The Empty Desk
Authors: Steve Lockley
Steve Lockley
Based upon the television series created by John Gray
Melinda Gordon has a gift. A very special gift.
Since childhood she has been able to see ghosts and, over time, has developed the skills to help those who have yet to pass from this world to the next to complete their journey. Her own young son, Aiden, has a similar talent, and they are not the only ones in the town of Grandview with such a gift.
Not everyone who learns about her gift is happy about it, and some would prefer to see her gone from the town.
With the help of her husband, Jim, and a close circle of friends, Melinda helps those who are trapped in this world carry out the one final task that will free them to cross over.
An early fall sun streaked through the russet leaves that still clung to branches. The next breeze would almost certainly send them scuttling across the street as if they were making a dash for freedom, but for now they held on with at least the pretense of life. Melinda had always loved this time of year, even though the cold of winter was not so very far away. A car sounded its horn as she walked toward the antique store and looked up to see Dana Kelly waving at her from a small sedan. It had been years since Melinda had last seen her, and she could not hide her surprise. She didn't even know that Dana was back in town. She returned the wave as Dana held one hand to the side of her face: the universal sign for “call me.” Melinda nodded her understanding as the other woman beeped her horn once more before driving on past. She still had her hand in the air as the car turned at the next junction. Dana Kelly was back, and that could only mean that Melinda's life was about to change.
They had been close once. Maybe not quite sharing-everything close, not even tell-each-other-absolutely-everything close, but they had enjoyed each other's company, spoken just about every day, and gone shopping and for coffee together. But then Dana had moved out of town to train as a teacher and then had taken a new job. Their daily chats had continued by telephone for a while, keeping up with the day-to-day minutiae of life, but gradually their new lives took over, and it became difficult to find even a few minutes when both of them could spare the time to chat. Eventually weeks and months began to slip by, during which time they spoke to each other no more than a couple of times. Finally it became little more than birthdays and Christmas. Melinda could not remember the last time they had spoken, but she was already looking forward to catching up. It had been far too long.
Delia was already inside the antique store when Melinda got there. Having a friend on the premises next door made life so much easier when she couldn't be around to receive a delivery. That morning she had been held up in traffic after dropping off Aiden at school and it was already after nine. Aiden was five years old going on fifteen and although she wanted him to stay her little boy, she could already see that he was growing up fast. Soon he would not want her to show her face at the school gates.
Delia had been helping out a lot over the last few weeks, and no matter how many times Melinda had told her that there was no need for her to give up so much of her time, she still kept turning up. If Delia wasn't so helpful, Melinda thought she might have to take her keys away to see if she would take the hint. Delia's real-estate business seemed to be thriving, but she now had a couple of staff to do much of the day-to-day work and Melinda wondered if she might be getting bored. Delia certainly seemed to be finding the comings and goings at the antique shop more interesting than her own business.
“You didn't need to bring it in for me,” Melinda said, pointing to the box on the counter. “I could have picked it up from you.”
“And I said that it wasn't any trouble,” Delia replied. “Besides, I'm inquisitive by nature and I wanted to know what you'd bought this time.” She plucked a pair of scissors from a jar of pens and pencils by the cash register and held them at the ready. “I won't be able to keep an eye on the place this afternoon, though, if you need to pick Aiden up. I need to slip away early.”
“Hot date?” Melinda asked.
“If only,” she said, attacking the packing tape on the box with the scissors. “My car's in the repair shop. I'm just hoping it's easy to fix and that they'll have it ready for me to pick up.”
“You didn't say you had a problem. How did you get in this morning?”
“It started rattling when I left here yesterday. I gave the garage a call, and they said they'd take a look at it this morning if I left it with them. They let me have a loaner, but it makes more noise than my own car was making.”
“Ouch. Hope it's not too expensive.”
“Me too,” Delia said. She set the scissors aside and dove inside the box, pulling packing material out by the handful. Melinda wanted to get in there and take a look for herself, but she didn't want to spoil her friend's fun. “Jez Lowe always used to take care of it for me but now that he's gone, his son has taken over the business. I just hope that he's as good as his dad was and that he takes care of my baby.”
“Mr. Lowe was always so sweet,” Melinda said. The man had been a fixture in the town for as long as she could remember, and everyone who dealt with him always seemed happy with the work he did. “But I thought he had stopped working a long time before he died.”
“He insisted on carrying on looking after mine. Said he loved fine lines. I was never sure if he was talking about the car, though, or me.”
Melinda gave her a look, and it was clear that they were both trying not to laugh. In the end there was no holding it in. Mr. Lowe had been a good man, and she was sure that he wouldn't have a problem with them laughing at him now that he was gone. Or at least she hoped he wouldn't.
“You haven't seen him, have you?” Delia asked, looking around dramatically as if she might be able to see his ghost standing by the counter. “Please tell me he isn't here.”
“No, he isn't here,” Melinda laughed. “I haven't seen him since he died. I don't get to see everyone before they head for the light, you know. If I did, I'd never get any work done, now would I? Now, are you going to help get all that stuff unpacked, or would you like me to do it?”
“I'm on it,” Delia said, raising her hands in surrender.
Melinda made coffee, leaving Delia to fuss with the box, but when she returned Delia was talking into her cell phone. She hung up and slammed it down on the counter a little harder than she had probably intended. Clearly whoever she had been speaking to had left her angry.
“Trouble?”
“He said they might have to hang on to the car for a few days. They've only had it for a couple of hours, and I can already hear the bill clocking up.” She went back to emptying the contents of the box in silence, and Melinda decided that there was nothing that she could say about the car that was likely to make the situation any better.
“You'll never guess who I saw on my way in,” Melinda said, doing her best to change the conversation.
“Dead or alive?” Delia asked, looking up from what she was doing.
“Alive, of course,” Melinda said indignantly, even though Delia didn't deserve it.
“There's no âof course' about it. One seems to be just as likely as the other as far as you're concerned,” she said. The smile had come back to her face as if her troubles had suddenly been forgotten, for a moment at least.
“Alive,” Melinda repeated. “Definitely alive.” She had seen a few souls who had been waiting to find their way into the light as she had traveled into work, but none of them had been looking for her help. At least not yet. She could only help those who wanted to be helped. If they wanted to hang around for a while, it wasn't up to her to change their minds, unless they were becoming a nuisance, of course.
“Robert Redford?” she suggested, without even looking up from her delving. “Or is he dead? I can't remember.”
“Nope. Try again.”
“George Clooney?”
“Now you're just being silly.”
“Okay, well, if it's not Oprah, I give up.”
“You give up too easily,” Melinda said.
“Go on then. Put me out of my misery,” Delia said, though she wasn't really showing any signs of misery. Melinda was getting the feeling that Delia would rather she shut up for a moment so she could investigate the contents of the box without any further distraction.
“Dana Kelly,” Melinda said, then waited for Delia's response, but it wasn't long in coming.
“Who?” It wasn't quite the reply she was expecting.
“Dana Kelly. You must remember her.” Melinda reeled off a list of details of where she had lived, the places they had hung out, the friends they might have in common, but they meant nothing to Delia. Sometimes it was easy to forget how lives could fail to intersect in any meaningful manner, even in a town the size of Grandview. Perhaps Dana had even moved away before Melinda first met Delia. The time before Aiden was born often seemed to be a little blurred, as her life had changed so much at that point.
“So, she's important to you, right?”
“We were good friends. Somehow I thought you must have known her.”
Delia shrugged and lifted the first of the items from the box: an art deco teapot that had a little too much orange for Melinda's taste, but then she wasn't the one who would be putting it in her home. It was having a similar effect on Delia, and when she started to pull out matching cups and saucers she set it aside, no longer interested in the allure of the box and its contents.
“I take it you haven't seen this Dana for a while, then?” Delia asked, returning the packing material to the box. Clearly unpacking was no longer a priority.
“We lost touch,” Melinda said, struggling to remember the last time she had actually seen Dana. She remembered waving goodbye when she had moved away and they had talked about her coming back to visit, but somehow that had never happened. She had not thought about her for so long now that it was as if Dana had almost slipped away.
“Ah,” Delia said. “Isn't that always the way? Some friends come and go, but others just keep coming back. So are you two hoping to hook up again?”
“It would be nice to catch up, that's for sure.”
“And if she doesn't call? What then?”
“Then I'll call her.”
“Ah, but that just shows that you're more desperate to talk to her than she is to talk to you. You're going to end up stalking her, all because she gave you a little wave as she drove past. Is that it?”
“We're not talking about a guy,” Melinda said. She knew that Delia was only teasing her, but she found it hard not to rise to the bait. “This is just an old girlfriend.”
“Well, of course not. Why would you even want to talk to another guy when you've got Jim to keep you warm at night?”
“Delia!”
Delia shrugged but there was no hiding the smile that was spreading across her face. Melinda was relieved to hear the sound of the bell announcing the arrival of the first customer of the day. She hadn't even realized that the sign had been turned over to show that the store was open. The young man flashed a smile in their direction, and Delia was on the move before Melinda could react. A moment later she was deep in conversation with the new arrival. At least it gave Melinda a break and the chance to take a look in the box herself.
“She needs to take care of that car,” a voice from beside her said. Melinda looked up from the box and saw an old man in a denim engineer's cap and matching blue overalls.
“Mr. Lowe,” Melinda said in a voice that was a little louder than she had intended. Both Delia and the customer stopped talking and looked in her direction but said nothing.
“Sorry,” Melinda said. “I just remembered a name I'd forgotten.” The customer gave her a look that said he thought she was an idiot, but it was clear that Delia knew exactly what was going on.
Melinda motioned toward the back of the store in the hope that she would be out of earshot there. More than enough people in the town already knew what she could do, and not all of them were happy with the idea. It wasn't something she wanted to shout about. When she turned around, though, the ghost of Jez Lowe was nowhere to be seen.
“Mr. Lowe,” she whispered, but there was still no sign of him. She called again, this time a little louder. Nothing. The doorbell tinkled again and the door swung closed. She looked back into the shop to see that the customer had left without buying anything. She hoped that her apparently strange behavior hadn't scared him away.
“He was here, wasn't he?” Delia said. “Jez was here? What did he say?”
“Just that you need to look after your car.”
“Is that it?” Delia said, her hands planted firmly on her hips. “Nothing else?”
Melinda shrugged. It was all she had to tell her.