Wait!” I boggled. “You're an actress?”

Now she really had me.

I'll spare you the “shop talk” that followed, so suffice it to say that she had to point out to me that the sun was going to be coming up soon.

“I should really go,” she said reluctantly.

“Before the cock crows, you mean?” I asked with a wink.

“No!” she answered with a laugh. “Because people are going to start coming by soon, and I thought I'd spare you from being the scruffy guy in the park talking to 'himself.'”

“Hmmm . . . good point,” I conceded. “Um . .. can I see you again?”

“In so many senses,” she said with a soft smile, “that rather depends on you, don't you think?”

I sighed in helpless frustration. “Look . . . I want to see you again, I really do! My truly killer hangover notwithstanding, tonight was the best time I've had in . . . I can't remember when, but . . .”

She wafted over and placed a tingling ethereal kiss upon my lips. “Phil, you've been sober for hours now.”

The implications of that shocked me silly . . . not to mention silent.

“So I'm pretty sure you will be seeing me again,” she said with a mischievous grin, “because I'll certainly be looking for you. How about tonight?”

“It's a date!” I blurted out before I could think about what I was saying.

“In that case,” she said with a wink as she started to fade away. “Bring flowers . . . and remember to ask me my name next time.”

I stood there dumbfounded for some time as the sun came up and people started to trickle by me.

On one hand, I told myself, I'd had relationships start off worse and with even less chance of going somewhere, so how much worse could dating a ghost really be compared to my luck with the live ones? On the other hand, the whole “nonphysical” thing was going to be a problem, but I'd had to deal with that with some of the live ones too, so really there was only one thing wrong with this evening.

I can't believe I forgot to ask her her name!

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