A Ghost in the Glamour, Page 3

  Oh no oh no oh no oh no.

  I turned the wheel right…

  And struck the curb. The jolt threw both of us forward.

  “Nan, are you okay?” Oh shit. I probably killed my grandmother on my first day driving. Not only would I never get a driver’s license, my mother was going to ground me forever. I glanced over at Nan after planting my foot firmly on the brake again. “Nan?”

  “I’m fine.” She looked up, and I could see she was trying to hold in a laugh. “You’re fine. Just put the car in reverse and back up a little.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “You already know, Lindsay.”

  Did I? I had studied the book endlessly, but in that moment, all I could remember was that it was illegal for women in California to drive in a housecoat. That was it. That was the sum total of my driving knowledge, and it had come from a weird e-mail forward Raul had sent me when I turned sixteen.

  What was a housecoat anyway? What made them so dangerous on the road?

  “Okay okay okay.” I put my hand down and slid the car into reverse.

  “Now take your foot off the brake and—”

  “Put it on the gas,” I said. “I know.”

  “No—”

  The car shot back and rolled right over a concrete parking stop with my back wheel. I hit the brakes.

  Bogie started to laugh.

  “Shut up, Frank!”

  “Cupcake, you have a ways to go.”

  I was nearly in tears. Why was this so hard?

  “Nan—”

  “Lindsay, you need to calm down.” Gran pulled out a small flask and took a sip.

  My eyes went wide. “Nan, you cannot give me whiskey when I am driving. What are you thinking?”

  She said, “It’s not for you. It’s for me. Now, drive forward slowly but firmly. You’re going to have to roll over that block again.”

  I winced every second, thinking about what I was probably doing to my car, but I managed to roll over the curb and sloooooowly take the right turn at the end of the lane. Just as we were headed back to the far end of the parking lot, I saw another car pull into the aisle.

  “We’re going to die!” I yelled. “Nan, they can’t be here, this is our parking lot! I’m going to run into them, and we’re all going to die!”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Calm down.”

  “I can’t!”

  “For Pete’s sake, kid. You’re making this twice as hard as it needs to be,” Frank said. “Just stop the car and wait for them to pass.”

  “Okay!”

  I stopped the car. I waited. They passed.

  And no one died.

  “Now pull forward and keep going,” Frank continued. “Try a left turn when we get to the end.”

  “Stop bossing me around,” I said. “You’re not teaching me to drive.”

  “Well…,” Nan said, taking another nip of whiskey. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “What’s not a bad idea?”

  “Frank teaching you to drive,” Nan said.

  “He can’t teach me to drive,” I said. “He’s a ghost.”

  “Which means he’s probably more relaxed than I am about the whole business.” She raised the flask. “You’ve driven me to drink.”

  “Yeah, Nan.” I rolled my eyes. “It sure takes a lot to drive you into that whiskey bottle.”

  “Mind your manners,” she said. “Frank, you go on. She seems to be much more relaxed when she’s sniping at you.”

  “You heard her, kid. You’re working for me now.”

  “What?” I glanced in the rearview mirror. “That is not what she said.”

  “Watch the stop sign. It’s getting close.”

  I stopped. “The rules are probably totally different than when you were driving, Frank.”

  “Not that different. Now take a right.”

  I finally noticed where he’d been guiding me. “What? I can’t go on the street! There are other cars out there.”

  Nan raised her flask. “Well, I can’t be driving us home now. You’re going to have to step up, dear.”

  “Don’t wave that around!” I tried to throw her sweater over the silver flask. “Oh my gosh, Nan, I’m going to get a DUI before I even have my license.”

  “I don’t think they can do that if you’re not drinking, kid.” He leaned forward and popped his slightly transparent head between the seats. “Okay, there’s no one coming. In fact, there’s no one on the roads right now, Linx. You’re fine. You were driving around the parking lot just fine.”

  “Because there were no other cars!”

  “Turn right,” he said calmly. “And stay in the middle lane.”

  Trembling, I pulled forward. Frank was right. There were no other cars on the road. It was Christmas afternoon. Everyone in town was sitting at home eating or napping or playing with presents or doing something other than driving, because it was the most deserted I’d ever seen it. I stayed in the middle lane for four blocks.

  “Now you’re gonna take a left, kid.”

  Convinced I was going to die, I moved to the left turn lane and paused. There was a car coming in the distance.

  “What are you doing?” Frank asked.

  “Waiting for that car.”

  “That car must be five blocks away.”

  “So?” I asked. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “There’s a stop sign on every block!”

  “Calm down, Frank.” I smiled. “It seems like you’re getting tense. You don’t want to be tense while I’m driving, do you?”

  “Are you joshing me, kid?”

  “I don’t even know what that means.” The car finally passed. There was another one coming, but there was also someone waiting behind me at this point. I didn’t want to be a jerk. I pulled forward and got in the center lane.

  “Get in the right lane,” Frank said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re going to turn right eventually.”

  “Define eventually.”

  Nan opened her eyes. I think she’d taken a little nap with all the whiskey she’d drunk so far. She wasn’t an alcoholic, but on Christmas… she did her ancestors proud. At least that’s the way she put it.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “Ask Frank.”

  “We’re taking the scenic route, Peggy. The slow scenic route. We’re traveling in time, in fact. Backward.”

  I smiled at Nan. “He says we’re almost home.”

  “That’s not what I said!”

  I was starting to get the hang of this thing. It wasn’t really all that hard. As soon as I got the acceleration figured out, it was pretty easy. Well, starting and stopping were still a little jerky, but I figured that wasn’t too bad. I stopped well behind the white line at every stop sign.

  Well. Behind.

  “You are not even up to the intersection,” Frank said. “Why are you stopping this far back?”

  “Just being cautious.”

  “You’re not being cautious, you’re being a wimp.”

  “Nan, Frank is calling me a wimp for not driving faster.”

  Nan looked over her shoulder. “Don’t encourage the girl to be reckless.”

  “You may be the only teenager in history to be pulled over by a cop for being too slow,” Frank muttered.

  “Calm down, Bogie.” I had this. I totally had this. Driving was easy. And pissing off Bogie was fun.

  Nan took another sip of her whiskey just as we turned south on Ocean Avenue.

  “Nan, I really wish you’d put that away.”

  “Why?”

  “I only have my permit, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be drinking in the car with me.”

  She shrugged. “That’s a silly law.”

  Frank said, “Peggy, I’m going to need you to put the flask away.”

  “Frank says to put the whiskey away, Nan.”

  She twisted her mouth into a frown,
but she closed the flask and dropped it in her purse. “Such a straight arrow, that Detective Bogle.”

  Frank chuckled, but I kept my eyes on the road. Ocean Avenue was bigger, but it also had more traffic. Nevertheless, I kept in the right lane and cruised slowly south.

  Very. Slowly.

  I was starting to recognize the streets now. Ocean turned into Nelson that turned into Pacific. Four lanes of slow traffic and one nervous teenage driver. We passed North Venice Boulevard, and I tried not to hyperventilate when I moved to the left lane. I knew the roads; they were familiar to my feet, my bike, and my skateboard. But not to me in a car.

  “You okay here?” Frank checked in.

  “Yeah, I’m good.”

  I waited for the light with bated breath. The nerves were starting to come back. What if I turned into the wrong lane? What if the oncoming traffic didn’t stop? What if—

  “You think you might learn how to drive faster than a baby stroller one of these days?” Frank asked. “I’m not saying you need to go racing, but something over ten miles an hour might keep you from getting rear-ended.”

  “Shut up, Frank.” The light turned green, and with a small jerk, I pulled into the intersection. I ended up in the middle of two lanes, but luckily I was the only one on the road.

  “Right lane,” Frank said. “Right!”

  “I know where I’m going!”

  “Do you? I’ve seen blind camels with a better sense of direction.”

  “Really? You’ve seen a blind camel? You haven’t left Southern California in sixty-something years, Bogie. There must be a lot of blind camels around I don’t know about.” I turned right onto Eastern Court, which was hardly more than an alley with trash bins and illegally parked cars lining both sides of the road. “Besides, do you really think I need to be racing through here, smart-ass?”

  “Lindsay, watch your language.”

  “Sorry, Nan.”

  Frank said, “I think you should have turned right on Mildred, rookie. You’re lucky there’s not a moving van blocking the road.”

  I passed the sign for Linnie Canal and stopped, waiting for a little boy and his mom to cross the road.

  “Oh really? What’s the hurry, Frank? Are you late for a… Wait, you’re dead. You have nowhere to go but home with me.”

  “Lindsay!”

  “It’s fine, Peggy,” Frank said. “At least I’m actually dead. Linx just has a dead social life. Which is sadder.”

  I curled my lip when the road dead-ended into Court A. I turned right. “I am not apologizing to this jerk. Don’t even ask, Nan.”

  “Don’t make me speak to your mother, Lindsay.”

  “Go ahead and speak to her,” I said. “Tell her Frank was the one who—”

  “Got us home.” Frank poked his head between the seats as I pulled into the driveway behind my nan’s house. “Merry Christmas, kid. Good driving. Try not to get so stressed out next time, will ya?”

  Frank disappeared, leaving me safe in one piece, staring wide-eyed at Nan.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I did it. I drove us home.”

  “That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

  All I could do was grin.

  “Can I get out my flask now?” she asked.

  “Can I have a drink?”

  “Absolutely not.” She opened the door. “That Frank Bogle is such a bad influence on you.”

  A Ghost in the Glamour

  a Linx & Bogie story

  1

  Bogie Gives Me Reasons to Love My Cell Phone.

  You know, there’s a lot I don’t like about modern life. I hate traffic. (I live in LA. Of course I hate traffic.) I hate leaf blowers even though I can understand their utility. And I hate billboards. Dear God, I hate billboards.

  But mobile phones?

  You know those really annoying people who walk around with an earpiece in, talking on their phones like the other person is in the room? You think they might be crazy at first glance but no, you see that little white cord or earpiece and suddenly they’re just an annoying prick with no regard for anyone’s auditory space.

  That’s me.

  “Frank, do you understand that I am working?” I nearly shouted. “I know you think this is one of those things that just can’t wait, but—”

  “Cupcake, if someone is paying you to put that crap on their wall instead of in the back alley, far be it from me to interrupt your con.”

  I could hear the infuriating laughter in his voice. I ignored it and focused on the shading for the mural I was painting in the new coffee shop/wine bar in Culver City. The owner had started renovating the space and uncovered an old brick wall that hadn’t ever been painted and just had Sheetrock nailed into it. Bless his hipster heart, he didn’t paint it, but he did change his design idea. Suddenly the modern art had given way to chic industrial, complete with a faux-graffiti wall opposite the wine racks. I was one of five artists who’d been asked to contribute to the project. It was fun. Our murals overlapped in designed chaos, giving the illusion of a graffitied wall that just happened to attract five amazing artists.

  I was the best. Of course.

  Frank was still talking. “I heard Mrs. Owens. This vandal is avoiding all the security cameras in the alley, so it’s not some bored chucklehead. He hasn’t hurt anyone yet, but—”

  “Not… listening… to… you,” I muttered, using my fingers to smear the edge of one corner. I’d used lacquer, paint, and epoxy—along with old newspaper the construction crew had found in the walls—to create a background for a wall of eyes. Suspicious eyes. Laughing eyes. Seductive eyes. All sorts. Not creepy eyes, no matter what Frank said. It was a portrait gallery. Eyes with hints of faces, but nothing clear. The space let the audience imagine their own face, or someone they loved. It was familiar and mysterious at the same time. Mostly, if it made people look at the wall instead of their cell phone screen, I’d consider it a success.

  Frank peered over my shoulder and my neck prickled. I hated when he got too close, though after fourteen years with the guy, I was kind of used to it.

  “I think I remember this story.” He pointed at some of the yellowed paper. “Writers’ strike, right?” He chuckled. “All those fat studio bosses must have been squirming.”

  I glanced at the date. “That was in 1960. How do you remember that?”

  “Cupcake, I was dead, not deaf.” He straightened and glanced at the workers installing cold cases at the end of the counter. “How long is this going to take?”

  Frank walked across the room, his hands in his pockets, and deliberately hopped through one of the crew who stopped in his tracks and shook his head, no doubt feeling a prickling sensation envelop his whole body.

  Someone walked over your grave.

  Doubtful, but you might have just walked through a ghost.

  “Will you stop that?” I said, adjusting my earpiece. “So not cool. Let me finish this, and then I’ll deal with your stuff. I’m almost done.”

  “Fine.”

  “Don’t pout, Bogie.”

  I could feel him pouting. I glanced over my shoulder and saw him watching the construction crew, leaning against the old brick wall like he was waiting for a cab. He was such a strong presence I could barely see the brick.

  Frank Bogle was a ghost that had appeared in my life when I was thirteen years old. At the time, I thought he was ancient, but as I’d grown older I realized Frank had actually died in the prime of his life. He was probably around thirty-five and he dressed in a grey pin-striped suit, wing tips, and a black fedora. I’d never seen him wear anything else, though my nan says ghosts can change their clothes at will. Most stuck to the familiar, which told me my own personal bogeyman had been as fastidious in life as he was in death.

  If you’re thinking film noir private eye, you’d be almost right. Frank had been police detective. He was still a detective; he just had to work through me.

  I was not a detective, and I only gave Frank my time when
I had it. I’m an artist. A working artist, thank you, which means for the first time in my life, I was making most of my money from painting. Mural commissions. Street fairs. Etsy shop. Instagram. Websites. Book covers. Tattoo design. Print on demand. I did it all. It was the daily hustle of making money doing the thing I loved, and I wouldn’t have traded it for a nine-to-five if you gave me a million bucks.

  Okay, maybe a million. You could convince me to dye my hair back to a normal color for a million dollars.

  But I didn’t think I’d need to. Right now money was pretty good and the hours didn’t suck, which meant Frank had been bugging me.

  So yes, I was kind of a detective, but only because he was insufferable otherwise.

  “Linx!”

  I turned at the sound of Jackson Powers’s voice. “Hey, Jackson.” I couldn’t stop my stupid smile. And it was always the stupid smile.

  Dammit, he is not that good-looking. Not that… Oh shit, he smiled the big smile. Not the little smirky side smile he does sometimes but the big one. And he was doing it looking at my work.

  “This looks amazing.” He propped his hands on his hips. “I can’t believe you’re almost done. Thank you so much for coordinating this. You guys finished so much faster than I imagined.”

  “Not fast enough,” Frank called. “Is this guy for real? And could those pants get any tighter?”

  I pretended Frank wasn’t there. “I’m just glad you like everyone’s work. We’ve collaborated on shows and exhibitions, so I knew we’d work well together, but it’s always a gamble whether a client is going to be pleased with the overall look.”

  “I confess, I had my doubts when you started.” He looked over at Farah’s moody piece in the corner. “But now that everything is finished…”

  “It works, doesn’t it?” Farah’s work was dark, bordering on grotesque, and was something you wouldn’t normally see in a cafe. But I’d paired him to work with Jonny, whose work had a cartoonish feel that lightened Farah’s and forced the audience to think about how light and dark often existed side by side.

  Just to be safe, I also put it near the lounge area where people were less likely to have food.

  “It really, really does.” Jackson took a deep breath and crossed his arms. I tried not to ogle blatantly. He was just so cute. Beardy and tattooed, he screamed “trust fund entrepreneur,” but I couldn’t help it. He was also really smart and easy to work with.