Forget Me Not

Excerpt from: Forget Me Not

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times. Ghosts are selfish.

I should know—I’ve been seeing them since a chunk of concrete tried to turn me into one on 9/11. Since then, numerous spirits have visited me, each one of them wanting me to take a message to a loved one, give comfort to a grieving family member or exact revenge on their killers.

But the one ghost I wanted to see never appeared.

Even now, I couldn’t have a solitary birthday celebration without a revenant interrupting. Thank God for cell phones, for I can now talk to the spirits without appearing like some crazy woman who talks to herself.

I flipped open my pink Razr and glared at the ghost sitting across from me. “Go away,” I demanded in a low voice.

The woman’s smile wavered, but she made no move to vacate the seat. My goodness, I could have been looking at my twin sister. Her hair was worn in a short, straightened bob the way Aaron had insisted I wear mine. Since his death, I’d just let it go back to its normal curly state. The resemblance was uncanny, although I noted our eyes were different colours. Hers were large and hazel, mine were as black as my hair. The only thing that marred her perfect café au lait complexion was the bullet hole in the middle of her forehead.

“I don’t have time for this conversation right now. I’m here to enjoy dinner and celebrate my birthday. Come back tomorrow, I’ll talk to you then.”

The woman’s eyes filled up with tears, but she did finally disappear. I suspected she hadn’t gone far.

Alone at last. I took a sip of my wine and looked up at the stars sparkling through the canopy of grapevines. Napa Valley was beautiful any time of the year, but I loved it most in the fall when the vines were fragrant and heavy with fruit.

It reminded me of the night Aaron first brought me here. Blinded by a sudden wash of tears, I fumbled for my wine glass, hoping no one noticed my distress.

“Hello, I hope I’m not interrupting?”

I shook my head, not trusting my voice to be able to push past the lump of emotion in my throat.

The man slid into the seat across from me. He was six feet of pure muscle and sex appeal in a pair of dark blue jeans and a white shirt. His blond hair was cut short and the ends tipped with gold, either from the sun or a very good stylist. When he flashed me a hundred-watt smile that reached right up to his sparkling brown eyes, I felt a flicker of something deep in my belly. Whoa, what was that? Desire? Nah… After my accident, that part of me had died. Hadn’t it?

“This is going to sound really strange,” the man began.

Hey, that was my line! The one I use when knocking on some strange woman’s door to tell her to look for her father’s will in the fake spinach package in the back of the freezer, or to tell a man that his wife hid their stock certificates in with her beloved Manolos. I looked up at him with interest.

The man’s smile had dropped to about forty watts, and he looked uncomfortable in his skin. Oh shit. I gave him a subtle nod to encourage him to go on, although there was a heavy weight pressing down on me and I could hardly take a full breath.

“I have a message from Aaron.”

No, this was not happening. I leaned across the table, hoping that my voice was as venomous as I felt. “Listen, I see ghosts too, all the time. I can assure you, if Aaron needed to get me a message, he could do it himself.”

With as much dignity as I could muster, I ripped my napkin off my lap and threw it onto the table. I stood up too fast and my chair clattered to the floor. Heads turned my way, and I could feel heat infuse my face. So much for a quiet dinner.

My heart was pounding in my ears, but as I whirled away, the man’s voice chased me.

“Do you remember the first time we came here?”

My fleeing steps faltered, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Oh Aaron. My heart had never quite stopped hurting since he died, and now I thought it was going to break all over again. I walked and then ran until I got to my cottage. I slammed the door shut and leaned against it, my ragged breathing sounding loud in the quiet room.