“About how to help you move on?”
“Yes, and I was thinking that perhaps the reason I’m here has nothing to do with the manuscript,” he proposed. He turned to me and said, very adamantly, “Maybe I’m here to helpyou.”
I stared at him. Blinked. And then burst out laughing.
He looked indignant. “It’s not that funny.”
“It definitely is!” I howled, clutching my sides. Because ifthatwasn’t the plot of a rom-com, I didn’t know what was. “Oh my god—sorry. I just—that can’t be right. What would I need help with?”
“Love. Help you believe in it again.”
My laughter quickly died in my throat. It suddenly wasn’t funny anymore. It was personal. I pursed my lips. “You’re not the Ghost of Christmas Past, Ben.”
“But what if—”
“That’s not how this works,” I dismissed. “I’ve never heard of a ghost coming back to help someone alive. It’s always me helping you. Them. Whatever.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“I don’t need help with love. I’m perfectly content with my eyes wide open. It’s not me stuck being unalive, it’s you. So,Ineed to helpyou. Make sense?”
“Yeah,” he said, not looking at me, clearly thinking that I was wrong. “I guess.”
“Good. And I will get to the manuscript, I promise. I just—I need time.”
“Well, you have plenty of that now,” he replied wryly, and I winced a bit. He wasn’t wrong.
We passed the ice cream shop, where a kid and her father sat at the table by the window sharing an ice cream sundae. When I was little, and Carver and Alice were littler, Dad used to take me to the parlor and split with me a chocolate bowl with sprinkles on top.
I wished I could ask Dad about how to help Ben. He would’ve known. The only lead I had was the manuscript but... I didn’t know how to fix that. And if thatwaswhy Ben was sticking around, then I was afraid we were both shit out of luck.
And I was annoyed that Ben would even... that he would evenproposethat I... that he was here to—
Argh!
I tried love. It didn’t work. The end. There were bigger things in my life that I had to tackle than something so frivolous.
“Did you find what you were looking for at that bar?” he asked after a moment.
“Somehow, yes. Managed to book Elvis for the funeral.”
He gave a start. “Presley? Is he... aghost?” he asked in an almost whisper.
Oh, why was that charming? Why was that socharming?
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning, because I was still annoyed with him. “No”—I took out a poster from my back pocket and unfolded it to show him exactly which Elvis I was referring to—“but he’s the next best thing.”
He held a hand over his mouth to hide a laugh. “Animpersonator? For afuneral?”
“You didn’t know Dad,” I replied, pocketing the poster again.
“He sounds like a riot.”
I smiled at the thought of Dad going to watch Bruno perform before his Thursday night poker games—and then my smile faded as I remembered that he never would again. I folded my arms over my chest and said curtly, “Hewas.”
“Right—yes. Sorry.”
We walked the next three blocks in silence, passing the bookstore with a poster ofWhen the Dead Singby Lee Marlow, and I lingered only for a moment. Only long enough for Ben to glance back to see why I’d stopped, and then I made myself put one foot in front of the other, and ignore the poster, the release date. Only a few more months before the whole world read my story ruined by his words.