Joplin's Ghost (12 page)

The backs of Phoenix’s thighs felt rock-hard and sore as she climbed the endless stairs. Too many dance rehearsals. “Man, I wish you’d lived downstairs, bruh,” she muttered.

Upstairs, Phoenix found a piece of time frozen in the late-afternoon light.

A door stood open at the top of the stairs, welcoming her to sky-blue walls and glossy wooden floorboards covered with area rugs, a long hallway. This was a home, sprawling in three directions. She saw a bedroom doorway to the left of her (the knobs of an antique bed frame in her view, like the one from Disney’s
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
), a larger parlor with a fireplace in the entryway beside it, and a long hallway directly ahead of her with a writing table nestled in a far corner, leading to a room at the end of the hall with a small table and chairs that might be a kitchen. Phoenix felt like an intruder.

“Hello?” she called.

As she would in anyone’s home, Phoenix walked toward the parlor first. The room wasn’t large—her parents’ living room in Miami was much bigger—but its regalness and warmth put her at ease. The centerpiece was the white fireplace, which wasn’t ornate, but bore enough details in its decorative grill and mantel to satisfy her appetite for Victorian-era trappings, as did the elegant matching settee and armchair propped beside it, ready to entertain teatime guests. A large photograph of Joplin preserved in an egg-shaped, gold-colored frame hung above the fireplace and its antique wooden mantel clock.

The furniture and globe-shaped lamps in the room were largely mismatched, probably scavenged from antique stores and thrift shops. The mauve Oriental rug in the center of the room retained coloring only at its edges; the bulk of it was so threadbare that the fabric had been worn nearly gray. The upright piano against the wall across from the fireplace hadn’t been Joplin’s, but Phoenix guessed it occupied the same space Joplin’s had. The sheet music to “The Entertainer” was propped on the piano, one of the pieces Milton had mentioned Joplin probably composed while he lived here, along with, yes, “Weeping Willow.”

The stillness in the room was intoxicating. Phoenix stood beside the piano, not touching anything, listening for the silent hum of the room’s past. Two parlor windows against the far wall filled the room with brightness, so Phoenix went to one of them and stared down at the street. The view wasn’t much more encouraging than what she’d seen outside; there was a compound of multistory redbrick buildings a couple of blocks away, but many of the rectangular windowpanes were missing, leaving a checkerboard of shadows. Beyond that, she saw the pale green steeple of a brick church that looked as if it, too, might have survived since Joplin’s day. The mass of buildings depicted in the detailed maps downstairs were mostly gone, but that church was still standing.

Syphilis,
Phoenix thought suddenly, saddened, as she stared outside. Napoleon, Oscar Wilde, Joplin. She’d learned about the disease’s long, horrible death when Sarge told her about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, government doctors withholding the cure from dying black men for decades after the discovery of penicillin.
Thank the Lord I was born in 1981 and not a minute sooner—can I find a witness?

Phoenix heard a faint bumping noise beside her, which made her jump, but she realized it was only a horsefly throwing itself against the windowpane, as if it intended to break free. The fly’s wings glistened purple and green, flitting in an angry blur. The fly’s intrusion broke Phoenix’s spell. She left the parlor, passing through to the bedroom, with its quilted bedspread, smaller fireplace, wooden wardrobe, antique sewing machine, and lacy curtains. She pulled open a half-propped door and found a turn-of-the-century version of a master bathroom, with a clawfoot tub and exposed fixtures where a toilet might once have been.

Back in the hallway beside the stairs, there was still no sign of Milton. Phoenix made her way across the long hall to the room she had correctly guessed was the kitchen. This room was especially quaint, crammed with relics: an old-fashioned icebox, an antique stove, a washboard and a slew of gadgets she didn’t recognize. Still, she knew none of these items had belonged to Joplin. She barely felt his memory here.

The parlor was her favorite room.

Phoenix walked back toward the parlor to wait for Milton, deciding she would go soon. She wasn’t going to find whatever she’d been afraid of here, even if a small part of her craved affirmation of her childhood connection to Joplin. Joplin’s world receded, and hers came back into focus. Sarge would be glad to hear “Party Patrol” was on the radio here. And she hoped Gloria would follow through on her promise to bring her curried chicken. She couldn’t take another night of bland room service.

In the parlor, a man stood staring out of the window where she had been a moment before, where the fly had interrupted her. The sight of him froze Phoenix in the entryway.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, but the man didn’t turn to acknowledge her. His profile told her that he was dark-skinned like Milton, but he had a smaller frame, and he wasn’t bald. He wore a white dress shirt that hung over his dark slacks, his hands locked behind his back. He could be a statue.
This place is like Mecca for musicians, a place for worshippers,
she thought.

Phoenix’s cell phone chirped, and in the stillness the sound was deafening. She grabbed it, quickly stepping away from the parlor entryway so she wouldn’t annoy the man. “Hey, girl,” Gloria’s voice said. “I’m parked outside. Come on, while the food’s hot.”

The knowledge that food was waiting downstairs made Phoenix’s stomach growl. She heard Milton’s footsteps climbing up at last. “Yeah, I’ll be right down. Perfect timing.”

Milton was halfway up the stairs when Phoenix met him at the top landing. She took two steps down, speaking in a hushed tone. “Mr. Milton, this has been incredible, but my ride is outside, so I have to go. I got a great self-guided tour. Thank you so much.”

“You’re sure?” he said. “I’m so sorry about the interruption.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve already kept you here late.”

With a satisfied shrug, he turned to descend the stairs ahead of her. The stairway was too narrow for anything except single file. “Then I guess I’ll lock up behind us. My wife will be shocked to see me for dinner.”

“Wait, though,” Phoenix said, on his heels. “There’s a last guy upstairs.”

Milton turned back to face her, tilting his shiny head. “Oh?”

“In the parlor.”

“At the window?”

“Yeah…” Phoenix said, a beat before she wondered how he knew.

Milton’s cheeks expanded as he grinned. He carried on his climb downstairs, jingling his keys in his hand. “You
are
the special one today,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

Milton unlocked the door marked 2658-A Morgan and opened it for her. Phoenix could see the red hood of Gloria’s car waiting at the curb. “Most visitors aren’t lucky enough to get the full welcome,” Milton said. “Miss Smalls, you’ve just met our resident ghost.”

Phoenix felt her blood slow to a cold crawl.

I
still say he’s full of shit,” Gloria said, scooping the last of the moo goo gai pan into her mouth from the carton with her chopsticks. They sat together on their suite’s living room sofa while a
Seinfeld
rerun played on the twenty-seven-inch screen—the episode when Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine can’t find their car in the parking garage. She and Gloria never bothered with the dining room table, always eating in front of the TV the way they had when Phoenix spent the night at Gloria’s house as a kid, freed from Mom’s strict rules.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Phoenix said. Her curried chicken was too salty, and she’d lost her appetite anyway, so she’d eaten only a bite or two. After her shower, she’d put on a long nightshirt she’d bought from a tourist trap on Ocean Drive in South Beach; an aqua-colored shirt with a smiling dolphin she wore almost every night on the road to remind her of home. Her fuzzy slippers were her other familiar comfort, except that she didn’t feel comforted.

“Tell me what this alleged ghost looked like,” Gloria said.

Phoenix sighed, wrapping her arms around her knees, cradling them to her chest as she leaned against the supple sofa cushion. “I told you, he just looked like a guy standing there.”

“But…did he look fuzzy or shimmery or anything like that? Was there any bright light around him? Was the room cold?”

Phoenix shook her head, exhaustion flooding her. She was getting a headache, the malady she’d inherited from Sarge. Soon, if she wasn’t careful, she’d feel the telltale nausea and sensitivity to light that signaled a migraine. The only cure for that would be bed, and although it was only six-thirty and not yet dark outside, bed seemed like a good idea.

Gloria jabbed her chopstick at her in an
ah-HA
gesture. “That dude was bullshitting you. That wasn’t any damn ghost, Phee. Don’t let him mess with your head.”

“Maybe,” Phoenix said, just so Gloria would be quiet.

Phoenix had practically clung to Van Milton as he walked her through Joplin’s apartment to show her that no straggler had been left behind. The spot at the window had been empty, and he’d taken her as far as the expansive, near-empty attic to prove his point. No one else was upstairs. She had been the last person to leave.

The last
living
person, anyway, she reminded herself.

He only comes out when it’s quiet,
Milton had explained calmly.
I see him most often in the early-morning hours, before opening. The first time, like you, I thought he was a stray visitor at the window. That day it was near closing time, as it was today, and when I came back to let him know we were locking up, he was gone. I’ve never been one to believe in ghosts and such, but it’s different when it happens to
you
. Once I accepted him, I ran into him more and more often, as if he’d learned to accept me as well. Usually I see him standing at the window, or else sitting by the fireplace with his back turned to the doorway. Once after a busy day, I think he was a little irritated; and I stumbled at the top of the stairs, as if someone had pulled a string to trip me. There was no string, of course, but I felt
something,
and I
nearly lost my balance. I think about it every time I climb down those stairs, and I’m just grateful I didn’t tumble down and hurt myself. It’s a long fall, as you can see.

All that said, I don’t think he means anyone any harm. He just gives you small things to notice. For instance, one morning I’d just straightened out the bedroom, and when I turned around to pass the room again, I found the lampshade swinging askew. It’s little things like that. I see him exactly as you said: He’s not a ghost like you see in the movies. He looks like a flesh-and-blood man, and if you walk right by him, you’d never know any different. I bet you could walk up and touch him if he’d stand still long enough.

Phoenix didn’t believe Milton was lying, and she knew that if Gloria had come inside to meet him, she wouldn’t think so either. Milton was an erudite man who ran a museum, not the eccentric caretaker of an amusement-park-style haunted house.

“Did you call Ronn back? He left you a message,” Gloria said.

“Shit,” Phoenix said. She picked her tiny white flip-phone up from the coffee table, wondering what she would say to Ronn. She should have called Ronn before now, she told herself with a ripple of guilt that lingered much longer than she wanted it to. It was amazing how easily he fell from her mind, considering how funny, sharp and gentle he was—
and RICH too
? Something was missing, and it puzzled her more all the time. She still couldn’t feel relaxed about Ronn, and they had been sleeping together for six months. Hell, what was Phoenix Smalls doing trying to hang with a former crack dealer turned multimillionaire who could have his pick of any woman, from a phalanx of backstage skanks to bona fide movie stars?

She was sleeping with her boss, the mother of clichés, and Sarge had warned her, or tried to. But if it was a mistake, it was hers alone. Sarge might have chased away Carlos when she was sixteen, but he didn’t have a say over her love life now.
If it were up to Sarge, he’d try to make me marry my career, just like him.

Ronn picked up the phone on the first ring. His gravelly profundo basso voice made her stomach squirm, a reaction that hadn’t changed. “Hey, baby girl,” Ronn said. “I’m about to have a little sit-down, so I’ma have to get back to you. How you been doin, though?”

“Rehearsing my ass off. And I just went on a tour of the Scott Joplin House.” She almost mentioned the ghost, but thought better of it. She didn’t want to sound like a flake.

“Whose house?” Ronn said, and Phoenix heard a sudden flurry of voices and men’s booming laughter, like a frat party finding its rhythm. It amazed her how often Ronn’s work sounded like play; he had a gift for making it look easy, even when it wasn’t. “Hey, Phoenix, hold up. Can I holla back at you in a couple hours? You gonna be up?”

“Sure,” she said. “Just call me when you can.”

He made a kissing sound, his voice soft. “A’ight then. Later.” Then his voice rose to a booming laugh. “Hey, playa,
how you doin—
” Then the phone clicked dead.