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Red Wine for the Specter

© Janice Oberding

A few days ago my daughter in law and I had a chance to "do lunch". There was plenty of catching up to do so we chatted away happily as we climbed the stairs to one of the area's best Chinese restaurants. When we glanced a man enter the door behind us, our talk became guarded and subdued, no need to burden a stranger with our family's style of banter and silly jokes.

At the top of the stairs we turned to look at the stranger who'd followed us up the long staircase but was no one was there.

"I saw a man---" I said first.

"So did I."

There were no other doors, no other place he could have gone, so we put our experience down to a curious ghost who'd happened to follow us up the stairs.

Since she was armed with her trusted digital camera, she stopped and quickly snapped a couple of photos. Just maybe she would get a photo of him.

Once seated and salivating over the menu, we forgot all about the ghost.

As we ordered, I remembered a long dead family friend who made some of the tastiest spaghetti and meatballs this side of heaven. Then again maybe everything tastes better in retrospect. Regardless, I ordered an extra glass of red wine to be set before an empty chair at our table.

The server looked askance, scribbled down our order and fled. She returned a few moments later with three glasses of wine, gently sat them down and scurried away to serve other patrons.

"For the ghost." I told my daughter in law.

"I know."

Certainly she knew. She knew the story of Mrs. Manero whose little cafe served spaghetti and meatballs on Fisherman's Wharf decades ago. Mrs. Manero was a generous woman who believed one couldn't be truly happy without sharing. She welcomed my mother to her kitchen many mornings and attempted to teach her the intricacies of food preparation. While they cooked, Mrs. Manero talked about the ghosts she'd met there on the wharf. They were the men who'd perished in the rough waters just off the coast when their fishing boats were smashed against the rocks, the divers who'd lost their lives to predatory sharks who came calling too close and without warning. And then there was the ghost of a young woman who painted her lips scarlet and sat on a barstool smiling at anyone who happened to occupy the seat beside her. Her killer was never captured, but her specter still wandered the wharf smiling at all those she encountered.

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