Something Buried, Something Blue

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Rounding out the newcomers are Johneen’s Pittsburgh coworkers. Hellerman, a robust, redheaded guy with a beer belly and an infectious laugh, reportedly has a first name, but no one ever uses it, according to Andrea. A raven-haired spitfire, she’s accompanied by her boyfriend, Charlie, whom Bella had initially pegged as an insipid plus-one. Guys like him often seem to pop up at events like this with a vivacious woman on his arm, and you have to wonder what she sees in him.

  Charlie, however, has long since come out of his shell . . . and then some. He’s peppering the conversation with curse words and lowbrow humor of which the bride would undoubtedly disapprove, though Virginia is certainly getting a kick out of it.

  Holding court in a dark corner of the yard, she’s changed out of her white dress. Did Parker warn her about upstaging his future wife?

  She looks ravishing in slinky black satin and is as comfortable socializing with the women as she is knocking back drinks with the guys. She prefers bourbon, neat—“like any good Southern gal,” she said in a throaty drawl, chain-smoking cigarettes.

  Yet another burst of raucous laughter erupts, courtesy of yet another off-color joke from Hellerman. Good Time Charlie is pouring himself a second (or is it his third?) drink. Even Ryan has lost his necktie and rolled up his custom-shirt sleeves.

  “Good thing we got those he-men to move the steamer trunk over to my house before we started serving them your signature cocktails,” Odelia tells Bella. “I don’t know what’s in them, but they pack a wallop.”

  Bella found the recipe while browsing a vintage cookbook in the guesthouse library. Not only does the tawny liquid, served in martini glasses, compliment the color scheme, but it’s aptly named the “Brandy Daisy.” Even Parker is having such a boisterous time that he barely seems aware the other Daisy is conspicuously missing—feeling a little under the weather, he explained when he showed up solo.

  “She’ll join us as soon as she’s up to it,” he promised.

  Bella hopes the fun will continue after Johneen shows up, though she wouldn’t bet on it.

  Her hostess duties keep her much too busy to dwell on her lingering concerns about the anonymous note and the overheard conversation. She scurries into the house with used glasses, out with more ice; in for a lighter, out to ignite the Sterno pots beneath the chafing dishes; in for crackers, out with crackers, only to return again for the forgotten cheese.

  Odelia is helping in her own haphazard way. She can’t move around as efficiently, and whenever she sets out on an errand, she seems to get waylaid, caught up in conversation with various guests—some unseen.

  She tells Bella that Miriam—also known as the shy but friendly ghost next door—is hanging around the yard.

  Odelia often talks about Miriam as fondly as if she were a dear friend, and a mischievous scamp.

  “Miriam hid my reading glasses again,” she’ll say, or “Miriam is making herself scarce this week. I wonder where she’s gone off to?”

  Now she explains that Miriam is “feeling social” and accompanied by a couple of otherworldly cronies who were household names back when they were alive.

  “Yes, soirees are much simpler when you don’t have to make the gin in the bathtub, Al,” Odelia murmurs as Bella adds more clusters of concord grapes to a nearby platter. “Not that I would know . . . Of course not! How old do you think I am?”

  Ordinarily, Bella is as bemused by those one-sided conversations as she is amused. Tonight, she’s just relieved that the only apparent party crashers aren’t bothering anyone but Odelia.

  Going over to the bar to check the ice supply, she finds that it’s running low again. She grabs the bucket and crouches to refill it from the dwindling chest beneath the table.

  “Hey, can I bum one of those?” she hears Hellerman ask Virginia and looks up to see him refilling their glasses as Virginia puts a fresh cigarette between her lips.

  She removes it to say, “They’re unfiltered.”

  “Good. So am I.”

  “In that case . . .” She pulls her pack from her little bag—a vintage one with black sequined straps—and holds it out to him. “What do you think of my cousin’s fiancée?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I really asked, didn’t I?” She takes out a lighter and lights his cigarette, then hers.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I made the cut, so we must be friends.”

  Through the smoke screen, Bella sees Virginia narrow her eyes at Hellerman’s comment. “Were you ever anything more?”

  He laughs. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Just a vibe.”

  “I’m giving off a vibe that tells you I had a fling with Johneen Maynard?”

  “Maybe just that you wanted to.”

  “What are you, one of those crazy Lily Dale psychics?”

  “Hell, no. I’m just a very, very smart woman.”

  “Well, I’m not a stupid man.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I never kiss and tell. Not at a wedding. Not to the bride’s cousin-to-be.”

  “Fair enough,” Virginia says, and they make their way back to the group.

  Intriguing, Bella thinks as she heads into the house for another tray of hot canapés. Hellerman doesn’t seem like Johneen’s type. It’s easier to imagine him making a move on her and being rejected than to picture the two as a couple for even one night.

  Would that cause him to write a threatening anonymous letter and drive up to Lily Dale earlier in the week to mail it?

  That’s even harder to picture, but she supposes anything is possible.

  Back outside, Bella finds Odelia scolding Rudy—as in Valentino, one of her so-called regulars—for mischievously pinching the shy Miriam on her posterior.

  “Now you’ve gone and scared her away! Why would you—oh, now look what you’ve done! You’re incorrigible!”

  Bella pauses to watch Odelia pick up a votive candle. A wisp of smoke trails from the wick as if it’s been abruptly extinguished . . . on a windless night.

  “Rudy,” she explains to Bella as she relights it. “He’s saying he’s sorry he got a little too rambunctious and that he won’t do it again.”

  Mildly star struck despite herself, Bella says, “Tell him that I . . . um . . . accept his apology and would appreciate it if he didn’t blow out the candles.”

  “There, you hear that? Now go behave yourself,” Odelia tells thin air, then turns back to help Bella arrange the canapés on a serving platter. “Spirit does love a party, and we’re long overdue for one around here.”

  She explains that crowds are teeming with energy, and energy attracts Spirit. Thus whenever a large group gathers for a festive occasion, ghostly visitors are bound to join the action.

  “Sometimes,” Odelia adds, plopping down the last miniquiche and setting aside the serving tongs, “Spirit can even draw enough energy to manifest.”

  Any other night, that might spook Bella. Tonight, she’s warier of human intruders.

  She glances over at the house next door. A light is on in the upstairs bedroom where Millicent is staying, and Bella can see a female figure silhouetted in the window, looking down on the festivities.

  Either Spirit is spying on the festivities, or her mother-in-law is.

  “Where the heck is Calla?” Odelia mutters, shaking her head and looking at her watch. “She should have been back by now.”

  She’s right. It’s been more than forty-five minutes since Calla left to make the ten-minute round-trip drive to Cassadaga.

  You’d think a medium might be spared restless moments over loved ones’ well-being. But according to Odelia, an emotional connection to someone can block psychic energy.

  “That’s why Calla was so frustrated and skeptical when she first arrived in the Dale,” she said. “It was right after we lost her mom, and she expected to connect with her here.”

  “She couldn’t bring her through?�
��

  “No, and neither could I. Not for a long time. Our grief was too raw,” she added with a meaningful look at Bella, who got the message loud and clear: her own grief is still too raw for her to have connected with Sam.

  Yes, Pandora Feeney claimed to have heard from him, and the woman did know things about him that she shouldn’t have known.

  And then there’s the tourmaline necklace she’s wearing tonight. It matches her eyes and her dress . . .

  Bella Blue.

  When she found it back in July, she was convinced it was from Sam on the Other Side. In that moment, it seemed possible, and it was what she needed to believe. But then . . .

  Then time passed, and Sam seemed farther away than ever, and I came to my senses.

  Regardless of how it came to be hers, the necklace reminds her of Sam.

  What doesn’t?

  Even the Rodgers and Hart song wafting from the speakers makes her think of her husband.

  “Blue Moon . . . You saw me standing alone . . .”

  Sam: “I love you, Bella Blue.”

  Then she hears Odelia say, “Oh, thank goodness!”

  Bella turns to see that Calla is back.

  She isn’t alone.

  Blue Slayton is wearing a dark suit with an open-collared starched white dress shirt and a big grin. Clean-shaven, with his sandy hair parted on the side and combed across his forehead above classically handsome features, he’d be right at home on Wall Street or in a boardroom.

  “Look who I just ran into!” Calla announces. “Francesca and Tanya, you two remember Blue from when we were in college, right?”

  They do, and seem lukewarm about seeing him again.

  As Calla introduces him to the others, Odelia jerks the plastic wrap off a platter and mutters to Bella, “I should have known he’d show up.”

  “I don’t think he just showed up. It seems like she invited him.”

  “Maybe, but it isn’t her party.”

  “No, but she did have a plus-one who couldn’t make it.”

  “Not a plus-one. Jacy. You don’t just replace a wedding date with any old guy. Her parents taught her better manners than that, and so did I.”

  He isn’t just any old guy, Bella guesses, watching Calla and Blue. Even she can sense the renewed chemistry between them as they stand in a group conversation with their shoulders nearly touching.

  She wants to remind Odelia that they were mere kids back when he broke Calla’s heart. Things change. People grow up. Judging by the way Blue is looking at Calla, he’s thrilled to see her now. And judging by the way Calla is looking at Blue, Jacy’s absence isn’t nearly as disturbing to her as it is to her grandmother.

  “We don’t have room for one more,” Odelia tells Bella. “Where are we supposed to put him?”

  “We’ll add a chair. Now at least we have an even number of guests.”

  “And an odd number of place settings.”

  “We’ll figure out something.”

  “Tell that to the bride. She’s not going to be happy.”

  “Is she ever? Anyway, this is just a dinner party, Odelia. He’s not coming to the wedding.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  Bella follows Odelia’s dark gaze to Calla and Blue, their heads bent together as they laugh over some private joke.

  “That’s up to the bride and groom,” she reminds Odelia. “Speaking of which . . . where the heck is the bride? My chicken cordon bleu is going to get cold.”

  “I don’t—speak of the devil!”

  Following her gaze, Bella sees Johneen framed in the back door. Statuesque in heels and wearing an ivory-colored pantsuit, she’s surveying the scene like a lioness atop Pride Rock.

  “Daisy!” Spotting her, Parker hurries over. “I was beginning to worry.”

  Was he? Bella wonders. Or was he having too much fun without her to worry about where she was or whether she’d show up?

  She’s beginning to think there might be something to Odelia’s premonitions. Not because the bride is doomed but because the marriage is. These two might share affection, mutual admiration, and an affinity for the finer things in life, but that doesn’t mean they’re destined to live happily ever after. Maybe Spirit is trying to warn them, via Odelia, not to go through with it.

  Parker takes Johneen’s arm and leads her away from the crowd, close enough to the food table that Bella can hear every word they’re saying.

  “How are you feeling, Daisy?”

  “Have you seen the weather? It’s going to snow, Parker. Snow, in October!”

  “That can’t be right. You must have looked at the wrong forecast.”

  “I’m not an idiot. I looked at Lily Dale and it said snow.”

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do about that, is there? Let me get you a cocktail. It’s named after you.”

  “Just water, Parker. Please.”

  As he goes to fetch it, Johneen, who does indeed look wan, pastes on a smile and turns to greet her guests.

  Watching her, Bella is struck by a fragility she never noticed before.

  For a moment, she almost feels sorry for Johneen Maynard. No bride should come down with something on the eve of her wedding, even if her marriage isn’t exactly meant to be. Or perhaps especially if her marriage isn’t meant to be.

  Then Bella remembers how she treated Max upstairs earlier.

  The woman deserves whatever misfortune comes her way. Karma can be a real—

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”

  Bella sees that Johneen has zeroed in on Parker’s cousin, cornering her beneath the apple tree as Virginia stubs out a cigarette in a makeshift, plastic-cup ashtray.

  “Why, I’m Virginia, your future kin. And you’re as pretty as a picture, just like Parker said.”

  She flashes a tight-lipped smile and makes a feeble attempt at small talk.

  Watching her, Odelia shakes her head. “Spirit doesn’t like this. Not one bit.”

  “What are you seeing? What is Spirit saying?”

  “I’m trying to figure it out, but it doesn’t make any sense. Or maybe it should, but I just can’t . . .” She trails off, looking over at her granddaughter.

  Calla is still with Blue, cozily clinking cocktail glasses in a toast for two.

  Scowling, Odelia turns toward her house. “I’ll go rustle up another plate. But I guarantee that it won’t be pure white, and it might be chipped,” she adds darkly.

  Watching her shuffle away, Bella is grateful that she herself lacks the so-called gift of clairvoyance. It’s hard enough to face things that have already gone wrong and worry about the ones that might. Odelia, convinced that disaster looms as inevitably as tomorrow itself, must feel that awful, frantic helplessness that permeates a nightmare in which you’re absolutely certain a psycho killer is about to get you . . .

  But then you wake up.

  Maybe Odelia’s “vision” will turn out to be sheer imagination, and Johneen and Parker will safely leave the Dale to live happily ever after. Even so, Odelia and her fellow mediums, many of whom Bella has grown to know and love, never get to just . . . wake up and live their daily lives in ignorant bliss.

  When Parker returns with her ice water, Johneen drags him off to the side of the yard, beyond the mood lighting’s perimeter.

  Standing nearby, Bella finds herself inadvertently eavesdropping for the second time today.

  “You don’t just spring an uninvited guest on the bride at the last minute,” Johneen hisses.

  “Your friend Calla did.”

  “That’s different. I knew Blue Slayton back in college.”

  “Isn’t he the one you didn’t like?”

  “That’s beside the point, and I had a good reason.”

  “What was it?”

  “We had a little bit of an entanglement that ended rather messily.”

  “Oh? Does Calla know?”

  “It wasn’t behind her back. They were on again, off again.”

  “So while s
he was off, you were on? Nice, Daisy. Really nice.”

  “At least he isn’t a total stranger showing up at my wedding.”

  “Virginia isn’t a stranger either. She’s family.”

  “Then why didn’t you invite her in the first place?”

  “Because I didn’t think she’d come.”

  “Well, she did. And . . . and she smokes cigarettes!” she flings at him.

  “What does that have to do with anything? And it isn’t your wedding. It’s our wedding, and she came all this way. Come on, Daisy, don’t be jealous.”

  “Why on earth would I be jealous of your cousin?”

  “Because you, my dear, are accustomed to having me all to yourself. And I love you for it, but—”

  “That’s not true. I rarely have you all to myself. I enjoy my space, and you enjoy yours. I’m not one of those needy women who smothers a man.”

  “No, but you like to be in control, and you don’t like surprises.”

  “I adore surprises. Just not surprise visitors.”

  Yes, well, who does? Bella wonders, thinking of Millicent’s ambush. She glances up at the bedroom window next door, where her mother-in-law’s silhouette hovers like a raptor.

  “I don’t like her,” Johneen informs Parker. “And she doesn’t like me, either.”

  “She doesn’t even know you!”

  Unlike Johneen, whose upper-crust inflection is strained but holds steady within its usual octave, the perpetually collected Parker seems to be rapidly losing his cool.

  “I saw the way she looked at me the moment I stepped outside, Parker. Pure contempt.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Shhh!”

  There’s a pause, as if they’re listening to make sure they haven’t been overheard.

  “I’m sorry, Daisy. I know your nerves are on edge and I know what you’re thinking. But you don’t have to worry. Just because Virginia showed up doesn’t mean anyone else will.”

  There’s a pause. “What if he does?”

  “He won’t. He’s a million miles away.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  Johneen sighs a slightly muffled sigh, and Bella imagines that she’s leaning her head on his shoulder. She thinks of the letter, tucked in the drawer of her nightstand upstairs, and wonders if she should show it to them. It was postmarked in Lily Dale, so if it was written by him—whoever he is—then he isn’t a million miles away at all.