It wasn’t their fault, really—the gene pool was obviously tainted. Debbie was okay in a clueless sort of way, but her sisters were another matter. Prickly as sandspurs, and just as irritating.
“Those cousins of yours are walking advertisements for birth control,” Evan said, echoing my thoughts exactly. “Didn’t your aunt know that she was supposed to swallow the pill instead of trying to hold it between her knees?”
“Well, since Uncle John never seemed to learn the alphabet past the letter ‘D,’ I imagine birth control was a foreign concept. They probably think oral sex means talking about it instead of doing it.”
Evan laughed, and I felt a little better. A girl deserved to be snarky when she was going through an ugly bridesmaid dress crisis.
I stared out the window of my car at the parking lot of Bebe’s Bridal. There was only one other car, a dusty old Camry that obviously belonged to the saleslady.
“I can’t wait to get home. Joe promised to be waiting with a bubble bath and a glass of wine.”
Evan made a purring noise. “Ooo, I need to get your hunky boyfriend and my hunky boyfriend together to talk about how to treat a lady.”
“Forget it, you fairy,” I said good-naturedly. “If you got your greedy little hands on Joe I’d never get him back.”
I heard the distant tinkle of the shop bell through the phone, and knew that a customer had just come into Handbags and Gladrags. Our store was the coolest vintage shop in Little Five Points, Georgia, and Evan was manning it while I was out in the boondocks fulfilling family obligations.
“Push the Led Zeppelin t-shirts,” I said, “we’re over-inventoried.”
“Climbing the Stairway to Heaven as we speak,” Evan answered gaily. “Drive carefully.”
He hung up, and I snapped the phone closed and dropped it on the passenger seat. Gripping the steering wheel in both hands, I let my head fall forward until it rested there, too. I closed my eyes and tried to think positively—I was doing it for Mom. Aunt Nadine was her only sister, which is how I’d ended up with such a dorky middle name.
Nicholette Nadine Styx, sucker extraordinaire.
“Don’t be such a drama queen,” my mom would’ve said, if she’d lived past my twenty-second birthday. “It’s only one day. You can handle one day, can’t you?”
“Yes, Mom,” I replied dutifully, though there was no one there to hear it. Then I buckled my seat belt (another lesson from Mom), and started the car. As I was backing out of my space, I happened to glance at the saleslady’s Camry again, and this time I noticed that someone had used their finger to write a message in the red clay dust that coated the passenger side door.
“Help Me,” it said.
“Wash Me” would be more appropriate.
Making a mental note to run my little red Honda through the car wash when I got back to Little Five Points, I pulled out of the parking lot, already dreading my return visit to pick up the newly altered Carmen Miranda dress.
“Don’t let her do it,” came a woman’s voice from the back seat.
“Shit!” I jumped, swerved and nearly drove myself into a roadside ditch.
“Don’t let her,” the voice repeated.
I slammed on the brakes, heart pounding. Afraid to turn around, I checked the rear view mirror.
Nothing.
Gathering my nerve, I swiveled my head to look, glad there was currently no traffic in Hogansville.
The back seat was empty, but there was a dark spot on the upholstery—it looked wet.
“What the hell?”
Thoroughly spooked, I sat there, engine idling. You’d think I’d be used to this sort of thing by now—the girl in the bridal shop wasn’t the first spirit I’d ever seen, and somehow I knew she wouldn’t be the last.
“Hello?” Speak now or forever hold your peace, Spirit. “Don’t let who do what?”
No answer.
“Great,” I muttered. “Just great.” Hoping the spot was just water and nothing more ominous, I headed home.
If I checked the rear view mirror a little more frequently than I needed to, nobody knew it but me.
“You’re really tense tonight, babe.” Joe’s fingers were working magic on my shoulders. The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” was playing on the CD player, and the lights were low.
“You would be, too, if you had to wear an ugly yellow dress like the one Debbie picked out.”
He leaned down and nuzzled my ear. I could smell the clean scent of recently showered male, felt the brush of dark hair on my cheek. “It wouldn’t make me tense. It would make me a cross-dresser.”
“A tense cross-dresser,” I said stubbornly. “In an ugly dress.”
Joe laughed, using his thumbs to dig in deeper. “It’s just one day, Nicki. You can handle one day, can’t you?”
I shot him a look over my shoulder. “Have you been talking to my mom?”
The rubbing stopped. The magic fingers were removed. “You told me your mom passed away. You’re not saying…”
I sat bolt upright. “No! I was kidding! Just kidding!” That would be way too weird, and my mom would never do that to me.
Joe sighed with relief. He knew all about my little problem with dead people, and more about my other problems than was probably good for him. But since he hadn’t run away screaming into the night—yet—I dared hope he might be able to cope with them. “You haven’t seen any ghosts for a while, Nicki. Maybe that part of your life is over.”
It was my turn to sigh. “No such luck,” I said. “I saw one today.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” Joe came around the couch and sat down next to me, a look of worry on his handsome face.
I hated seeing it—he worried enough about his patients without having to constantly worry about me. Joe was an E.R. doctor at Columbia Hospital in Atlanta, which is how we’d met. He’d been the doctor who’d declared me dead, and the one who’d been there when I’d come back to life.
“Don’t worry,” I said, reaching to push his dark hair out of his eyes. It felt like silk under my fingertips. “Nothing happened. A girl came into the bridal shop, that’s all.”
Joe quirked an eyebrow. “That’s all?”
He knew me too well.
“Evidently she was a friend of Debbie’s who was supposed to be in the wedding.” I grimaced. “Debbie didn’t bother to mention that I was a ‘replacement’ bridesmaid. Anyway, whatever happened to her must’ve happened pretty quick—she hadn’t yet realized that she was dead. Once she understood what was going on, she just faded away.”
“One of your cousin’s bridesmaids just died, and she didn’t mention it to you?” Joe looked pretty skeptical.
“We’re not exactly close,” I said. “We’d see each other a few times a year when my mom was alive—holidays and stuff like that—hardly at all since my mom passed.”
“And that’s it? This girl, this spirit—she’s gone?”
“Well, I thought I heard a voice coming from my back seat, but there was nobody there. It looked like there was a wet spot on the upholstery, but by the time I got home, it was dry. I could’ve imagined that part.”
Joe made a disgruntled noise, leaning back against the cushions. “I don’t like it.”
Our romantic evening was heading downhill, and I wasn’t about to let that happen.
“You men never like wet spots,” I teased. “That’s why we girls always end up sleeping on them.”
A reluctant grin curled one corner of his lips. “Don’t try and distract me.”
I leaned over, resting my weight against his arm and bringing my lips closer to his. “Who said anything about try?” And then I kissed him, letting my tongue do the talking, without words this time.
His arms came around me, and before I knew it Joe was stretched out full length on the couch, with me on top. The growing bulge beneath my hip told me the evening was once again looking up.
The phone rang, but I ignored it; that’s what answering machine
s were for.
“Hi, Nicki!” The volume was loud enough for Joe and I to hear the message being left. “It’s your favorite cuz, Darlene. I cain’t believe it, but Diane says she forgot to send you an invitation to Debbie’s bridal shower—it’s tomorrow at one, at the house.” The “house” would be Aunt Nadine’s rambling old place out in Hogansville. “She’s registered at Target.” Darlene pronounced it “Tarjhay,” like pretending to say it in French made it haute couture or something. “Oh, and could you pick up some beer on the way over? Donna’s supposed to, but I know she’ll forget. See you then.”
Click.
Somewhere in the middle of the message, Joe’d begun to smile. By the end, he was chuckling, despite the fact my lips were still glued to his. I opened my eyes to see his were open, looking straight into mine.
“Beer at a bridal shower?” he asked.
I sighed. “You don’t know my relatives.”
“I’m not sure I want to,” he laughed.
Chapter 2
“Nicki!” Aunt Nadine enveloped me in a huge hug, smelling of hairspray and roses. “You look pretty as a picture, girl!” She pulled away to hold me at arm’s length, her eyes roving over the pink streaks in my hair, taking in the three earrings in one ear and the necklace of black beads I was never without. “Always the fashion plate…and running your own business at your young age, too! Your mama would be so proud of the way you turned out.”
Some of the tension eased from my shoulders. Aunt Nadine had always been sweet to me; it wasn’t her fault she’d married into a family of rednecks.
“Is that Nicki?” boomed my Uncle John.
Speaking of rednecks.
“What’d you do, girl, fergit to wash the paint outta yore hair?” Another huge hug, this time smelling of cigarettes and beer.
“Hey, Uncle John,” I said weakly, trapped against a husky plaid shoulder. “How are you?”
“I’m as nervous as a fox in a henhouse, that’s what I am,” Uncle John chuckled, letting me go. “Women everywhere I look today, and that’s a fact.”
“Get on outta here, John,” Aunt Nadine said affectionately. “We hens got some cluckin’ to do.” She shooed him off with her fingers and he went, but not before chucking me under the chin, just like he’d done when I was a kid.
“You always were a wild one, girl,” he said with a smile. “Pink hair and piercings—got any tattoos?”
“Go on, now,” Aunt Nadine repeated, “and don’t overdo it at the Moose Lodge or you’ll be nursing a hangover come mornin’.”
He grabbed her around the waist and whispered something in her ear, making her giggle and blush like a schoolgirl.
I couldn’t help but smile. Then he gave me a wink and was gone, the screen door slamming behind him with a bang.
“Look who’s here, girls,” Aunt Nadine called out. “It’s your cousin, Nicki, down from Atlanta.” She ushered me through the living room toward the back of the house, where a big family room overlooked the side yard, complete with an above-ground pool and an old swing set.
A squeal of joy came from the direction of the couch, barely enough warning to brace myself before Debbie’s hug nearly knocked me over. Petite and blond, Debbie was the youngest of the Hathaway girls, and had always been the most bubbly. “You’re here! You’re here!” she cried. “Now we can get this party started!”
Judging by the amount of gaiety and laughter I’d interrupted, the party had started a long time ago. I hugged Debbie, Diane, Darlene, and Donna in turn, then went through a dizzying round of introductions to people I’d never met and would never remember. There were other relatives, too, but I barely knew them: Great-Aunt Ida, who was eighty if she was a day; second cousins Gina and Margaret; Darlene’s little girls, Amber and Brittany.
“Sorry this was so last minute,” Aunt Nadine said. “We waited until all the family could make it to town before we held the shower.”
“Did you bring any beer?” Darlene whispered.
Aunt Nadine’s introductions kept me from having to answer. “This is Alice, and her friend Bernice.”
“Her partner,” Darlene added as a murmured aside. “That’s what we’re supposed to be callin’ it these days.”
I smiled until my cheeks hurt, hugged everybody who needed hugging, then collapsed into a folding chair. The babble of voices around me continued without a pause, and I was glad to no longer be the center of attention. Luckily, Darlene had moved on to annoy someone else near the buffet table.
“Don’t put that bowl of potato salad there,” I heard her say irritably. “Put it at the other end, near the hot dogs.”
“You must be the new girl.” Alice’s friend Bernice was sitting next to me. She had short, graying hair, and wire-rimmed glasses.
“The new girl?” For a moment, I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Oh, you know,” Bernice said, waving a chubby hand negligently. “That other girl was gonna be one of the bridesmaids, but I guess that ain’t gonna happen now.”
Ah. Keeping my voice low, I asked, “Yeah, I wondered about that. What happened to her?”
Bernice shrugged. “I dunno. She and Debbie had a fight or something.”
A fight?
“Well, I’ll be damned,” came an indignant voice. “They don’t even know I’m dead.”
I turned my head, and there was the dark-haired girl from the bridal shop standing next to my chair. Unlike the last time I’d seen her, this time she was soaking wet, hair plastered to her head, clothes plastered to her body. “Here they are, partying along without me like nothing happened.” She cast a scornful glance toward the buffet table. “Darlene didn’t even get the decorations right. Those balloons were supposed to go on the mailbox so people could find the house.”
“Go away,” I whispered. “I can’t talk to you now.”
“I was here first,” Bernice said, obviously offended. “Go sit over there if you got a problem with me.”
Mortified, I felt heat rising to my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Bernice gave me a skeptical glare, and then gave me the cold shoulder. She turned toward the woman on the other side of her, dismissing me.
The dark-haired girl gave a heavy sigh. Water dripped from her shirt onto the carpet. “I was supposed to make my special three-bean salad for this shower. My name’s Michelle, by the way. What’s yours?”
Refusing to answer, I shot her a warning look.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Not a good time. I get it.”
“How you doing, Nicki?” My cousin Donna plopped into the chair on my other side. She’d gained quite a bit of weight since I’d seen her last, and her mousy brown hair could use a shampoo.
When I glanced back toward the dark-haired girl, she was gone.
“Fine, Donna. Good. Great.” I forced a smile, glad my cousins were far enough apart in looks to keep their names straight. Debbie was the cutest, and the only blonde. Darlene was tall and red-haired, with a face like a hatchet; Diane and Donna both had brown hair, but Diane had always been skinny, and Donna had always struggled with her weight.
She was obviously fighting a losing battle, though the plateful of macaroni and cheese she was clutching was a clear indication why.
Potato salad, beer, and hot dogs with macaroni and cheese; Debbie’s bridal shower was Carb Central, the hillbilly way.
Forcing myself to be sociable—Donna was my cousin, after all—I asked, “How are the wedding plans coming? Is Debbie nervous about the big day?”
Donna shrugged, eyeing her much younger, much prettier sister. “She’s handling it pretty well, I think. At least she was, until that bitch Michelle pulled out on her.”
I heard an outraged gasp behind me, and knew that my ghostly friend hadn’t left the party just yet.
“Good thing you agreed to fill in as bridesmaid,” Donna went on. “Debbie was ready to throw a full-fledged conniption fit, but toned it down to just a hissy when you said
yes.”
Anyone who’s grown up in the South knows the difference between a hissy fit and a conniption fit; a hissy fit usually ends in tears, while a conniption fit can easily end up in a trip to the emergency room.
“What happened?” Might as well get the inside scoop.
“I’m not sure. Debbie said they had a fight a couple of days ago, but that’s nothing unusual. They’ve been fighting and making up on a regular basis since junior high school. Anyway, Michelle up and drove back to Augusta in a huff.”
That explained why nobody knew she was dead. If everybody thought she’d left town because she was mad at Debbie, nobody would be looking for her.
“That’s a pretty sweater,” Donna said. “Come from your store?”
Unlike Debbie’s choice of bridesmaid dress, my cotton candy pink sweater looked great on me, and I knew it. The beaded black butterflies on the left breast and jet buttons down the front were the perfect touches.
“Yes,” I answered, surprised Donna had even a passing interest in fashion. “Nineteen fifties, hand-knit.”
Donna took a big bite of macaroni and cheese, speaking around it.
“Got any in my size?”
Um, no, we don’t carry “ever-increasing.”
“Vintage doesn’t work that way. All of the stuff in my store is unique, one-of-a-kind. That’s what makes it special.”
“Well, la-dee-dah.” Donna swallowed, then put down her fork and took a swig of whatever was in the cup she was holding.
Before I could respond, she got up and walked away, heading back toward the buffet table. “Ma,” she called out, uncaring that a room full of women heard her, “looks like Buster peed in the house again. There’s a wet spot on the carpet.”
I closed the bathroom door behind me with a sigh of relief. The sound of laughter was muffled, but I could still hear Debbie’s high-pitched giggles over the see-through nightie Great-Aunt Ida had given her. “If that don’t get you some sugar, nothin’ will!” the eighty-year-old had declared.
Since Debbie had been opening her gifts for some time, I’d felt safe enough to slip away for a few minutes. There were only so many crock pots one could “oo” and “ah” over, after all.
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