The Dead Romantics (7)

“Already asked,” Carver replied. “They’ve got something like three funerals this weekend. I’m sure he’s going to go next week when he’s a little less busy. And he’s fine. If anything happens, Mom’s right there.”

“Why does he have to be so stubborn?”

“Funny coming from you.”

“Ha ha.” I picked out two sci-fis and a charming-looking paperback. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. Buying books always made me feel better, even if I never read them. “Can you try at least? To convince Dad to go sooner rather than later?”

“Sure, if you can convince him to take a day off work—”

In the background, I heard Dad yell, “Convince who? Of what?”

And Carver replied, covering the receiver to shout back (not that it helped my eardrums), “Nothing, old man! Go drink your Ensure! Hey—I was joking—oh, what’s that, Mom? I should come help you with something? Sure! Here’s your second favorite—”

“I am not second favorite,” I interjected.

“Okay, bye!”

I heard a scuffle on the other end of the phone as Carver very quickly handed it over to Dad. I could imagine the exchange—Carver tossing his cell phone to Dad as Dad tried to swat him in the arm and missed to catch the phone, and Carver slinking away into one of the other rooms after Mom, laughing the entire way.

Dad raised the phone to his ear, and his bold, boisterous voice boomed through. “Buttercup! How’s the Big Apple?”

My heart swelled at the sound of his voice, chorused with Carver laughing away in the background. I missed my family, more than I really cared to admit most days. “It’s good.”

“Eating enough? Staying hydrated?”

“I should be asking you that.” I exited the aisle and sat down on the bookstore step stool, satchel and books in my lap. “Old man.”

I could almost hear him roll his eyes. “I’m fine. These old bones haven’t quit on me yet. How’s my eldest doing? Found a nice catch in the city yet?”

I snorted. “You know my life is more than who I date, Dad. Love isn’t everything.”

“How did my beautiful eldest daughter become so bitter? It’s so tragic,” he lamented with a heavy sigh. “She was made from the loins of love!”

“Gross, Dad.”

“Why, when I met your mother, I was so smitten with her—”

“Dad.”

“—we didn’t leave the hotel room for three days. Three days!”

“Dad.”

“Her lips like fresh rose petals—”

“I get it, I get it! I just . . . I don’t think I’m ready for a new relationship. I don’t think I’ll ever be.”

“Maybe the universe will surprise you.”

For some reason, the angular face of my new editor came to mind. Yeah, right. I ran my thumb over the pages of one of the books in my lap, feeling them buzz softly. “How’s the family business?”

“Good as it’ll get,” Dad replied. “Remember Dr. Cho? Your orthodontist?”

“Alice said he passed.”

“Was a good funeral, though. Beautiful weather for April. The wind danced through the trees, I’m telling you. A great send-off,” he said, and then he added a little softer, “He thanked me afterwards.”

I swallowed the knot in my throat because anyone else hearing that would’ve thought he was crazy. Maybe he was a little crazy, but if he was, then I was, too. “Did he now?”

“It was nice. Got some ideas for my own funeral myself.”

“It’ll be a while,” I joked.

“I should hope! Maybe then you’ll come home.”

“I’d be the talk of the town.”

He laughed, but there was a little bitterness there. One that we both shared. It was why I left, after all. Why I didn’t stay in Mairmont. Why I went as far as I could, where no one knew my story.

As it turns out, when you solved a murder at thirteen by talking with ghosts, the newspapers printed exactly that.


LOCAL GIRL SOLVES MURDER WITH GHOSTS

You can imagine how that sort of thing could haunt you. I wasn’t exactly the popular kid in high school, and after that I didn’t stand a ghost of a chance of being asked to prom. Carver and Alice couldn’t see them, and neither could Dad’s younger sister Liza, or Mom. It was only the two of us.

We were the only ones who could understand.

Another reason why I was better off alone.

“Please go see Dr. Martin next week—” I began, when he interrupted me.

“Oh, there’s another call coming in. I’ll talk to you soon, okay, buttercup? Don’t forget to call your mother!”

I sighed, more out of resignation than regret. “Love you, Dad.”

“Love you more!”

He hung up, and I finally noticed the bookseller glaring at me for sitting on the stool. I popped up and quickly apologized for taking up real estate, and scurried off toward the cash register.

One of the only good things to come out of this writing gig was the fact that I could write books off on taxes. Even if I never read them. Even if I used them to build book thrones and then sit down and cry on them while pouring myself glass after glass of merlot.