The World Ends at Five & Other Stories by M Pepper Langlinais Page A

girl.”
    “Is she young?” asked the interviewer.
    The author turned to look at his companion. If she could be called that. He’d never asked, never really thought about her age. “How old are you?”
    The girl shrugged. “Fourteen maybe?” she suggested.
    “She thinks maybe she’s fourteen,” the author related.
    “Is she a ghost?” The interviewer was now squinting at the space in the chair next to the author, as if she might be able to see the girl through sheer will.
    “You can ask her directly,” said the author, “she’s not deaf. But I thought you were here to interview me.”
    “But is it true your manager dropped you after—I’m sorry, what’s her name?”
    He looked at the girl again. “She doesn’t really have one.”
    “She’s always with you?”
    “She’s never with me. She doesn’t really exist. But if you’re asking whether I see her all the time, then the answer is no. Just most of the time.”
    “Mr. Duphiney , do you think you’re crazy?”
    The author only stared, as if waiting for another question.
    “Have you seen someone? You know, a . . . a doctor?”
    The author stood; he heard the rustle as the girl also rose from her seat. “I’m done here.”
     
    “Do you have a name?” he asked the girl as he headed off to the kitchen. His assistant was showing the interviewer the door; he could hear the intermittent squawking punctuated by his assistant’s smooth replies.
    “What do you care? Why not just let me go?”
    The girl had been increasingly sullen about the whole thing. But what was he supposed to do about it exactly? “I don’t suppose an exorcism would work,” he said, pulling open the fridge in search of soda.
    “You can’t exorcise something that isn’t there,” said the girl.
    “You know, you keep saying you’re not here, but then . . . if you weren’t here, where would you be?” asked the author as he extracted a 2-liter and pulled a glass from the cabinet. “I mean , is there somewhere you want to get back to?” When the girl didn’t answer, he asked, “Well, where were you before this?”
    “Nowhere,” she said. “My name is Melinda by the way.”
     
    Melinda didn’t remember anything before the book signing.
    “But where did you come from?” the author persisted as he walked through the old Victorian, back towards his office that overlooked the garden. “I don’t know any Melinda. I couldn’t have just dreamed you up in the middle of a book signing!”
    Melinda trailed in his wake, as if dragged along unwillingly like a cat on a leash. “All I know is that you’re the reason I’m here, and you’re the only one who can make it so I’m not.”
    “Aha! So you admit to being here!”
    Melinda grunted in exasperation. “Look, let’s not split hairs.”
    “But your nature makes a difference. You seem to be able to sit in chairs and lean against things, and yet you don’t carry anything solid.” Before hiring a part-time assistant to handle his fan mail, the author had attempted to put Melinda to use. But they’d discovered she couldn’t pick up, hold, or carry anything.
    “It’s your fault,” Melinda said again.
    “How?” demanded the author. “How is it my fault?”
    “Because it’s your imagination! Of course you can picture me leaning against things, sitting places! But you can’t make something imaginary interact with what’s real!”
    She had a point, but he wasn’t going to admit it.
     
    He didn’t give interviews any more, and he didn’t do book signings, and he hadn’t written more than a few short stories in the passing months. Melinda continued to hover somewhere just outside his vision as he sat at his desk, staring at the computer screen.
    “Why couldn’t you be my muse?” he muttered. “Make yourself useful.”
    Melinda turned from where she’d been staring out the window. “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    They’d long since come to an impasse. Sour and sullen, Melinda stalked around like a caged