“I’ve got Sarah,” I told Jacob. “You deal with—” her ghost? “Boswell.”
I caught up with the body at the exit. Bodies aren’t exactly cerebral, but they have a good knack for self-preservation, and the body didn’t fall for the revolving door trick again. I spilled out through the handicap exit right behind it. “Hold up, where are you going?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
I fell into step beside it. “I’ve got an idea. How about some ice cream?”
It looked up at the dreary sky, then gave me a “duh” look and kept on walking.
I kept pace. “Okay. It’s not exactly ice cream weather.” I spied a donut shop across the street. “How about…a coffee?”
The body paused.
“And…an eclair?”
It shrugged. “I could eat.”
It cut a sharp left into the street, and I grabbed it by the shoulder before it got flattened by a dump truck. So much for a body’s self preservation. If it did get hit, would it leave a repeater? No clue. It was totally unpredictable, at least to my logic. So, it was better to make friends with the body than to keep hunting it down.
Once we were safely across the street, we headed for the donut shop and I opened the door for the body. As it passed me, it said, “I hope you’re not trying to get laid.”
“I’m…not.”
“Good. I mean, you’re cute and all. But you’re way too old.”
“Thanks. My husband thinks so, too. The cute part, I mean.”
No reaction. Maybe bodies don’t have a sense of humor. At least it wasn’t homophobic. It made a beeline for the counter and said, “Gimme three jelly-filled donuts. And a chocolate croissant. And a bear claw. And a skinny matcha with double whip.”
The cashier punched in the order. “That’ll be $18.89.”
Sarah dug in the pocket of her sweatshirt and came up with a crumpled wad of singles and two pennies. She plunked it all on the counter and the cashier stared at the money blandly. “That’s not enough.”
Sarah gave a gusty huff of exasperation.
“You could get the bear claw,” the cashier offered.
“I got it,” I said—and pulled out my own plastic, not the FPMP Visa. Yes, it was a business expense…and yes, they were probably tracking my personal spending. But who’s to say I didn’t have a sudden craving for sweets? “And add a regular coffee and a cruller.”
The body and I adjourned to a two-seater table with a good view of the window. The tiny tabletop was hardly big enough to spread out the haul, but when Sarah wolfed down one of the jelly donuts in five bites, I figured we’d have plenty of space soon enough.
I took off the lid and blew at my scalding coffee so as not to take the skin off the roof of my mouth, and ventured, “Maybe you’d be better off with some kind of plan, given that you’ve got no car, no place to stay, and three bucks to your name.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
I was sure she would. But I didn’t want that “something” to involve carjacking or turning tricks by the underpass. “If you don’t know where you’re going…maybe we can eliminate where you’re not going.”
Sarah’s body washed down a mouthful of donut with a huge swig of sugary green matcha. “You talk way too much.”
Said no one, ever. But how else could I figure out the best way to wrangle it? Since I was focused in the etheric, it was disorienting for me to talk to a vacant vessel with nobody home. It was like chatting with your phone, when you can swear all you want when it’s being obtuse, and you don’t have to feel bad forit later. Plus, her emotional body was AWOL, too. So it felt like I was having coffee with a walking, talking hunk of meat.
I put down my half-eaten cruller queasily. “Are you running away from something?”
“I’m eating a croissant. A really stale croissant.” She dropped it on the floor.
“You know what I mean.”
The body did a “whatever” eye roll. “I’m doing what I’ve been doing for the last few months and putting some distance between Zach and me.”
