The Morbid and Sultry Tales of Genevieve Clare

by Hartnett, J. B.

Jesus, this gossipy town. “Yeah. But we’re not rushing things. We—”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not what?”

  He wiped his nose. “Why aren’t you rushing things? What’s the hold-up? He married or something?”

  I rolled my eyes, because it was just like him to jump to that conclusion. “No.” I giggled. “He’s not married, never has been.”

  “Then he should marry you. Tomorrow. Go to Vegas. You can get married any day of the year in Vegas,” he informed me.

  “Bryce, I—”

  “Cookie, I get it. But you know, I miss Mare somethin’ fierce. Pissed at God for not takin’ me quick after she went, but that’s life. Wish I’d thrown her over my shoulder and dragged her ass to Vegas the day I met her. I was that sure. Woulda had more time, Goddamnit.”

  I sat down into the chair again and pulled the huge-ass piece of cake to my lap.

  “Cookie? Gonna share that with me?”

  “Fuck. Off,” I said with a mouth full of crunchy meringue.

  He chuckled next to me. “Cookie?” he said gently as his fingers wrapped around my wrist. I though he was just trying to take my cake, but he said. “Leave the cake and whatever else you brought, and next time you come to see me, you bring that boy. He probably doesn’t remember, but he used to mow my lawn. I worked in Richmond, was never home when he came, but Mare told me all about him. How he used to listen to every word his old man said. Go on, Gen. It’s Christmas, and as much as I’d like to stare at your titties in that shirt, I’m sure he’ll appreciate it even more.”

  “I’m scared,” I whispered and put the fork down.

  “Yeah, I know ya are. We’re all gonna die, Cookie. Death is the devil you know. The better you live, the more you piss him off, and he just hates that. Right now, you’re lettin’ him get his way.”

  I handed him the box, knowing there was no point in staying. I was either going to burst into tears, or Cheryl would be back and likely piss-off Bryce.

  “Are you sure you don’t want the company?”

  “Loved hearin’ the word ‘fuck’ come out of that mouth of yours. I reckon you just made my day. See ya next year. I’ll share my cake with Cheryl. She’s got herself a man now. She told me he was helpin’ her with that stick she had up her ass.” He grinned.

  I let my head fall back as a laugh escaped me. Tears averted.

  “Merry Christmas, Bryce.”

  “Back atcha, Cookie.”

  ****

  I decided to go visit Rocky. She said she’d be working in her mom’s shop for the day while Guava prepared a Christmas Eve feast. Greer’s Rest was festive every year, and, each year, they had a concert downtown. The kids from the church had a live nativity. Then the Victorian Carolers had a concert. After that was the Wassail Walk, and Guava participated every year. They went from house to house, a kind of walking party. Each home provided finger foods, mulled wine, eggnog, all the normal Christmas boozy cheer. The walk ended with lighting the star atop the tree, then onto midnight carols at the church.

  Guava was in it for the nog.

  I hadn’t participated since I was twenty-four.

  “Hey,” I called out to the empty shop.

  Then I heard a fumbling of sorts, a clinky sound that could only be a belt, then up popped Rocky, followed by Cosmo.

  I grinned.

  She grinned back.

  “Hey, how are ya, Frank Zappa?” Cosmo had fashioned his facial hair in a way that could only be described as The Zappa.

  “Ya think?” He smiled as he contemplated and stroked his moustache/goatee. “Merry merry, Gen Clarey,” he added.

  “Ooo, I like that. Thanks, Cosmo. Here for the cheer?”

  “I do like the nog.”

  “Yeah, I go for the grog.”

  “Jesus, you two, stop it. I’m gonna get jealous,” Rocky teased. Our impromptu rhyme game had only started a week ago when I asked if he wanted to combine forces in the world of professional mourning. There were a few times I’d wished there was another person I could call on as backup.

  He had commented, “So, when and if you need a hand, a fellow mourner to also stand?”

  “Yes, indeed, I tell you true, another friend to say adieu.”

  I had a feeling this was going to be our thing for years to come, because my best friend had found her soul mate and his name was Cosmo. It turned out, he wasn’t a full-time mourner; he was an actor. He was apparently quite good, but also had his real-estate license. I was going to wait until they’d been together for a while, then I would offer them my dad’s office with the apartment upstairs. They’d have to pay utilities, but other than that, it would give them a good start. I just knew, they had what it took to make it work, and both were determined to try.

  I walked a little close, but not too close. “A shop full of scented candles and it still smells like sex in here. Seriously, Rock.” I placed the Brewster’s box on the shop counter…one of about fifty I’d started the day with.

  Instead of responding to my comment, Rocky asked, “Have you changed your mind about tonight?”

  She wanted me to come out with her and Cosmo so much, but it wasn’t time yet.

  “Next year, and I mean it. Next year, we’re all yours. Tonight, we promised Delilah. I have a feeling this is her last Christmas. Well, she does anyway, so I want to make it special for her.”

  “Here.” Rocky handed me a thin box and said, “Open it. Actually, don’t open it. Open it later, when you’re with Ahren. ‘K?”

  Cosmo put his arm around Rocky and pulled her into his side. Whatever the gift was, it was special to her. He knew it; his body language told me that. I pulled my keys out of my pocket and began to move the office apartment keys off the rung. I didn’t say a word. I simply slid them across the counter, looked at Cosmo, then Rocky. Her eyes instantly filled with tears. She knew what they were for, and she was more than grateful for the gesture. Then, with no other words spoken, and because I was wearing make-up, damn it, I bought a little tree from the grocery store and went home to get ready for my first Christmas Eve in ten years.

  *****

  Ahren

  Ahren did what he did every Christmas Eve; he left a piece of mistletoe between his parents’ names on their grave marker. He always remembered them stealing a kiss, trying to hide their passion from the prying eyes of their impressionable son. But he loved this memory. Every Christmas, his dad would move a sprig of mistletoe around the house. His mom would giggle each time his dad would dip her, kiss her passionately, then sweep her back up, having taken the breath from her. Ahren vowed he would do the same thing with his own wife one day.

  He left the cemetery, sober for a change, but he still used Jimmy. When he arrived at the taxi with the Grateful Dead sticker on the back, he noticed a cardboard box that hadn’t been there before.

  Jimmy pulled away from the curb and drove them back to the same Denny’s parking lot in Mill Valley where Gen always left her car. When he parked, Jimmy turned in his seat and explained the box.

  “Met a pretty girl years ago. Drove her to the cemetery. She said someone followed her from a funeral once and it gave her a scare. Then she started bringing flowers with her. Not to the funeral; to the same area where you went and drank yourself stupid. That night you called me to pick her up, I knew her story. She told me over pie not that long ago. I asked her to spend Christmas with me and my family, and she said she’d think about it. Minute I saw her at that club, saw you hidden out of the way, I knew you were the guy she was talking about. I don’t want you to pay me the fare, Ahren. I want you to give that Gen-girl Christmas. That’s one of those complete holiday dinners you order from the grocery store, but the pecan pie, my wife made. It’s her specialty.”

  Ahren laid his hand on the box, not having given much thought to what they would eat on Christmas. He entertained the idea of ordering pizza, thinking she would find it funny, knowing she would actually. He knew they were going to have moments between them filled wit
h emotional hurdles. Instances that would bring about a memory they’d need to overcome, both of them, but they could do it together.

  He closed his eyes and said to Jimmy, “Thank you.”

  Neither of them said anything else as Ahren walked to his truck and put the box on the floor.

  But he did leave Jimmy his fare, his tip, Jimmy’s “Christmas bonus” as Ahren called it, a Christmas card and four season tickets to the Giants.

  Just like he did every year.

  It was the middle of January. Ahren and I had been back together for about six weeks, and everything was…

  Perfect.

  Two of the three guys I’d met with in Sausalito called. I met with Ted, just to go over the final preparations for Russel’s funeral. The three men had an unconventional relationship that had started when they were all roommates in college. Ted and Pete had become a couple first, but the three men all loved each other, and Russel made the duo a trio. I’d watched Sister Wives, and, in theory, it sounded like it could work…in theory. But me? I could not and would not share my man. I tried to think of myself and Ahren in the same scenario, adding a third person to the mix, but even if it was Rocky, whom I adore and love…nope, couldn’t do it.

  But the three men had it all worked out. If there were issues, they talked them out. “It’s not always sunshine and lollipops,” Pete had told me. “But there is always love,” he said as they all held hands. Russel had started to get choked up and that’s when I’d given them my paperwork to sign.

  And now, the day the three men had hired me for had come to pass. I was just fastening the garter belt to my stocking when Ahren stopped in the doorway of my bedroom. I put my foot into one patent leather heel, then the other, and presented myself, running my hands over my skirt.

  “How do I look?” I asked.

  He stalked me, me-man-you-woman style, but when he reached me, his fingers were gentle on my jaw. They started there and trailed down my neck as he said softly, “Beautiful.”

  Moving from his hand, I gathered up my clutch and explained, “So, I’m at Evergreen today. I bought flowers for your parents. Did I tell you that already?”

  “Yes, you did,” he replied, a smile playing at his lips, which usually meant he was up to something.

  I looked into my bag, making sure I had everything I needed, when my lipstick and gloves fell from my grip and landed on the floor. As I bent down to pick them up, Ahren’s hands were on my hips.

  “Believe me,” I said. “I would love nothing more than to get busy with you right now.”

  I assumed he was trying to start something we had no hope of finishing. I attempted to stand back up, but he placed his hand on my upper back, palm open, and pushed me down again.

  “I’m gonna be late if I don’t leave in five minutes.” I was pretending to be annoyed, but he knew me better than that.

  “I’d like to see you in action if that’s all right. I’ll drive you, but I’ll pretend I don’t know you. Sound good? Then we can go see my parents together.”

  He still hadn’t let me up. But I knew, visiting his parents’ grave together was a big deal.

  I leaned down to reach my lipstick and said, “Got it,” when his hands went under my skirt and pulled the sides of my thong down. I wore them under my garter, not over, so he was not able to slip them off as he would have liked.

  Undeterred, he leaned to his right and grabbed something from his work bag. I looked behind me to see a pair of huge garden shears.

  “Jesus!” I cried out, “What are you doing?”

  Clip, Clip…

  And there went my thong.

  He righted my skirt and threw the shears onto his bag with a thunk. Then he faced me and said, “I told you, whenever and wherever. Better to be prepared, don’t you think?” he grinned.

  I agreed to him joining me and, in three minutes, I witnessed a miracle.

  Ahren was ready in a black suit and button-down, dark grey shirt, no tie. His mirrored sunglasses on, the car keys dangling from his finger. He put his hands out to his sides to show the results of making himself presentable under pressure…and the results were really good.

  “You clean up nice,” I said as he pulled me through the doorway.

  “So do you, Gen. Now let’s get you to the cemetery on time.”

  I sat down in his truck, settled the two small flower arrangements between us, and buckled myself in. “Words every young girl dreams of hearing,” I said.

  “And what else did you dream of as a young girl?”

  He asked the question as we turned onto the main road, probably as a joke, but I had a very real answer.

  “I dreamed I would marry you. We would have three kids, two boys and one girl. The girl we would name after your mom. I always loved her name. And I wouldn’t wear white. I told my mom I was going to wear an old-fashioned Victorian gown with a bustle and a little matching hat, and it would be green, like the color of a bottle of Chartreuse Liqueur. Dad always said that color looked beautiful with my skin tone and hair. And Mom told me the tradition of the white wedding dress was pretty recent. So, that was what I dreamed about when I was a kid.”

  He watched the road, maneuvering the truck with a quiet control. He drove with the flow of traffic, and if someone was eager to overtake him, he simply moved out of the way, gave them a wave, and moved back when it was safe to do so. He was quiet after my explanation, until we made the turn off for the cemetery.

  “Top hat and tails,” he said

  “Sorry?”

  “Well, unless you envisioned something else when you were a kid, but it sounds like a top hat and tails would be appropriate.”

  It was then I looked at him. Really looked at him. He’d cut his hair a week ago. All the years we were apart, it apparently hadn’t changed, because he was never ready for a change. Until now. Now he wore his hair short and sideburns long. He was growing a beard at my request to see what he would look like, and, so far, it made me wet every time I caught sight of him working in my cemetery.

  That was another thing.

  It was sexy watching Ahren bring the beauty back to Eden Hills. It was the middle of winter, but he was there, under the canopy of redwoods, digging and clearing weeds and debris from the small paths and graves. He took off his shirt, working only in khaki work pants and boots, his body covered in sweat, and I sat on the porch, watching his muscles flex and contract just as I had as a kid. I was supposed to be making dinner, even though he knew very well I could not cook, but I’d offered. And there he was, my one man show, so I did what any girl in the throes of a new relationship with the love of her life would do and took off all my clothes. I sat on the porch swing, wrapped in a blanket, and waited for him to come back to the house. I even had two beers opened and waiting. After about a minute, I became impatient and called out to him.

  I opened the blanket and asked if he was hungry. He said nothing, just unzipped his pants, pulled my ass to the edge of the seat, and used the swing to pull me onto his cock.

  It was the beard’s fault.

  So when I looked at him in the truck, I saw this man I’d loved for years. This time, instead of looking at him with the eyes of a silly girl, an awkward teen, a romantic young woman, or a grieving daughter…this time, I looked at him with the eyes of a woman in love. A woman who knew her heart, finally, and I knew, in that moment, nothing would ever part us again.

  He dropped me at the top of the hill, behind the crematory.

  “How’s my face?” I asked, smacking my lips together with a fresh coat of red lipstick.

  “Good enough to fuck.” He smirked as I gripped the dash for strength.

  “You, uh, you mean, fuck my face?”

  “Yep.” He kept grinning.

  “You kill me when you talk like that.”

  “Is that the answer you were looking for?”

  “So I look okay, then?” I smiled, pulling myself together.

  “Gen, you…are…beautiful.” As I walked away from
the truck, he rolled down the window and shouted, “Knock ‘em dead, baby.” I could hear him laugh as I made my way toward the gathering of…

  Holy. Shit.

  I’d been to big funerals, but this? Ahren took the service entrance into the cemetery. I had never, not once, seen so many cars and people. There was one tent for close family and friends, then three more. It looked like a wedding reception.

  I took a deep breath and went through my checklist. I was their Girl Friday. I was The Merry Widow. And finally, I was there to convince an extremely conservative Catholic couple that their son had bedded a woman, and even though he’d not married her, at least his soul would not writhe in eternal hellfire for being a homosexual. Ted explained that they had always suspected, but never asked. When Russel got sick, they were just happy he had such wonderful friends to look after him.

  The closer I got, I saw Ted, with dark sunglasses, on one side, and Pete standing opposite him. I knew they would prefer to be together, but this was a show for Russel’s parents. He’d loved them. They couldn’t understand how such a good-looking man never married. He had two brothers and one sister, and between his siblings were a total of eleven kids. I counted. So it wasn’t about grandchildren; his parents just wanted him settled.

  With a woman.

  As soon as the priest was done, Ted took my hand and pulled me close to Russel’s parents.

  “Oh, Maria…”

  The three men decided I should have a good Italian name, in honor of the Blessed Mother, of course.

  “…he would have been so happy you came.” He led me to Mr. and Mrs. Santino. “Rosa, Dino, this is Maria.”

  The weather was perfect for a funeral. It was one of Marin’s drab, grey winter days. No rain and not a thousand degrees outside. Still, I wore sunglasses and held the handkerchief in my hand.

  “My flight was delayed. I tried to come in yesterday. I am so sorry for your loss. Your son was the best of men.” I kissed the cheek of the mother then continued to the father.

  They looked at me with confusion on their faces.

  Pete joined us, kissed me, I kissed him back, and then he explained who in the hell I was. “Mr. and Mrs. Santino, this is the woman who…well, she…”