Chapter 7 -- "Meanwhile Back at the Gatehouse, Wildwind and Tempo"
"Please excuse me while I check my messages," Opal was saying as she flipped back the top of her cell and punched in her code. "I just bet that Isabella Santos left me a doozy!"
Stuart and Marian had not as yet recovered from the amazing tale Lily and Opal had revealed to them over the last half hour.
"So the ghost of Edmund is among us?" Marian asked, to make sure.
"Present!" Edmund responded, holding up his ghostly right arm.
Marian simply did not know what to think.
"Well, I believe it!" Stuart volunteered. "Stranger things have happened around here than a ghost looking for his time machine. Remember Erica as a showgirl in Vegas?"
"That was pretty strange," Lily agreed. "I'm glad she quit the chorus line and came home to Pine Valley!"
Stuart grinned. "Erica will always come back. She belongs in Pine Valley."
"So do I," Edmund said. "Lily, please ask Stuart why he thinks I was killed off."
Lily did just that.
"Tell Edmund I can't figure that out either," Stuart replied. "Oh, I can tell him myself, can't I?" He turned to where he imagined Edmund might be standing. "Edmund, I can't figure that out either."
Marian was awash with empathy. Her part had been so reduced in the last years, that she wondered sometimes how long it would be before the Grim Reaper/Assistant Director knocked on the Gatehouse door. "Poor Murdered Darling! At least if they hadn't found your body, there would be a chance of your return!"
Stuart sighed in agreement. "If only the stable had burned to the ground!"
Lily frowned. "But then I would have been killed off!"
"Okay," Stuart amended, "if only Aidan had pulled Lily out and THEN the stable had burned to the ground!"
"With Zach in it," Edmund said with real feeling. "Only HIS dead body should have been found and positively identified."
Opal clicked her cell shut. "Is this a séance or a Writers' Meeting?"
"We were just waiting for you to finish checking your messages, sweetie," Marian explained. "Anybody happen to leave you a message about a time machine?"
Opal grimaced. "My only message was from your slut of a widow," she told Edmund. "Why do you suppose she wants to talk to me?"
"Please don't call Maria a slut," Stuart implored Opal. "We don't exactly know for sure what happened between her and Zach."
"I'm only going by Erica," Opal sniffed.
"And Erica doesn't know the half of it," Edmund reflected. "Opal, please ask Stuart if he has any idea where my time machine is."
Opal repeated Edmund's question, but Stuart honestly had no idea.
"What do you suppose a time machine would look like anyway?"
Edmund wished he could remember, but all he could think about at the moment was Mrs. Tilwiliger.
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"Well, Mrs. Tiwiliger, I think under the circumstances, it would be better for Maddie to find another piano teacher. In fact, she may be giving up the piano altogether. In fact, the piano may be sold tomorrow along with everything else. But thanks again for calling. And yes, I agree that we were great while it lasted but it was just one of those things." She held the receiver until she heard Mrs. Tiwiliger hang up. "Just one of those crazy things," she mused, remembering the Cole Porter song Mrs. Tiwiliger had taught her that last night. Sighing, she hung up. Her phone immediately began ringing.
"Dr. Maria Santos Grey, it's Opal Cortland. You left me a message, so I'm calling you back." She sounded miles away from thrilled. "I hope this isn't about your Mama getting all wet."
Maria was tempted to tell Opal her Mama had been BORN all wet, but refrained. The reason for this call was too important. Everything was at stake.
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Brooke English was screaming at a framed, autographed photograph of Edmund Grey. She was sitting in the dark, except for the muted light provided by the late afternoon sun filtering through the half-closed blinds of her office windows, bathing everything in a hazy twilight glow. Brooke, however, was not in a hazy twilight glow. Brooke was in a total eclipse of the sun.
"Edmund, you bastard, why can't I hate you? If I had any self-respect I would loathe your memory and spit on your grave." Six empty boxes of Kleenex littered her desk. She opened another box and pulled out a thick wad of tissues. "I wouldn't be crying non-stop, if I had an ounce of self-worth." She blew her nose and threw the wad away into the closest of four already filled-to-the-brim wastepaper baskets.. "Not only did you jilt me at the alter just because I didn't get around to telling you that your wife was still alive, not only did you pretend to be unable to walk when it turns out you could have auditioned for the Rockettes, not only did you tell me that you intended to dump Maria without also telling me that you should have married me instead of her in the first place, but then you went ahead and made me Executrix of your lousy Will. If I had one scintilla of self-esteem, I'd run away to Vegas and become a Showgirl." She wiped the tears from both cheeks and her chin. "So now by law I'm forced to follow your demented wishes and organize a cruddy Estate Sale to get rid of all of your stupid stuff." Absently, she wiped up the puddles that had collected on her desk next to Edmund's photograph. "And I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life mediating between your crummy children and your unfaithful slut of a wife." She pounded the desk with her fists, so hard that Edmund's photograph moved. "And they should have been MY crummy children," she sobbed. "And I never would have been unfaithful to you. You know that, you always knew that." She put Edmund's photograph face-down on her desk. "You always knew that!"
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Lily thought Edmund looked unhappy. The corners of his ghostly mouth were turned down, and she knew that was a sure sign in people who were still alive, so she suspected it might hold true for people who weren't still alive.
"Edmund," she ventured, "is anything wrong? I mean, in addition to everything we already know is wrong?"
"A friend of mine is going through a bad time," Edmund replied, "and I need to help her before anything else can happen."
Can Edmund help Brooke? Will helping Brooke bring him closer to finding the time machine? What does Mrs. Tiwiliger know? Lots of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!