by Judy Clemens
“Not tonight, Leila, okay? Another time.”
Leila looked at Casey, her feelings evident on her face. “Fine. Another time.”
With a huff she swung her hair off of her shoulders and stomped to the green VW Bug across the street. Eric didn’t say anything as she snatched her keys from the driver’s seat, revved the engine, and screeched away, her taillights shining brightly in the night.
“Well…” Casey said.
“Come on,” Eric said. “Let’s go.”
He began walking and Casey followed on the opposite side of the bike.
Eric held up a hand, then dropped it. “Like I said, Thomas’ family and mine go way back. Our fathers went to school together.”
“Here in Clymer?”
“No. I wasn’t from here, originally. I moved here when I was eight, when my father got a job. Thomas and his family came shortly after, for the same reason.”
“Jobs with HomeMaker?”
“Yes. Anyway, Thomas was just a year ahead of me in school. I know he looks older, but I think it’s the beard. He cultivated that to appear more sophisticated.”
Casey gave a short laugh, and Eric grinned. “I know. I didn’t say it worked. But he does his best.”
They walked for a few more paces in silence.
“Were you friends?” Casey finally asked.
“No.” It came out as an exclamation. “We never were. I’m not sure why, exactly. Our dads were together all the time, and our moms… But he always seemed to think we were in some competition. Girls, grades, basketball. You name it, we were against each other. I didn’t even like basketball.”
“Or girls?”
He laughed. “Oh, I liked them fine. At least, after about seventh grade. But they always seemed to like Thomas better.”
Casey glanced at him. “Seriously?”
“Sure. He had that brooding, artistic thing going.”
“What? And you don’t? You’ve got more artistic sense than he’ll ever have.”
He smiled. “Well, thanks. But that took a while to come about. I had no interest in theater at all during school. My mother forced me to sing in the choir, but that was as far as my artistic endeavors went. Back then, I was just…all I tried to do was fade into the background.”
“How come?”
He shrugged. “Different reasons. The main one being I was probably the shyest kid in town.”
“No.”
“Time changes things.”
“I guess. And was it just time that changed you?”
He kicked a stone from the sidewalk and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Maybe partly. But it was also Charles Dickens.”
“Dickens?”
“Well. Sort of.” He gave a chuckle. “The musical version.”
“You mean Oliver?”
“You got it. The high school English teacher, who directed the plays, for some unknown reason decided it was the show to do for the spring musical my junior year.”
“And you tried out?”
“No way. I wasn’t about to go anywhere near that thing. The closest I would get would be if my mother bought tickets and forced me to go see it. I left the leading man thing to Thomas. He was much better suited to it, being the handsome extrovert.”
“So what happened?”
He made a face. “I wasn’t exactly large in high school.”
“You mean like now, at your hulking five ten?”
“Hey, I can act taller.” He stopped, puffing out his chest and raising his shoulders.
Casey rolled her eyes and continued walking.
“Anyway,” Eric said, catching up to her, “I was small, blond, and sang in the choir. Good enough for the director. She began a campaign on my mother to get me to do the show.”
“Not your dad?”
“No way. My dad would never have agreed to it. It was my mom that had to be convinced. And she was, eventually.”
“Your dad didn’t stop it?”
Eric pinched his lips together. “My dad didn’t have anything to say about it by that time.”
“How come?”
“Because he and my mom got divorced when I was twelve. He really didn’t have much to do with my day-to-day life after that.”
“I’m sorry.”
He kicked another stone. “That’s the way it was. And my mom couldn’t resist the director. She was convinced I secretly longed for the stage, and dragged me to rehearsal. And that was that. I took one step on the stage and never wanted to leave.” He pointed down an alley a block before Home Sweet Home, and Casey turned her bike with him. “It was like I’d found my true calling. My mother was right.”
Casey followed him around the back of the buildings to the few parking spaces behind the soup kitchen. “Yes, she was. It’s obvious.”
He stopped at his Camry. “To make a long story short—although it’s been plenty long already—Thomas wasn’t exactly thrilled I broke into his domain. It’s been a battle ever since.”
“But you didn’t stay here in Clymer.”
“No.”
“Did Thomas?”
“He didn’t, either.”
“And you both went to Louisville? Actors’ Theater, maybe?”
He glanced at her sharply. “How did you know—”
“Todd. He said you’d been there.”
“Oh. Sure. Those were…interesting times.”
“And you both came back.”
He opened his door and stepped into the lighted triangle between it and the car. “We did.”
“Why?”
He picked his keys up from the driver’s seat and studied them, singling out the fat one that would start the car. “Different things. It was just…time.” He slid into the driver’s seat. “See you at dinner tomorrow?”
“Sure. Four-o’clock?”
“Around there. We’ll probably be having pizza. I’m making a trip to the Pizzeria in the next town tomorrow afternoon. They save their mistakes for us and freeze them until they have enough for a meal.”
“That’s nice.”
“Want to come along? Except you can’t drill me with questions the whole time.”
Casey thought about the day, and how it would stretch out in front of her, with the constant temptation of her cell phone, Ricky being only a call away, and the library, where she could log onto the Internet and the Pegasus web site. “Sure. What time?”
“You promise? Only friendly conversation?”
She smiled. “I promise.”
“Your fingers aren’t crossed?”
She held them out in front of her, fingers splayed open. “I promise.”
“Okay, then. I’ll pick you up at The Nesting Place at two-thirty.”
“Great. I’ll be ready.”
He shut his door, turned on the car, and reversed out of the parking space. Casey backed up to get out of his way, and bumped into Death.
“I don’t know,” Death said. “You’re spending a lot of time with him.”
“So?”
Death smirked. “Like I said before, he’s awfully cute.”
“Yeah? Well, you’re not.”
Death gave a shocked gasp. “Now that was unnecessary.”
“But true.”
“You do realize, love, that you can’t hurt my feelings?”
Casey sighed. “I know. But it won’t kill me to try.”
Death cocked an eyebrow.
“Will it?” Casey asked hopefully.
“Nah,” Death said.
“Yeah,” Casey said. “That’s what I thought.”
Chapter Fourteen
The evening was chilly, and Casey was glad she’d worn her jacket. Clouds covered whatever moon would’ve been out, and she shivered in the darkness as she pulled onto the street of the B & B, glad when she could park the bike by the garage and head for the house.
Something flickered in her vision, and she looked across the yard. Was that a fire? Her breath caught, and her heart skipped a beat. This isn’t
the same. This one smells of hot dog—burned hot dog—not oil and gas and rubber. She placed a hand over her chest, resumed breathing, and slowly picked her way up the dark pathway toward the flames
“Oh, good! Here she is.” Rosemary smiled, her face black and orange in the flickering campfire light. “Pull up a stump, dear.”
Casey found a stash of the stumps under the awning of the house and dragged one over to the circle of stones.
“Have a stick.” Lillian handed her a metal grilling pole. “Hot dog or marshmallow?”
“Um. Hot dog. At least to start with.” Casey was surprised at the growl her stomach emitted. A roasted hot dog actually sounded great. Better than it should. “Is that what I’m smelling?”
Rosemary laughed. “Sorry. That was me. Dropped one too low in the flames and it caught on fire.”
“I didn’t know hot dogs could do that.”
“Oh, yes. It was quite spectacular.”
Lillian handed Casey a hot dog and watched as she lowered the stick toward the fire. “You know how to do this, I assume.”
“Of course she does,” Rosemary said. “What child never roasted a hot dog?”
Casey swallowed. She could think of one. He never got the chance.
“So.” Rosemary talked around a bite. “How was play practice?”
Casey turned her stick. “Fine.”
Rosemary stared at her. “Fine? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“Leave her alone, Rosie,” Lillian said. “Can’t you see the woman’s starving?”
Casey looked up from the flames. “No, it’s all right. What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Who was there. What did you do. Did Holly throw a temper tantrum. Did Leila actually drool on Eric. You know. The usual.”
Lillian giggled. “Maybe Thomas threw the tantrum.”
“Or Todd.”
“No, Todd would never expend that much energy.”
“And he’s not really the type to throw one.” Rosemary took another bite of her hot dog, deep in thought. “Aaron and Jack are young enough, the sweet babies, but they have better control of their tempers.”
“No, their mother would never stand for it.”
Casey’s hot dog sizzled, and she turned it again, the underside beginning to turn brown. “Aaron and Jack are brothers?”
Rosemary’s eyebrows rose. “Of course. Not twins, but close enough. Their mother had barely birthed Aaron before Jack came along. Not sure what the woman was thinking.”
Lillian snorted. “It wasn’t what she was thinking.”
Rosemary let out a guffaw of agreement, and the women exchanged a knowing look, as if all men in the world followed the same example.
“So how did Holly treat you?” Rosemary polished off her hot dog, her eyes bright.
“Before or after the actress from the other town left?”
Rosemary let out a quiet screech. “That awful woman who was in Hello, Dolly last year? What was her name?”
They looked at Casey, and she shrugged. “Have no idea. Nobody bothered to introduce us.”
“No,” Lillian said. “They wouldn’t.”
“About Holly…” Rosemary said.
Casey grimaced. “She was perfectly nice—overly welcoming, even—until the woman left. After that she dropped me like a stone.”
Rosemary humpfed. “That’s just Holly. How Ellen ever put up with her…”
“They were friends?”
“As much as Holly can be friends with anybody. Selfish little brat. She’d call Ellen at all hours, claiming she had a crisis and needed another woman to talk to. Ellen would always agree to see her.” She sighed. “But then, that’s just how Ellen was. She’d invest more time than she should in someone like Holly, just to have it thrown in her face.”
They were quiet for a few moments, watching the fire.
“I’m surprised that other actress even showed up,” Lillian said. “But she probably heard about…” Her voice caught. “…about the open part and came to snag it.”
Casey pulled her hot dog from the fire. “Actually, Thomas called her last week to see if she would come.”
“Last week?” Rosemary’s face went red, visible even in the firelight. “But Ellen only…” She stood up abruptly, her napkin fluttering to the ground, and hustled into the house.
Lillian looked at the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Casey said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s not you. You know that.” She looked up. “You need a bun. Here.” She pulled one from the bag on the neighboring stump. “And toppings. We have the usual—ketchup, mustard—and this wonderful relish we do up every fall. India relish. Red and green tomatoes, red and green peppers, onions… All from our garden.”
“I’ll try some of that. Thank you.”
Lillian’s face was a blank mask as she made up Casey’s hot dog on a bright green partitioned tray. Besides the relish she lined the dog with the ketchup and mustard, and even a few onion strips. With a final twist, she deposited a handful of nacho chips in ones of the compartments.
Casey took the plate from Lillian, but the other woman didn’t seem to hear her thanks.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Lillian said, standing and brushing off her pants. “I’m going to check on Rosemary.”
“Of course.”
Lillian stood with more composure than Rosemary had done, wadding up her own napkin and tossing it into the fire. Left behind, however, were the rest of the supplies.
Casey looked down at her plate, figuring her appetite would be gone. But the hot dog did look good. Smelled good, too. She took a bite, relish and ketchup dripping down her fingers.
It tasted fantastic.
When she was done, her hostesses still hadn’t returned. She considered roasting another hot dog, but contented herself with popping an untoasted marshmallow in her mouth and breaking off a piece of the Hershey’s chocolate.
“You’re not supposed to eat them separately.”
Casey didn’t even need to look back at the food to see who had addressed her. “Well, you go ahead and make your own s’more. I’m not doing it for you.”
Death plopped down on the stump next to her. “And here we were getting along so well.”
Casey shook her head, looking into the flames. “Wouldn’t you be more at home in there?”
“The fire?” Death huffed. “Not all dead people enter eternal flames, Casey. In fact, very few of them do.”
“Is that so?”
“Would I wear flammable clothes otherwise?”
Casey stood and began cleaning up the food, placing the bottles and extra hot dogs in the picnic basket on the ground next to the stump. “Ellen Schneider.”
Death pulled one knee up into clasped hands and rocked back to look at Casey. “What about her?”
“Did she really kill herself? Or are her friends right? Did someone else do it?”
Death didn’t answer for so long Casey thought she was being ignored. “I asked you a question.”
“I heard you, child. But I can’t answer you.”
Casey balanced the marshmallow bag on top of the condiments in the basket and stood over Death. “Can’t, or won’t?”
Death looked up at her. “It’s not that I’m being mysterious. Or even stubborn. I really can’t tell you.”
Casey backed up and sat on Rosemary’s stump, holding the basket on her lap. “But you’re Death.”
“Exactly. I come when the soul is ready to depart. You might not believe me, but even I don’t know exactly when someone’s going to go. Especially when it’s unexpected. When someone is ill and fading away to a certain demise, I get the message to be prepared. I can be present and ready. Even when it’s quick—” Death snapped. “I can be there almost instantaneously. But when it’s a death that wasn’t preceded by illness, and drags on for a bit, well, I get there as fast as I can, but not always fast enough to know what happened, because the soul isn’t ready to go until that las
t moment, when there’s no hope left.”
“So Ellen—”
“—had some time before I got there. The overdose…it was a mortal one, of course, but it took several minutes to get to that state. Long enough that whoever killed her could get away before her soul was ready to go.” Death held up a hand. “Not that I know there was someone else. But if there was, well, they got lucky.”
“And if she did it herself?”
“I wasn’t there to see. But that kind of death…I can imagine a woman doing it to herself. But forcing someone to overdose…well, that’s extremely rare, and hard to do.”
“I guess you would know.”
“Yes.” Death’s voice was gentle.
The silence of the night, punctuated by crackles from the fire, covered them, and Casey looked at her hands. “Were you there?”
Death didn’t pretend not to understand. “Almost immediately. When it happens so fast…”
The crash, the rush of the airbags, stumbling out of the car to get Omar from the back seat, the exploding flames, the flying door carrying her back, away from her family…
“Did they suffer?” Her voice was husky. “I remember… I remember the screams…”
Death leaned over, placing one hand on Casey’s knee, the other under her chin, forcing her to look up. “It’s over now, Casey. They’re at peace.”
“But then? Did they suffer then?”
Death studied her face. “You really want to know?”
Her chest constricted. “I have to.”
Death took a breath, looking upward, then finally turned back to Casey, cupping her cheek with gentle fingers. “It was a short time, Casey. Very brief. They felt panic, disbelief, shock of pain. But then it was over. It’s still over. They’ll never feel pain again.”
Casey’s eyes blurred and she gripped Death’s fingers, cold on her cheek. “Then why? Why couldn’t you take me, too? Why leave me to…” She pulled away and staggered up from the stump, her hand waving wildly above her head as the picnic basket crashed to the ground, scattering food and plates. “To this?”
Death looked around at the campfire, the trees, the food. The locusts sang above them, and the flames popped, sending up gusts of white smoke. “This isn’t hell, Casey, honey, no matter what you may think. Someday perhaps you’ll see.”