Free Dorothy Parker Drank Here by Ellen Meister Page B

after that, as promised, and didn’t attend any more family functions. By that point, he was living with his girlfriend, a woman named Carol Steiner who was ten years olderthan him. As far as Edie could tell, they were like a million other mildly unhappy childless couples who thought they were smarter and less lucky than most people they knew.
    About five years later Edie got a call from Carol, telling her that Gavin had died unexpectedly that morning from a massive stroke. Edie attended the funeral, accepting condolences from cousins and old friends, eager for it all to be over so she could finally get on with her life, free of her horrible brother.
    A few days later, a FedEx box arrived at her house. It contained the mysterious silk kimono she had left in the storage locker, along with a note from Carol saying,
Gavin wanted you to have this
.
    Edie stared at the gift, wondering what to do. She could have thrown it right into the trash, which would have been the end of her problems. But she brought it upstairs and hung it in the closet of the old guest room, where it had been most of her life.
    That night, Edie was awoken about three a.m. by a man’s voice calling her despised nickname. She sat up in bed, terrified. It was Gavin. His voice was unmistakable. But she knew he was dead—she had seen the body. That could mean only one thing . . . he had returned as a ghost.
My God
, she thought.
The kimono!
What a fool she had been! The family lore was thick with ghost tales, and she should have known this was a possibility.
    She buried herself under the covers and tried to ignore him, but he called over and over, “Chubs! Chubs! I’m back!”
    He went on and on, nearly driving her mad. Finally, she pulled out the baseball bat she kept under her bed and approached the guest room. She would simply grab the kimono, put it outside in the trash.
    But when she reached the room, there he was, standing in the doorway, looking as real as he did in life, only paler and more hideous, the kimono over his shoulders like a prizefighter’s robe.
    â€œWhat are you doing here!” she shouted.
    â€œPut the bat away, you idiot. You can’t kill a ghost.”
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    â€œI’m here to protect the house.”
    â€œProtect it? From what?”
    â€œFrom
you
.”
    She tried to take a swing at him with the bat but he was too quick pulling it out of her hands. He held it over her head as if he were about to smash her skull, and she dropped to the floor, cowering.
    â€œDon’t hurt me!” she cried. “Please!”
    â€œYou think
I’m
mean,” he said, “you should meet the other ghosts in this house.”
    She felt a bit of urine leak into her panties. “Other ghosts?”
    â€œIf you don’t want me to unleash them, you will do what I say. Never sell a single item in this house, do you hear me?”
    â€œBut I need the money!” she said. “I spent so much on the lawyers.”
    â€œTo hell with the money.”
    Edie thought about her dwindling bank account. This house had so many treasures that she knew she could live off them forever. What would she do without them? Except for one disastrous stint as assistant to her father’s stockbroker, Edie had never held a paying job in her life. She simply didn’t have the constitution for it. Even the cheap apartment she had lived in with a friend had been subsidized by her parents.
    Now her brother had cut off her only means of income. And so, with the ghost of Gavin as her controlling roommate, she continued to spend down her inheritance. Every so often she tried to sneak off with a small treasure but was always caught. And there was no chance of getting rid of the dreaded kimono because he never took it off. With money running out, she ate little more than day-old bread and off-brand canned soup she purchased at the dollar store. Edie was poor and miserable, and this