Page 7 of The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy

Edgar

“All your clothes are tragic,” Allie said.

Edgar had rested the phone on his dresser to FaceTime with her and was now regretting it.

Once upon a time, his sister would’ve come over to help him pick out an outfit, bringing what she would insist was the perfect article of clothing from the store.

But now, eight months pregnant, she wasn’t as effortlessly mobile.

“I wish I could bring you this jacket we got in the other day. Pure seventies delight. With fringe.”

“Sorry I’m not the brother you can dress up like a doll.”

“You being a doll is worth your disinterest in fashion,” she assured him. “Besides, I’m sure he’d never let me now. He won’t even text me back.”

“Me neither. Maybe the white button-down. The restaurant’s pretty nice.”

“Did you go look at it?”

Edgar hesitated. “Yes.”

“I thought you were trying not to do that anymore?”

“I am.”

He knew she’d let it go because she was good like that.

“I just want things to go well,” he explained. “So I wanted to be prepared.”

“And?”

“I didn’t see anything outside, but it’s not really like I can go in and be like, Hello, good people. I’m just here looking for ghosts. Enjoy your oysters. ”

Allie snorted. “They’d think you were doing some kind of larping thing.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Best case scenario.

“I gotta pee. Be right back.”

“You’re good. I’m gonna get going.”

“The white button-down will look great,” she said, giving him the same thumbs-up that she’d given him since they were kids.

When she’d walked him to the bus stop for his first day of school.

When he’d won the science fair in seventh grade.

The first Christmas after their dad left.

When Poe ran away. The thumbs-up meant Everything is going to be okay .

And while Edgar knew it wasn’t magic, it was still comforting.

***

Edgar crossed Rampart into the French Quarter and let himself enjoy the way the streets teemed with life.

He avoided Bourbon Street and turned into the alcove where the restaurant’s iron lace gates stood open to the street.

The hedges that secreted the space from passersby twinkled with fairy lights, and terra-cotta pots of birds of paradise flanked the entrance.

It was beautiful. And Edgar wished he could appreciate it instead of every sculpture and plant registering as a threat.

He let his gaze relax and scanned the area. Nothing but people enjoying their food.

“Hey!”

Edgar startled, so intent on looking for ghosts, he hadn’t noticed Jamie approach.

“Shit, sorry,” Jamie said and put a comforting hand on his arm.

Jamie looked amazing, in tight black trousers, pointy-toed black boots, and a pale pink velvet vest. Their hair looked like they just rolled out of bed, and their blue eyes glowed.

“Wow,” was all Edgar could say.

When Jamie smiled, their gazes locked. Edgar could see now that Jamie had a light spray of freckles under their eyes. He wanted to kiss them.

“Hi,” they said. “Shall we go in?”

Edgar followed Jamie inside, admiring the play of their muscles beneath tattooed skin.

“Wendon-Dale, for two,” Jamie said, and a man dressed in all black led them to a table in the corner of the dining room.

Edgar couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to a restaurant like this. A napkin-in-your-lap, would-you-like-to-see-the-wine-menu, very-good-sir place.

Jamie seemed perfectly at home, making polite small talk with the ma?tre d’ and ordering water for the table.

Edgar had scanned the place when they walked to their table, but now that they were seated, he had the opportunity to check things out more thoroughly.

The huge painting of a shipwreck on the nearest wall, the drape of white tablecloths on each table, the freestanding ice buckets for champagne.

Chances were that to everyone else in the restaurant, the decor spoke of luxury.

To Edgar, however, it was just a collection of lines and textures he had to ignore so that he could search for beings that shouldn’t be there.

“You want to see the wine list?” Jamie was asking him, holding out a slim folder.

“Not for me, thanks. Go ahead though,” he told Jamie.

Jamie ordered a glass of white wine and thanked the waiter. “I was worried you might not show,” they said with a wry smile.

“What? I would never do that.”

“Well, I don’t really know you yet.”

“I guess that’s what dates are for,” Edgar said.

They pored over their menus instead of talking, though Edgar wasn’t really seeing the words in front of him, too occupied with trying to divide his attention between Jamie and keeping a vigilant watch on his surroundings.

As a result, he pointed to something when the waiter came and instantly forgot what he’d ordered.

Then, with no business left to attend to, they were left in silence once again.

Edgar searched his mind for questions to ask on a date. Suddenly he regretted the amount of time he’d spent scoping out the restaurant, wishing he’d spent it memorizing conversational topics instead.

“So,” he began, hoping that somehow when next he opened his mouth, something interesting would come out. “What do you do?”

Oh, excellent. Truly inspired. Definitely not the most banal question of all time.

But Jamie’s eyes lit, and they leaned in. “I’m a haunter. I design haunted houses. Well, any haunt, really, but my main gig is working on House of Screams, the haunted house just outside the city. D’you know it?”

Edgar’s brain screeched to a halt. Haunted houses? Haunted, like, by ghosts. His first date in forever… The first person he was excited about in forever. And their job was making the world scarier? His heart sank.

“I’m not familiar,” Edgar managed, flustered, hoping his voice sounded normal.

Jamie’s expression suggested it had not.

“Are you nervous?” Jamie’s expression was so kind it made him squirm.

“Yes,” Edgar said. “That obvious?” But he knew it was.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Jamie said. “Can I ask why?”

Even putting aside his experiences with ghosts, Edgar had never been good with people.

He hadn’t needed to be, because he’d had his siblings and Cameron and Antoine, a built-in friend group that had accepted him as he was.

It was only after losing Antoine, then Cameron, then Poe, that Edgar realized how unusual such acceptance had been.

“Because I don’t really do this. Dating thing.

Talking thing. People can never tell when I’m kidding.

Sometimes it takes me a long time to think of what to ask because I don’t want to intrude, but then people think I’m not interested in them.

Um.” I get distracted looking for ghosts and may need to flee at any moment. Just your ordinary haunted shit.

Jamie looked thoughtful. “How do you feel about truth or dare?”

“Um. The game?” Edgar asked.

“Yeah, y’know, sleepovers and middle school parties. Truth or dare.”

Poe and Allie and Cameron and Antoine, kicking rocks and running wild, daring each other absurdly. Jump over that fallen log, steal a pack of gum, sneak into the church at midnight, jump off the highest branch and into the—no, don’t think about that. Don’t think.

“It’s definitely been a while.”

“The people I work with,” Jamie said, “they dare each other constantly. It’s silly, but when I started doing it to connect with my coworkers, it actually worked. Might help break the ice?”

Edgar was worried. The truth? Forget about it. Truth made people angry and resentful. Truth made people think you were crazy. Truth made everyone leave.

But Jamie was sitting across the table from him, and they looked stunning.

They had asked him out. They seemed to maybe, possibly like him.

And Edgar hadn’t been able to get them out of his head since the moment they met.

The thought of Jamie’s face falling if he said no, of Jamie curling away inside themself, felt unbearable.

“Nothing big,” Jamie assured them. “Just to get to know each other. And you get three skips. So if there’s anything either of us doesn’t want to do or questions we don’t want to answer, we can use a skip. Okay?”

Edgar narrowed his eyes. “You just made up that rule, didn’t you?”

“Yes. What do you think?”

And Edgar, who hadn’t told the truth to anyone outside his family since he was twelve years old, agreed.

Jamie’s smile was as rewarding as he’d thought it would be.

“Fun. Okay, you go first.”

“Truth or dare?” Edgar asked.

“Truth,” Jamie said.

Edgar ran through questions in his head, but they all sounded like a kindergartner’s attempt—favorite color, number of siblings, middle name. Books. He could ask about books or movies. Yeah, movies were good.

But what came out of his mouth was, “What does it feel like to do burlesque?”

Jamie’s eyes lit up. “Oh, man. It’s amazing and terrifying and sexy and exhilarating.

I started last year. My friend Ramona sent me a cryptic text saying to go to this burlesque performance.

I thought she was gonna meet me there, but when I showed up, it was a performance and info meeting for people who wanted to join the troupe. ”

Jamie gave a wry smirk and rolled their eyes at the thought of their friend.

“But I stayed because I was curious, and the performers were amazing. I’d only seen cis folks do burlesque. Seeing queer and trans bodies of all shapes and sizes onstage performing…it made me feel like maybe my body could be, like, appreciated?”

Jamie traced the edge of their bread plate with a fingertip, deep in thought, and Edgar thought of a dozen questions that it was too soon to ask.

“I appreciated it,” Edgar said softly. “You’re so…” Edgar frowned, searching for the right words. Jamie’s performance had been titillating and sexy, confident and a tease. Face-to-face, they were just as glamorous, just as sexy, but sweeter, more accessible. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

Jamie’s eyes were soft with appreciation.