Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

the glass-topped coffeetable. “What you mean is,” he said, jabbing a finger toward Bryant but not looking up from the rose, “so far there is no definite physical evidence that termites eat stones.”

“I read in the paper that there are termites that can eat cement,” Gretchen Blickstein said.

Jessica smiled and tipped her head with interest. No one else seemed to have heard her.

“That reminds me,” Mickelsson said, “that house I bought, down by Susquehanna, Pennsylvania—it’s supposed to be haunted.”

They all looked at him, expecting a story—or all but the Swissons.

“Britt and I don’t believe in ghosts,” Kate Swisson said.

“I do,” old Mrs. Meyerson cried out sharply, and considered saying more, then hushed. Her husband slowly turned his head and looked at her, as if startled to discover her still there.

Jessica said, tilting toward Mickelsson, “Tell us about it, Pete! Are you serious?”

He told them what he knew. He was surprised himself at how little he’d bothered to find out.

Though he knew it was foolish, Mickelsson refilled his martini glass. As he poured from the pitcher, now more water than gin, the young woman who’d helped out was putting her coat on to leave. “You do this kind of thing often?” he asked. When she said nothing, he glanced over his shoulder. She had her lips clamped together in stern concentration, buttoning the coat—black cashmere, fairly new or else very well cared for. She bent her head forward, drawing her flowing auburn hair from under the collar and shaking it out behind her. He put away the pitcher, closed the refrigerator door, and asked again, “Do you do this kind of thing often?”

Suddenly she looked straight at him. “I’m sorry, I’m not good at talking to people yet,” she said. Her eyes were filled with tears. Then, turning away, she snatched her white scarf from the back of the chair and was gone.

“Hey, wait!” he began, then closed his mouth.

It was not that she’d attacked him; she’d somehow made it clear that it was nothing personal, not his fault. But for all that, the hand that held the martini was shaking so badly he had to put the glass down on the counter. How terrible, he thought, that the universe should be so charged with pain and rage! Universe, universe, universe, he heard his wife’s voice hiss, the voice so clear, so “real,” so to speak, that he turned and looked past his shoulder. The room was empty—more than empty, he thought: drawn back from him like a cowering beast; it seemed if he moved nearer it would strike. Some thought trembled at the edge of his consciousness, some familiar idea turned at a strange new angle; but try as he might, straining his attention like a man trying to read a clue in charades, he couldn’t quite spring it. He got his pipe from his coatpocket, packed it and lit it, and at last, feeling calmer, took his martini from the counter and started back to the livingroom. He remembered the young woman’s eyes as she spoke to him. Had she been raped? Newly released from prison? Had she lost a child? He got an image of her standing in the shadow of the woods above his house, motionless. Then it came to him that, imperceptibly, her image had confused itself with that of another angry young woman, his student Brenda Winburn, watching him patiently, with an expression he could not read. “Not me,” he whispered inwardly, meeting the sullen, witchy eyes. When Mickelsson realized he was talking to himself, he immediately forgot, if he’d ever known, what he’d been thinking.

Jessica said, “I understand your friend Dr. Bauer is being sued for malpractice.”

Mickelsson looked up, slow-witted from drink, and saw what he should have known, that there was nothing snide in it. “Bauer?” he asked, then remembered. “That doesn’t seem likely,” he said, forming the words with care.

They were among the last remaining. The Rogerses, Swissons, and Meyersons had left over an hour ago, the Garrets maybe half an hour later. Now the Bryants were at the top of the stairs leading down to the entryway, where for the past ten minutes they’d been talking with great animation to the Blicksteins. Gretchen Blickstein looked asleep on her feet, but the dean, smiling and punching out diagrams in the air, made up for her. His shirttail bulged out in front, but he seemed not to notice, enjoying himself immensely. “That Blickstein’s got energy,” people said. “I wonder if he ever sleeps.”

“I’m sure she’s not guilty, if that’s what you mean,” Jessica said, and shrugged. “But she is being sued; some young woman died in childbirth. It was two or three years ago. The doctor’s lawyer is a friend of ours—that is, mine.” She saw his look of disbelief and came straight at him. “These things happen, you know.”

Mickelsson shook his head. “Maybe so,” he said. “I would’ve thought, the way they seem to feel about Dr. Bauer—” He was suddenly conscious of two things at once, his attraction to Jessica and the distance he had to go to reach home. He didn’t feel too drunk to drive, exactly, but his eyelids were leaden; perhaps he’d have to sleep beside the road. He thought of trying to proposition her; but he said, voice lowered and a trifle stern, “Everybody you talk to in Susquehanna speaks highly of ‘the doc.’ ”

“I’m sure that’s so,” she said, half smiling, watching him. She sat finely balanced, legs crossed at the knees, her smooth-muscled body alert and calm, like a slightly displeased schoolteacher, or some superior lifeform in a sci-fi movie, observing but carefully not meddling. “Yet there are some pretty strange people down there, I’m told.”

“Me, for one!” Mickelsson said, hitting his chest with the inside of his fist and laughing, playing maniac.

She looked cross for an instant, then reconsidered, frowning down at her hands folded on her knees. She moved her right hand to touch the gold chain on her left wrist, making light