Jake had many things to say about all of this, and it was nice to see Gina laughing at his jokes (especially given how depressed she’d been lately over her stalled career).
But I had a hard time paying attention to the conversation. I still hadn’t heard back from Shahbaz or Father Dominic, and even though I’d showered as soon as I got to the Crossing, I could still smell the chlorine in my hair from the pool back at my apartment, and the scratches on my neck from Lucia’s attack stung (I’d hidden them beneath a high-collared sweater I’d brought along, so I could avoid having to answer any awkward questions).
Maybe that’s why, when Gina and I finally stumbled into Jesse’s bed together—it was king-sized, and I didn’t feel it was fair for either of us to have to sleep on the couch, especially with a homicidal baby ghost potentially on the prowl—I still couldn’t sleep, even though it was after three in the morning.
Then again, this is a problem I have most nights. No matter how soothing I try to make my sleep environment (based on advice from magazines and my therapist), I end up lying there staring at the back of my eyelids, trying not to think about my problems.
Since most of my problems are NCDP related, however, and NCDPs love showing up for nocturnal visitations—especially bedside—this was probably the root of my chronic insomnia.
But of course I couldn’t tell Dr. Jo, my shrink, that. Or about the discussion I’d had with her deceased husband in the faculty parking lot, next to her Mercedes sedan, after my very first appointment with her. No accredited counseling program is going to graduate a student who believes she can communicate with the dead. That doesn’t exactly look good in their alumni brochures.
Instead, I’d told her I couldn’t sleep due to stress—school-related stress. Dr. Jo was in her late sixties, silver-haired but still spry, a lot like Father Dominic. Unlike Father Dominic, she wore a lot of bright colors, including bright red lipstick, even though she’d recently been widowed. Her husband—the NCDP who liked to hang around the school faculty parking lot—told me this was because she wanted to look cheerful for her patients.
She’d written me a prescription for a sleep aid—thirty pills only, nonrefillable—warning me that the pills were strong, and a better way to manage insomnia was through exercise. Had I thought about taking a yoga class? The college offered several.
I’d filled the prescription, but never taken a single pill—nor did I sign up for yoga. I could barely sit still through an entire episode of The Bachelor (Gina’s favorite show). No way was I going to be able to downward dog away my problems.
For some reason on this night when sleep wouldn’t come, instead of patiently counting souls of the dead I’ve helped move on, like I normally do, I did something even more insane than yoga. Something that was guaranteed to be my next really bad mistake.
But of course I did it anyway.
The moon had come out and cast Jesse’s room—Spike, his yellow tomcat, watching over Romeo through the bars of his cage with elaborate disinterest; Gina, breathing deeply and contentedly beside me—in a blue glow. It seemed hard to believe that Egyptian curses, evil real estate developers, or demons existed.
But they did. I had the marks around my neck to prove it. And next time, my fiancé might not be around to save me, because my fiancé might be the one putting the marks there.
Maybe that thought was what made me lean over the side of the bed to snatch my cell phone off the stack of ancient poetry and medical textbooks Jesse used as a bedside table, then text Paul:
Fine. See you Friday at Mariner’s @ 8.
NOV 17 3:32 AM
No wonder I paid not the slightest bit of attention in statistics the next morning (required core, four units), spending the entire class looking for other mentions of the Curse of the Dead on the Web (there were plenty, but only in reference to movies with mummies in them), then was such a mess when I finally rolled into the mission.
What had I done?
My horror at myself is probably why it took me a few moments to notice the huge vase of white roses waiting for me on my desk. That, and the fact that the custodial staff had obviously been in to clean since I’d left the night before. The blinds had been screwed back into place—though as usual, they’d been pulled open to let in the sun that had burned off the morning marine layer—and Sister Ernestine must have had some student helpers come in to give a hand with the filing.
That’s how I finally noticed the roses. There had to be at least two dozen of them, along with some white lilies and a few other blooms so exotic I had no idea what they were, sitting in an enormous—and undoubtedly expensive—crystal vase on my desk.