I wanted to say, “If you wanted to look like a ho?” What I said was “I know. I didn’t mean it that way.” But Francie was already out the door.
I felt the sting that rocketed though her when she saw us. It wasn’t what I wanted for her.
Erin stood a few feet away. “You’re just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”
“I can be,” I said, defensive. “And what the hell, Erin? I took a couple of extra shifts you’d asked for. It’s not like you can work both shifts all day every day.”
“Is that why you think I can barely stand the sight of you?” she asked.
“Pretty much.”
“You’re so clueless.”
She turned to leave, so I rushed to say, “Then what?” I stepped closer. “What did I do?”
After releasing a sigh of annoyance, she said, “When I was little, I went to a palm reader set up at the state fair.”
An alarm sounded in my head with the words palm reader.
“She told me I’d have three children and all three would die before they were a year old.”
The clanging got louder.
“The first would die when all the land became water. Hailey died after a huge flood five years ago.” She stepped closer to me. “The second would die after my mother’s heart broke. Carrie died two days after my mother had a massive heart attack.”
“Erin, that doesn’t mean —”
“The third one would die after a girl with no past showed up. No past! I thought, everyone has a past. Surely we can have a baby now. But no. In walks a woman with no. Fucking. Past.”
She turned and stalked away. I stood in shock, trying to breathe air that had vacated the room. This sucked on every level imaginable.
I had to figure out what was going on, and I had to do it now. Then I planned on hunting down that bitch palm reader and asking her how she lived with herself, saying shit like that to a little girl. Who does that?
I picked up a couple of sandwiches, said hey to Mr. P and the stripper, who’d come in for a late lunch, then started for home. And, naturally, the man and his trusty steed followed me. I pretended not to notice the thousand-pound animal or the headless guy atop it. Mostly because I had too many blisters to run from them again.
“I can do this all eternity,” he said. In perfect English. “Follow you around. Fuck with your head. Speaking of which, did you know there’s an old guy with a telescope watching you?”
How the fuck was he talking? And his vocabulary was way more modern than I would’ve expected. If he was really the man from Mr. Irving’s story, he’d adjusted well to modern life.
“I’m not kidding. All. Eternity.”
I finally stopped but refused to turn around. To acknowledge him. “Look, I’m sure your story is tragic, but I don’t know where your head is.”
He started laughing. “I think I have that covered. Would you just face me?”
With the reluctance of a food taster for a king hated by all, I turned toward him, but I only looked as far as his black riding boots.
“Look up.”
I raised my gaze to his black pants.
“A little farther.”
I finally focused on where his head should have been. Or where one would expect his head to be. The man talking to me was actually in the coat.
“It’s a costume,” I said. I hadn’t thought of that.
“That it is.”
“So you don’t want me to find your lost head?”
“Seriously, I could do so much with that. Have you ever met a man?”
“Oh, right, sorry. But then why are you following me?”
“Firstly, because you are who you are and —”
“Wait, you know who I am?”
That tripped him up. “No. Not really. I just know you can see people like me.”
“Yes, I can.” I walked up and nuzzled his horse before restarting my journey to James’s place. “And secondly?”
“Secondly, I need a favor.”
Headless guy followed and explained as we went, so that by the time we arrived at James’s cardboard palace, I knew that his name was Henry, that he’d been an actor re-creating a scene from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” for Halloween a couple of years ago, and that he and the horse, Gale Force, were killed when the bridge they rode across gave way. They ended up falling into the frigid water, and Henry couldn’t get out of the costume. The fall broke Gale’s neck on impact. Henry drowned. It was a tragic freak accident. Nothing more.
“That’s awful,” I said, oddly enough a little more sad about the horse than the guy. I nuzzled her again.
“I need a favor.”
“I’ll try.”
“My best friend designed the costume, and he’s blamed himself for my death ever since.”
“Oh, no, he couldn’t possibly have known.”
“I know. I just want him to know it’s okay. That I’m okay.”
I couldn’t just show up and tell him his best friend was okay; it probably wouldn’t go over very well. “What if I wrote him a letter?” I asked.
“Honestly, I don’t care how you do it. He isn’t doing well. He needs to know that I don’t blame him.”
“I think I can do that.” Gale Force whinnied and nudged me when I stopped stroking her neck. I laughed and asked, “Anything else?”
“Oh, yeah, just one more thing. Stay away from that cop you’re seeing.”
“What?” I asked, surprised. “Why?”
“I don’t like him. Never have.”
Sounded legit. “I’m not seeing Ian. So you don’t have to worry.”
“Yeah,” he said with a scoff. “That’s what the last girl said.”
“What last girl?”
Gale Force reared up. I gasped and stepped back. She was so beautiful.
“Tamala Dreyer,” he called out as he turned and spurred her forward. “Look her up!”
“Wait! Why did you let me run from you yesterday? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Dude, I’m the headless horseman. I live for that shit.”
He took his job way too seriously. But he pulled it off well. As they galloped down a side street, black cloak billowing out behind him, he looked as headless and creepy as ever.
16
Coffee has given me unrealistic expectations of my productivity.
—T-SHIRT
I dropped off a sandwich at James’s box and listened to his version of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” for a while before taking the other sandwich to Mable. She had to tell me the latest on her great-nephew, and I was suddenly glad I didn’t have a drug problem. He’d have to spend a lot of money if he was going to cover the tat of a vagina he got on his neck during a three-day binge. On the bright side, he was now in rehab and feeling pretty stupid.
I borrowed the car and drove to Erin’s house. I knew her husband had similar hours, so after knocking, I took the key I’d stolen and opened the door. The house was small, but neat and tidy. I started in the living room, and sure enough, almost every picture there was of the old creepy lady. Her eyes were solid white, and her toothless mouth hung open in a scream or a laugh, I couldn’t tell. She did seem angry, though.