Unfashionably Dead

Chapter Thirty-four

Rivergate Tower, the beer can-shaped skyscraper, is straight ahead, with red and green Christmas lights strung around each of its plethora of windows. Cars speed past me along Kennedy Boulevard, their drivers undoubtedly hurrying home for the last-minute rush before the holidays.

I turn my back on the spectacular view of the Tampa skyline to navigate my way through the University of Tampa campus. I walk through a courtyard filled with palm trees and oaks. Spanish moss drapes one of the sprawling oaks and I wonder what lurks within. Hesitantly, I press on, questioning the wisdom of willing myself to this distance from Plant Hall. Who knows whether wards have been cast on the building? But still, the tree scares me.

The tree, though, can do me no harm. My humanly fears and worries linger, but I decide to woman up.

My pace quickens as the moss hangs overhead, the plant's leaves resembling a reaper's chain inching toward me. The wind kicks up and the moss swings violently. Three bats fly out of the tendril and I duck to avoid them. That was too close for comfort. I continue on glad the animals can do me no harm and ecstatic to have distance from the moss.

Before long, I am in front of the opulence that is Plant Hall. The five-story, brick building was built by railroad magnate Henry Plant. Minarets, domes, and cupolas top the former Tampa Bay Hotel, which serves as a museum and part of UT's campus.

The faintest of voices pulls my attention away from Plant Hall's architecture. I inch forward, trying to locate the source. I rise to the fifth story and peer inside the head of the gingerbread-shaped window. A man in a brown pinstriped suit floats through the hallway, calling for Marie. His spread-color shirt, the suit's wide pantlegs, and the Charlie Chaplin mustache on his face suggest he met his death in the 1920s.

But his is not the voice who caught my attention. As the ghost turns around and calls out for his Marie once more, Oliver bolts inside a room and Jose follows. Bracing myself for failure, I shrink to a pebble and enter through the window.

The ghost in the brown pinstripes continues his path to the other end of the hall without acknowledging my arrival. I smile at my luck. No alarm-sounding wards have been cast here. But it does not mean the next room has been left unprotected, or that my luck will hold.

I inhale a deep breath outside the door and decide to enter through the old skeleton keyhole.

The science lab is full of ghosts, probably thirty of them, with each fashion era in Tampa's history represented. Greeting each other by name first, they part to allow Oliver and Jose passage to the middle.

I crawl along the ceiling and hover overhead as Jose orders the meeting open. He looks over the other ghosts and his lips downturn.

"Donde esta' Carlita?"

I can feel my face match Jose's in its seriousness.

"I haven't seen her since last night at Howl," the man with sideburns and bellbottoms says.

A teen who would appreciate my ghostly clothing steps forward. Clearly she died wanting to be Madonna and Cindi Lauper. "We were, like, totally supposed to go to Carmine's together after the meeting. I waited for her 'til sunrise, and when she didn't show, it was, like, gag me with a spoon, she's stood me up again."

A look of confusion crosses the pirate's face. Oliver bends to his ear and whispers the translation.

"Ah, so... Jennifer, does this 'stand you up' happen often with Carlita?"