Say My Name Honey (Beetlejuice)

IX

Talia slowly opened her eyes. The brown ceiling of her room appeared. A sigh escaped her lips. Another day to live.

She got up and headed to the kitchen. Kyle was sitting on the kitchen counter as always. She was a smart cat, she knew how to order food like no one else.

The coffee was already ready, so there was no need to make a new one. Of course, freshly brewed coffee was a godsend. But she didn't have time for a new one.

While she was preparing the coffee, she heard footsteps coming from the hallway. From it a beautiful young woman appeared in a school uniform.

"Good morning, dear. I made breakfast." She said, placing freshly cooked eggs on the table.

"Thank you, but I'm not hungry." She said, just pouring herself some coffee.

"I'm a bad example for you." She smiled, the girl smiled back slightly.

"Talia, aren't we late already?" She asked.

"It's not my fault you sleep more than the bed, Astrid." She laughed, seeing the girl roll her eyes. "and don't worry, it doesn't take long by car."

With that, Talia took Astrid to the boarding school. She had only spent the weekend at her house. Astrid was a reserved teenager, but a good girl. She was just very distant from Lydia.

She was somewhere else doing her thing. Which Astrid didn't really believe in. Talia knew how much she missed Richard. He disappeared on an expedition in the Amazon rainforest. They never found his body. Astrid believes he didn't die, he just disappeared.

Despite not being very close to Lydia's ex-husband, she couldn't help but feel for Astrid. She lost a father, and her mother is far away dating another man. Who Talia is sure is not a good person. He always looked at her in a judgmental way.

"Good morning Margara." Talia greeted her secretary. "How many appointments do I have today?" she said putting on her lab coat.

"Approximately 22 miss."

"Okay, and I already told you that you don't have to call me miss, that makes me feel too old." Talia laughed.

She was at the height of her 38 years. Her appearance never changed much. Still being the same height, her body grew slightly. The only thing that could have changed drastically was her hair. It went from black to red. She dyed it when Lydia's show started to become too famous.

When people saw her, they asked a lot of questions about Lydia. If it was true that ghosts exist or something like that. Sometimes even insulting her as if it was Lydia's fault for doing the show.

Talia was happy that Lydia was using her gift for something. But she ended up keeping quite distant from her family. Talia couldn't remember the last time she spent more than an hour talking to her.

Entering the office, the first thing she could see was Hugo. A little ghost boy who kind of clung to her. He couldn't leave the office, so naturally Talia kind of adopted the young ghost.

"Good morning Hugo, are you busy?"

"You know, just staring at these white walls and playing pranks on Margara." he smiles mischievously.

"Just don't make her quit, it's hard enough to hire a new trustworthy secretary." she sat down looking at the appointment schedules.

Meanwhile, she stared vaguely at the ring on her finger. The ring Beetlejuice gave her the day they almost got married. She missed it so much.

She knew he didn't exist anymore. According to the book for the recently deceased. Sandworms eat ghosts. Or that's what she understood when she read it.

Talia wanted to at least say goodbye. She knew BJ had saved her from the worm when he pushed her aside. Sure, she hit her head and was in a coma for two months. But he did it to save her life.

She kind of considered herself married. Never taking the ring off her finger. Not even to take a shower. Lydia asked a thousand and one questions about her relationship with BJ. I mean, not that there was one at first. But she explained what she could so Lydia could understand. The first thing she did was make vomiting sounds and a lot of 'ew'.

Then she said, BJ was never mentioned again. Talia knew that Lydia sometimes hallucinated him. That's why she took pills.

"Thinking about your dad?" Hugo asked.

He had started calling her mom after a while. Talia never tried to correct him, she thought it was adorable. But when Talia told her about BJ, Hugo saw the ring. He calls BJ dad every now and then. Talia was pretty sure if BJ saw that he would be disgusted. But he wasn't here, so it didn't matter.

"A little." She fiddled with the ring.

"Can you tell me what he looked like again?" Hugo floated above her, resting his face on his hands.

"Again? I've already told you everything about him.

"I want to hear it again." 

"Well, he's a demon, so to speak, he usually never cares about personal space and loves to do strange things." she said smiling as she remembered, hiding the part about the perversities, the child didn't need to know. "when we met I hated him almost instantly. But Then, I saw how I could love him."

"He seems nice."

"Yeah, but on top of that he's an idiot, who does things for his own benefit." she said, then sighed. "Well, I have to call the patient, you know, no pranks on them."

Talia smiled when she saw Hugo salute. He never said how he died or where he died. Talia never wanted to ask, he would tell her when he was ready. The only thing she knows is that it was about 2 years ago.

----

Talia had justopened the door for a patient. It was around 2 pm, there were still a few appointments left.

"Bye, you know, no spicy food until your throat gets better, okay?" she handed a lollipop to the child who smiled.

She loved children. Such pure beings, completely innocent of the horrible things the world has.

Trimmmm.

"Lydia?" she muttered to herself, it wasn't like her to call. "Hello Lydia?"

"Oh, I'm glad you answered, I thought you'd be busy, sorry if you are."

"I just finished with a patient, and there's only 20 minutes left until the next one, so I have time." She then felt like something was wrong. "Lydia? Is everything okay?"

"Dad died."

At that moment, Talia felt like the world had fallen apart. She and Lydia had gotten closer to Charles after the events of BJ. I mean, they hadn't changed that much, but he paid a little more attention to them.

"Oh... shit! Are you okay? Does Delia know?" She held back her tears, she didn't want to make Lydia cry. Which is what would happen if she cried.

"She's the one who told me." She sighed. "Let's get Astrid and go to Winter River, the funeral will be there."

"Okay, I'll just finish the last consultations and go there as soon as I can." She felt a tear running down her eye. "See you there, little sister."

The call ended. Talia looked at Margara, who seemed worried about her. She gave a brief explanation, saying that her father had died. Margara expressed her condolences and tried to speed up the next appointments.

Hugo had heard everything. As soon as Talia closed the office door, more tears flowed. Hugo tried to hug her. But unlike BJ, he couldn't touch her. She was happy that he was trying to comfort her.

Notes:

And here we start the second movie, guys! Before I made this chapter, I debated whether I should make her lose her memory of BJ. Have dreams with his face without remembering him. But I opted for a quick two-month coma.

By the way, what did you think of Hugo?