Page 4 of Crazy Spooky Love

“What was I thinking? I don’t have a clue how to run a business. It’s all going to be terrible and I’m doomed to be a horrible failure. Even the ghosts will laugh at me.”

I drop like a sack of spuds into the overstuffed armchair beside the fireplace in my new office and almost disappear into the cloud of dust that billows from it. It’s only been two days since I revealed my grand plan and already the nerves are kicking in hard.

“Jesus Christ, Melody!” Marina picks the deflated, dust-covered bubble gum from between her lips and drops it in the bin.

My best friend on the planet since infant school, Marina and I bonded over the fact that we both wore braces and came from families that marked us as outsiders, different no matter how hard we tried to hide it.

She has her grandmother’s Sicilian heritage to thank for her curvy Italian beauty, and her grandfather’s Sicilian business skills to thank for the Malone family wealth and fearsome reputation.

She’d turned nineteen before she lost her virginity, because she was a curious mix of knockout and terrifying that made teenage boys nervous.

Once the cloud of dust from the old chair clears, she looks at me steadily from her perch on the desk she’s spent the last hour patiently polishing up from grotty to usable.

“One, it’s not going to be terrible, and you’re not doomed to failure.”

She counts on her fingers to give me a visual aid.

“Two, so what if you don’t know how to run a business?

You’re a fast learner and you’ve got Glenda Jackson helping out every morning.

That woman could run Microsoft in her lunch hour.

” I’m slightly bolstered, because that is actually a fact.

Back when we were in school, Glenda oversaw our revision timetables with a beadier eye than Anna Wintour keeps on her junior staff.

We both aced our exams, and it was entirely because we were terrified of her.

“And three,” Marina cracks open a fresh pack of gum and holds up three fingers, “who gives a fuck if the ghosts laugh at you? They’re dead and you’re not, so you automatically win. Besides, they won’t be laughing when you suck them up with your ghost hoover, or whatever it is you’re gonna use.”

I laugh despite myself. “It’s not that, but thank you.

” I wish I could wake up with even a fifth of Marina’s couldn’t-give-a-damn attitude.

“Do you think I should get my hair cut into something that says serious businesswoman?” I ask, and she shoots me a look that says “have you lost your freakin’ mind? ”

“You’ve had the same hairstyle since we were in high school,” she laughs. “You own that bob, Melody. It’s way too late to change the system now.”

“The system?”

She wafts her hand at me. “You’re always going to be the short, cute one with big brown eyes and cherry-flavored lip gloss, and I’m always going to be the slightly slutty one with too much hair, red lipstick, and a bad attitude.

We go together. You cannot cut your hair; it would fuck with the system. ”

The system is new to me, but when I consider it, she’s right.

It’s taken us a decade to perfect our look, and for that we’ve earned the right to rock it for as long as we damn well choose.

Besides, there’s no way I can go through life without cherry lip gloss.

It keeps me going in between sugar fixes. The bob stays.

I might not be changing my look, but the office has had a complete overhaul and even if I do say so myself, it’s looking pretty swish.

With the obvious oversight of the grubby chair I’m sitting on, it’s been mopped, polished, and vacuumed to within an inch of its life, and my start-up budget had run as far as a new swivel chair for my clients to sit in and one of those fancy slatted blinds that all offices need to have in order to be considered professional.

I’ve avoided the obvious; no coat stand or tired yucca plant, no heavy glass ashtrays from the ’70s.

This place is functional, with what I’d like to call a feminine touch, right down to the jug of fresh tulips on the coffee table in the relaxation area.

The relaxation area! I know! Get me and my areas!

It’s actually just a little gray flop-out sofa and an old wingback chair grouped around the fireplace and TV, but it counts as relaxing, right?

I’m aiming for urban chic, or at the very least something that doesn’t scream boho ghost hunter.

There will be no incense burning in this office.

“Maybe you should get an incense burner.” Marina grins, and I let my middle finger do the talking forme.

She shrugs and slides from the desk, blowing me a kiss as she makes to leave.

“Gotta shoot. Places to be.” I know that means she needs to get back to take over caring for her elderly grandpa while her mother works. Marina’s folks are big on family loyalty.

“You’ll come back on Monday though?”

“You think I’d be late for my first morning at work?” She rolls her eyes. “Nine o’clock. You and me. Ghost-busting girls are a go. It’s gonna be bloody brilliant.”

She throws me a wink as she skips out the door, calling “I’ll bring donuts,” over her shoulder as she disappears.

I listen to her fast footsteps recede on the cobbles and send up a silent thank-you to her last boss for firing her a couple of weeks back.

I don’t know the full details, but this isn’t the first time she’s been let go.

I expect Marina is one of those people who doesn’t do so well with being bossed around, even if the person giving the orders is her boss and supposed to tell her what to do.

She wasn’t especially distressed about being fired; she doesn’t work because she needs the money as much as because she needs to get out of the family nest. She practically invited herself to come and work at the agency, and boy was I going to be glad of the company and the support.

So that makes three. Marina, Glenda Jackson, and me. I know Glenda’s doing only a couple of hours a day, but believe me when I say that there’s no need to count that as part-time where Glenda’s concerned.

God, I’m knackered. This chair might be dusty but it’s pretty comfortable, and I lean my head against the side wing and close my eyes.

I’m just drifting pleasantly into a dream where RobertDowneyJr.—suited up as Iron Man, naturally—is on one knee proposing to me, when someone coughs pointedly.

I haven’t heard the door open, so I keep my eyes firmly closed and sigh.

“Unless you’re devastatingly handsome with eyes like hazelnut espresso and a rapier-sharp wit, and hopelessly in love with me, go away.”

There’s silence, and then “I’m bald, sixty-two, and I died three weeks ago in a freak barrel accident, but I’ll give it a go if it means you’ll sit up and listen.”

I groan and open my eyes to see an aging bald guy standing by the fireplace in a hi-vis jacket. He has ruddy cheeks for a dead man; probably a beer drinker when he was alive. “You had me at freak accident, ” I grumble. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Arthur Elliott.” He extends his hand and we both stare at it, and then he slowly withdraws it when he realizes that I can’t shakeit.

“Rookie mistake,” I tell him. “What was the freak accident?”

Arthur shakes his head and studies his scuffed steel toe–cap boots. “Worked for the brewery. Barrel fell on my head in the yard.”

That explains the hi-vis vest, then. I hold back from asking him if he’d been drinking the barrel’s contents at the time. “Okay, so that covers how you came to be dead. What it doesn’t tell me is what you’re doing in my new office.”

He looks around the room, nodding with approval. “Very nice it is too.”

I’ve met enough ghosts to know that they usually want something, so his attempt at flattery doesn’t get him far with me. I fold my arms across my chest and eye him steadily.

“Fine,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his shiny head. “I went up front first off to speak to Dicey and she suggested I come talk to you.”

“My gran sent you?”

What is she playing at? It’s not part of my business plan for her to send ghosts my way if she can’t be bothered to pass their messages on herself.

Arthur nods. “It’s about my lad, Arthur, see?”

“You and your son are both called ‘Arthur’?” I say, distracted. “Wasn’t that confusing at home?”

He shakes his head. “The wife called me ‘Big Art’ and him ‘Little Art.’ Worked fine until he grew to six foot two.” He smiles sadly. “No need now, I don’t suppose. He’ll probably be just Art.”

I nod, sympathetic, still unsure where I fit into the Big Art, Little Art story.

“And you’ve come to see me about Little Art because…?” I prompt, since Big Art has gone misty-eyed and I know what’s likely to happen next if I don’t keep him on track. He’s freshly dead, which means he’s probably still getting used to the idea and prone to emotional outbursts.

“Just Art,” he reminds me morosely, wiping a hand across his eyes even though he’s incapable of crying.

I nod and mutter quickly, “Art.” Call me uncharitable but there’s a slim chance that if I can hurry Big Art along, I might be able to close my eyes and catch hold of the coattails of my RDJ fantasy.

Iron Man could still be on one knee waiting for my answer somewhere in my dreams, but he’s not the kind of superhero to hang around for long.

“He needs a job, like.”

I narrow my eyes, starting to see where this is headed. I’m going to kill my gran.

“Art needs a job?”

Big Art nods. “He knows nothing about ghosts, ’course, but he’s a good lad and his mother worries about him.

We both do, matter of fact. Think that’s why I got stuck here instead of going over.

Bit of a shame really, it’s my dear old mum’s birthday today and I thought I’d surprise her, seeing as I’ve not laid eyes on her for fifteen years or more.

Do they have birthday parties up there?”

I try to keep the conversation on track. “I’m not taking on staff, I’m afraid.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Your gran said you would be. Just someone to carry your bags and make tea, that kind of thing.” Big Art looks at me as beseechingly as a dead man in hi-vis can.

“You won’t have to pay him much, his mother keeps him well-fed.

Just enough to cover his bus fare and pay for mice for his snake and he’ll be a happy lad. You won’t find anyone more willing.”

“Look, Big Art.” I’m practicing my diplomacy skills. “If I was in the market for a trainee, Art would be first in the queue, but I’m not. I’ll keep him in mind for the future, okay?”

Big Art’s face falls. “I’ve failed him. My only son, and I’ve gone and left him on his own, haven’t I?”

“Try not to blame yourself,” I reason. “It’s sheer bad luck to have a barrel fall on your head. You can’t predict these things.”

He puts both his hands over his bald head. “Bloody hurt, it did.”

“I imagine it would, yes.”

“Write his name down in case you get a vacancy?”

“I’ll remember it. Little Arthur Elliott.”

“You don’t know where he lives.”

Resigned, I get up from the comfort of the armchair and cross to sit behind my desk, where I open up the wide drawer.

Marina has laid out all of my new stationery as if it’s the first day of term.

Fresh A4 writing pad, pristine and lined, ready to go.

Sharpened pencils. Unused eraser. A neat line of blue, black, and red pens. God, I love that woman.

I pick up the pad and a pencil and write “Arthur Elliott” across the top of the paper. I transcribe the address Big Art relays to me and then smile, my pencil poised. I’m quite enjoying the feeling of writing things down at the desk, it feels like an actual job.

“Anything else I should know? Qualifications, that sort of thing?”

I chew the end of the pencil and glance at Big Art, who once more looks on the verge of unshedable tears.

“None,” he whispers.

“None?” I say, far louder. “Not even an F in Woodwork or something?”

“Bloody bullies!” the words burst from Big Art’s chest. “Gentle giant, my Artie is, and they just wouldn’t leave him alone. Always on the outside, he was, never included. Me and his mother didn’t even know anything about it until we were called in to see why his attendance was so awful.”

“He was bullied at school?”

Big Art nods. “Summat rotten. ’Bout his acne, his snake, his height. You know how it is with that sort, like a pack of dogs with a bone. He’d have been all right if he’d had a mate or two, but he never really seemed to find anyone.”

No one understands the loneliness of being an outsider more than I do. If I hadn’t had Marina, my own school life could very easily have mirrored Little Art’s. I look at the mournful, ruddy-cheeked man in front of me and withdraw some proper writing paper from the drawer.

“Come and sit down, Art.”

Half an hour later, he’s a changed ghost. Together we’ve written a letter to Arthur Elliott Jr. offering him the position of apprentice ghost hunter, stating he’s been highly recommended and that he should come at his earliest convenience and identify himself to Melody Bittersweet, sole proprietor of The Girls’ Ghost-Busting Agency on Chapelwick High Street.

The name has been a subject of hot debate over the last week between Marina and me.

She made a strong case for The Girls’ Ghost-Busting Agency, though I do still fear customers will expect us to turn up in god-awful white jumpsuits and suck their offending ghosts into tanks on our backs.

Big Art beams approvingly at the letter as I fold it in half. “Little Art loves Harry Potter, the mystery of it will appeal to him.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have an owl to deliver it,” I say, licking a stamp and fixing it on the front of the envelope.

In front of me, Big Art is already starting to fade.

“Seems like you might make your mum’s birthday after all,” I whisper.

“Look after him for me.”

“I’ll try,” I say, carried away by the sentiment.

I place the letter in the out-tray to post later on.

Look at me using my out-tray! I pause for a second to soak in the mini-thrill of working at my desk for the first time, and then on second thought I pull the envelope out of the out-tray and scrawl “The management regret to inform you that reptiles are not permitted on the premises” across the bottom in red capitals.

Eternal promise or not, if Arthur Elliott turns up here with a python he won’t make it past the front door.