The Dead Romantics (38)

“Now where did he wander off to . . .” Seaburn began to get up to look for him, when I said I would find the mayor. I needed to stretch my legs anyway.

“I’ll go find the mayor. Stay for another beer—on me,” I added, signaling to Dana, and went to go search for the mayor. He couldn’t have gone far. Dana pointed outside, and I followed their direction. “Fetch,” I called, clicking my tongue to the roof of my mouth, “here, boy.”

I searched around the side of the veranda. It was a warm evening, and it brought quite a few lightning bugs out of hiding. They blinked between the blooming rosebushes and the hydrangeas in the garden.

Outside, I found Fetch—and a friend.

Ben was sitting in one of the rocking chairs, and Fetch had gone up and put his head on the armrest. Ben tried to pet him, but his fingers passed through the dog’s ears, and he quickly jerked his hand away.

Fetch wagged his tail, anyway.

Dogs were pretty good judges of character. And I hated to admit that it was nice to see Ben, and see him not . . . losing it. Like he did earlier. Because real emotions were complicated. If someone started crying, I started crying with them, and it turned into a whole ordeal—like with Ben. Oh, that was mortifying.

I put my hands into my jean pockets, steeled my nerves, and wandered closer to him. “So, you like dogs, Mr. Andor?”

He seemed surprised that I’d noticed him because no one else had. “Oh—ah, Ben, please.”

“Ben.” I said his name and it sounded—friendly. Nice. Pointed at the front, and a hum at the end. I motioned to the mayor. “This is Fetch.”

“He’s a good boy. I heard that he’s the mayor?”

“Yep, won reelection twice already.”

“What a good dog,” he told Fetch, whose tail began to whip the porch in a happy THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP—

Oh yeah, Ben was definitely a dog kind of guy. Nailed it.

Fetch whined and I clicked my tongue to the roof of my mouth. He came trotting over and I scrubbed him behind the ears. He licked at my hand.

The night was soft and warm, like most spring nights in the South. There was still the undeniable snap of the last of winter’s chill, but the lightning bugs were already out and performing loops in the garden outside. The moon was so bright, it looked almost like a silvery daytime, and a group of kids played kickball in the street.

There wasn’t much to Mairmont. It was quiet, and the traffic was token, and the cicadas buzzed so loud you could barely think.

I don’t know why I said what I said next—maybe it was the buzzing of the insects, or the kids kicking a ball down the street, or the two glasses of rum and Coke, but I said, “Dad used to say these kinds of nights were best for a good moonwalk.”

Ben gave me a peculiar look. “A moonwalk?”

“It’s a stroll—most of the time, through a graveyard. Dad says you can only take a moonwalk when there’s a good moon. No clouds, no rain. Don’t look at me like that—yes. Graveyard. My family runs a funeral home. My dad’s the director.” I stopped myself, and corrected, “Was the director.” I shifted uncomfortably on the rail and shook my head. “It doesn’t matter—”

“Do you want to go?” he asked suddenly.

“Go . . . where?”

“On this, erm, moonwalk. I have some questions about”—he motioned to himself—“and about you. I don’t quite understand, and I’d like to. And maybe you need to talk, too. Besides, a change of scenery might be nice.”

“Through a graveyard.”

“I am dead. It seems apt.”

I bit my lip to keep the smile from my face. He had a point. But him asking was . . . unexpected. And I didn’t know what it was—probably the rum and Cokes—but it might’ve also been the way the silvery moonlight fell across his face, and the way his hair was a little floppy and his eyes were dark and deep and not at all cold or cruel, like I’d imagined in my head. As though he was actually looking at me, really looking, and wanted to know me and this weird life I lived. No lies, no walls of fiction—only this strange little secret no one knew.

And, anyway, I did need a change of scenery.





15





The Sorrows of Florence Day


ST. JOHN’S OF Mairmont Cemetery was a tiny little patch of green grass surrounded by an old stone wall. There were tombstones that stuck out of the gentle hills like white teeth. Some had flowers bursting from them; others hadn’t been touched in decades. The cemetery was shadowed by oak trees that were large enough and thick enough that I was sure they’d been here long before any of the bodies below the lawn. And sitting in each one of them, perched so comfortably, were crows. A whole murder of them. Sitting in the budding branches and looking down at us with their beady little eyes, nestled in to watch us.

The wrought iron gates were closed and locked, but that had never stopped me before from creeping in. There was a crumbling wall about twenty feet down from the gate that I could get a foothold in and haul myself over.

“Oh, it’s closed,” Ben noted, reading the sign. “I didn’t realize cemeteries closed—where are you going?” He followed me over to the place in the wall where it was a bit crumbled.

I pointed at the wall. “I’m scaling that sucker.”