Ghosts Under the Bed

By Rich Amada

Set in 2006 amidst the backdrop of the global communications revolution and the war in Iraq, this is a romance for the Digital Age. Living on opposite sides of the world, a Washington lawyer and London radio personality are an improbable couple. He knows her only as a voice on a distant radio station streaming through his computer. She knows him only as an email message in her inbox. Yet, somehow a connection is made, and even a vast ocean cannot keep love from blossoming. But can an intercontinental affair endure the challenges of cultural differences, separation, and war? Can they bridge the Atlantic to form a lasting relationship? Or will fear of a long-distance commitment hinder their chances for love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scarlet Maiden
• Release date: Sep 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005220914

Rich Amada

Rich Amada is an award winning author of stories and plays. He’s also an actor, which he believes gives him a sense of drama, something he incorporates into his writing. As a former Emmy winning TV news reporter, Rich has met and interviewed thousands of people, all of whom had interesting stories to share. Drawing inspiration from that experience, he now shares his own imaginative tales.

Book preview

GHOSTS UNDER THE BED

by

Rich Amada

Copyright © 2020 Richard Amada. All rights reserved.

Published by Scarlet Maiden, a trademark.

Distributed by Smashwords.

This is a copyrighted work. The scanning, uploading, copying, and/or distribution of this story without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property and a violation of copyright law. No part of this story may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the publisher. This prohibition does not extend to a reviewer who may quote brief passages as part of a review.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: Pancake Day

CHAPTER 2: Ambush

CHAPTER 3: A Case of Scotch

CHAPTER 4: Hope Springs Eternal

CHAPTER 5: The Thank-You Note

CHAPTER 6: Inbox Excerpts

CHAPTER 7: Transatlantic

CHAPTER 8: Heathrow Airport

CHAPTER 9: The First Night

CHAPTER 10: A Washington Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

CHAPTER 11: Love, Philosophy, and Chicken Paprika

CHAPTER 12: The Song

CHAPTER 13: Midnight Kiss

CHAPTER 14: The Long Commute

CHAPTER 15: The Streets of London

CHAPTER 16: Spiral

CHAPTER 17: The Date

CHAPTER 18: Ghost Plant

CHAPTER 19: Fat Tuesday

CHAPTER 1

Pancake Day

Spencer Quillett didn’t want to answer the telephone. The blinking little red light on the desk phone taunted him. "Pick it up…pick it up…pick it up, it seemed to be saying. Meanwhile the otherworldly whirring sound that audibly announced the arrival of an incoming call bespoke an ominous warning—something akin to You’ll be soooooorry!"

It wasn’t that he had a phobia about telephones. He bore no malice toward them. He wasn’t overly aggravated by automated answering systems, voicemail messages, music on hold, or even busy signals, which, thanks to the ubiquitous call-waiting feature, were on their way toward following in the extinct footsteps of the tyrannosaurus rex. Sure, he possessed the same moral outrage that most people harbor toward telemarketers who determine that dinnertime is the ideal moment in which to make an unsolicited sales pitch, but he wasn’t holding the telephone, the phone company, or Alexander Graham Bell personally responsible for that.

Actually, Spencer Quillett liked to believe he was second to none in his appreciation of all things communicative—whether they be the telephone, email, fax, Morse code, smoke signals, charades, or what-have-you. After all, he’d been a professional in the communications industry during the early portion of his adult life, working as a newspaper reporter who covered federal, state, and local government. Later, to escape the notoriously low wages typical for journalists, he took a job in the Contracted Services Office of a state university where his knowledge of government workings was deemed useful.

But those were professions of his past. Now, at age forty-two, he was a lawyer on the lowest rung of the attorney totem pole at the prestigious Washington, D.C., law firm of Jeremy, Mendenhaussen & Kreek. He was a contract attorney. That is, he was a lawyer hired on a per-project basis to sit in a cubicle and do the grunt work of reading digital documents on an antiquated desktop computer. A phone call to him, rather than to some higher level person at the firm, more often than not meant there was a frantic associate attorney on the line with some new assignment that had an impossible deadline mandated by one of the firm’s partners. Or, as he thought more likely in this case—and, at this particular moment, equally agitating—it was Keith Friedlock calling from New Orleans to tell his friend Spencer all about the wonderful time he was having at Mardi Gras.

Tits as far as the eye can see! boomed Keith’s somewhat inebriated voice the moment his friend in Washington picked up the receiver.

Glad to see you’ve opted for a solemn observance of the beginning of Lent, quipped Spencer as he rubbed a tired eye.

"I solemnly swear the girls here just can’t seem to keep their clothes on! You just throw ‘em some cheapie beads, and boom! The tops come off!"

"So, I take it, Mardi Gras’s everything you hoped it would be. Female-wise, anyway."

Hey, you didn’t think I came here just for the food, did ya?

So, you’re sayin’ jambalaya can’t compete with naked women? Spencer joked. Go figure!

Shit! Keith interjected in a moment of obvious visual distraction. "Does that one even have a shirt with her?!"

Keith was a likable enough guy, and he was Spencer Quillett’s best friend. Although he was almost a decade younger than the man currently back in Washington, he’d started work at the firm as a contract attorney about the same time, and it was mostly a matter of office geography that facilitated their becoming friends. Two years earlier, the firm had placed them at neighboring cubicles to work on the same project, and it wasn’t long before they’d shared enough personal information to have crossed the boundary from mere coworkers to close buddies.

As a divorced man with no present romantic relationships and relatively few social opportunities, Spencer Quillett was glad to have someone like Keith Friedlock. At least, Keith and he could sometimes catch a ballgame or go to happy hour after work. Those were highlights in Spencer’s less than scintillating life. Although he was currently grimacing as he listened to his friend’s rendition of Bourbon Street shenanigans, that reaction wasn’t the result of any dissatisfaction with Keith. Rather, it was the envious frustration of knowing that his vacationing friend was currently ogling a plethora of naked women in the Big Easy while Spencer stared at an unending parade of monotonous business emails and memos that were potential exhibits of some tedious corporate litigation. There was no question who was having the better time, and that was the reason the middle-aged contract attorney in the cubicle had been hesitant to answer the phone.

"So, is this one of those rub your nose in it phone calls?" Spencer asked, intending it to be more humorous than it probably sounded.

"Absolutely! You shoulda come! I’m tellin’ ya, it’s crazy here! You should be here lookin’ at boobs with me!"

Yeah, well…

Spencer didn’t have a good reason for having turned down his friend’s invitation to accompany him on the vacation trip. Financially, he could afford it, and there wasn’t anything else urgent happening in his life to prevent his taking a little time off. Had he just said the word yes, he, too, could’ve been on Bourbon Street partaking of its renowned display of bare breasts. And, truth be told, he wouldn’t have minded getting a gander at some bosoms. It had been some time since he’d last seen one in the flesh. The last time was with Dory Watkins. They’d sat next to each other in a bar exam preparation course that took place the summer right after Spencer graduated law school and moved to the D.C. area. Post-class chatting eventually led to dating that culminated in frequent bedtime romps in which they took turns staying overnight at each other’s apartment.

Dory was a perky, curly haired redhead about eight years his junior, with puffy cheeks and perfect teeth that gave her a beguiling smile. She liked classical music, Maryland crab cakes, small dogs, and only about thirty seconds of foreplay before she was ready to roll on top of Spencer and ride his manhood in cowgirl fashion to a climactic finish.

Overall, it was an enjoyable liaison for both of them—at least, for about a year. That’s when it dawned on Dory that there was a missing element. Neither of them had ever spoken the word love regarding the other. When she called this to Spencer’s attention, he couldn’t deny she was wrong. Nor did he try to blurt out the word there and then in an eleventh-hour attempt to salvage the relationship. He knew, as well as she did, that there was a reason the word hadn’t been uttered. They were fond of each other and got along well in bed, but they weren’t in love.

The sexual stayovers ceased. Spencer tried to maintain a platonic friendship, but, after a few weeks, Dory stopped returning his calls and didn’t answer his emails. Perhaps she’d found someone else. He suspected that might be true, but he couldn’t be certain. Regardless, it was over, and he never saw her again.

After that, Spencer found himself in a position where he just wasn’t meeting anyone. The women he worked with were either significantly younger than he or, as was often the case for people his own age, already in a relationship. Dating became an infrequent activity for him.

Of course, none of that history was of any consequence to Keth Friedlock at this particular moment. He had more immediate things commanding his full attention.

Greg started talkin’ to these two girls, Keith recounted as he shouted over some raucous background noise, and it turns out they’re from Baltimore.

Greg was a friend of Keith’s from law school. The classmates now lived on opposite sides of the country, but they kept in touch. Since neither was married or in a committed relationship, they’d plan periodic get-togethers in places where the two of them could act like the wild, sexy guys they envisioned themselves to be. Last year’s destination was Las Vegas. This year it was New Orleans.

So, he calls me over and tells the girls I’m from Washington and isn’t that a coincidence, Keith continued with hurried enthusiasm. Like we’re next-door neighbors or somethin’. Anyway, we’re supposed to meet ‘em tonight at some club. And, if Greg’s history with the ladies is any indication…

It’ll be four more boobs you’ll be getting to know up close and personal?

Don’t jinx it, man! Keith chuckled lecherously.

Hey, I’m pullin’ for ya. We’re guys. It’s what we do.

Yeah. But you gotta come on one o’ these trips with us. Maybe this fall. We’re thinkin’ ‘bout maybe Cancun. I’m tellin’ ya, women are never so wild as when they’re on vacation, they’re drinkin’, and they figure nobody knows ‘em there.

Ah, the chance for drunken debauchery. You make a strong case. Even as he said it, Spencer was subconsciously filing the invitation away to a deep cranial recess. There, it would languish and whither until it died of neglect.

An ear-piercing blast of noise came through the receiver and caused Spencer to pull his head back with a start. What the…? he started to say before Keith jumped in with a barely intelligible utterance of escalating exuberance.

"Oh, shit! Shit, I gotta…gotta hang up! There’s…there’s somethin’…I’ll send you a picture! You’re not gonna believe…! You’re not…! Gotto go!"

Think of me, Spencer deadpanned right before the line went silent. Then, with sardonic whimsy, he mumbled, They serve, too, who wait at home and listen to the much exaggerated tales.

As he hung up the phone, he turned his attention back to his computer monitor. A PDF of some in-house email collected from the client corporation had waited patiently for him to return to it. The original sender and recipient of this email had never even heard of Spencer Quillett, let alone envisioned that someday he’d be reading their personal messages about their business. But read it he did. Somebody had to review this stuff before it went out the door. If it was responsive to any aspect of the litigation, and not protected by some privilege, the opposing side was entitled to see it.

"Did gb ok pt2 amend for TTR?" the email text asked of its recipient.

Corporate America’s grammar-challenged, truncated alphabet-soup was sometimes an ordeal to decipher. It was almost like cracking a secret code. On this one, he wasn’t sure whether gb referred to assistant corporate counsel Gary Borenstein or to chief financial officer Gail Bradley. Did it matter? Was it important who they were talking about? Was it important what they were talking about? What did TTR stand for? And did it have anything whatsoever to do with this case? If it did, was there anything in the document that could be helpful or cause problems for the client? Did the email or a memo attached to it contain a smoking gun of damning evidence that could be used by the other side?

Those were the kinds of things Spencer Quillett was supposed to be looking for. He, and a team of fellow contract attorneys at Jeremy, Mendenhaussen & Kreek, plowed through thousands, tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of docs. Then, using a special cloud-based software program, they’d click on annotation choices regarding each document’s responsiveness to the key issues of the case.

Not all the docs were as dull as the one he was currently reviewing. In fact, some could be quite entertaining—that is, if you’re into things such as shared jokes, vacation photos, pornography, and embarrassing facts about strangers’ personal lives. Occasionally, there’d be racy communications between coworkers who were having a love affair. Where they’re going to meet. What they’re going to do when they get there. What they’re going to tell their respective spouses. Yes, adultery was lasciviously chronicled in many of these communications. That sort of thing had nothing whatsoever to do with the issues regarding the case they were working on, but it made for a refreshing break from the standard business drivel that could bore the pants off a person.

Of all the docs he’d reviewed, Spencer’s favorites involved a budding corporate romance in which a guy had made electronic calendar entries for his dates with a woman named Annette. The first calendar entry read:

Lunch with Annette.

A later date entry was:

Dinner with Annette.

And a still later, third related entry just read:

ANNETTE!!!!!!!

Based on that, it was Spencer Quillett’s guess that Annette adhered to the so-called Three Date Rule. He didn’t begrudge the guy. As he’d told Keith, pullin’ for other guys is just what guys do.

However, the file on his computer screen now wasn’t that kind of document. It was part of the other ninety-nine percent—the dull kind.

Maybe ‘gb’ stands for Governing Board, he scowled as he propped up his slumping head with his hand. His mind was getting foggy. Finally, he made a decision—he decided to get himself a cup of coffee from the pantry.

The pantry room was located on the opposite side of the fifth floor, which served as the contract attorneys’ work area. It contained a refrigerator, a sink, a microwave oven, and—most importantly—a coffeemaker with an accompanying wire rack stocked with small packets of various regular and decaf coffees, as well as two teas, one herbal tea, and one suspiciously labeled Choco-Lately hot coco-like beverage. Getting to the pantry meant cutting through the central lobby area where the elevators and restrooms were located. Both coming and going involved using an access key. Having to key in each time he encountered a door was a minor inconvenience, made more so when he was also juggling a cup of hot coffee in one hand. However, locked doors were the protocol of the age. Ever since the world had become a less safe place on September 11, 2001, security was enhanced at all businesses in downtown Washington. Even the toilet now required a key.

He kept his access key and his other keys on a two-inch metal fob. The fob was a flat silver colored oval with a circular hole in the center that once housed a swivel disc with an engraved map of the world. It had been a gift from his ex-wife, Delia, while they were still married. The marriage lasted only five years, but the metal fob had hung in there now for close to twelve years. The axle that once held the disc in place got broken somehow when he loaned his keys to a coworker who’d forgotten hers at home and needed to use the restroom. She sheepishly apologized later when she handed him back the now marred fob and its detached disc. He was never able to restore the disc to its rightful place. But he kept right on using the fob anyway. Since the remaining portion was now reduced to one solid piece of metal that, as far as he could tell, could suffer no further damage, he assumed that made it indestructible. It would be a constant thing in a life that had been, up till then, rather inconsistent.

Spencer Quillett extracted a Styrofoam cup from a plastic bag and positioned it under the spout of the coffee machine. He selected a packet of decaf from the rack, inserted it into the appropriate slot, and awaited the magic that would result in a hot, rejuvenating brew.

From her own nearby cubicle, Sylvia Carter cast a momentary glance in his direction. A divorcee who’d been hired about a year after Spencer, she was dark-skinned, cute, and, as best anyone could tell, available for dating. Spencer would have liked to have asked her out. However, from what he observed, she harbored a distinct distaste for him. On her best days, she was noncommittally polite. Most of the time she just acted as though she didn’t know he was there. He had no idea why she behaved this way, but he wasn’t about to make an issue of it—not in the workplace. That could cause problems, and a person at his level couldn’t afford to be perceived by the higher-ups as a troublemaker. So, he chalked up Sylvia Carter as yet another dating opportunity that was never to going to happen.

Most of his colleagues were in their mid-to-late twenties, fresh out of law school and not among those snatched up by either private firms or government agencies. It was a bitter pill to swallow when, after three grueling years of legal study and dreams of becoming a highly paid associate at some renowned firm, no one chose to hire you. But everyone needs to make a living, and there were, more often than not, six-figure student loans to be paid off. So, these young lawyers begrudgingly swallowed that pill and signed up with a legal temp agency to find them work. That’s how they ended up at Jeremy, Mendenhaussen & Kreek. The firm called on the agency each time it needed to bulk up on contract attorneys for a new case with a huge volume of documents to be reviewed. It wasn’t the glamorous profession portrayed in the lawyer TV shows, but it came with a paycheck. That was the important thing.

Some of the people working there were in their thirties, and a few, like Spencer Quillett, were in their forties or beyond. Typically, they were lawyers who’d worked elsewhere and either got fired or laid off, or who had taken time off to do something else and now needed to get back into the workforce. Their ticket to gainful employment was the same as for their twenty-something coworkers. They signed up with an agency to find them temp work.

A final sputtering and a conclusive click announced that Spencer Quillett’s coffee was ready. He deposited into the beverage a packet each of artificial creamer and artificial sweetener. Then, with liquid fortitude in his hand, he made the trek back to his cubicle.

Easing himself into a chair with a squeaky wheel and worn arm rests, he took a sip of his coffee. He adjusted his pants to ensure comfort during a long stretch of sitting, and then reached for his earbuds. He’d determined early on during his employment there that time on the job seemed to pass quicker and easier if he listened to music while working. So, one day when the doc review was at its most excruciatingly monotonous, he ran across the street to a Radio Shack store and bought a cheap set of earbuds. With the listening apparatus plugged into his computer, he could either play compact discs or download live on-air broadcasts from the websites of radio stations anywhere in the world.

He liked jazz. However, he craved a particular type of jazz to keep him mentally invigorated but not distracted from his work. Hot, electric, experimental jazz, with its bold and blaring dissonance, he found competed too vigorously for his brain’s attention. That made it a challenge to concentrate on anything other than the music. So, something hip but a bit more mellow was what he sought.

He found it a few months back when he stumbled across the online broadcast of a jazz radio station in London, England. Because of the five-hour difference between Eastern Standard and Greenwich Mean Time, when it was 2 p.m. in Washington, the London station would go into its evening program, which it called the Nightfall Jazz Lounge. The program featured the cool jazz recordings of such greats as Miles Davis, John