Page 23 of Man of His Dreams

“Maybe he don’t want to see you. Or maybe your Eye ain’t as open as you think.”

And maybe the separation was just as well, for Scratch’s sake as well as Flip’s, but it didn’t feel that way. Neither did his self-enforced avoidance of Tony, which Miss Amelie didn’t mention.

“I owe my publisher one more book under my contract. Do you envision me writing it in a timely matter?”

“You’re already writing it, boy.”

She was way off track on that. He didn’t have even the germ of an idea for the next one. However, it was too early to start worrying about that, so he wished Miss Amelie a good evening and continued on.

A couple of hours later he returned to his apartment with his belly full. He’d seen ghosts all evening, including a sad-eyed man bussing invisible dishes at the restaurant, and it had been a little difficult to pretend they weren’t there. Some of them acknowledged him with polite nods or waves, as if he were an acquaintance, but he was afraid to respond because the living people around him would think he was crazy. He hoped the ghosts understood and didn’t assume he was intentionally rude.

It was a bit of a relief to return to the solitude of his place—but also a little bit lonely.

An email from his agent was waiting. In recent months, he’d felt dread and shame every time her name appeared in his inbox, but not today. Especially when he saw the subject line: Holy shit.

He grinned while reading the short message.

I was just going to glance at the first few paragraphs, but then I couldn’t stop and now I’m most of the way through, my wife and my dog hate me, and I’m so excited I might cry. Home run this time, Flip. Worth every minute of anxious waiting.

Yeah, Flip knew it was good, but it was nice to get some external validation.

Of course, his work wasn’t nearly done. There would be several rounds of edits, and although he adored his editor, that was always a grueling process. After that would come all the marketing and promotional stuff that he generally hated, and then the fraught dilemma about whether to read reviews or pretend they didn’t exist. And the deadline for the next book felt as if it was looming already.

But all of that could wait.

What he really wished he could do right now was sit with a couple of friends—or a lover—and celebrate his achievement. Nothing flashy. Just a comfortable spot with chill vibes, some tasty snacks and nonalcoholic drinks, and amiable conversation. But Flip had burned most of his friendship bridges long ago, and Ethan had claimed the last of them.

If the Bergeron-Catanzaro house had been open at this hour, Flip probably would have marched over to see Tony. Which would be selfish of him, really; he was the one who’d pushed Tony away. So maybe it was a good thing the place was closed.

Feeling restless, Flip paced his apartment until his gaze fell on the suitcase, still sitting where he’d left it. He dragged it into the bedroom, but after spending a few moments trying to decide whether to open it on the floor or on the bed, he abruptly chose not to open it at all. He’d go for a walk instead.

He wandered for miles, paying little attention to where he went. In Congo Square, ghostly men and women played instruments and danced. Some were dressed in rags, some in finer clothing from more recent eras. Near the Ninth Ward, ghosts waded blank-eyed through invisible flood waters. Near enormous oak trees in City Park, spectral children splashed at the edges of a lake. Near a tangle of freeways and among a crowd of medical and university buildings, a vast empty building loomed, and ghosts stared mournfully at him through glassless windows.

God, why didn’t these spirits move on? Why hadn’t Scratch? Whatever awaited them beyond this plane, it had to be better than trudging meaninglessly around, unnoticed by almost everyone, untouched and unconnected.

Footsore, Flip was almost home when the answer came to him.

He’d been passing through Jackson Square in front of the cathedral. The fortunetellers, buskers, and artists had long since gone home, the tourists were back in their hotels, and the cathedral itself, shrouded in fog, looked transported straight out of a gothic novel. But a ghost sat on one of the benches. He was an old man with long gray hair, and his shapeless layers of clothing could have come from any decade in the last century. He clutched a can in one hand.

“Good evening,” said Flip since there was nobody near enough to notice.

The ghost raised his can in a salute. “Evenin’.”

“It’s a good night for a stroll. Not too hot or too cold. Not raining.”

“A good night for sittin’ too.”

Flip paused in front of him. “It’s a good place to sit.”

“My daughter was baptized in there.” The ghost gestured at the cathedral. “She always said she’d be married there too. But she got sick….” His shoulders slumped.

How could you comfort a man who held so tightly to grief that it survived even his own death?

And that was when understanding struck Flip so hard that for a moment he thought there had been an earthquake. He staggered slightly, blinking to clear the literal flash of insight from his eyes. But no, dammit. It was his Eye that needed clearing.

Flip braced himself and opened it wider than he’d imagined possible.

He saw the ghost on the bench, yes, and several others besides. But he also saw a pair of policemen watching him warily from a block away, and he knew that one of the cops was in the middle of a nasty divorce but would soon meet the love of his life and remarry, and the other cop was worried about an ache he’d been feeling lately in his left knee, which he was soon going to discover was bursitis. An Uber driver a block away was on her way home, looking forward to the leftovers in her fridge and bingeing a sci-fi series on Netflix. A woman staying in an Airbnb a block off the square was pregnant, and although she didn’t know it yet, she was going to be overjoyed when she found out. The baby?—

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