Page 31 of Aftertaste

“Are you ready for some closure, because I’m about to serve it up—piping hot!”

What was wrong with him?

He’d just launched into another unfortunate monologue—“You ever ask yourself, what’s thedealwith ghosts?”—when the buzzer rang.

He pressed himself forward to catch a glimpse of Louise, but she was standing too close to the entry door, angled out of view. All he caught was a swish of long, black fabric, like a cloak. The buzzer again.Great, he thought as he dinged her inside,dressed for Ren Faire and she’s got an itchy trigger finger.

A moment later, there was a timid knock on the door. Kostya pulled it open and had to pick his jaw up off the scuffed hardwood. Like the start of some bad joke, there stood a real, live, actual nun. In full habit.

She had an easy smile, lined by wrinkles that betrayed her age. Small, powdery hands. Eyes so watery it made him blink.

She blinked back.

He remembered, suddenly, what she’d said in her text, about eating ascetic. Somewhere, he was certain, God was laughing. So much for all that meat in his fridge. Maybe he could make wafers out of rice flour? Did nuns eat wafers, or was that just a communion thing—

“I’m here about the dinner? Louise?” she offered. “The ad said dine withghosts.”

She whispered the last word, like she was afraid it might escape.

“Yes! Louise! Uh, Sister. Hello. Welcome to Hell’s Kitchen Supper Club. Please come in. May I offer you a seat in Jude Law’s old chair?”

She stayed in the vestibule and frowned at his whites and checks, weighing his uniform against her own. “Is that supposed to be a Young Pope joke?”

“Oh, no! God, no!” Kostya fumbled. Louise winced at the Lord’s name in vain. “I just bought this, um, this dining set”—he gestured absently to the table behind him—“that was rumored to once have… You know what, never mind.”

Her frown was joined by an incredulous eyebrow.

“Is this some sort of scam? Because the ad said ‘pay what you can,’ so I thought you might be trying to do something charitable”—she eyed him suspiciously—“albeit unorthodox.”

“Please,” Kostya said, “it’s not a scam. I just—look, it’s sort of hard to explain, and I’d rather not do it in the hallway, if you don’t mind?” He stepped back. “Just—come in, okay? Let me help you find Stacy. I’m not looking for any money.”

At the mention of her sister—which Kostya now understood to mean “Sister”—Louise softened.

“All right,” she said slowly, and crossed the threshold to his dim apartment. “But be warned. There’s mace in my wimple.”

THEY SAT AWKWARDLYacross from each other, Sister Louise staring daggers at the Keanu Christ on the kitchen divider, her arms pretzeled over her chest, the glass of water he’d poured her untouched. After a few moments of this painful, judgy quiet, and without anything intelligible prepared, Kostya humbly slid off his toque, and started talking.

He introduced himself. Explained about his aftertastes. About the way his food brought spirits, briefly, back to life. Here, Sister Louise uncrossed her arms.

“How many times have you done this?” she asked. “Brought a ghost back.”

“One,” he answered slowly. “And a half.”

“One and ahalf?”

He nodded. “Honestly? I don’t know exactly how it works yet. Part of what I’m doing here is trying to find out. But in the meantime, I want to help people, if I can. Give them an opportunity to say what I—what they—didn’t have the chance to.”

She nodded slowly, studying him.

“Who did you lose?” she asked at last.

He hesitated. “My father.”

“You bring him back?”

Kostya looked at his hands. “He was the half.”

She nodded again. “Okay. What do I have to do?”

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