The Matchmaker's Medium

“Ha-ha. Anyway, her grandma’s ghost kept trying to warn her because—well, the kid who killed Trevor is working at your shop.”

Silence.

“Hello?” I asked, after a few minutes.

“Oh, I was waiting for the rest of the joke,” he said.

“Esteban, it’s not a joke. It’s the truth.”

“I don’t have any killer kids working at my shop. Just a bunch of hard-workin’ stiffs who are trying to make a living.”

“Well, he’s not a kid anymore, I guess he’d be about—“I looked at Jamal, who answered with upturned hands and a shrug. No help there. I counted on my fingers: let’s see, 2009, so about 4 years ago—“maybe 18 or 19 years old.”

He was silent again. Hopefully, trying to figure out which guy it was, so we could call in the feds or something.

“Where was this guy from, again?”

“The D.C. area; Trevor and his family lived in Northeast, and this kid was their neighbor, so, yeah. Not a great neighborhood.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know. He was a minor, so they never showed his face or picture or anything. They never even released his name.”

“Then how the hell—you know what, maybe this isn’t a good time to have this conversation, Amber.”

I felt a cold shiver creeping its way up my spine, around to my stomach, into my upper chest. Like an icicle flowing through my veins, slowly making its way to my heart.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked, terrified of the answer.

“Not mad, really, just annoyed, I guess. I mean, how do you know this killer kid guy is working in my shop? You don’t even know what he looks like, or what his real name is.”

The icicle had reached my heart, and a splinter had broken off to wend its way higher, to my throat.

“I, but, you know about my gift—“

“Sure, but you just tell people their love match and crap like that, right?”

Seriously?

Now, I felt the pleasant burn of my best friend—anger—arrive just in time to melt the iciness trying to take over my body.

“No, that’s not all I do. Which is a damn good thing, because I obviously don’t even know how to choose my own love match, do I.” The fiery warmth of my rising fury was nice, compared to the fear of dealing with some new guy’s issues.

“Whoa, look at you, all hostile again.”

We said nothing for a few minutes, each lost in our own thoughts, fears, and insecurities. Finally, he broke the silence.

“Well, that about wraps it up for the day, huh?”

“Sure does,” I said, pushing the ‘end’ button. I sure do miss the physical satisfaction of slamming a phone down when I hang up on a douche like that.

“Now you know how great it was back in my day,” Jamal said, with a new shit- eating grin plastered all over his face.

“Why are you so happy? That idiot doesn’t believe me, so now we have a child murderer at the local repair shop. It’s like a bonus service that people will want—never.”

I tossed the phone in my purse, purposely listening to the buzz-buzz of an incoming call, until it stopped.

“Was that a call?”

“Yeah, so what?” I said, stomping down the hall to the bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower and wash this stink off me. So stay out you big perv!” I slammed the bathroom door.

Jamal smiled really, really big, and did one of his signature disco-dance moves.

“It’s dyno-MIIIITE!” he shouted, hands to the air like a religious man.

Today is turning out to be pretty damn good, he thought, settling himself onto the couch, waiting for his sexy mama to get out of the shower.

Chapter Eleven

Fresh out of the shower, in clean clothes and completely lotioned, body spritzed, deodorized, hair sprayed, and brushed, I felt much better.

“Hoo-wee! Look at you, shinin’ all over the place!” Jamal was waiting in the living room, one arm draped on the top of the couch. He patted the cushion with his free hand, “Come sit next to me, pretty lady.”

I frowned a little, trying not to think anything.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his smile fading a little.

“Why are you acting so weird?” I asked, sitting on the love seat, instead.

He got up and walked over to join me.

“You can stand.”

“Why?”

“Until you tell me what the heck is going on with you. Moving things, hiding stuff, being all happy when I have to break it off with my new lover.” I saw him wince a little at the last word. “See? That’s what I mean. Why does that bother you?”

“What?”

“You know what I’m talking about, stop playing stupid. The word ‘lover’. Why did it make you cringe like that?”

He walked away from me, towards the kitchen.

Why do I suddenly feel like I’m in a soap opera? I thought.

“Maybe because you’re acting like a whore.”

What the—

“What did you just say to me?” I jumped up off the love seat, looking for something to throw it him, until I remembered he was a ghost and that wouldn’t do anything.

“Look, girl, you and I both know you were diggin’ me till this—this—Ricky Ricardo fool came along.”

“Ricky Ricardo is a fake guy on a black-and-white sitcom in the fifties, who was from Cuba, you dope.”

“That’s just geography, baby,” he said, coming around to meet me. “Come on, you don’t need that man draggin’ you down, just be cool with it. We could do so much together.”

“Oh? Oh, really? And what could we actually do together, Jamal? In case you forgot, you’re dead!” I screamed, jabbing my finger into the thin air that should’ve been his face.

“That don’t matter, does it? I mean, one of us could just cross over to the other side, then we could be together.”

“Cross over? Wait, you’re already a ghost, and I’m alive, so you think I’m supposed to—are you completely insane?”

“I know you might be scared right now, but what else do you have to live for? Being a matchmaker for miserable people? Spending all your time talking to the dead, instead of living your life?”

I felt betrayed, shocked, appalled. He really thinks I’m supposed to die for him?

“Well, yeah,” he said, holding his hand out to me, in a ‘come with me’ move straight out of the soaps.