Julian looked over Kate’s shoulder. She was staring at a photograph of the New York skyline. Before September 11, when two towers rose high to the heavens soaring above the rest of the buildings.
“Is that how he died?” Julian asked her. “Is that how your dad died?”
Then he watched as Kate put the picture back. The smile disappeared, and soon she was crying all over again.
“Shit!” said Julian. “This is harder than it looks.”
Kate looked in the direction of a clock. “One a.m.” She sighed and walked over to her telephone. She punched in a number and said, “Hi, Helen. This is Kate Darby. I’m just leaving you a message that I won’t be in…today. It’s one in the morning. My apartment was broken into. I’m exhausted. I don’t have anything that can’t wait until Friday. I’m fine. I’m not fine, but don’t worry. I’ll see you Friday. Thanks.”
She hung up and then walked over to her couch. She turned off the lamp and the room fell into grayness, illuminated outside by streetlights. She lay down and curled into a fetal position. She sighed. Julian watched as her eyes grew heavy, and then shut, and her breathing fell into a rhythm of sleep. He sat down next to her. He shut his eyes. But then he realized—and he wasn’t sure how—but he realized he wouldn’t fall asleep. That he couldn’t. That he didn’t need to. Being a spirit was a 24/7 job. Spirits didn’t sleep.
“Damn! What the hell am I supposed to do?” He tried to visualize a beer. It didn’t materialize. He snapped his fingers and said, “Beer, please!” Nothing happened.
He stood up and walked around the apartment looking for more clues to her life. The sooner he solved her problems, the sooner he’d rack up some points in the Good column and hopefully get back to his life.
Her refrigerator was covered with pictures of herself and friends, including one chick with a punky haircut who was in most of them. He tried to open a drawer but found he couldn’t. He thought about it and guessed that if spirits could open and close things at will, the world
