Page 26

CHAPTER 26

M arley came in at dinner time, dusty and tired from clearing out Nice Funerals, and I thought about saying something to him about Mei and just couldn’t. I mean, what was I going to say?

He saw me looking at him and said, “What?”

I shook my head. “Just thinking?”

He looked even more tired. “What happened?” he said, like he was waiting for an ax to fall.

I went for the easy stuff. “Mei thinks one way I could take the shop online is if I changed the name.”

He nodded. “If that’s possible.”

“And she said I should change the sign out front, too.”

Marley took out his phone. “Let me talk to Reggie.”

He hit a number and then said, “Reg, we have a question.”

“Put it on speaker,” I said, and he did.

“Fire away,” Reggie said. “Hey, am I on speaker?”

“Yeah, but it’s just Poppy and me,” Marley said.

“Of course,” Reggie said, and I looked at Marley, thinking, What the hell does that mean? but he was talking to Reggie again.

“Poppy was thinking about changing the Oddities name to start putting things on eBay.”

“Huh. Etsy might be better, especially if she starts putting up her mom’s stuff. I’ve been thinking about that for some of my smaller stuff. But eBay is good, too. Maybe both places?”

“Concentrate, Reg,” Marley said. “We need a new name and then a great carved sign.”

“Okay, name. Is she sure she wants the change?”

“No,” I said. “But I think it’s the right thing to do.”

“You just don’t want to forget Oz,” Reggie said.

“ Yes, ” I said. “You understand.” It was such a relief not to have to explain every damn feeling I was having. “I love you, Reggie.”

“Wrong brother,” Reggie said. “So we keep Oddities as the name, we just make it different.”

“That would be good,” I said.

“Poppy’s Oddities,” Reggie said.

“Too close to the original,” Marley said.

“Okay,” Reggie said. “So Oddities is out?”

“Maybe spell it a different way?” I said. “Like make it singular?”

“Still too close,” Marley said. “Nothing about Oddities.”

I almost said “Who died and made you the boss of me?” but that would be Serena after she kidnapped me and Max (still alive) who made him my bodyguard, which I did not need. Except for sleeping.

“Okay, we can use ‘odd,’ right?” Reggie said.

“Yeah,” Marley said. “That should be safe.”

“Odd Poppy’s,” Reggie said.

“She’s not odd,” Marley said, sounding annoyed.

“No, wait, I’ve got it.” It was so brilliant, I was amazed with myself. “Odd Poppies, the flower. This place is full of odd stuff. And it is my shop now, my mom said so.” She’d also said this was my second life act and I should let go of the past and move forward. I think that’s what she said.

Reggie was talking. “I got it. I’ll carve the name in some weird font and surround it with carved poppies. I can stain them red with black centers, put the font in black, maybe leave the back unpainted. I can do that.”

“That’s perfect ,” I said. “I really do love you, Reggie.”

“Wrong brother,” he said again. “I’ll bring some sketches by later. This is going to be fun.”

“You don’t have to come into town,” I began, but he spoke over me.

“I’m staying at Ecstasy at night,” he said. “Somebody’s got to look after the old people, and Marley’s got you.”

“Reggie,” Marley said, sounding like a warning.

“To bodyguard,” Reggie said. “Nothing else. He’s slow.”

“What?” I said, but Reggie had hung up.

Marley put his phone back in his pocket.

“What the hell was that about?” I said. “Mei said I was slow.”

He looked at me as if he were waiting for something to occur to me, but it had already occurred to me. I just didn’t know what to do with it.

“Never mind,” I said, and then I changed the conversation. “Name change for the store really is a good idea.” Then I remembered. “Reggie and Marley Bernard. Those aren’t your real names, right? You were born in Mexico?”

He shrugged. “Pike told us never to tell anybody our real names. I don’t think anybody’s looking for us, but you know Pike and Ozzie. Never tell anybody anything. So we picked new names. And now after ten years, they are our names.” He smiled at me, that great lazy smile. “I don’t know your real name, either.”

I smiled, too. Well, I had to, his smile was killer. “Yes, you do. Poppy’s my real name. But it’s okay, you don’t have to tell me anything. We’re good.”

He nodded, still bothered that he couldn’t tell me, I think. “Your mom named you Poppy?”

“Actually, she named me Boppy. When she was pregnant with me, I bopped around a lot inside her, and she’d called me Boppy for months. But then she had a Caesarian, and she was groggy when the nurse asked her what my name was, and she was confused and said, ‘Boppy,’ and the nurse wrote down ‘Poppy.’ And then the nurse said, ‘Middle name,’ and my mom was still confused, so Ozzie said, ‘Rose,’ and that’s why my birth certificate says ‘Poppy Rose Malone.’”

“I like it,” Marley said. “It’s the perfect name for you.”

That took me aback. Like he knew me. Well, of course he knew me, he’d known me since he was ten and I was nine.

It was funny, though. The only time Darius had talked about my name, he’d said, “You’ll have to use your middle name. Poppy is just not professional.” I’d said, “I don’t want to be professional, I want to be fun,” and he said, “I meant after college.” And now I wondered if that was another reason I didn’t want to go to college. Because I’m Poppy. I’m confused about a lot of stuff right now, but I know I’m Poppy Malone.

“So what do you need me to do now?” he said, looking around the shop.

Stay with me , I thought. Just be here with me. Because when he was with me, I wasn’t anxious. I could laugh again. I thought about asking him to sleep with me again, just stay in bed with me so I could sleep. I bet I could sleep if he was there, and Mei said she didn’t care what we did. But, of course, I couldn’t.

“What do you need?” he said, looking at me with concern.

You, I thought and pointed toward the bookcase in front of the hidden closet. “The rest of the stuff from there,” I said, and he grinned again and said, “This should be fun,” and I thought, Yeah, it will be. You’re here.

And then I thought about something else Reggie had said. “Wait, Reggie’s thinking about selling his carvings online?”

“Thinking about it,” Marley said. “Not doing anything about it. He just wants to make stuff, he’s not a business guy.”

“I could sell them here,” I said. “Put them online for him.”

Marley nodded. “I’ll ask him. He’ll probably go for it. You’re better at business stuff.”

“I am all about business stuff,” I told him.

And then I got back to work. With Marley. Work I can handle.

Marley thoughts, not so much.