Chapter 7

“Everything you can think of, Joe,” I threw over my shoulder, as I turned the doorknob on the glass box door. “Keyboards, acoustic guitars and while you’re at it, rustle up a twelve string Spanish as well.”

“Gee, Bruce! Ain’t it a bit excessive doing that?” Clive piped in, and I saw Lizz hovering in the background.

“Get this song down on paper. Pronto!”

“I’ve never seen him like this,” Joe said, turning to Clive and Lizz.

“The record is six hours on a video shoot. But I think this one is far too young for him. She looks fifteen, or sixteen. Jail-bait!” Lizz exclaimed and folded her arms across her chest. “Jail-bait, I say!”

Trembling, I entered the soundproof glass box, not bothering to close the door behind me.

“Where did you get that song?” I demanded.

The girl had in the meantime stopped playing and singing. She just looked at me, a smile still on her lips.

“I asked you a question, young lady.”

“Well, I wrote it, Dude!” She softly said, and placed her guitar down on the stand behind her and got up from the stool, all five feet four inches of skinny her. “Don’t you dig it? I think it’s way-out cool.”

“Don’t I like I? I am thrilled with it! But I need to know where you got that song.”

“I told you, Bro, I scribbled it down, while plukin’ dem strings. It’s a washout Dude.”

“Where’s your sheet music?”

“Far-out Dude, me don’t need any paper; it’s inna my head. Like, yo’ gettin’ my drift?” She pushed back, and pressed her index finger to her forehead. “Right here ... You dig?” Then she popped something pink in her mouth and started to chew. I noticed she wore little woollen gloves with the fingertips cut off, exposing the short, manicured fingernails on her long, delicate fingers. The black nail polish matched her black lipstick. Gothic sprang to mind.

“Boss, are we going to record this song?” Joe’s voice crackled in the speaker inside the glass box. “It’s a perfect song, perfect voice. We must record it.”

In the background I heard Lizz whispering to Joe: “Joe, Leave it for now. I haven’t seen Bruce so rattled. There’s something spooky here. I feel it in my bones.”

“My office, NOW!” I commanded and strode out of the glass box. Lizz took over and guided the girl into the corridor and to the elevator. I was already pressing the button for “UP.”

She waited beside me with a smirk still on her face, her guitar slung over her shoulder, and I couldn’t guess what she found so amusing. As we waited for the elevator to arrive, I glanced sideways and watched her swaying on her feet and tapping her fingers on her thigh, almost if she had music playing in her head. She blew a bubblegum bubble and burst it with a loud pop, all the while looking up at the elevator count on the display above us.

“Is a groovy killer kinda place, this! The vibes are sick...” She said.

I smiled. Typical youth, always using words that sound contradictory, but conveying a meaning understood by their generation.

We rode the elevator up to the top floor and walked to my office. Lizz opened the door and entered first, still a little flustered by the bubblegum-blowing teenager, and her attitude and speech patterns.

I went around my desk to sit down. The mystery girl walked over to the sofa in front of the huge window of my office and plopped herself down, resting her guitar next to her on the floor. She stretched her arms out to the sides on the sofa and crossed her legs over each other, swinging one foot in the air.

“Well, young lady? Do you have a name?” I asked.

“Pop-pa, why don’t you come park yourself here next to me, so we can have ah betta chin-wag, you dig?”, and she patted the sofa next to her.

Lizz slightly shook her head and rolled her eyes.

“Okay, If that is what you want,” I responded.

“Whadda I want now, issa ice cream float with strawberries on top,” she retorted.

Lizz lost it, and ran out of the office, mumbling something.

“You can get all the ice cream floats you want, just tell me your name first,” I said, and she looked around the office, making sure no one was around. I was getting uncomfortable with the teenage waif alone in the office with me. Then her voice changed to a more mature way, and she said:

“I go by Iona...”

It did not strike me immediately what she said. She straightened herself on the sofa, sat forward, and removed her sunglasses. Pale-green eyes bore into mine.

Then she reached up and dropped her hoody from her head. Golden blond tresses fell over her shoulders and chest as she shook her head from side to side.

I gasped.

“Amelia Iona Sinclair-McIntyre. Did you miss little old me, Bruce?” she whispered, pouting her lips.

I sagged, feeling faint, completely unprepared for this vision. “Ammi? How ... Where ... No, it’s not true ... It can’t be...”

“It’s me, Bruce ... I got a second chance. Overseer, Mother Superior, gave me a second chance and sent me back ... to you...” Giggle.

“Ammi!” I exclaimed, not believing my eyes. In a few steps I was over by the sofa. Ammi got up. I opened my arms, and she melted into me. The kiss was epic.

“I thought you went over ... to the ... other side. I thought I lost you and that you would forget all about me...” I said after we came up for air.

“Never, Bruce. The Overseer saw what happened. I thought she would fry me for falling in love with you, but she understood. She also understood the why and the how of my death and saw the chances of life I would not have experienced. All the things a young girl dreamed of ... She asked me if I had a choice, if I would go back? Back to life. Back to the life and dreams I had before. I shouted YES! And here I am.”

“Ammi, sweet, beautiful Ammi. You’re back, and you are here...”

“Well, I came back. Your wish did come true ... I’m alive and well and living again. Only problem is...” Giggle. “I’m not forty-three and eleven months old, I’m sweet eighteen again...” She whispered. Giggle, “But that means my birthday has shifted backwards. Instead of July, I now have my birthday in June. On the day I rose. And that was this morning!”

“I’m just overjoyed that you are back! And alive! WOW! I still can’t believe it. But in your world all things are possible.”

Giggle. “I still need a place to stay. I did not have time to arrange that; I came straight here ... And I’m famished, I haven’t eaten since this morning...”

“There’s a restaurant here on the corner; we can go grab something there. And you can come ... live with me at my place in Camps Bay.”

“Why did you stop before saying I can come live at your place?”

“I nearly said ‘haunt’ my place,” I chuckled.

“Well haunt or live, I’ll be there. Now! Cheeseburger, twin patties, cheese sauce, and chips with tomato sauce!”

“Double cheeseburger and chips with ketchup coming up!”

“And ... maybe a double thick chocolate malt...” Pale-green eyes pleading with me. Golden blond head tilted to the side and lips pouting.

“A double thick malt is part of the meal. Come on!”

Giggle. “And...”

“And, what?”

“Lemon meringue pie ... It’s my birthday. Remember?” Giggle.

“I’ll have them put eighteen candles on it too,” I teased. “Happy birthday, Ammi!”

The visit to the restaurant turned into take-out, and back to the office. We sat down at my conference table. I sat at my usual spot at the head of the table, and she took the seat to my right.

The afternoon sun cascaded in through the wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor windows of the office, bathing Amelia’s golden hair in its glow. She still had the windbreaker on, but the hoody now neatly folded at the back, hiding under those golden tresses.

She squirted tomato sauce onto her chips and started eating with her fingers. “The only way to eat a hammy and chippies,” She sighed, and pushed a tomato sauce covered chip into her mouth.

“Well, enjoy it!” I said. At that moment Lizz came into the office with a load of files.

“I thought I was going to come rescue you from a smart-ass wild teenager, but it seems you two are getting along just fine,” she said.

Amelia giggled.

“I don’t need rescuing, Lizz. Meet Amelia Iona Sinclair-McIntyre! Sort of a distant cousin of mine.”

“Well, hello, Amelia, I’m Lizz,” She said and gave me the evil eye.

“I met her last weekend at the estate,” I countered.

“Oh, then there was a skinny, long-haired sexy thingie after all,” she teased. “So, you knew that she sings?”

“Yes, I did, but she floored me by masquerading as a wild rebel teen.”

Amelia giggled.

“How old are you, Amelia?” Lizz asked.

“Now, that is complicated...” Amelia said. “I was born in 1972, that makes me forty-four, but...”

Lizz’s eyes nearly popped. “You don’t look forty-four! You look ... seventeen, or eighteen.”

“That’s because I am eighteen...” Amelia said, biting into her hamburger, sauce dripping on her chin, and she picked it off with delicate long fingers, licking her fingers clean. “Yummy! My first hamburger in twenty-six years.”