The Cemetery Next Door

Chapter 1

The Cemetery Next Door

By Dale Chase

“Maybe it’s one of your ghosts,” Ray said. He’d come up behind me as I stared at the large puddle in front of the dishwasher. The appliance had issued a loud groan before stopping and dumping its water. This was doubly annoying because the garbage disposal had ground to a halt just an hour before. When I offered no comment on Ray’s statement, he prodded further.

“I kinda like the idea,” he said, chin on my shoulder. “Appliance ghost.”

“Stop it,” I snapped.

I already had a call in to the super and wondered if another breakdown required another request. Ray, still caught up in teasing me, waved his arms and swooped about the room as if in flight. “Spirits of the kitchen,” he sang, “release us from your torment. Set our appliances free.”

He grinned, but I didn’t appreciate his needling. I blew out a sigh and went into the living room.

“I’ll mop it up,” he called.

“Do that.”

Ray and I had been together twelve years, and now, well into our forties, enjoyed a good relationship, despite our differences. He’s a classic Capricorn—disciplined, efficient, responsible—while I, an earnest Pisces, am much the opposite—compassionate, gentle, and trusting. When I’d first learned of his January birthday and noted him a Capricorn, he’d dismissed the idea of astrological signs. Fortunately, I liked him enough to let this pass. I liked his strength, formidable at times, and I believe he liked my softer side because Caps need that, though they’ll never admit it. In our years together, we’d found balance. I don’t get too mushy and he lays off his authoritarian streak.

The one mistake I made early on was telling him about my grandfather’s ghost. Gramps had lived with us when I was growing up, and after he died when I was nine, he still lived with us. He appeared in my bedroom in the same chair where he’d sat to read me stories, only now he had no book. He didn’t speak, he didn’t do anything but sit, which I took to mean him keeping watch, which I appreciated since I was small for my age and tormented by my older brothers. Sometimes Gramps would appear in a doorway while we ate dinner, as if to remind me he was always around. Other times, when my brothers piled on me, pinning me unmercifully, he’d appear but not help, and I grew to realize he had limits. All he could give was his presence.

I once asked my mother if she believed in ghosts, and she grew thoughtful, then said she wasn’t sure. “There are things nobody can explain,” she said, “which is good, because some people think they know it all.” I didn’t press for more, fearing a reveal of Gramps might get me a pat on the head.

I never asked my father because he was the know-it-all type, much like Ray. So Gramps remained mine alone, with me until I left for college. I looked for him in my dorm room, then reminded myself he had limits. Or maybe he just wanted to stay on with Mom, his daughter.

Until Ray, I’d never told anyone about Gramps and got along fine without discussing supernatural companionship. Then, beset by the early throes of love where we’re eager to know everything, I told him. And he laughed. It was a loving and indulgent laugh, but it set the future tone. I was to be humored.

Other sightings happened over the years, but I’d said nothing, not wanting to be indulged. Then one day, I was doing laundry in the apartment house basement, a damp concrete, windowless room, when someone appeared, and it wasn’t Gramps.

Until then, I’d seen only fleeting glimpses of what I came to call “almost-people,” as if I’d stumbled onto some play only to catch the players exiting the stage. Always just glimpses. Someone’s back, there for a second, then gone.

I avoided the basement at night, but one time when we were going away for the weekend, I’d had no choice. Ray was working late, and as I’d descended the stairs, I’d hoped another tenant would be down there, but no such luck. I had just gotten everything going when I felt a presence. Expecting another glimpse of someone departing, I was surprised to find a woman at the foot of the stairs. Thin and pale, she wore a green dress clearly of the flapper era and had no discernable breasts. Her green cloche hat covered what appeared to be red hair and I wondered if she’d owned the building, which dated from the twenties, or was she some wronged tenant cursed with unresolved landlord issues? Could faulty plumbing or lack of heat anger a person to the point she couldn’t move on?

I’d never spoken to ghostly Gramps because it didn’t seem appropriate, but since this woman was blocking the stairs, I had to speak up. “I need to get past you,” I ventured. When I got no response, I cleared my throat and repeated myself, but she didn’t move.

I wondered what would happen if I charged her. Would she let me walk through her or maybe vanish? I moved toward her but, lacking courage to keep going, I settled for polite. “Can you please move?”

She did, but toward me, which caused me to step back, and we settled into an awkward dance, me backing, her forwarding, until we’d circled the washers and reached the stairs again. I backed all the way upstairs, with her standing at the bottom, watching me.

Ray had come home by then, and when I’d raced into the apartment, I’d made the mistake of telling him about the encounter.

“Really?” he’d said. “Friend of your grandfather’s?”

He had been standing at the fridge, lettuce and tomato in hand, and moved to the sink as if I’d appreciated the joke. When I didn’t respond, he turned. “What?”

“It really happened,” I declared, knowing as I spoke that it was futile. Still, I kept trying, not so much to convince him of a ghost in the basement as to get him to believe me, believe in me.

“Whatever,” he said as he washed lettuce.

“Why can’t you open your mind? Things do happen, things that can’t be explained away.”

“Um-hm.”

“Just because it doesn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it can’t happen to others. Some of us are receptive toward the supernatural and I believe I’m one.”

“Right.”

I’d stormed off at that point, returning half an hour later to find dinner on the table. Nothing more was said and I’d never again told him about ghosts I periodically saw. All went well, except for times like now, when he teased me about them.

“All cleaned up,” he said when he plopped beside me on the couch. I was watching HGTV and said nothing.

“You have to admit it’s weird that two appliances break on the same day,” he offered.

“Yes, it is weird, but that doesn’t mean it’s ghostly. You just want to needle me and I don’t like that.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. No more needling.” He poked my side and kept on until he got me laughing.

* * * *

Later, out of the blue, he said he wanted to get away. “I’m tired of the city, tired of the noise and grit and chaos. How about we escape for a week? I can take vacation now that the merger has passed.”

“Fine with me,” I told him. “Where do we go? Up the coast, Guerneville, Mendocino? Or south, Big Sur, Santa Barbara?”

“East,” he said.

“East? What’s east? All you get east are nothing towns, the valley, then gold country.”

“Exactly. I don’t want to go to some tourist spot. I just want a quiet town where we can enjoy a good hotel, room service, walks, shopping, fine dining.”

I realized then he had something in mind. “What’s the name of the town?”

“Arroyo. It’s on the other side of the Berkeley Hills, a nice little place, upscale, green.”

“How did you pick Arroyo?”

“Well, Bruno at work—you know Bruno, big bear of a guy with that tiny wife?—well, his cousin runs the Heritage Park Hotel in Arroyo and will give us a deal on a room.”

“Ah, I see.” This didn’t surprise me. Ray and I both made good money, but he was inclined to pinch pennies. “Okay, I’m for it.”

* * * *

It came together so easily it felt almost preordained. Ray got in touch with the cousin who set us up with a fine room on an upper floor. We toured the hotel online and were impressed. It was three stories, quietly understated with beige stucco and a red tile roof. Rooms appeared luxurious, and a central courtyard with fountain seemed quite appealing. It also boasted the Hunt Club Restaurant and Foxy’s Bar.

“Everything we need,” said Ray.

“Now the big question. Do we unplug?”

For somebody so efficient, he hadn’t considered this, and it surprised him. “Yes,” he said after a couple seconds. “Absolutely. No phones, iPads, or laptop.”

“No Kindle.”

He loved his k****e as much as I loved the books it replaced. He glared at me, knowing I was enjoying this. “No k****e,” he finally said, “but to be fair, no books for you. Nothing from the outside. Just us.”

“We’ve never done that.”

“Then it’s time. Just us. Sounds good to me.”

* * * *

On a sunny April Saturday, we left our devices behind and crossed the bay by the train that ran, not over the water, but under it in a three-mile tube that sat on the bay floor. From this, we emerged above ground in Oakland, then Berkeley, then through another tunnel to find what seemed another world. Suddenly trees were plentiful, hillsides were uninhabited, and vast acres of green stretched between little towns.

When we came to Arroyo we stepped off the train to see, beyond the parking lot, more trees and the occasional house. A quick cab ride onto what appeared a single main street took us to the Heritage Park Hotel, where we exited the cab with great excitement.

As we stood under the welcoming portico, Ray nudged me. “Look. Over there. Look.”

I glanced to my right to see trees bordering a fence, which didn’t seem out of the ordinary. “What?”

“Don’t you see it?”

“See what?”

He started walking toward the fence, leaving me beside the luggage. “There are tombstones,” he said, pointing. “It’s a cemetery, Marty. A f*****g cemetery. The hotel is next door to a cemetery.”

I started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” he demanded.

“I don’t know, it just struck me that way. Who on earth would build a hotel next to a cemetery?”

“Who cares? I don’t want to sleep next to a cemetery.”

“Oh, come on, don’t be a big baby. It looks pretty calm over there. Let’s go check in.”

At the desk, Ray’s first words to the clerk were, “There’s a cemetery next door.”

“Is that a problem?” asked the clerk.

Ray glanced at me, but I just shrugged. “I guess not,” he said, “although you really should mention it on the website.”

“Look at it this way,” advised the clerk, obviously having addressed the issue before. “No noisy neighbors.”

Ray let this sink in, then offered a skeptical, “Okay,” and we checked in.

“Room 312,” said the clerk as he handed Ray the key card.

“Is it on the cemetery side?” I asked.

“Actually it is,” said the clerk, which tickled me because I figured he relegated those who mentioned the cemetery to rooms overlooking it.

In the room, the first thing we did was look out our window. The view was mostly of treetops, and if we hadn’t known what lay beneath, it would have been ideal.

“It’s like a park,” Ray said.

“Hold that thought.”

* * * *

Our first night at the hotel, we gorged on steak, lobster, and fine wine at the Hunt Club Restaurant, after which we lingered in Foxy’s Bar. The place was soft and welcoming, boasting dark paneled walls, and we sank into big overstuffed chairs. Foxy’s also made a great martini. By the time we finally went upstairs, we were too looped for s*x, agreeing that simply crashing in our big bed was pleasure enough.