Lily peered outside. “I don’t know. She could moonlight as a Jessica Fletcher impersonator, though, couldn’t she? Like from Murder, She Wrote? Got the same purse and everything! And the gingham shirt!”
Exactly. “Nailed it.” Down to the pleated jeans, the hairdo, and the glasses on a chain.
As Jessica Fletcher came around to the back of the restaurant, Lily and I made some last-minute adjustments to the audio and visual. From the kitchen, we heard Jimmy’s family introducing themselves to the medium, and each of them gave their two cents about the secret ingredient. Jimmy Jr. was betting molasses. His sister voted for liquid smoke. The cousin said cayenne. And Jimmy’s older brother, an old man with a cane named Cletus, insisted on celery seeds. Had to be celery seeds. “Just has to be!”
“Goddamn it!” boomed Jimmy Jr. “I love you, Uncle Cletus, but can we stop right now with the celery seeds? I don’t even know what a celery seed looks like!”
“Like a mouse turd, except it’s a seed!” roared the old man, his hearing aids squealing. “Mark my words, Junior! Mark ’em! When was the last time I was wrong, tell me that!”
I heard the sister mutter, “Ten minutes ago when you thought I was the maid?”
Jimmy Jr. shoved another handful of nicotine gum in his mouth, like a palmful of Chiclets. Next to me, I watched Lily stifle another giggle. She found a little bit of joy in even the tensest family feud. I wanted to know how that felt—what it was like to be in that mind of hers. Fortunately, I realized, there might be a way to see the world from her perspective. From my bag, I grabbed my spare camera, booted it up, and handed it to her. She gasped a little and smiled at me with such beautiful happy delight. “Really? For me?” she asked.
I wanted to give her a whole lot more than a filming credit. But for now, it’d have to do. “Ready?”
Lily beamed. “Ready!”
17
LILY
Uncle Jimmy’s family joined hands around the table, which was set with votive candles on top of jars of the sauce. The lights were low, the blinds were drawn, and Jessica Fletcher was all business. She adjusted her bifocals and looked around the room. She took one of the glass jars and unscrewed it. The seal broke with a sucking sound and a snap. She placed the open bottle in the center of the table, like an offering to the smokehouse gods. Then she rolled up her starched gingham shirtsleeves, placed her hands flat on the table, and closed her eyes.
Except for the seven thousand home videos of Ivan that I had on my phone, I had never done any filming before, so I followed Gabe’s lead. He’d positioned three stationary cameras around the room, and from their blinking red lights I knew they were rolling. With his handheld camera, he circled Jimmy Jr.’s family. But he was respectful about it—he never got too close, never invaded their space. He was, after all, a total stranger, so that made sense. I, on the other hand, had known everybody in the room since before I could talk. When I got close to Jimmy’s sister, Jimmy Jr., or Uncle Cletus, they glanced at me and smiled. It was really exciting, moving in and out of the group, getting to be right in the middle of everything. I crouched right down in front of Jimmy Jr. and focused in on the medium.
She lowered her head. “We are gathered today to speak with James LeRoy Waters of Savannah. First I’m going to take the overall temperature of the room. I want all of you to take a deep breath, relax. Focus on where you are and your immediate surroundings. Because we’re trying to summon up someone very near and dear to all of you, I want you to focus on your most recent good, happy memory of Uncle Jimmy. Or, if you’re someone who didn’t know him as well”—here, she glanced at Gabe and me—“then please bring to mind the most recent happy memory you have had. Really happy. Doesn’t have to be anything big, but I need this room to buzz with joy.”
Even though I was filming, I still wanted to help. Happy memory, Lily. Happy memory. In spite of what I had decided about him, the first thing that popped to mind was Gabe and me together, last night at the kitchen table. It was before everything had gotten oh so sexy, when it was still just oh so sweet. The whole night had been wonderful, but there was one particular moment, after we’d finished eating the chicken and had moved on to the ice cream. We were sitting there, in the quiet and the candlelight, and I thought, I will never forget this, never. Not as long as I live. That was where I returned to, and I felt my heart patter away in my chest. Everybody else in the room had their eyes closed except Gabe and me, and I glanced at him over the camera.
I found him looking right back at me, smiling a little. I wondered, Is he thinking about last night too?
And he nodded, very gently but clearly, a few times.
It made my toes curl right up in my sneakers.
The medium cleared her voice. “I’m getting a reading coming through from some of you in this room. Uncle Jimmy isn’t in touch yet, but I’m sifting through the energy here.” Even though her eyes were shut, I got her on camera pushing her glasses back up her nose. “I’m seeing . . . some of you gathered together. I believe it was last night. I think you were . . . here, perhaps?”
Next to me, Jimmy’s daughter said, “Mmm-hmmm!”
The medium cocked her head slightly, like she was trying to make something out in the distance. “At dinner?”
“Yes, we were,” said one of the other brothers. “Right here last night. Talking about Jimmy.”
“God bless him!” said the cousin.
“Amen,” rumbled Jimmy Jr. from behind me.
The medium exhaled long and slow. “It was a very happy occasion, I think?”
Surprisingly, that question yielded total silence. Crickets. Until the sister next to me said, “Don’t know about that, girl!” with an exaggerated roll of her neck. “Don’t know about that at all!”
The medium wrinkled up her face like she was squinting, even though her eyes were still closed. “It was a quiet, pleasant evening,” said the medium, more insistent this time. “It was very happy. There was . . . a meal of some sort . . .” She leaned forward like she was trying to see a little farther. “Dinner, during the power outage, perhaps?”
Gabe and I looked at one another again. He slowly lifted one of his thick eyebrows. But I shook my head the teensiest bit. There was no way. Everybody in this room had dinner last night. It was probably the only thing that each and every one of us had in common.
I suddenly felt more than a little skeptical of Jessica Fletcher. I wondered what her hourly fee was. I wondered if maybe this was nothing but a big racket. It had to be a racket, didn’t it? Just had to be! But then she said, “Ice cream, I think. Maybe a roast chicken?”
Holy smokes. Gabe had moved off to my left, and I peeked back at him past Jimmy’s arm. I was met with an expression that could only be described as Fuck!
The medium said, “There was a lot of laughter. A lot of . . . it’s very flirtatious.”
Oh my God. I kept hold of the camera with one hand and pressed my palm to my lips with the other. Across the table, Uncle Cletus boomed, “Don’t know what dinner you’re visiting, lady! Sure as hell wasn’t here!”
“Hell no, it wasn’t!” echoed the sister.
“We were busy yelling at each other!” added Jimmy Jr.
“Celery seeds!” hollered Uncle Cletus.
“Christ almighty,” grumbled Jimmy Jr.
But I couldn’t hold it anymore and made a noise that was a cross between a snort, a cough, and a laugh.
The medium turned to me. “Oh, I see. It’s you two, isn’t it?”
I nodded, almost sheepishly. “Yes. Definitely us.”
“First date,” Gabe said, smiling hard. So hard I could see his dimple in the candlelight.
The medium adjusted her hands again and shook her head, halfway between humored and annoyed. She pointed at me and Gabe. “One of you. Out.”
The rest of the family boomed with laughter. When it died down, Gabe said, “We’ll be good, promise.”
But the medium was undeterred. She straightened her bifocals
and smiled at us. “Not a question of good or bad, hon. New love is like a black hole. I can’t see past it. So leave your cameras, but give me some space.”
New love! I crouched down a bit, and my shoe squeaked on the linoleum floor. I didn’t know if I was embarrassed or shocked or happy or all three. But one thing was for sure, it was a darned good thing the lights were so low, because I was pretty sure my face was cherry red all over.
Gabe mouthed, I’ll go, but I shook my head. The show wasn’t called The Jameson of Suggestion, for heaven’s sake. It was his show, and he was the one who had to stay. So I slipped out from the circle and handed my camera over to him. It was close quarters, though, and I had to scoot between two chairs to get to him and out of the room. My legs brushed against his. He felt so rugged and warm against me.
“I’ll be outside,” I whispered into his ear, bracing myself on his shoulder as I scooched past.
“Don’t leave,” he whispered to me.
I was having lusty thoughts about the fabric of his pants; I wasn’t going anywhere. “OK,” I whispered back.
Just as I was about to leave the kitchen and go outside, I heard footsteps behind me. I spun around and felt my heart sink when I realized it wasn’t Gabe. But in an instant my heart rebounded, because it was Jimmy Jr. with that great big smile.
He held up one finger to tell me to wait. From one of the warming ovens, he pulled out a covered dish. When he opened the lid, I saw that it contained heaps of chicken tenders. My absolute favorite. He used a pair of tongs and put half a dozen in a red plastic basket lined with wax paper. Then, from the top shelf of the nearest fridge, he took a small to-go container of barbecue sauce and nestled it between the tenders.
I clutched my basket in my hands, savoring the peppery, steamy deliciousness that wafted up to my nose. Behind Jimmy Jr. were racks and racks of spices—at the bottom was a row of small glass bottles of herbs and spices, and at the top was a rack of commercial-size powders in rectangular plastic jugs. “You have no idea what the secret ingredient is?” I asked in a whisper.
Jimmy Jr. shook his head glumly but then grinned as he glanced back at the dining room. I followed his gaze and found Gabe watching me, smiling a little. Jimmy Jr. laughed softly and tightened his apron bow. “All my dad ever said was it was good old-fashioned l-o-v-e love.”
18
GABE
I should’ve been totally focused on the séance, but I was totally focused on Lily instead. Through a gap in the blinds I saw her lying on the grass outside next to the picnic tables under the massive old trees. One of her legs was bent at the knee, and it cast a long and sexy shadow beside her in the afternoon sun. The curve of her breast gave way to the dip of her stomach and the slight rise of her pelvis. She kicked off her shoes and ate her chicken strips while looking up at the sky. A tiny bird hopped along the picnic table nearest to her, and I watched her turn to say something to the bird, smiling as it cocked its head. She rolled over onto her side with her head propped in her hand. When the bird flew off, she nestled herself back into the thick green blades, revealing a strip of her stomach between her leggings and her T-shirt.
“I really need everybody to focus now,” said the medium. “Everybody.”
I forced myself to turn away from the window and zoomed in on the medium. Her eyes were locked on me to say, That means you, buddy!
I nodded to confirm it was a 10-4 and gave her my full attention. I’d doubted her at first, but when she pulled the roast chicken out of the air, I became a believer. She made everybody in the circle join hands. There were rustles and squeaks as the family scooted their chairs closer and formed a circle. “Now, I need you all to create a welcoming atmosphere. Imagine a time when you were really happy to see Jimmy. A time when you saw him here, or when you picked him up at the airport, a time when he came to help you. A time when you came around a corner and saw him and felt happy in that moment. Bring forward that joy, that intense delight at seeing him. That happiness at feeling his presence near you after a time away.”
Around the room, I saw smiles and nods. One of his sisters wrinkled up her nose, raised her shoulders, and beamed. It was so awesome to imagine having that reaction at just the thought of seeing someone—all that love, all that warmth. It had been a long time since I’d felt that, but I felt it nice and strong in that room. It was so powerful and palpable that I couldn’t stop myself from smiling too. “Really welcome him now. Really feel that joy. That joy at knowing Jimmy has arrived. Big breath in.” The medium inhaled through her mouth and held the breath. “And ouuuuut,” she said and exhaled it with such force that the candles on the table flickered.
It was fascinating because I could actually feel the energy in the room change. The seriousness somehow eased up—the tension over the celery seeds fell away. It was like there was an invisible light that changed the feel of things completely. Something very real was happening. But I had no idea what it was.
“Jimmy, is that you?” asked the medium. “Everybody here has been missing you terribly. And they need your help.”
At first, there was nothing. But then across the room, I saw the spotlight flicker on the big portrait of Uncle Jimmy. A very definite, very obvious flicker. Holy fuck. I froze with my camera on the portrait, zooming in close. The medium had everybody breathe in and out once again. On the outbreath, the bulb flickered even more. For an instant, it even went dark. The fact that Lily wasn’t there to see it annoyed me. What I would have given to see her eyes get wide and her mouth drop open. But as it was, I was the only one who had seen it. “Spotlight on the portrait,” I said under my breath. Most of the family turned to see what had happened, but the medium kept on with total focus.
With careful steps backward, I moved around the room, placing each foot cautiously before letting it take my weight. But the change in position also put me up against a window near the kitchen, and this one had a bigger gap between the blinds and the window frame. Through that gap I caught another glimpse of Lily. This time she was sitting up in the grass with her hair scooped over one shoulder. I could see her in profile, and she very delicately dipped her finger into the barbecue sauce. Her eyes closed with pleasure as she sucked it off her finger.
I turned away, focusing on a stack of menus. But the image of her puckered lips got stuck in my mind on a loop. Those lips. The way she kissed. The way she moaned.
The way I wanted her.
The more I tried not to think about her, the more I had to think about her. Her keeping me at arm’s length was going to make me crazy, and I knew it. Her hiding behind the conduct clause was going to make me tear apart that contract with my teeth. I sneaked one more peek at her outside, one last hit. Now she sat cross-legged with her back to me. Her shirt had inched up and it revealed the tiniest strip of the pink lace of her thong above her leggings. She had her earbuds in, and I could tell she was talking to someone on her phone. I saw her body shake with a laugh, and she leaned back with the biggest smile on her face and then flopped down into the grass, wiggling her toes.
When I turned my attention back to the medium, she was staring right at me. “Unfortunately, I’ve lost him. We almost had him.” She flared her nostrils but then smiled. “But then there was what you might call a tremor in the force.”
19
LILY
I ended the call with my sister, lay back down in the comfy and cool grass, and recommenced my quest for the secret ingredient. I dipped my finger into the little container of sauce and put a small drop on my tongue. Then I closed my eyes and focused. There was something unexpected in there, something very familiar . . . and yet just out of reach. It was a taste that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I kept losing it right before I had it. Same thing happened to me when I watched British dramas and I knew I recognized everybody from everywhere but couldn’t remember how. The flavor was like that. So familiar, so obvious, but not quite . . .
Cumin. No. Coriander. No. Cinnamon. No. But close, and yet spicier than that, more like . .
. I wiggled my tongue in my mouth the way people did when they were tasting wine.
“Fuck, you really are so cute.”
I opened my eyes and found him standing above me. Towering over me, really. The wind rustled the cypresses and magnolias behind him. A leaf fluttered down and landed on his shoulder. He plucked it off with a muscular veined hand and smoothed it between his fingers. I rolled up to a sitting position, placed the container of sauce in the grass, and shielded my face from the sunshine. “Any luck in there?” I asked.
Gabe tipped his hand side to side. “Something happened with the lights.”
A wave of excitement made my skin tingle. So much for trying to interpret Grandpa’s “knocking” on the radiator! “Really?”
He seemed more amazed than skeptical. “Got it on video. It could’ve been a fluke, but”—he glanced back at the restaurant—“I wish you’d felt it.” He offered his hand to me and I stood up, brushing the leaves of grass off my legs. I sat down beside him on the picnic bench, keeping a sensible distance between us. Like employer and employee. Not lovers.
It was agony. But it was the way it had to be.
“Did she figure anything out?” I asked. “Aside from our date? Which was capital-C crazy!”
Gabe shook his head and smiled. “No recipe. Tremor in the force, she said.” He rested his elbows on his knees. He was a bit of a manspreader . . . but I liked it. I liked the way he took up the space around him—the way he exuded that aura of confidence and strength. Just because I couldn’t have that manspread didn’t mean I couldn’t admire it.
He let his head hang down slightly and looked at me from the side. His hands rested between his legs, and I traced the edge of the seam of his pants with my eyes. “Listen, about that conduct clause.”
I made myself look at something neutral. His abs. No. His chest. No. His face. No. I focused on the ground, where a ladybug was fluttering her wings in the grass. “What about it?”
Do You Feel It Too? Page 12