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This wasn’t Flower’s kind of party—it was all a little man-in-the-gray-flannel-suit for her—but it was a party, and Flower loved parties. While some of the ghosts had drifted off to the quiet of the old lady’s locked bedroom, Flower was roaming around, enjoying the scene.
The old lady was low on dough these days, so she’d rent out the place some weekends, and go stay in a hotel. Then she’d come back and complain about how the guests had trashed the place, and she’d look awfully sad about it. It was kind of a bummer, really.
But Flower wasn’t going to worry about that now; she was going to be in the moment. Downstairs in the living room, there was a big raucous group playing strip poker. One woman with her red hair in a tight bun showed her hand to everyone, frowned, then took off one earring. The rest of the table booed her. The dark-haired man to her left showed his hand, stood up, and unbuckled his pants, to general applause. He bowed, a little, left the pants where they lay, sat down and put his shoes back on. The redhead gave him a friendly nudge.
Oh, these people were fun! Flower was so glad she’d come down to see them play. Maybe Alberta would join her; Alberta also loved a good party, and had some crazy stories. There was one with her bootlegger and a yacht—if Flower could just remember the details—
Now they were passing a dish of white powder around, neatly arranged in lines. She wondered what it was! Flower loved trying new things, and she bet these modern people had drugs she’d never even heard of. Things that had never been invented, probably. Psychedelics were the best, they got you down to the real essence of thing. Oh, there was one time she went to Walden Pond, of all places, like with Thoreau, because Thoreau would have loved magic mushrooms--
Flower noticed the dark-haired man stand up, rubbing his chest, with a confused look on his face, and stumble towards the couch.
Oh shit, she thought. It’s just like Dean.
She bolted over to the red-haired woman who had smiled at him. She knew there was no way the woman could hear her, but she had to try. “Oh, please,” she said. “Your friend is really sick. You’ve got to help him. Please, just look. Look over there. Please just look.”
“Hello?” said a man’s voice, behind her.
Too late, too late.
Flower could help him. She was an excellent guide, for all kinds of trips, even the bad ones. “Hello!” she said, making her voice as cheerful and welcoming as possible. Like Sheri Lewis, without Lambchop. Was it weird without the puppet? “You’re going to be okay, I just need you to focus on me a little bit.”
His body was sprawled on the sofa seat, like he was asleep, and he was standing on the carpet in front of it, looking confused. “Hey? I don’t think I remember you? Did you come with--”
Before he could turn around and see himself, she took both of his hands in hers. “It’s okay. Now I’m going to ask you a question, and it might seem a little weird, but I’m going to need you to focus on what I’m saying, okay, Mr. Businessman?”
“Okay—”
“Whatever you think you just snorted, did you buy it from a bunch of bikers?”
“I don’t—what? I didn’t buy it. I don’t know.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay, here’s the thing. Using drugs can be a very beautiful and very important thing, but you have to be careful. It happened just this way in the commune. We bought grass from some bikers, and the thing about bikers, is they love their speed. You know, amphetamine? And if you’ve got a heart condition, it can get really bad really fast.”
“I don’t have a heart condition,” Mr. Businessman said. “I mean, I’ve been having some heartburn recently—” his eyes widened, he ripped his hands out of hers, and he turned to see himself, lying dead on the sofa. He jumped back as if jolted. “That’s me,” he said.
“Uh, huh,” she said.
“How do I get back in?” he said, panicking.
“Oh, sweetie, you can’t.”
He looked at his friends, still playing cards and joking with each other. “How do I – help, I need help!”
“They can’t hear us,” said Flower. “Because we’re ghosts.” He was starting to freak out, so she took his hands again. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m right here. Now, we really should leave before your friends find you, because if you look at them right now, they’re still happy, and you can remember them that way. Whatever happens next, you can’t affect it, and it’s not going to make you feel any better to see it. Okay? Let me guide you. It’s going to be okay. Just follow me.” She let one hand go and started gently pulling on the other.
He wasn’t moving. “I need my pants.”
“Sure,” she shrugged, knowing exactly what would happen. For a moment, she thought the fabric might have moved in his hands—but then Flower saw a lot of things that weren’t real.
He sighed, breathily, wiped something out of his eye and stood up. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Take me wherever you’re taking me.”
Flower really felt for the guy. One minute you’re at a fabulous party, the next you’re haunting a house for all eternity. “What’s your name, Mr. Businessman?” she said.
“Trevor,” he said, scaling the stairs behind her. “Trevor Lefkowitz. But shouldn’t you know that, if you’re taking me, to, you know, whatever comes next?”
“I’m just taking you upstairs to meet the other ghosts. This is our house, we haunt it, and everyone will be very happy to see you. My name is Flower Montero. I picked it myself, ha, get it?”
“So, how do we leave?”
“Oh, sweetie,” she said, as they reached the second story. “We don’t.”
Now her poor grey-flannel-man was really freaking out. “I think I need to sit down. Can we sit down?”
“Oh, sure, Trevor. See this nice bench? Let’s sit right here until you feel more like yourself.” She patted the cushion.
He made a weird gasping noise that might have been a laugh, awkwardly pulled down his shirt to cover himself, and put his face in his hands.
She wanted to rub his back, but she didn’t think he was ready to be touched yet. Partygoers passed by, leading each other to and from the bedrooms. None of them paid them any notice.
Trevor kind of reminded her of her last boyfriend, Ira, who’d been Jewish, too. They had the same cute little accent. Ira had been losing his hair, but he’d had a big, beautiful moustache, so nice to kiss; he’d been gentle, and funny, and curious about everything. One fall morning he told her it was the new year and took her with him to throw breadcrumbs in the river, and she said it made sense that the new year came in fall, like school, like starting the year with new school supplies and the brisk new smell of graphite pencils freshly sharpened, the spiral shavings falling to the floor.
She was almost certain the bear hadn’t gotten Ira, too, almost sure of it. When she died, there hadn’t been anyone around at all, until somehow, ages later, she found the house.
She didn’t want to think about that. It was too terrible to think about.
Flower was sitting on the upstairs bench, and there was a man on the bench next to her, a handsome businessman who wasn’t wearing pants. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Flower. What’s your name?”
He gave her a strange look, stood up from the bench, and walked away from her briskly, heading towards the bedrooms. “Help!” he called. “Help! Can anyone hear me?”
There was a reason she needed to follow him, so she did, even though she couldn’t remember why at the moment. Pete emerged through the door of the old lady’s bedroom, and the businessman would have stumbled backward through a wall if Flower hadn’t caught him.
“Oh, hey!” said Pete. “You must have come with the party. I’m Pete. Good to meet you! Always nice to see fresh faces around here! And what’s your name?”
“You have an arrow through your neck,” said the businessman.
“I do indeed! Whatever we looked like when we died, we’re stuck with it. Sad to say.”
“I was talking to Flower, and she forgot who I was, is that going to happen?” He looked really freaked out. Just really freaked. Had she done that?
A shadow passed over Pete’s face. “Flower, why don’t you let the rest of us take it from here? We’ll get our new friend up to speed on what he needs to know.”
Pete led him by the hand through the heavy wood door, and at the last minute her businessman turned around and looked at her, like he was mutely saying help.
Okay, she’d been told. Stay out of it, Flower. And maybe she should listen, but—no, no, that was not what she needed to do. Pete was a good guy, a really good guy, but he loved manuals, and rules, and logs, and regulations, and badges you could get for doing the right thing, and that was not what her poor businessman needed. What he needed to know is whether he could be happy like this. Whether he could be himself.
She’d seen him alive, and Pete hadn’t. Yes. She remembered now, the game of strip poker, those fun people downstairs, all of it. And most of all, she remembered she was his guide.
She walked straight through the door, where Pete was giving the entire history of the Manor and its inhabitants, and Trevor was wilting like a weed at the edge of the asphalt. “Pete,” said Flower. “We’re done now. I’m taking Trevor to get some rest. Whatever else he needs to know he can learn in the morning.”
“Okay,” said Pete, collapsing like he always did when someone pushed him. “I guess that’s fine.”
Trevor followed her down the hallway, slouching like he was about to cry, and he didn’t want her to see it. Dying was awful, and it usually hurt pretty badly too, there was no way around it. On the other hand, once you’d been through the worst thing you could imagine, there was pretty much nowhere to go but up.
“Look,” she said, stopping before the bedroom door, “I’m really sorry I was a bad guide, but if you think it’ll make it up to you, I can give you a handy.”
His eyes focused, and for a moment he looked incredulously at her.
She broke into a broad chuckle. “Heh heh heh. Gotcha.”
He smiled. It was weak, but it was there.
There you are, she thought. “I don’t know what Pete told you, but here’s what you actually need to know. I’ve been on bad trips before, and if you fight it, it just gets worse. So here is your mantra:” and she tapped him on the heart. “You’re here. You’re okay. And you’re going to get through this.”
He reflected for a moment. “But then what happens?”
“Well,” she said, and smiled, “that’s where the mystery comes in.”
It seemed like that helped, a little.
“Now go get some rest, feel everything you need to feel, and in the morning, it’ll look better. And stay away from your corpse, because that’s not going to help.”
He was still looking down at her and smiling a little. “I’ve got to know, did you pull that move on Pete?”
“Oh, nooooooo,” she said. “Wouldn’t that have been something?”