By Rosemarie DiCristo
“You’re making enough noise to wake the dead,” Dad said from over my shoulder as I upended every bit of stainless-steel-ware in the kitchen drawer, trying to find my giant soup spoon.
“Well, you’d know,” I quipped, “considering you’ve been dead three years.” Then I turned to ask, “What brings you back this time?”
White-haired, rail-thin, Dad perched jauntily on the granite-topped cabinet, looking exactly as he had when the heart attack got him at sixty-five. “Can’t I be concerned about my one and lonely daughter?”
It was a running, not-funny joke, particularly since “lonely” screamed “spinster.”
“If you’re here to criticize, don’t!”
“No, Shari, I really wanted to see you.”
“You last visited, what, two weeks ago?”
“Sixteen days. Haven’t you missed me?”
I shrugged and smothered a grin; I always was Daddy’s girl.
“Been crazy-busy,” he continued, “but not too busy to notice Russell dumped you. A fifty-year-old with no job? Good riddance.”
“I dumped him—” I found the spoon and plunked it into the nearly-boiling tomato sauce, but… “Arrgh!” I’d stirred so hard, I splattered the stovetop.
Dad whooshed a hand over the spill, and it disappeared.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
He whooshed a hand again, then licked his lips thoughtfully. “Too salty.”
Yes, ghosts can taste our food. And get nit-picky about it.
“Dad, who I date is none of your business.”
“I only want what’s best for you. Not work-work-work, and coming home to… what? Just a no-good bum? I watch over you, see all you do.”
“Eww, Dad. All?”
“Watch over; we can’t see everything. But I see you got no friends…”
“Except the bum. Who’s gone.”
“That silverware-rattling summoned me because your apartment’s silent as a tomb.”
“I know.” And I let him wave both hands in a whirlwind around me, the nearest to a hug that ghosts can give.
“About the salt, though. Made me mighty thirsty.”
“If this is your ploy to get a beer…”
“No, hon, I’m strictly tap water from now on. Miss that New York City taste!”
“I’d think water where you live would be heavenly.”
Dad smirked, levitated a glass from my cupboard, pointed a finger at the faucet… and blew out the pipe.
“Seriously, Dad?” I shouted above the gushing water flooding my kitchen.
“My bad!” But despite his ease in evaporating tomato sauce spills, he couldn’t stop Niagara Falls cascading through my kitchen.
The super answered my frantic call to say he’d be in Hoboken for the next two hours. And what I bailed, sopped, and wrung out didn’t stop my cheap linoleum from buckling in three places.
The not-so-super fixed the pipe, but replacing the linoleum? Not part of my lease.
When he left, Dad floated back, saying, “A friend from the track is a contractor; he’ll fix your floor.”
“One of your gambling buddies?”
“Yes, don’t judge. He’s skilled, honest, and cheap. Give him a call.”
Like I had a choice?
***
Joe Enza was my age—somewhere north of forty—my height—tall for a gal, average for a guy—and, like me, could lose a little weight. Unlike me, he was bald up top, although we both had hair nearly to our shoulders. But his crooked smile somehow lit up the room.
“Rip up the old, lay down the new, in and out, two days, tops. Easy-peasy, just how I like; you don’t know the trouble I seen.”
And I didn’t care, not to be rude. “Your price?”
He quoted me a super-low number, saying, “Gotta do right by Charlie Spizza’s kid. Don’t want him to come get me and stuff.”
“Get…?” I glanced at Dad hovering above us. No one saw him but me.
“Figuratively.” Joe added, “I see you’re a snake girl.”
He meant that literally. Byron, my gopher snake, was in his enclosure in the hall. “So? I’m not gonna sic him on you.”
“Nope. They’re gentler than lambs.” He whipped out his phone and showed me Hector, his gopher snake. Before I could coo, Aw, gorgeous, Joe said, “Although, man, I wish I could sic him on my staff and stuff.”
“Like, problems with the help?”
“Bumblers and slackers, all. You want this job done, it’ll be just me.”
“When can you start?”
“Soon as you get your linoleum and stuff. How about I drive you to Lowe’s?”
What was with the “and stuff”? Crazy nervous tic. But then I said, “What, like, now? Like, um, sure.” Okay. I’m nervous with strangers.
Dad hooted silently from above.
In case ghost-dads read minds, I laser-beamed him a So we got some things in common. Do not read anything into this.
Apparently, he could hear me. His grin quadrupled, and he said into my mind, Promise, honey, once you’re settled, I’ll vamoose.
Seriously? With a guy I’ve known five minutes? Although it’d be worth it, to be rid of your interfering.
As we headed to his van, Joe said, “I can get Byron a lifetime supply of mice and birds and stuff.”
“Like, um…” I swallowed hard to stop the stammering. “Really? How?”
“Long story. Let’s just say they’re my mortal enemies.”
His bumper bore a sticker with a vulgar phrase about the Red Sox.
Ignoring Dad, grinning from the back seat and trying to catch my eyes in the rear-view mirror, I said, “Yankees fan?”
“Absolutely. You?”
“Yep. Rangers or Islanders?”
“The Blueshirts. Playing the Devils tonight, Wanna go?”
Yeah, for the game… and yeah, for Joe.
I met Dad’s eyes. See? I’m settling, so—
Vamoose already? Dad said.
“You really want him to leave?”
I jerked back to Joe. “Wait. You heard him?”
Dad said, “I appear to all my friends.”
“Never expected to meet his kid.” Joe smiled his crooked smile. “But I’m dee-lighted he blitzed your pipe.”
Huh.
Joe shrugged. “I figure he’ll stay till our third baby.”
“And stuff,” I said.
“Like, I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Joe said.
“One big happy!” Dad crowed. “I am so not vamoosing.”
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I love the idea of Joe having a gopher snake and that he found true love through it. Tasting ghosts and not-so-supers… quality!
Haha, too funny! I got so engrossed in the father-daughter relationship, I forgot that Joe was supposed to make an appearance. Once he showed up, he delivered just the right amount of quirkiness for a delightful end to the story. Loved it!