She threw her hands up to keep him from going any farther. “Stop!”
Clyde froze in place like they were playing a game of freeze tag. One foot, mere inches from the floor, stopped midair. His eyes and nothing more moved from side to side, attempting to scan the room. “Where is he?”
She approached Clyde with care. “Right on the couch. Look down.”
Clyde averted his eyes, staring straight ahead. “Uh, no. No headless guys for me, thanks.”
“Just hold still. Not a muscle,” she warned with a finger.
“Call me statue.”
“Your mouth is a muscle.”
“Actually, it’s your tongue that’s the muscle and it has—”
“Clyde!” she admonished low. “You’re gonna be in the market for a new one after I yank it from your head if you don’t can it. Be quiet!”
He clamped his delicious lips, lips that moments ago she’d accosted, shut. But then he lost his balance and his foot, almost to the floor, dropped like a rock.
Again, the entity crackled like snow on a television set. Shit, shit, shit.
Clyde instantly froze again, the glance he sent Delaney’s way was one of apology, but the spirit kept fluttering.
Out of the blue, an idea came to her. “Clyde, move your head.”
“My head . . .”
“Just do it.”
“Which way?”
Her eyes darted from Clyde to the ghost. “To the left.”
“Like this?”
The silvery transparency of the doctor began to fill in like a small child with crayons had begun to color in his outline. “Just a little more to the left. Like an inch. Oh! And hold your right arm up, too. Do it until I say stop.”
Clyde did as she asked, tilting his head to the left and raising his right arm in an arc to just above his head.
Better. The doctor was coming in much better. “Stop. Now lift your left leg, bend it at the knee.”
“A contortionist I’m not.”
Her look was pleading. “Help a sistah out, okay?”
Clyde mumbled under his breath, but obligingly moved his leg up.
“Stop!” she whisper-yelled. “That’s perfect.” A sidelong glance at Clyde’s awkward position almost made her burst out laughing. “Very Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
“Released in the year 2000—directed by Ang Lee—”
“Clyyyyde,” she warned.
He scowled at her. “Hurry up. My arm hurts and my nose suddenly itches.”
Delaney knelt back down and watched soundless lips move in the repeated pattern over and over. Fuck, if she could just hear him . . . “Oh, wait! There’s an o in the word. Yeah, an o . . .” She paused, wracking her brain. “Wait, maybe it’s not an o. Maybe it’s au ... uma! I think he’s saying uma . . .” But that made no frickin’ sense. “I know it makes no sense, but that’s what it looks like.” She watched his lips once more, squinting to get a different perspective. “Uma? What the hell is an uma?” She directed her question to the dead guy. The corpse rolled his eyes upward with decided impatience.
“Thurman? Uma Thurman?” Clyde blurted out. “Born April 29, 1970, in—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Clyde—” The entity stopped her midsen tence, shaking his detached head left then right on his lap. “See? He says that’s not right,” Delaney said over her shoulder.
The tension in Clyde’s voice mounted. “Well, there is no such word as uma, Delaney, and could you hurry up? The Mr. Miyagi in me is about to crumble, Grasshopper.”
“Omigod—The Karate Kid! I was ten, so, like, 1984 or so. Just starting to like boys. Ohhhh, I had such a crush on Ralph Mac chio.” She smiled fondly at the memory. “Remember wax on, wax off?” Delaney flipped her hands up and made swirling movements in the air. “Take that, trivia man.”
“Delaney,” Clyde said through teeth that were clamped, “now isn’t the time to best me in movie trivia. I’m sweating bullets here, and my muscles are this close to spasm and becoming so bunched, I’ll permanently be three inches shorter. Hurry up.”
Delaney clucked her tongue at him. “If you’d taken yoga and found your happy place, you’d be there right now and your muscles would be all yippy-skippy.”
“Delaney . . .”
Okay, he was growling, and sweating, if the glisten on his forehead wasn’t the lights in her living room playing tricks.
Her attention returned fully to the spirit, but she continued to remain as baffled as she’d been when he’d first moved his mouth. His insistence that she was wrong was compounded by the continual shake he gave his poor head in the very distinct manner of the word no. Desperation became helplessness. “Dude,” she muttered to him, “I don’t get it. Let’s try something different. Are you a doctor?”
His fingers, nestled just above his head’s ears, tilted it forward.
“Yes!” she shouted triumphantly. “Okay. A doctor. What kind of doctor? Pediatrician? General practitioner? Chiropractor? Ooooh, what about brain surgeon?”