One Ghost Per Serving Read online

  "Nina Post, author of paranormal comedy The Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse, returns to form, bringing another slice of her trademark humor, this time with added ghost. Hilarious and ridiculous, it's amazing how many obstacles Eric needs to crawl over to get his family back - being possessed really IS the least of his problems." - Verity Linden

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  For Jeremy

  And for Mom

  Chapter One

  “SHOT BOY!”

  Eric Snackerge could easily disregard the warm hand sliding up his chest, but ignoring the ghost who ruined his life was far more difficult.

  He set his tray on an unoccupied table and retied the vest that one of the women had yanked open. The two shreds of fabric barely covered his nipples, and connected across his chest with looped suede laces. Eric’s dark brown hair, cut short but bordering on floppy, dampened against milky skin and curled around a broad forehead, under his ear lobes, and into the down of his neck. From the front, his face resembled a traffic arrow, the square lines of his cheekbones jutting into the point of his square chin. Big eyes the color of a Pennsylvania quarry pool blazed with grim determination and a tinge of desperation under dark, gently curved eyebrows.

  “Get back here, sexy.” A bangled arm extended, hand clutching like one of those carnival claws closing on a stuffed animal, then beckoning like an invitation to a kung-fu fight, which was what his job often resembled. Eric retied the laces on his matching brown suede short-shorts, which exposed the top edges of his hip bones and approximately 97% of his legs. He suspected his manager deliberately used laces that couldn’t actually be tied, and wondered exactly how much work time was lost over the constant retying.

  He saw the ghost in his peripheral vision as he took the tray back to the bar and rolled his eyes.

  The ghost, who liked to go by “Rex,” would be average weight if he took on a substantive form. He was a few inches shorter than Eric’s six-foot-two height, and was wearing his usual long-sleeved, frayed-collar shirt over a t-shirt, jeans, and Chukka boots. His hair was longish and almost reached his shoulders. Only Eric had the dubious honor of seeing him, though even to Eric, Rex had the faded, oddly monochromatic look of an instant photo from the seventies that was left out in the sun.

  “Hey, what are you doing later?” Rex said.

  “Let me finish my shift,” Eric said through clenched jaws in a practiced whisper. The table of girls’ weekend “girls” whooped and hooted at his return.

  “What else can I get you, ladies?” Eric said with a coy smile, hating himself.

  “I’ll tell you what you can get me,” Cheetah Blouse – with cheetah purse and two pairs of sunglasses on the top of her head – said.

  “Where do I start?” Big Hair asked.

  “More of you,” Blonde Helmet said in a purr as she reached up for Eric’s brown plush deer antlers.

  “Round of kamikazes!” Sequin Tank said.

  “Keep ‘em comin’,” Tired Eyes said.

  Eric grabbed the tray and did a little spin by the table, which was met with much fanfare. If his dignity were a battery icon, it would be a sliver of red. He felt more and more disconnected from himself with every shift he worked at the overpriced hunting lodge-style restaurant called The Buckhead. Maybe he should get another grill cook job like he had at Sammy’s, but this one paid too well in tips to stop right now.

  Eric let out a long breath as he ducked into the tiny office by the kitchen and shut the door. He opened his laptop, logged in, maximized an open file, and wrote one more sentence in the family Christmas newsletter: Eric continues to work in the paralegal field and to row with the Bluefin Rowing Club. Lies.

  Rex phased through the door, leaned over, and squinted at the screen. “That’s sad in so many ways. And your family doesn’t deserve a newsletter.”

  “It goes to Willa’s family, too.” Eric heard the women shouting for him, but they could wait a few more minutes. He typed, Willa is the most popular HVAC instructor at Wallstown Technical College and is pursuing the title of Certified Master HVACR Educator, her field’s highest credential. True.

  “True enough,” Rex said. “Wish I could say the same for the previous entry.”

  “Why are you in here?” Eric said.

  From the dining area, Eric could hear “SHOT BOY!”

  Rex straightened and crossed his arms. “Why do you put up with this?”

  Eric flipped open his wallet and a waterfall of plastic-covered wallet photos cascaded down. “For them.”

  “Great. That would stop a bullet from embedding in your ass. What else is it good for?” Rex said. “You’re working so much that the people in those photos are going to turn into abstract concepts. But at least you’re not in roller skates, right?”

  Eric turned back to his laptop and in a standing position typed, Our Taffy is at the top of her seventh grade class and intends to be the world’s foremost expert in epidemiology and bicycle repair. True.

  “What the hell do you know about it, ghost?” Eric said. Rex hated it when Eric called him ‘ghost.’ He thought it was condescending and dismissive, which was why Eric used it. “Everything I do is for them, including wearing these antlers.”

  “WE WANT KAMIKAZES!” At the table-pounding, Eric closed his laptop. He walked past Rex and went behind the bar to pour another round of shots.

  The women huddled up at the table, leaning in close, eyes darting to the bar.

  “He is delicious. Those long legs that go on forever –”

  “Those long lashes –”

  “That tight ass –”

  They tittered and took furtive glances.

  “He’s married,” Blonde Helmet said with authority.

  “No!” A chorus.

  “Little blonde with all the height and charm of Napoleon,” Blonde Helmet added. “Teaches air conditioning or some such thing.”

  “He’s got a daughter, too,” Cheetah Blouse said. “Her mother’s daughter.” Her brow arched and she dropped her voice. “Meaning, a bad attitude. My son had a skirmish with her in the hobby store over their last jar of candy-red waterproof enamel paint, and he was lucky to escape without a broken bone –”

  They fell relatively quiet as Eric approached.

  “By your command, my ladies.” Eric set the shots down in a line. They were snatched away and put back empty in seconds.

  “Jell-O shots this time,” Sequin Tank said, her voice slurring. “And faster.”

  Eric saluted her with a sly smile and a wink. He took the tray back to the bar.

  “Oh, my heart,” she said with a sigh, and fell back in her seat. Big Teeth grabbed her arm and they laughed.

  Rex had taken a seat on one of the tall stools at the bar. Eric started to prepare the new round of shots. The front door opened with a bell jingle and a group of well-groomed men in suits waited to be seated.

  “Great. That’s exactly what I need right now,” Eric said, pained.

  Rex looked over his shoulder. “The suits?”

  “Lawyers at the firm where I used to work.”

  “Oh, that one?” Rex said, eyes widening.

  “Yeah. That one.”

  “It’s your lucky day.” Rex turned back around to the bar. “They’re coming over here. Feel free to projectile vomit.”

  The suits clustered around the bar and ordered drinks. One of them, the alpha of the group, raised his chin at Eric in greeting. The other suits took a few seconds longer to recognize Eric.

  “Look who it is, Mark,” Striped Tie said to the alpha. “Our paralegal.”

  “Former paralegal,” Chronograph Watch s
aid. “Been a while.”

  “This is what you’re doing now?” Striped Tie said to Eric.

  “JELL-O SHOTS! JELL-O SHOTS!”

  “Yoohoo, shot boy!”

  Eric’s smile didn’t reach his eyes and he felt every inch of his antlers. They did not feel good. “Yep.” He filled a shot glass. “This is what I’m doing now.”

  “Good for you,” Chronograph Watch said. “It looks really …” He shot a derisive glance at the girls’ weekend table. “Fulfilling.”

  Eric kept smiling, a tight half-smile that was more like a wince. He thought of a movie he had watched with Taffy about a dancer with red shoes who had to keep dancing. He was a waiter/bartender with a slutty outfit who had to keep serving.

  Rex stood behind Chronograph and probed his ear with a fingertip. Chronograph scrunched up his face. Rex did it again. The lawyer rubbed at his ear.

  Eric took the tray of shots from behind the bar and served the women. When he came back to the bar, Striped Tie stopped him with a hand. “What happened to you, man?” He gestured at Eric’s outfit: his laced vest, his shorts, his deer antlers.

  “Hey, be our waiter,” Thin Nose said.

  Mark Bollworm, the alpha of the suits, maneuvered the other lawyers toward the dining area of the overpriced hunting lodge restaurant. “He’s got a private party,” Mark said. One of the lawyers smacked Eric on the ass. “Awesome career change, buddy. Really strategic.”

  Mark cocked a finger at Eric. “Catch you later.” Eric nodded.

  When the lawyers were gone, Eric slumped to the floor behind the bar. His girls’ weekend table was busy regaling a complicated tale about how certain people knew one another.

  The ghost knelt down next to him. “Come to my meeting tonight.”

  Eric held his head in his hands. “What meeting?” His voice was muffled.

  “My recovery meeting at the junior/senior school,” Rex said. “It’s a support group for ghosts, spirits, apparitions, what-have-you, who want to get the courage to stop possessing. It would mean a lot to me if you were there. As my sponsor.”

  Eric opened a jar of maraschino cherries, stabbed two with a green plastic cocktail sword, and aggressively tore them off with his teeth.

  Rex tried again. “You, of all people, should want to support my recovery.”

  “SHOT BOY!”

  Eric screwed the top back on the cherries and sighed. “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have to help Taffy with her science fair project.”

  Rex laughed. “Taffy could go into space tomorrow without anyone’s help, least of all yours.”

  There was one thing in the world that Eric never, ever wanted to happen again, and that was getting possessed, so attending a meeting of creatures just like Rex would be the stupidest thing he could ever do. What better way to put himself in the position to get possessed? ‘Oh, we’re out of stale donuts, may as well possess that sad-sack human over there.’

  “The sun will burn out before I sit in a room full of spirits like you for an hour,” Eric said, jaw tight. “Besides, one of the cooks at Sammy’s went crazy and checked himself into a mental hospital in the Poconos. I’ve got to cover his shift.”

  “SHOT BOY!”

  Eric grabbed a bottle and stood up as though he’d been looking for it this whole time.

  “TEQUILA!”

  He held up a bottle of Patrón and the women at the table cheered. His tip was still safe, and now he could sell them top-shelf liquor.

  “If you’re so afraid of it happening again, why do you still talk to me?” Rex asked. Eric poured the liquor into the glasses, back straight, shoulders and elbows up. He wanted to be free of Rex. But if he were being honest with himself, he would acknowledge that maybe he also didn’t want to be free of Rex, and doubted it was even possible, anyway.

  Once his shift ended, Eric headed toward the back office. He passed the suits at their table and overheard them talking about what they were buying for their families. One was buying a bigger house, one an expensive refrigerator, one a vacation. Eric felt like a total failure. It could have been him, sitting at that table of douchebags, giving his family the kind of things he wanted to give them. But it wasn’t him at that table. No, he was the one wearing the short-shorts, who wasn’t doing anything for his family. With a sigh, he reached up and ripped off his antlers.

  “Want another round? It’s on Nidus!” Chronograph said.

  “Yeah, but we just lost the Kehoe account,” Red Hair said. “Nidus is 72% of our revenue now. We lose them, we’re screwed. Maybe we shouldn’t …”

  “Dude!” Striped Tie held up his drink. “I didn’t come here to pay for my own lunch. Besides, I just bought a sailboat.”

  Last Christmas, Eric had resorted to winning a goldfish and a panda bear at the carnival for Taffy, and going to the college’s fire sale of old equipment to find a gift for Willa.

  Eric ducked into the tiny employees’ closet again with relief. His shift was finally over. Shutting the door didn’t stop Rex from coming in. “Do you mind? I have to change,” Eric said. Rex shrugged, then phased out the door. Not for the first time, Eric wondered what it was like to be someone who didn’t have a symbiotic, co-dependent relationship with a ghost – and who could just buy a fancy new oven like it was nothing. He’d probably never find out. He quickly changed into his battered chinos and New Balance sneakers, then pulled on a Prevent Clostridium Perfringens Fun Run t-shirt. He and Taffy had gone into the city to run that. It was one of his favorite well-worn memories, and he liked to wear the shirt as a talisman, which obviously didn’t work.

  Rex reappeared. “My recovery meeting –”

  “Not this again.”

  Rex kept one arm across his chest, and gestured with the other. “My recovery meeting does not necessarily conflict with your shift at the diner. Besides, we’re flexible. I’m sure the others would be willing to change the schedule to accommodate you. Though, truth be told, we’re there most of the time.”

  “I don’t think you realize how creepy that sounds.” Eric took a yogurt from the mini-fridge, peeled off the top, and licked off the yogurt from the foil lid. He tossed the foil on the desk in front of Rex, who picked it up and turned it over. There was an indecipherable glyph on the top of the foil. Rex chuckled like it was a witty one-liner and set the foil lid back down. Then, Rex flicked the edge of a photo of Eric and his family – his wife, Willa, and his daughter, Taffy – on a camping trip, and held it up to Eric. Taffy resembled Harrison Ford in The Mosquito Coast, her expression not proud but intense and almost threatening. She held a large bass mid-wriggle on a spear like she was threatening any bass who might be thinking of messing with her. Willa was in a chair, doing something for work.

  “Your wife doesn’t look happy in this photo,” Rex pointed out.

  “She hates to be anywhere that doesn’t have air conditioning.”

  “Then why did you take them camping?”

  “Taffy wanted to try it,” Eric said.

  “I’d say that Taffy doesn’t look very happy either, but that’s how she always looks,” Rex said. “Usually without the fish.”

  “You can’t realistically expect my family to look cheerful all the time,” Eric said.

  There was a knock on the door. “Yeah?” Eric called out as he scraped the spoon around the inside of the yogurt container.

  “It’s Mark.”

  Eric opened the door.

  “We’re about to take off, get back to the office,” Mark said. “You want to bowl a few frames later?”

  “You bet,” Eric said.

  Mark shut the door behind him.

  Rex sneered. “I suppose you’re going to go to the bowling center with your tangible friend instead of my crucially important recovery meeting? Even though he also reminds you of something painful from your past? That sound fair to you?”

  Eric put on his backpack.

  “Do you want me to possess someone else?” Rex said. “It
could happen.”

  “That’s not funny.” Eric hooked his thumbs under the front straps.

  “Not trying to be funny. Look, I have a problem, I admit it. So don’t go to the group for me. Go for the next poor bastard with low self-esteem. Because I’ve got a type.”

  Eric wanted to punch Rex in the face, not for the first time. Rex tended to dematerialize when he saw a fist coming, and Eric didn’t want to fall through him. Without even looking at Rex, Eric left the small break room and locked the door behind him.

  “Oh, you’re ignoring me now?” Rex phased through the door and followed Eric. “That’s right, push me away, until you decide you need my support!”

  On the way out, one of the women gave Eric a wolf whistle and stuffed a piece of paper in his shorts. A phone number, he knew without looking.

  Eric wished he could trade in every phone number and whistle and ass pat for something he could give Taffy so she would like him again, even for a minute.

  Chapter Two

  Eric flicked up his bike’s kickstand with his foot, settled onto the seat, and inserted his earbuds with a fleeting thought to how Taffy would disapprove of him listening to music while riding his bike. He turned on his music player to the local radio station and listened to the male broadcaster’s steady drone of a voice, which he found soothing.

  “It’s two-thirty in Jamesville. Some announcements: the crowning of Miss Crayfish and the Crayfish Parade will take place next weekend. Stay tuned for an interview with the Parade Trustee of fruits and vegetables. The Elks Club fish fry is Friday at six p.m. and the Methodist Church pancake supper and book fair is Saturday starting at five p.m. Remember, deer season begins on Monday. Carol Kean saw a six point buck in her backyard.”

  Eric kept one leg on the white gravel that lined the restaurant parking lot. He paused the player, then opened another yogurt. He licked off the foil top and put it in his backpack. Then he took out his cell phone and dialed the number for a faculty member of the Department of Food Science at the nearby university.

  “Hello, this is Dr. Johnson. Can I help you?”