This is late. And it’s not perfect. But it’s a solid ending for Jack and the girl in the midnight blue velvet dress and the tawny hair.

“I held up my end of the deal – I left you alone for the rest of the party. Your turn, Jack.”

I ignored her.

Okay, that’s not quite true. I wasn’t ignoring her, but I was in line at Starbucks so I just looked – to her – like I was ignoring her. I put in my AirPods, took out my phone, and tapped the screen like I was accepting a call. “Oh, hey, what’s up?”

“The hell? You’re faking a phone call?”

“No, no, I’m not ignoring you. And I have every intention in holding up my end of the bargain,” I said into the air. The guy in front of me cast a suspicious glance behind him at the guy talking to himself, spotted my AirPods and nodded in understanding.

Rule # 3: Bluetooth Headsets Make You Look Like an Asshole Which Is Better Than Crazy

“Oh!” said Tawny Hair Velvet Dress Stunning Lips. “So?”

“So,” I said, waving my phone around like the obnoxious jerk everyone clocked me as, “I’m in line at Starbucks right now…” Keeping up appearances here it key because as I was waving my phone around I spotted Carhartt Guy at an empty table and Bathrobe With Curlers wandering around behind the counter. Sure, there’s a dead girl talking to me, but I’m not acknowledging her and [Rule #1] I’m not making eye contact. So as far as they know I’m legitimately talking on the phone and Tawny Hair Velvet Dress Stunning Lips (I should shorten her name…) is just another ghost who is trying to draw the attention of one of the living (me) who can’t see she’s right there.

“Yeah, and?” she smiled. “Oh, hey, grab me a pumpkin spice latte!”

“You’re a pumpkin spice latte girl?” I asked, surprised.

“No, I’m a roast-my-own-goddamn-beans, grind-them-myself, use a fucking Aeropress woman. But since I’ve been dead I’ve realized there were some stupid things I never did during life because I thought I’d try them sometime. Like visiting Alcatraz. Or…”

“Or see whether a PSL is really all that.”

“Precisely.”

“Spoiler alert: it’s not.”

“Yeah, I’m dead. I guarantee it sounds pretty fucking good.”

“You kiss your mother with that mouth,” I chastised.

“You mean the one who still cries herself to sleep because she believes her older daughter took her own life? That mother?”

“Touché’,” I replied. “Hang on a sec,” I said unnecessarily as came to the front of the line and ordered. “Hey, I’ve got an embarrassing question for you…” I said as I pushed through the door.

“Shoot.”

“I totally don’t remember your name.”

“Oh, so you’re calling a girl that you don’t remember her name? Wow, Jack, that’s the kind of guy you are?”

I rolled my eyes as I climbed into my Outback, stowed the AirPods in their case and started the car.

“For the record, no, I’m not that kind of guy.”

“You sure?” she smiled mischievously.

“What do I call you?”

“Cat. Catherine. ‘Dead Girl’.”

“Cat’s good. So, let’s cut to the brass tacks, Cat. Pixie Lip Ring said you killed yourself.”

“Pixie Lip Ring? Ginny? My sister?”

“One mystery solved.”

“’Pixie Lip Ring’? Jesus! Objectify much?”

“Cat, were you the kind of person who knew the names of everyone you came in contact with?”

“Eh, not really, but…”

“Okay, now multiply everyone you came in contact with by a factor of all the ghosts. If I know your name, I know your name. If I don’t… descriptions help.”

“What was my name?”

I smiled to myself thinking about “Tawny Hair Velvet Dress Stunning Lips” but I said, “Dead girl.”

“Oh Jack,” she fell back in the passenger seat and put the back of her hand  to her head, “You flatter me so!”

Internally, I swooned. This girl!

“So, Ginny said you killed yourself and you’re haunting her.”

“Yeah. She bought the story that I killed myself.”

“Okay, I’ll bite: why would they think you killed yourself?”

She scowled and deflated, “Because the sometimes-deeply-depressive girl who hates the holidays took a swan dive off of a Hotel Kabuki balcony after a company holiday party.”

“Everyone hates the holidays. And sometimes-deeply-depressive doesn’t seem reason enough to write it off as a voluntary long walk off a short balcony.”

She shrugged her bare shoulders. “Add in an eating disorder in my teens and…”

“And?”

“And a half-hearted suicide attempt after a bad breakup four years ago…” she turned to stare out the window.

I nodded but didn’t say anything as I started the car and backed out of the parking lot. “Where am I going?”

She turned back and wiped away tears and let out sad little laugh. “I guess that’s a benefit of being dead – my makeup doesn’t run.”

I laughed with her.

“Karmen!”

“No, I’m Jack. You’re Cat. Your sister is Ginny – this is all covered territory….”

“Asshole,” she punched my arm, but her hand went through me. “No, Karmen is my friend and co-worker. We went to the party together. She’s the reason I got pitched off the deck.

“Pitched off the… you’re going to need to tell me the whole story.”

She rolled her eyes, thought for a moment and said “Pull over.”

“What?”

“Pull over, I have an idea.”

I found an office park parking lot deserted on this Sunday morning, stopped caddywhompus across a row of empty spaces, and killed the engine. “Okay, I’m all ears.”

“Do you trust me?”

Rule # 6: Don’t Trust a Ghost – It Can Come Back To Haunt You

“Uh… sure.”

“Okay, let’s do a possession!” she said with a little too much enthusiasm.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No, no – okay, we’re not talking all ‘Exorcist’… Look, I can get in there,” she pointed her finger at my forehead, “and show you what happened.”

“Uh…”

“Alright, you know, don’t think of ‘possession’ as much as ‘mind meld’. That’s better, right?”

“Semantics, my dear.”

“Trust me?”

“Should I?”

“Absolutely,” she arched an eyebrow and smiled at me. Something inside me melted.

I swallowed hard. “Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, “Relax your body and open your mind…”

“If you tell me to visualize my own inner peace I’m going to find a way to smack you.”

“Come on, Jack. Relax.”

I did. Well, I tried. I lay back in the driver’s seat and focused on my breathing like I was taught in some guided meditation video I tried with a girlfriend way back when.

“That’s good. Okay, Jack, I’m going to come in, alright? This might feel a little weird…”

The bottom dropped out of my brain and her consciousness blew into my head like a firehose. I felt overwhelmed, like I was drowning in thoughts and memories that weren’t mine. I thought I might black out, honestly.

“Whoa, sorry Jack! That was too much!” her voice came from inside my head. “Let me back this off and make a little sense out of all this…”

The tide of memories ebbed and I felt myself on solid mental footing for a moment.

And then I was Catherine having Chinese food with a LatinX girl.

“Are you going to the holiday party?” she asked.

“Are you kidding?” I said.

“Come on, you have to!”

“Carmen, you know me. Do I look like a holiday party participant? Have I, in fact, gone to any of the previous holiday parties, company picnics, etc during my time here?”

“So… start now!”

I rolled my eyes. “Nah, leave me in the server room, thank-you-very-much.”

“Come on, Cat!” she ate for a moment. “Okay, look, I’ve got it! Let’s get hella dolled up!”

“Uh… why?”

“Because no one would expect it!”

“That’s a reason?”

“Seriously! I’m all TJ Maxx special and you’re all oversized button downs… let’s do this!” She must have sensed my apprehension because she launched in again. “Let’s get fancy dresses! I can do your makeup… let’s do this!

The world blurred and then Carmen and I were at Nordstrom Rack in Corte Madera and I had an armful of dresses to try on.

“Try them on!” Carmen pleaded and we started towards the dressing room. Everything froze.

“Wait,” Cat’s voice echoed in my head. “I always wanted to try this…” Suddenly, Yello’s “Oh Yeah” started playing through my brain and the memories came as an honest-to-god 80’s dressing montage.

I came out of the dressing room in a long brown halter dress. Carmen shook her head and I went back.

“Oooohhh Yeeeaahhh” the song played as I came out canary yellow dress embroidered with flowers. Carmen dismissed me with a wave.

“Soooooo Beautiful….” As I emerged in a black sequined tight-fitting sheath dress. Carmen’s eyes bugged out. I pantomimed not being able to breathe and then tottered back.

“OH Yeah!” and I came out in a chocolate sweater dress that barely came down mid-thigh. I raised an eyebrow at Carmen who fake fanning herself.

“Chick-chick-chikaah!” I stepped out in the long blue velvet backless dress I died in. Carmen gave me two thumbs up!”

Everything stopped again. “That was awesome!” Cat said in my head through laughter. “Way more fun than the actual dressing! We really should have montages when we’re alive to appreciate them…

 “Okay, hang on…” she said.

Carmen and I were checking in to the Kabuki in San Francisco. Then we were in the hotel room we decided to share. Then I had a towel over my dress and held statue still as she swore I was going to love the killer smoky eyes she was doing. Then we were walking down the hallway to the Imperial Ballroom. Everyone inside was dressed to the nines, but they couldn’t stop complimenting me. Janice couldn’t believe I could actually walk in heels. “I’m a wealth of hidden skills!” I told her as I saw Carmen flirting with our sales manager, Steve. I did tequila shots with my IT bros, David and Ben. Carmen was practically throwing herself at Steve.

“Girl, slow down!” I told her. “How much have you drank?”

“I’m good, I’m good,” she said. “I just saw you doing shots, so, you know…”

“A shot. “

Alice, Carmen’s boss in marketing, pulled me away and started asking whether I wasn’t interested in doing graphic design for her and she’s seen my work and over her shoulder I saw Steve bringing Carmen a drink, stop, set the drinks down, back to me, then towards Carmen.  Alice introduced me to her owl-faced husband who insisted on telling me about the ransomware that brought his company to a halt and how should he avoid that.

“Cat,” David caught my arm and literally pulled me away from Owl-Face. “Carmen just left with Steve…”

“Shit,” I said.

“No, she didn’t look good.”

“And you didn’t stop them?”

“I…”

“Where did they go?”

“He’s in 304, across the hall from me.”

Elevator opened on the third floor. Knocking at 304, “Room service,” I called.

The door opened to an already partially disrobed Steve muttering, “I didn’t order room servi–“ before I punched him in the throat. He dropped to his knees and I ran inside past him. Carmen was only partially conscious and he’d already hiked her dress up around her waist. Arm around me, leaning heavily I mostly carried her to the door. Gave Steve a kick on the way out.

Back in the room, I set Carmen on her bed. Opened the balcony door to get some cold air in to clear her head. Pulled the plastic covering off a glass in the bathroom when I heard the electronic lock click unlocked.

Steve and his fury. I tried to throw the water glass at him, but he batted it away and hoarsely yelled, “You bitch!” Flash of pain as he wrenched my arm. Gouged his eye with a finger. Roar of pain and anger. The room spun. I felt punches, slaps, then free fall.

Falling. I was falling. It lasted forever. Or seemed to.

I opened my eyes with a gasp and stared at the sunny deserted parking lot panting to catch my breath.

“Holy shit,” was all I could manage.

“Yeah,” Cat said and wiped tears away again. “That was hard to relive.”

“I bet!” I said nodding quickly.

“Carmen,” she said.

“Yeah,” I nodded quickly still, “Carmen.” Turned over the ignition and drove to Cotati to find Carmen.

…

“I… I don’t remember anything,” she said. “I… I can’t talk.” Carmen said when she opened the door. “I’m sorry. Tell Cat’s sister I’m sorry,” she started to close the door.

I stuck my foot in the door.

“Carmen, no. Cat’s here. She’s right behind me. She needs you to remember what happened.”

“Please leave,” Carmen said as her eyes welled up. “Please.”

“Goddamnit, Carmen,” I surprised myself with my raised voice. I realized it came from having experienced what happened to Cat. “You have to help. You don’t have a choice. You’re part of this!”

Carmen started sobbing.

“Whoa, Jack,” Cat said behind me, “It wouldn’t kill you to be a little nicer!”

Rule # 9: It Wouldn’t Kill You To Be Nice

“Jack, tell her I should have gone with that yellow dress. It would have been easier to fight in.”

“Carmen, Cat says she should canary yellow dress because it would have let her fight better.

“’Canary yellow’, Jack? You were paying attention!”

Carmen’s eyes grew wide. “Cat?” she looked over my shoulder. “Are you really there?”

Cat sniffled, “Yeah, girl, I’m here!”

“She’s here. Right behind me.”

“I’m sorry, Cat! I don’t know what happened!”

“I know, Carm, I know. It’s not your fault,” tears rolled down Cat’s cheeks.

“She doesn’t blame you.”

Carmen wiped her eyes, then opened the door slowly. Cat and I walked in.

She didn’t remember anything, but it felt more like she repressed what she did. Cat offered salient details that slowly started to part the clouds of Carmen’s memory. After hours or gentle push-pull of remembering, Carmen was a sobbing mess as she recounted the foggy memory of Steve fighting Cat in the hotel. Then, crucially, she stopped crying and said, “I remember him throwing you over the balcony! I remember! Oh my god!”

Police were called. Carmen provided a deposition, and the police were already investigating another suspected date rape involving Steve.

This was the part that I extricated myself from their story.

It’s also the part when I started writing down these rules. “To self-preservation,” I raised a glass to Jake at Applebee’s a week later.

“How about to beer? That’s enough for me,” Jake returned.

I noticed that jerk ghost, Larry, across the bar. He winked at me. Asshole. Then I felt arms around me. Turning around I spotted the turquoise hew of Pixie Lip Ring.

“Hey, Ginny!” I said.

“Thank you,” she said, still hugging me.

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Cat came to me in a dream last night. She was in this dark blue dress…”

“I’m familiar with it,” I smiled sadly.

“She told me what you did. And then… then she left. Went to the light. She was in peace. My mom stopped crying. Thank you!”

Ginny had a beer with Jake and me, and told me stories of them growing up. Then she left. Jake had to go shortly thereafter and I sat alone at the bar.

“Another?” the waitress asked.

“One more,” I nodded. “Thanks Julie.”

I drank alone and thought about midnight blue velvet and tawny hair. I smiled. It was a sad smile, but I was glad Cat had moved on.

Rule #10: Don’t Get Attached

Another sunny Sunday I parked my Subaru in the parking lot of Santa Rosa Memorial Park. Then I found myself in front of the grave of Catherine Elaine Fonseca. I brought flowers to add to the copious flowers already there.

“Thanks, Cat,” I said aloud. “Sometimes rules are worth breaking.”

“You’re welcome,” I heard behind me. Spinning I saw loose shoulder length tawny hair and overalls over striped tights and beat up Doc Martens. Her smile shone such that I thought I was seeing The Light myself.

“You look comfy.”

“I feel comfy.”

“I figured you crossed over.”

“I did. But I can come back and visit. And I had some unfinished business…”

“Oh shit, something else?”

She rolled her eyes, “Yeah, asshole, I had to say thanks to this jerkface!”

“Jerkface, huh?”

“He can be kinda sweet, though… Thanks,” she said.

“It was worth it.”

“Jack?” I realized I was staring. “Jack?”

“Sorry, what?”

Rule #8: Never Go To Cemeteries

I suddenly realized dozens of ghosts saw me talking with Cat and were all making a beeline towards me.

“Run,” she said.

I had every intention of finishing “Rules For When You Can See The Dead” tonight. I was really excited to write it. But then I went with Fern and her mom to the Do Tell Story Swap meeting. Fern even somehow talked me into telling a story (it was a variation on the first 31 Ghosts story with the cats and my dad’s ghost). But that wasn’t over until 9 and I knew I wasn’t going to have the time I wanted to finish it. So, I give you this in the meantime. Remember how Jack asked “Who the hell would haunt a frickin’ Applebee’s?” Well, this guy, that’s who…

“Holy shit, Dickie,” I said slapping Dickie on the shoulder. “That jamoke over there with the pretty girl can see us!”

“It’s Richard, Larry, for the millionth time,” Dickie rolled his eyes. “Why do you say that? He looks a little tipsy and like he’s striking out, but able to see ghosts…? I don’t know.”

“Nah, I can tell, Dickie. I can tell…” I stared daggers at him across the bar trying to catch his eye. But he never looked back. He just sat there and laughed that that girl being all alive and rubbing it in our dead faces. “Dickie, Dickie, he’s getting up!”

“Heading for the bathroom looks like.”

“I’m following him,” I said hurrying off the bar stool and inadvertently walking through that cute waitress, Julie. Total accident!

I walked through the door into the men’s room and there he was at the urinal. “Hey! Buddy! I know you can hear me.” He didn’t even flinch. “Yo, jamoke! Come on, quit yanking my chain. I know you can see me. I know you can hear me.” Nothing. This called for drastic action. I stood right next to him real close. Like real close. And I looked over his shoulder at his junk. “Huh,” I said. “I’ve seen better. She’s better off throwing this undersize fish back.”

“Alright, back off, asshole,” he bellowed, swatting an arm that went right through me. Oh, man, I staggered backwards laughing my ass off!

“I knew it!” I wheezed through laughter. “I knew you could see me.”

“I can see you, jerkface! I guess privacy is dead!”

“Yeah, I’m dead too. And I need your help.”

“Oh, you do? I’m shocked. I’m totally bowled over! You know, you’re the first ghost to tell me they’ve got some unfinished business among the living and they need my help!” He was really working himself into a full head of steam. “So, hey, since you’re breaking fresh paranormal ground here, please, enlighten me about how I might be so lucky to help you.”

“Jesus, buddy, you don’t have to be a jerk about it…” I told him.

“Me? Me?! I’m the jerk! You insult me mid-stream and I’m the jerk? You know what? Forget it,” he started for the door. “Happy frickin’ haunting.”

“Wait!” I called. “Stop, please.” He hesitated before opening the door. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was kinda rude. But, man, you don’t know how rare it is someone like you comes along in a place like this.”

“In Applebee’s? I’m sure it’s more often than you think,” he said. Then added under his breath, “They’re probably just better than I am at hiding it…”

“Nah, that’s not true. I mean, you hid it well. My buddy Dickie owes me ten bucks because he didn’t believe you could see us. Well, he doesn’t know he owes me, but he does. No, it’s not you. It’s me. I’ve got a feeling for these things. I guess you could say I have a sixth sense about it,” I smiled and waggled my eyebrows.

“Really, you’re going there?”

“Look, you gotta help me…”

He let out a deep sigh and said, “Fine. How did you die?”

“I died right here. Well,” I looked around at the bathroom, “Okay, not right here. But at Applebee’s. I was arguing with the night manager – his name was Eliot at the time. He’s long gone.”

“Like,” he dragged a finger across his neck, “Gone?”

“What? No. No, he’s probably still alive. I meant he left Applebee’s. Maye transferred, got another job – look, doesn’t matter. Anyway, Eliot wouldn’t take my coupons and I was pissed, you know? Me, my wife, my boys, that shit adds up! I had four coupons and Eliot wouldn’t take ‘em. Kept talking about fine print and you couldn’t stack the coupons or some bullshit like that. I was pissed, you know? Got all up in his face. He had no right to charge me full price. None. And I wasn’t gonna back down but…”

“Heart attack?”

“Major coronary, yeah.” I held my hand vertical, gave a raspberry and tipped my hand horizontal. “Died immediately, right there. Can you imagine?”

“Well, you’re painting a pretty good picture.”

“And you know the worst part? The part that still really gets me?”

“Your kids were there to see it?”

“No, my wife paid full goddamn price! She even left a fucking tip! The nerve! The least they could have done was comp the damn meal! No, she adds insult to injury and drops twenty percent on top of the full bill before my corpse is even cold! Can you believe that?”

He looked at me for a long time without saying anything. Finally, he said, “No, I can’t. I really can’t.”

No shit he couldn’t!

“So, uh, why are you still here? If Eliot’s gone you can’t possibly fix that bill… What’s keeping the light from showing up for you?”

“The light? Oh, that’s there right outside the entrance. It’s like goddamn noon whether it’s day or night. Annoying as hell!”

“So, wait, you don’t need me to help you cross over?”

“Huh? No. Hell no. I ain’t going nowhere. I’m gonna haunt this place until they go belly up for overcharging hard working stiffs like me.”

He let out a laugh for some reason.

“It’s the principal of the thing, you know!”

“Fine, you’re principled. And dead. What do you want from me?”

“That really hot blonde, Julie?”

“Hot blonde?”

“Waitress. Killer figure? Come on,” I tried to nudge him with an elbow, “I know you noticed her. How could you not? The way the polyester pants covers that–“

“Okay, Julie, sure. I think she brought me my food. What about her?”

“Her husband’s cheating on her with Lindsey.”

“Who’s Lindsey?”

“Horse-face manager broad.”

“Horse-face? Whatever… Look, so what?”

“She’s a good girl.”

“Horse-face?”

“No, not horse-face, are you kidding? Julie! I just…. I don’t know… don’t want her to get hurt. I mean, more than, well, you know…”

He rolled his eyes. “Can you give me something, some detail that will corroborate it?”

I thought about it. “Yeah, yeah. Tell her that time she showed up for work and Todd was here already he wasn’t here for the all-you-can-eat boneless ribs, if you know what I mean.”

“Jesus Christ,” he rubbed his face with his hands. “If I do this will you leave me alone?”

“Absolutely. Scout’s honor.”

“Fine.”

I followed him out of the bathroom. He spotted Julie straight away. I mean, she’s really hard to miss with that polo shirt… sorry. He pulled her aside and told her what I said. She got pretty upset. He held up his hands and I think I even heard him say something about not shooting the messenger. Then she got all up in Horse-Face’s grill and I don’t know which one slapped first, but, holy shit, before you know it they were tossing Vodka Raspberry Lemonades at each other. It was goddamn bedlam. It was beautiful, beautiful.

“Look at that beautiful chaos, Dickie!”

“You really outdid yourself this time, Larry.”

“You’re goddamn right I did.”

That ghost whisperer guy barely avoided getting hit with a chicken wonton taco, hurriedly dropped a twenty on the counter. He ducked a ninja-star-like quesadilla, stared straight across the bar at me and mouthed, “Asshole”. Then hurried out.

Man, that was a great day!

Okay, you’ve seen that movie “Zombieland,” right? Wait, what? Seriously? No, no, no, it’s not super gory – it’s a comedy. Okay, it might be a gory comedy, but – wait, I can’t believe you’ve never seen “Zombieland”!

Fine, look, the main character – a pre-“Social Network” but post “Adventureland” Jesse Eisenberg – has these rules for surviving the zombie apocalypse like “Beware of Bathrooms” and “Wear seat belts”. There’s like 33 of them in all. It makes a lot more sense in context – and you’ll appreciate this more, probably, when you see the movie. I mean, okay, I don’t live in a zombie apocalypse – yet, am I right? – but I have my own problems.

I see dead people.

No, really. I know that line is so 1999 (twenty years old! Can you believe that?), but try living it. It’s not all Haley Joel Osment and post-Die Hard Bruce Willis. Nor is it all Jennifer Love Hewitt in nightgowns or Patrick Swayze helping your ceramic skills. It’s, honestly, a pain in the ass.

“Ally said you can see dead people,” said the girl with the pixie haircut and the lip ring. I don’t remember her name – I don’t know if she ever even said her name. She led with that! “Ally said you can see dead people.”

Rule #4: Keep It To Yourself

Yes, I have had the worst crush on Ally since we bonded over watered down margaritas at the company picnic last year. Yes, I was trying to impress her. No, it didn’t work. See, that’s the thing… it’s like if you tell someone you’re a comedian and they ask you to tell them a joke, or you tell them you’re a writer and they ask what your favorite book is. “Can you see any ghosts right now?” Ally asked during happy hour at Applebee’s down the street from work after I told her. I could. Jesus, I spotted like half a dozen – who the hell would haunt a frickin’ Applebee’s. But they’re there!

I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as the words came out of my mouth but you can’t exactly recall something like that, right? How do you explain away “I can see ghosts”? You can’t. So, you know, lie. “No, no ghosts around here,” I scanned the bar too quickly to see the living much less the dead. “Nope. No one dead here. Nope. I mean, geez, who’d want to haunt an Applebee’s right? Hahaha” – see that right there? “hahaha”? That’s literally what I did, a little pathetic “I’m lying” laugh. She bat her lashes in that way she does that just slays me as she took a drink of her Appletini and changed the subject. I figured she bought the lie but I knew she totally didn’t.

“Ally said you can see dead people,” Pixie Lip Ring said.

“What? No, she must have heard wrong. I mean, that’s weird. Who sees dead people? I mean, like Haley Joel Osment in–“

“I need you to talk to my someone,” she interrupted.

“You’re, uh, friend? Like Ally? She’s a friend, right?”

“Ally? No, Ally’s alive.”

“Totally. That’s why I’d love to talk to her. I think she’s outside by the pool. I’m going to see what she’s up to..”

“No, geez, my sister. She’s dead. She killed herself. She’s haunting me.”

I knew that. The second Pixie Lip Ring walked up I caught the slightly taller, tawny-haired version of turquoise-haired Pixie Lip Ring a few steps behind her.

Rule #1: Don’t Make Eye Contact

Ghosts are watching you. Well, not you personally. Okay, well, they probably are. I mean, not right this second, but… okay, probably right this second. But they’re watching to see if you see them. If you give them one glance that tells them you see them and they will bug the shit out of you until you help them.

Even though Pixie Lip Ring’s sister had clearly heard Ally tell her I told her I could see dead people there’s a really good chance she thought I was full of shit. Ghosts are like that – they’re cynical. And who could blame them? I mean, a) they’re dead, and b) they can see all the BS! They see all the people cheating and all liars for what they are.  So, I knew Pixie Lip Ring’s sister assumed I was lying to impress Ally. And that’s okay! One less ghost to sort out.

Oh, but how’d I know she was a ghost if I didn’t make eye contact? First, the way she was dressed. Jake from marketing was throwing a barbeque and we were all dressed for, well, a barbeque – tshirts, shorts, maybe the odd dad jeans or sundress. But not a floor-length midnight blue velvet gown, silver Jimmy Choos, pearl tear drop earrings beneath a perfectly coiffed updo and flawless makeup. Not exactly Tommy Bahama, you know? And, my god, it’s hard not to make eye contact when all you want to do is stare!

Rule #3: Check your mirrors

Maybe Pixie Lip Ring’s shadow wasn’t her dead sister, right? Maybe she was just an unacknowledged eccentric friend standing close behind her – happens all the time.

Jake’s place has exactly seven mirrors: First one on the wall next to the door to check yourself before you leave (he’s married – so for her to check herself, not him – you don’t know Jake). Mirrors two, three, four, and five are arranged on the far wall in the living room; long rectangular strips arranged artfully on the wall to make their thirteen-hundred square feet look like sixteen-hundred. Mirror six is in the guest half-bath by the kitchen (natch), and mirror number seven might be a stretch, but they have one of those under-the-cabinet microwaves in the kitchen and when you’re getting another helping of guacamole the opaque glass makes for a decent surface to see a pixie-haired woman with a lip ring wearing a leather-fringed halter top and cut off jeans coming up behind you, but notably not the statuesque over-dressed woman you clock in your peripheral vision when you do make eye contact – eye contact, boys, don’t be pigs! – with Pixie Lip Ring who says “Ally said you can see dead people”.

Wait, we were past that…

“My sister. She’s dead. She killed herself. She’s haunting me.”

Right, that’s where we were.

“Look, even if I could see the dead – which I can’t – what am I supposed to do?”

“Why would you tell her you could if you couldn’t?”

“I’m a jerk. It’s a personality flaw.”

“And a liar.”

“Well, that’s part of the whole ‘jerk’ schtick. Lying, cheating, carrying on. Did I mention I gamble recklessly, drink without abandon, and regularly perform Sisqo’s ‘Thong Song’ at karaoke unironically?”

“No, you’re a liar about not seeing ghosts.”

“Wishful thinking. I’m afraid I was just trying to score points by flaunting a weird talent after one too many Brewtuses of IPA at Applebee’s happy hour. If I had known she’d talk about my made up skill I would have gone with juggling kittens because I’m guessing you wouldn’t be asking me to toss around a sack full of tabbies.”

You and I know I can see dead people. You now also know that I’m not bad at wielding logorrhea in self defense, because somewhere between mentally cringing at the idea of my Sisquo impersonation (no, I don’t really do that) and how I could even manage to get the kittens in the sack in the first place, Pixie Lip Ring became mentally vapor locked for just a second which was all I needed to gracefully pirouette around her and through her sister, dodge the accounting clique around the kitchen table, set my chips and guac plate on a bookshelf and slipped into the aforementioned half-bath while catching the door with my trailing foot and securing the lock.

I sighed and leaned my head against the locked door in the cool darkness. Hit the lights, lifted the lid, and started to relieve myself.

“You’re a first-rate bullshitter,” the voice next to me said as I peed.

Rule #7: Privacy is Dead

“I am,” I said evenly. “What of it?”

“You’re not going to help me?”

I shook off and buttoned up my shorts before now looking the elegant woman in velvet in the eyes – the jig was up now, right? – and said, “No.” Lid down, I flushed the toilet and walked through her again – ghosts hate that in the first place, but ghosts that know you know they’re there really hate it – and started washing my hands.

I could feel the frustration, the anger, the rage, the fury roiling in her. She’s a ghost, sure, but she was a living human and that’s all still there if just not, well, corporeal. I expected her to let loose an unholy stream of vitriol, but she surprised me with just one word: “Why?”

The word cut. It wasn’t the word exactly, but the way she said it. That anger, fury, yada yada yada? Absent. The way the syllable slipped from her perfect coral-colored lips was more statement than question.

“Why?”

Like, all my excuses were laid bare. She could see all my short comings. All the times I’ve avoided helping ghosts – for really good, valid reasons! I mean, if I helped every ghost that needed something I’d be endlessly finding lost lockets and hidden last wills and testaments, and declaring it was Miss Scarlet in the hall with a revolver. I’m not dead, damnit. And I want a life that’s my own. I didn’t ask to be able to see ghosts. That wasn’t something I wanted and it’s not something I would wish on my worst enemy. These rules aren’t because I’m a bastard – well, I mean, I literally am a bastard, but that’s some psychotherapy ish for another time – they’re self-preservation. Living is for the alive.

Those soft brown eyes that matched her hair peered into the depths of my soul, poured the question in, swirled it around, held it up and inhaled to check the nose. “Why?”

“I…” I had nothing. I stared down at the velvet blue hem in front of me “I don’t know. I’ve got reasons.”

“Jack,” did she hear my name from Ally? “I didn’t kill myself. I was murdered. I need you to help me find peace.”

I didn’t say anything.

She knelt down slowly until her face was in my field of view, like I was a sullen child. Right then I was a sullen child. “Jack?” her words were tranquil, sweet, salve. “You can help me. I need you. Will you help me?”

She straightened up slowly. My eyes, locked on hers, followed her face. I didn’t have a choice. There wasn’t anything else I could say – trust me, my brain tried really hard. It didn’t get any purchase.

As if sensing my inner turmoil, she uttered one word that served as the coup de grace: “Please?”

“I’ll help.”

Rule #5: Don’t Make Promises.

To be continued…