Page 12 of A Midsummer Night’s Ghost (Murder By Design #8)

TWELVE

“How do I look?” Grandma asked.

“Like you’re going to a funeral,” I told her as I stepped into nude pumps.

“You look very put together,” Jake said.

She smiled at him. “Thank you, Jake.”

I got a glare and a sniff.

She was wearing a black skirt that fell at a random location between her knees and ankles, a black sweater, a cross necklace, and black Nike sneakers. She had just had her hair permed and she was wearing two pops of aggressive blush on her cheeks but no other makeup.

I stood by what I said. But I knew better than to repeat it.

Jake got Grandma’s winter coat out of the closet and helped her into it.

“You’re a nice boy,” she told him, patting his arm. Then she glared at me again. “Don’t screw it up.”

“Yeah,” Jake said with a grin. “Don’t screw it up.”

Odds were if any screwing up was going to happen it would be me so I didn’t really have a leg to stand on.

It reminded me that Ryan had seen Jake hiding a ring.

That made me feel pretty sure Jake wasn’t going anywhere.

“Do you want a coat?” he asked me.

“No, I’m good with just my blazer. It’s kind of balmy today.”

Jake lifted his suit jacket off of the back of the kitchen chair and shrugged into it. “Then we’re good to go.”

Mary’s service was at Chambers Funeral Home and just a few minutes drive from our house. There was a hefty turnout and Jake had to drop me and Grandma off at the entrance before going off in search of a far away parking spot. He was attending with us because Clifford had been his baseball coach in middle school and he had also had a lot of mutual acquaintances with Mary in the neighborhood.

I was obviously prepared for there to be a lot of people inside. I wasn’t prepared for the vast quantity of dead people that were hanging around.

It just about smacked me in the face as soon as we walked in.

I saw dead people.

Since my newfound spiritual mediumship had commenced, this was my first funeral and I really hoped it would be the last for a very long time.

There was no rhyme or reason to who was in attendance.

It was like an accumulation of ghosts going back to the funeral home’s inception. There were elderly men in slim fitting suits with skinny ties, men with toupees and leisure suits, and one man even in an eighties velvet tracksuit. The women were like a parade of fashion from the last seventy years as well, with swing skirts giving way to polyester suits and shoulder pads. Most disturbing of all was a young teen girl in an early two thousands pink sparkly prom dress, her hair in coils and her eyebrows razor thin.

“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” I murmured to Grandma. “It’s like breathing in the afterlife in here.”

She patted my hand. “Just don’t make eye contact.”

I had no idea what I would do if I didn’t at least have her trust and belief in what I was seeing because there was no way a nonbeliever wouldn’t think I was completely and totally insane.

The overall vibe I was getting was heavy and oppressive, like a blanket of sadness smothering me. Grandma was greeting her friends and they were all shuffling around the room to look at the photos of Mary and the guest book, which didn’t help my mood either. Shuffling can be creepy under the wrong circumstances. Most circumstances.

“You think we’re going to be ready for Opening Night?” Anne barked at me.

I had learned over the past week and a half that Anne barked instead of simply speaking.

“Well, considering that I have no idea what I’m doing and Thisbe is terrified to hold any sort of knife, we won’t be ready to go pro, but we’ll be okay.”

Grandma had gotten, while not her dream role, a bigger part taking over for poor Mary, but she refused to hold a knife, so we were going with a plastic knife compliments of the kid’s toy department at Target. I didn’t blame her. I looked at our kitchen knives at home with a whole new light when I was chopping vegetables for Jake to sauté.

Anne just grunted and stomped away, presumably to bark at someone else.

“She’s trying to get her hooks into Clifford now that he’s single but she has stiff competition. No pun intended,” Grandma said.

That almost made me laugh. “We’re at Mary’s service. I feel like maybe the ladies should leave Clifford alone.”

“You can’t let the grass grow under your feet if you want to hook a man in his eighties. I’m not sure which is coming at him faster—death or a dozen widows. There’s no time to let him grieve. Besides, he’s loaded. Tons of money. He’ll have a sweetheart by next week, mark my words.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being single.”

“How happy were you single?” she scoffed.

“I was fine,” I protested. “You’re single. You’re fine.”

“I’m built different from most women.”

I had no idea what that meant and I wasn’t asking.

“Oh, crap, here comes Sara Murphy.” Grandma moved faster than she had since they closed Kmart and marked everything ninety percent off fifteen years ago. She disappeared into a crowd of mourners and left me to take the brunt of Sara’s hugging and sobbing.

“It’s just so awful!” she said, squeezing me tightly. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

When she finally released me and drew back, I saw she was dressed like she was a Victorian heiress in deep mourning. She was in head to toe black, her dress ankle length with balloon sleeves and a lace inset to the bodice and neck. She also had on lace up boots and a mother of pearl brooch.

“Wow,” I said. “You look great.”

“Thanks. I stole the brooch and the shoes from a show I was in last year.” She put her finger to her lips. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I don’t know who I would tell.”

She gave a watery laugh, a tissue appearing from under her sleeve and delicately dabbed her eyes. That was a hell of a grandma trick right there. I was impressed. After she wiped her tears, the tissue disappeared again.

“Is Clifford here? I need to go apologize.”

“You’ve already apologized enough,” I told her, alarmed she might make a scene. She had already visited Clifford in the hospital and cried on him. The word on the senior street was she’d also sent him a fruit basket large enough to feed the entire thespian troupe.

Considering Sara was always saying she was strapped for cash, she’d probably slapped down a credit card for that fruit.

“I’ll just say hi real quick.”

Grandma reappeared by my side. “I bet she’s worried Clifford will sue her. I bet he could sue the senior center and they could sue Sara.”

“I feel like your generation is obsessed with suing people. It was an accident. It’s not anyone’s fault.”

“Sue first before they sue you.”

I was not going to request that to be stitched on a sampler by her.

The back of my neck was suddenly cold and I turned to see the man in the tracksuit was leaning in to sniff my hair. “What the hell? Stop it!” I said automatically.

Then immediately realized my error when his eyes went wide.

“You can see me?”

“Nope. Not at all.” I turned, sighing at my very large and obvious error. “Christ,” I muttered.

Grandma smacked my arm. “Watch your mouth.”

“Sorry,” I said, automatically. “Where is Jake? Did he have to park down the street at the school? It’s been fifteen minutes.”

“You don’t need to keep that man on a short lease.”

“I’m not trying to stop a guys’ night out. I’m just worried he got hit by a car or something.”

“He’s a thirty-year-old man.”

“Thirty-year-old men get hit by cars too.” I could still feel the cool breeze of the man behind me so I was willing to engage in whatever nonsensical conversation my grandmother wanted to as long as tracksuit man left me alone.

That was wishful thinking.

He came around the front of me and he looked very agitated. “I know you saw me.”

I pretended to look through him as if I couldn’t see him.

“Hey, Tina,” he said, snapping his fingers at a woman who had an equally eighties outfit on.

She had a popped collar sticking up from underneath a pale pink sweatshirt that was paired with matching pink sweatpants and leg warmers. Her hair was the color of a cherry popsicle and the permed curls were held back by a sweatband. Blood trickled down the side of her face and half her head was caved in. If she wasn’t slightly misty I would have thought I’d fallen onto the movie set of a classic eighties horror flick.

“This broad can see us,” he said to her.

Why did men in tracksuits also sound so rude?

“Who can see us?”

I studiously looked over at the casket and made a point of saying to Grandma, “Is that Mary’s son in from Florida?”

“That’s him. Surprised he came. He thinks he’s a big shot.”

“He’s dressed very casually for a big shot.” Mary’s son, who appeared to be in his sixties, was wearing cargo shorts and a T-shirt. “The Keys?”

“Yes. He looks like he smokes the wacky weed, doesn’t he?”

“That he does.”

“I don’t think she can see us, Dan. She’s not reacting at all.”

“She told me to back off. I’m telling you she can see us.”

“Let’s go pay our respects,” I told Grandma, determined to walk, not run, away from Dan and Tina.

Unfortunately, when I did my casual one footed pivot, I made eye contact with the girl in the prom dress. Her eyes narrowed. “Are you, like, dead too?”

It was easy to ignore rude men in tracksuits, but a teenager? I instantly felt guilty. “No,” I whispered. “But I’m sorry you are.”

I wasn’t sure what else to say to a girl who couldn’t be more than seventeen and who passed away before the return of eyebrows.

“If you’re sorry, you’d help me,” she said, crossing her arms across her dress front. It sagged down in the bodice. She did not have proper support. I felt like her mother had probably told her that and she’d dismissed her mother with a “whatever.”

“I can’t help you,” I murmured. “You have to just let go.” That had worked with Mary, so why not try it here? “Close your eyes and wish yourself out of here.”

“That’s super stupid,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Well, that was charming. Teen attitude even in death. “I get it, but that’s the best I can offer you.”

“Boo. You suck.”

“That seems to be the general consensus.”

“Which one of these stiffs are you talking to?” Grandma asked.

That made the prom queen gasp in disgust and throw her hands up and turned on her heel with an, “Argh!”

“I need to revisit my spiritual education again,” I told my grandmother. “I do not enjoy being trash talked by random dead people.”

“Dying pisses people off. It takes a light hand.”

Said the woman who just referred to them as “stiffs.”

Sara came over to me again. “Is Alyssa here?” she asked.

“No. She didn’t know Mary.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I’d love to reconnect with her again. She was so brave in high school.”

I assumed by brave she meant that Alyssa hadn’t backed down in the face of frequent body shaming. I couldn’t remember if Sara had participated or stood up for Alyssa. I didn’t think she had done either one. I didn’t even really remember her knowing Alyssa, but then again, I’d been very wrapped up in major concerns over my frizzy hair and my freckles and my lack of male attention. Alyssa and I hadn’t shared a lot of classes either. Maybe Sara was just feeling reflective and felt bad about how Alyssa had been treated.

“I’ll tell Alyssa you said hi.”

“Please do.”

“Sara!” Anne barked.

Sara panicked. “Oh, crap, I need to hide. Anne scares me.”

With that, she took off.

“Why is she scared of Anne? Anne is so sweet,” Grandma said.

Why my grandmother thought that was beyond me.

Mary’s funeral was providing more mysteries than answers.

Or maybe I was just in a constant state of overthinking.

Maybe Lawson Hill was right. I was Nancy Drew-ing everything and didn’t need to be.

“I have a headache. I should have eaten before we came.”

“Let’s do the pretty and then we can leave,” Grandma said. “I’m bored.”

“That sounds good to me.”

“It’s probably the spooks giving you a headache. They can do that.”

That was definitely true.

“And where the hell is Jake?”

It turned out he was drinking beer in the parking lot with Clifford and half a dozen other men.

“Want one?” Clifford asked, reaching in and flipping the lid of a cooler up.

“No, I’m good, thanks. I have a rule not to drink anything that comes out of a trunk.”

“Don’t you put your groceries in the trunk?” a man smoking a cigar asked.

They all cackled.

“We’re ready to go,” I told Jake. “Unless you want to go in.”

“No, I gave Clifford my condolences.”

Clifford put his hand on his heart. “He did. My sweet, sweet Mary. God rest her soul. Thank you all for coming. It means a lot to an old buzzard like me.”

“I’m so sorry, really.”

“Thank you for putting all that pressure on my gut, too, Bailey. You were a trooper.” He flipped open his suit jacket. “Almost as good as new.”

Clifford sounded slightly drunk, which made me think there was harder stuff than beer in that trunk. Or maybe he was on painkillers.

We finished up our goodbyes, Grandma giving Clifford a sympathetic pat on the arm, and then I pulled the keys out of my purse.

Jake held his hand out for them.

“You’ve been drinking.”

“I had half a beer.”

“You can’t get pulled over. I can’t afford the house if you lose your job.” I eyed the parking lot. “Where is the car?”

“What’s wrong?”

“I have a headache.”

“I’ll get the car.”

“You’re not driving!”

He went still. “Okay.” He got the look of a man who is trying to coax a stray dog over to him. “It’s next door in the parking lot of the restaurant that caught on fire.”

“Thank you. Wait here,” I told him and my grandmother.

“Was it the trunk beer?” he asked her as I stomped away.

“Nah. It was the dead people.”

That pretty much summed it up.

Especially considering tracksuit guy appeared beside me.

“You’re going to listen to me.”

If this dude followed me home like heartburn after bottomless margaritas I was going to lose it.

“Go away! I forbid you to follow me.”

It worked. He swore at me. But it worked. He misted out.

That would be a nice trick. Poof. Just exit from awkward situations.