Excerpt: Charlie's Ghost

“It was a shitty first date,” I tell Kaye, one hand holding my cell to my ear, the other clutching my purse and a bottle of wine. “I knew it would be.”

I bump the door shut with an expert hip maneuver, drop my keys in the basket and walk into the kitchen. I place the bottle in my wine rack and hang my purse on its usual chair.

“How did you know?” Kaye’s voice is tired but not uninterested.

“All my first dates are shitty.” I open the fridge and consider heating up some of last night’s chicken marsala. I close the door. I had, actually, eaten quite well tonight. No need to add calories just because I have nothing better to do.

“You don’t have first dates. Not counting tonight, you have had approximately zero first dates in the past four years.”

“Exactly my point. A hundred percent of my first dates have been shitty.”

I turn off the kitchen light and walk into the bedroom. I turn on those lights, take off my shoes, and place them in their slot on the back of my closet door.

“You really have to give people a chance,” Kaye says.

I take off my watch, two rings, necklace, earrings and place them in the bowl on my dresser. “I do give people a chance. What do you think I was doing tonight?”

I flop down onto my bed, reach over to grab the remote from the nightstand, and stick my hand right through my ex-boyfriend. He smiles, and blinks twice, as if surprised, then runs a hand through his dark, blonde hair, the way he always did when he was about to say something momentous.

I stare a moment, vaguely aware that Kaye is still talking, but more aware that Charlie’s eyes are bluer than I remembered: warm and alive, though—perhaps, ironically—he is wearing the same rumpled blue dress shirt he died in.

“You know,” I say, “I’m gonna have to call you back.” I flip the phone shut, drowning out Kaye’s protests, and stare.

Charlie stares right back, quietly, maybe more patient in death than he had been in life, or maybe just silent the way figments of the imagination should be.