Page 14 of Mourner for Hire

TEN

VADA

The siding is blue and chipped, with white trim and a yellow door. The windows are single panels, with worn cedar flower boxes on the bottom void of any flowers. A plank walkway leads to the front door, and white sand is mixed with the soil and beach grass, flanking each side.

“It’s cute,” I say as we approach the beach cottage

“There’s a key under the mat,” Annabelle says, following closely behind.

There’s this pit of fear lodged in my gut that I’m somehow able to ignore because her presence—even in the afterlife—is comforting.

My brain is telling me to run for the hills, to find a priest, an exorcist, or even a padded room.

And yet, here I am, reluctantly stepping into what feels like a different realm—all for the sake of a paycheck.

I curse my younger self for playing with Ouija boards at sleepovers.

The mat says Beach Please, and I laugh as I peel up the corner, quickly discovering said key is nowhere to be found.

“It’s not here.”

“Hmm,” she thinks aloud, eyes roaming over the front of the building. “Try that old terracotta pot. ”

I do and come up empty-handed.

“In the flower box?”

Nope.

“That stone over there… No, the other one.”

Again, nothing.

“Maybe it’s buried in the sand.”

“Lovely. If only I had brought my sand toys.” My tone is dripping in irritated sarcasm, but it makes her laugh.

“Well, help me find it,” she says, sifting through the sand.

Sort of. Being a ghost is weird. She can grab inanimate objects but only sometimes.

Or halfway, if that makes sense. When she wrote with a pen last night, she could hold it.

But with sand, she just makes it drift—the grains of sand moving like a breeze is passing through.

I reluctantly drop to my knees and help her dig. “This isn’t on the list.”

“Oh, quit complaining. At least you aren’t dead!”

She laughs at her own joke, and so do I. She’s annoyingly charming.

We run our fingers through the sand for a few minutes with no luck.

“You won’t find it.”

His voice makes me freeze, sending icicles down my spine—even more than his ghost of a mother.

I stand quickly, the blood draining from my head and making me dizzy. As I whirl around, I’m met with furious eyes, a tight jaw, and tense shoulders.

“Hey,” I choke out.

“Leave, Vada.”

I clear my throat. “You see, the thing is, I want to, but your mom?—”

“I don’t care what my mom asked you to do. She’s gone, and I don’t need your help with any of the shit on her list.” His voice booms even though he isn’t yelling.

“Language!” Annabelle scolds with her hands on her hips.

My gaze snaps to hers and then back to his. I watch his eyes follow where I was just looking, and then hescowls at me. He can’t hear her.

“Tell him that is no way to speak to a lady,” Annabelle says.

I ignore her so I don’t look completely insane.

Instead, I try to reason with him. “Look, Dominic, I get that this is weird, and if I had known you were Annabelle’s son, I wouldn’t have agreed to this, and I still don’t want to.

But I did sign up for a job, and I have a hundred percent completion rate at this point, and I don’t want to ruin it. ”

He tsks out an irritated scoff.

“Please. It’s just a few months. I’ll do the things and leave. You won’t even know I’m here.”

I watch his Adam’s apple disappear in his throat as his mom says, “No, you should spend time together.”

“I won’t even take the money,” I add, ignoring her.

“No, you will. My will is ironclad. I’m not going to let my son pretend to be this macho vigilante that intimidates young women?—”

“Shh—” I involuntarily hush her. Confusion blooms on Dominic’s face. “Shhhhe was lovely, and I just want to respect her wishes.” I recover quickly.

“Nice.” Annabelle applauds me.

Dominic’s anger twists into something that looks a lot more like grief.

“Why did my mom hire you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t ask questions. I just show up to the services and fulfill their requests.”

“Which were?” he shouts.

My mouth is dry, and I don’t know how to respond. “Just to come and renovate and leave.”

That wasn’t the only request and he knows it, but it would seem this answer will suffice.

His jaw continues to tighten and relax over and over before he speaks again. “Don’t make me regret this,” he says, digging into his jeans pocket and retrieving a single key with a keychain and a gray rabbit’s foot.

When I reach for the key, he holds onto my hand for a second. “This is fucking weird.”

“Language!” Annabelle scolds again.

“Yes,” I agree. So is the fact that I still love the feel of his hand in mine.

For a glimpse of a moment, his expression softens and his eyes search my face, remembering the night we met or searching for the woman he thought I was, I can’t be sure.

He drops my hand and turns away from the cottage. I watch him walk completely away before turning to the old yellow door and opening it.

Annabelle waits next to me. Right. My friendly neighborhood ghost.

“Can the next month not be a never-ending sleepover?” I ask Annabelle.

“You are outspoken.”

“Honest.”

“Feisty.” She shimmies.

“Tired.”

She stares at me for a beat. “Need a minute?”

“Yes,” I answer tiredly. “I need several minutes, six-hundred milligrams of ibuprofen, and an exorcism.”

Funny how she has no repartee for this.

I crank the key and open the cottage door.

It smells musty yet beachy, and clouds of dust dance through the air, the light from the afternoon sun piercing through the windows.

The shag carpet is a crime for a house on the beach, but the linoleum is in decent shape, considering how old it must be.

It’s incredibly outdated, appearing as if it was dropped from the set of an eighties sitcom, but is otherwise clean.

A denim sofa and loveseat. A round wooden kitchen table painted sunshine yellow in the breakfast nook.

An arched doorway with beads as a door that leads to the bedroom where I see a glimpse of an iron bed frame and quilt .

“Cute,” I remark.

“Thank you.” She flops on the couch. “I always loved it here. It was a safe haven of sorts. All my girlfriends loved it.” She stands again—the woman cannot stay still for more than thirty seconds. “So tell me what your vision is?”

I raise my eyebrows. “With the renovation?”

“Yes. I picked you because you don’t do the average bland palette. I know your vision will be everything I ever dreamed of.”

“How do you know that?” I venture.

“Because I did my research. I know you worked really hard building your interior design business, and I’m so sorry it didn’t work out, but I have seen the pictures and watched the videos, Vada.

You are a talented designer. And smart. And hardworking.

And I know you fell on hard times and now this has become your business, but I know that when dreams aren’t accomplished, they don’t die.

They don’t go away. They just sit in the pit of your heart until you let them breathe again. I want you to let it breathe again.”

She really did stalk me—I mean, do her research.

“Gut job,” I answer quickly, rolling my suitcase against the wall.

“Come on. I know how you work—” it’s strange how much this woman stalked me “—humor me.”

I smile despite my annoyance with her and take in the space. The living room is to the right, and the kitchen and eating area are to the left. “Well, for starters, I’d keep the bones and the character of the archways. Replace the wallpaper, paint?—”

“What color?” she interrupts with inept enthusiasm.

“Probably white.” She winces at my answer.

“It creates an easy canvas. Then I can go in and wallpaper—probably where you have it. Repaint the cabinets.” I open one, and it squeaks.

“New hardware, but the doors are in good shape. Open shelving to display the colored vases you have in the old china cabinet.”

She lets out a dream-like sigh. There’s a wooden ladder that leads to a loft situated on the back of the house, most likely on top of the main floor bedroom and bathroom.

“What’s up there?”

She shrugs. “Just a bunch of old toys and stuff.”

I give her a quizzical look.

“I always wanted grandchildren!”

I roll my eyes and walk down the small carpeted hallway. “Get rid of the carpet.” I poke my head in the bathroom. The floors are white and black penny tile. Dirty and stained but gorgeous. “I’d replace the toilet and vanity. Keep the clawfoot tub, of course, and repair the broken tile on the wall.”

“Great. Great.”

“New furniture.” I open the French doors leading to the back deck. The wood is warped, and the weather strip is almost nonexistent. “New doors. Refinish the deck before the rain comes, I guess. Fresh flowers.” I eye the cedar hot tub off the deck and turn to her. “Does the hot tub work?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s made with western redcedar—never rots. That tub is perfection. You’ll probably need to get some firewood for the firebox and fill it, but other than that, it’s good to go.”

I mentally make a note to have that be at the top of my list.

“Dominic was the one that built it.”

I raise my eyebrows and let go of an unamused, “Ahh.”

“Yeah, he’s handy but doesn’t always have an eye for design—at least not an eye that like. Not that it really matters anymore because, well, I’m dead.”

“Right,” I say, mustering up the tact I need to deliver this with grace while also holding up my boundaries. “Well, before I get started, I need to set up some ground rules.”

“Yes, right—” She claps her hands together. “Ground rules.”

“First off, I need space. You can’t just always be here. I know you’re a ghost or whatever, but can you please pretend to be human and do normal things like knock or say excuse me? Don’t just appear out of thin air.”

She nods. “Done. ”

“Fantastic.” I hold open the door.

“Are you kicking me out?”

“For the love of God, Annabelle, yes! ”

“Why?”

“Because I’d like to know if I’m certifiably insane or not while I drown in my own sorrows and watch Netflix.”

She eyes me suspiciously. “You’re overwhelmed.”

“And you are insane!” I accuse, to which she scoffs.

“Can dead people be insane?”

I squint at her like she’s brighter than the sun and stupider than a possum crossing the road. “Probably!”

She shrugs. “Look, I get it. This is a lot?—”

“To say the least.”

“—but when you’re done, you’ll understand.” She stands and starts walking through the door.

Again with the cryptic BS.

“Why can’t you just tell me what this is all for? Or better yet, why didn’t you just tell me before you died? You had the opportunity.”

She sighs. “Because this isn’t something I can tell you. It’s just something I hope you can find.”

I roll my eyes, completely over the crypticity.

“Find what?”

She swallows hard. “You’ll see.”