This Is a Book - Demetri Martin [39]
“Jesus. What happened to you? Are you okay?”
“Yeeeeees, George, I’m fine. I’m a ghost. I came to visit youuuuu.”
“Wow. Sheila. I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Meeee toooo,” she replied.
George invited Sheila to sit down, and she did her best to, floating just above the chair. They started to talk, picking up right where they’d left off, connecting in the same effortless way they had done two weeks earlier.
Despite her initial ghoulish appearance, Sheila looked great. She explained that those longer vowels that rang out when she spoke were not intentional. It was a side effect of being a ghost.
“It’s sort of built into the ghost speech mechanism,” she explained. “I guess to make haunting easier.”
With a little practice, Sheila was able to minimize the effect. Although, every now and then she would say “boo” without warning. George took it in stride. They talked and laughed and shared stories all night. And before they knew it, it was morning. As the sun rose, George walked Sheila to the door.
“I had so much fun tonight,” Sheila said, glowing demurely.
“Me toooooo,” responded George.
Sheila laughed.
“When can I see you again?” asked George.
“Well, tomorrow I have to visit some people involved with a murder, because of my visa, but I’m free the next night.”
“Great,” said George. “It’s a date.”
Two nights later, Sheila was back in George’s apartment. Again, they stayed up talking, hours passing like minutes, each of them finishing each other’s sentences. George made tea for Sheila. It went right through her. They laughed about it. Then Sheila inhabited one of George’s throw pillows and danced around with it. She challenged him to a pillow fight. As they jousted with pillows they had trouble catching their breath from laughing so hard, and also, in Sheila’s case, from being inside a pillow.
Sheila came by every night for the next week. And every night she and George stayed up and explored their own magical little world. Nothing else seemed to matter.
George asked Sheila to be his girlfriend. She said yes. And that night they kissed for the first time. It took a little bit of effort, but they managed to do it.
At first George didn’t tell anyone about Sheila. He knew people would have trouble understanding. But he couldn’t hide his happiness. He was falling in love and he needed to tell someone.
“I’m seeing Sheila,” he told his therapist.
“Sheila? What do you mean?”
“You remember Sheila. I met her when I was dead. She’s been visiting me, as ast.”
His therapist sighed. “George, do you really believe you’re dating a ghost?”
“Dating a ghost? I’m sleeping with her.”
George’s therapist choked on his Diet Sprite. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, she floats on top of me, and—”
“Okay,” interrupted his therapist. “You know what? I think we should just leave it there.”
“But—”
“Sorry, George. It looks like we’re out of time,” he said with a concerned look in his eye and a little bit of soda in his beard. “I’m not really qualified to deal with this sort of thing. Try to get some rest.”
George knew he wasn’t crazy, but judging from his therapist’s reaction, he decided it would be best to keep his relationship with Sheila to himself for a while.
Sheila continued to visit George, usually at night. That was the best time to do so. He had to work days at his ad job, and it was a lot easier for him to see her at night, literally, because of the luminescence of her ghost body. Sheila split her time between seeing him and visiting people related to the murder case. She had to make sure she stayed involved with the case or she risked being discovered by the Visa Department. It was a complicated case, which was a mixed blessing for Sheila. On the one hand, it ensured that she’d be able to stay on Earth for a while. On the other hand, it was getting tedious. Every time she haunted someone who was involved with the murder case, she had to deal with their typical, incredulous reactions to meeting a ghost, and then she’d have to answer a littany of questions about