The Morbid and Sultry Tales of Genevieve Clare

by Hartnett, J. B.

  Then he pressed his back against mine, his mouth was at my ear again as he whispered, “We’ll be able to say we were young once. We lived and we made love wherever we could, Gen.”

  His hands pressed harder against mine just as he sunk farther into me. I couldn’t say anything else, partly because his cock thrusting inside me felt fucking unbelievable, but mostly because we didn’t need words. And this position, him driving at just that angle, hard and deep, he knew, because we’d achieved the same result on the kitchen table, the chest of drawers, over the back of the couch and the SUV with the seats folded down… I came loud and long, my voice echoing against the hills around us as his grunts matched his final deep push into me.

  His forehead dropped to my shoulder. His panting breath moved my hair as he said, “I’m gonna miss that when you get bigger.”

  For some reason, I didn’t achieve the same result when I was on my back. Bummer. I hadn’t thought that the belly might get in the way, but that meant only good things as far I was concerned. “Well, we’ll have something to look forward to after, and we’ll just have to get creative.”

  He pulled tissues from his pocket and slipped them between my legs as he pulled out.

  “Thanks, baby.”

  “Gen, you need to think of something else to call me.” He said this with a smile in his voice. “Baby” came naturally; it was his name for me, but it was also becoming confusing. We spoke about the baby, he called me baby, and I said it to him on occasion, as well. I’d thought about “pumpkin” or “Prince of Peen” because it made him laugh. But it was then I looked in front of me to the name inscribed on the crypt…

  “Beloved,” I told him.

  We’d made the memory there together, and, as morbid as it might have been to anyone else, he turned me in his arms and whispered with his forehead pressed to mine,

  “Perfect.”

  It was exactly four days until Christmas Eve. That meant, four days until I would officially be Mrs. Genevieve Finnegan. I’d practiced writing my married name from the time I was eight years old until that fateful twenty-first birthday debacle.

  I was totally ready to be Mrs. Genevieve Finnegan.

  My morning sickness was gone, replaced by an insatiable sexual appetite, which, Ahren commented, if I hadn’t already been pregnant, I probably would have been with the amount of sex we were having. He joked that birth control would not have stood a chance. Instead of arguing the efficacy of condoms and the pill combined, I went into town to start sorting through boxes of pamphlets for tourists.

  The office was complete, and the way Ahren and Cosmo set it up was a little bit of genius. It also looked nothing like it had when it was just me and Dad there. I was so grateful for that. There was wall space devoted to rental property listings and local attractions: day trips to wineries, San Francisco, Alcatraz, Pier 39, and Ghirardelli Square to name a few. Then there were those that took you to Bodega Bay, whale watching, or Yosemite. Beyond a four-foot wall was what Ahren considered the land of baby. Our little Miss or Mister could crawl around to his or her heart’s content without the danger of chewing on cords or destroying computers. He’d set it up perfectly for us, and just in time, too, because Rocky informed me she and Cosmo were trying for their own baby.

  “Your kid and my kid, dude. They need to be friends, in the same grade. It’s important.” Cosmo came from a good family, a family that wanted grandchildren, a family that wanted a baby more than a million dollar lotto win. So, they were trying, and God willing, our kids would grow up together.

  I’d done the rounds around town, including a check-up with my doctor to make sure all was well with my baby and my body. A couple more weeks and we could check to see what the sex was. We both wanted to know, and I couldn’t freaking wait. I’d asked Rocky to help me design a nursery that could work for a boy or a girl. This included a trip to Pottery Barn Kids which included a great deal of I-want-this and I-want-that…not from me, from Rocky. Everything was set for the wedding. The town was over the moon with excitement, and just as I ordered a blueberry muffin from Mrs. Brewster—I’d lifted the ban on baked goods, but limited myself to muffins for now… just in case—my phone rang.

  “This is Genevieve,” I answered happily. I didn’t recognized the number, but answered anyway. I figured it was wedding related. “Hi, Genevieve. Ahren didn’t answer. I tried to call him first. It’s Adim.”

  My heart and good mood came tumbling down from the clouds and landed like a sad, smooshed soufflé.

  “No,” I whispered and closed my eyes tight at the memory of Mir and his love for Delilah.

  “Listen, I know you’re getting married. I just wanted to let you know that I spoke with Mr. Everly and Mr. Scott. They’re going to do the service and the cremation. Then I’ll do as Delilah requested. I thought you’d like to know and maybe be there for the service. If you have time.”

  “Oh, of course,” I said, mouthing a silent thank you to Mrs. Brewster as I walked out the front door of the bakery and made my way to our new shop. “When is it?” I asked.

  “Oh,” he said, sounding surprised. “Well, tomorrow at one. He wasn’t what you would call a social man so I thought it would just be the two of us. Well, me and him.”

  “Did he have a favorite cake?” I asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “Cake. Did he like cake?”

  “Black Forest.”

  I made a mental note to call Betty Brewster with the final cake choice as soon as I hung up with him. I wanted to share with Adim that, in my book, Black Forest cake was one of the only times fruit in a cake was acceptable. I loved cake, all kinds, but I had rules: citrus and chocolate…yuck. Cherries and chocolate…divine.

  “Ahren and I will be there.”

  I could hear him release a breath. He wasn’t going to be alone.

  “We’ll be there early…and Adim?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said sadly.

  “I will be the last person to see him. You can be assured; he’ll be with someone until the very last minute.”

  “Ms. Clare…thank you,” he choked out.

  Now, I needed to tell Ahren.

  It turned out, telling him what I was planning to do the very next day did not bother him in the least. He and Adim had become friends through the cabin renovations.

  “This is exactly why you wanted to be a mourner, Gen. He’s someone who doesn’t have anybody. No family at all. I spoke with him briefly, and who knows where his dad is or if he’s alive. I think it’s great. Probably a poor choice of words, but I do. I think it’s great, baby.” He wrapped me in his arms, careful not to smash whatever goodie he knew was in the Brewster’s bag.

  “Thanks,” I said softly, wanting to convey how much it meant to have his support.

  ****

  “I want to do something tomorrow,” I said to Ahren who was sitting next to me in the mortuary chapel.

  Just like the town of Greer’s Rest, the mortuary was dressed for Christmas. The tree was decorated in shining glass ornaments of lavender and pale green. Little white lights strewn throughout the branches gave a constant beautiful glow. And draped around the tree was a silver ribbon that began curling around a silver star atop the tree and ended on the branches below. Tasteful, not ostentatious.

  I had called Mrs. Smith to let her know about Vladimir’s funeral, and she said she and her husband would be there. I thought that was a beautiful gesture. No doubt, Mrs. Smith had shared with her man the story behind Vladimir and Delilah. I stole a glance at Mrs. Smith and her husband every now and then, seeing how happy they were to finally be together.

  “Did you see Mrs. Smith?” I asked Ahren quietly.

  “Happy,” he commented.

  “Yeah.” I probably should not have been smiling, but I was. Delilah would’ve loved to see her long-time friend so content. She would also love that Ahren and I were having a baby. And finally, she was hopefully somewhere with the man she was meant to be with. Not with her husband, who was t
aken by war, but rather the one she met and loved and let go. If she hadn’t love him like I love Ahren, she wouldn’t have wanted to have her ashes scattered in a place that held memories of the two of them together.

  “What were you going to say before?” Ahren asked, prompting me to my earlier idea.

  “I think enough time has passed. I’d like to take flowers to Gloria’s house.”

  He simply nodded, eyes straight ahead to the closed casket.

  “You don’t think I should?” I questioned.

  He turned to my ear and whispered, “Do you think her dad will be there?”

  “Does it matter? I mean, really, I could be a fan, a friend, a customer at her restaurant, an ex-lover.”

  He seemed nervous about something. I’d noticed it more and more lately, and I wanted to ask him about it, but I heard the beginning of a recorded piano piece I was almost positive was Beethoven.

  “That’s my cue.” I gave his hand a gentle squeeze and walked the two rows up to sit next to Adim.

  He was dressed in a dark grey suit with a handsome wool overcoat. He looked like a businessman who’d walked right out of the financial district and into a funeral. I would never have thought he had spent his entire life on the river. But Ahren told me that Adim was a loner. He spent his days and most of his nights alone. He’d had a girlfriend, a woman who stayed at the cabins with her family one summer. His idea of perfection was spending his life taking care of the cabins, the grounds, and the business his grandfather had built and he hoped to raise a family there. She had tried to live there with him on the off season, but decided a life of peace and quiet wasn’t enough for her. He wasn’t enough for her.

  Adim stared at his hands resting flat on his legs. I wanted to break the ice, but he spoke first. “I hope they found each other.”

  “Who?” I asked, though I knew the answer.

  He simply turned his head and stared at me. His eyes were the purest blue I’d ever seen, his hair dark brown, almost black, and even though it was the middle of winter, I could still see the color of summer on his skin.

  I reached down and put my gloved hand over his. He stared back at the casket and asked, “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you do this?”

  I didn’t hesitate at all, hoping it would give him some comfort. “Because, when I lost my family, I was alone. I had a friend there, the entire town was there, but they were grieving, too. I needed someone who was there for me.”

  “I’m glad you came. Grandfather would have loved it,” he said.

  “I’m not here for him. I’m here for you, Adim. Not because I was hired to do it, because I was you, eleven years ago. I was you.”

  He held my hand tighter and never let go. The service was silent for the most part, until Taylor thanked everyone for coming. That was it. According to Adim, Mir hadn’t wanted fuss or fanfare.

  I walked with Adim to the front so he could say his last goodbyes to the man who raised him. I felt his body jerk with a silent sob, but I never let go of his hand. Taylor would have let him join us in the back. There was a viewing room for family to watch the casket be placed in the retort, and, on a few occasions, a family member would be in the actual crematory. But Adim didn’t ask. It was confronting enough to see your loved one in a coffin, a shell of their formal self, made up and pumped with chemicals. Memories of them alive were always better.

  Always.

  “I’ll see you on Christmas Eve, Gen.” He hesitated, then said, “Don’t worry about getting the ashes to me until after your wedding.” His words were filled with pain, and I hated that he would be spending the night alone. Anyone could tell he was a great guy, a great catch, and would probably worship whatever woman gave him the opportunity. I knew this, because I was positive he’d had a great advisor.

  “You’re always welcome, always,” I invited.

  “I have a date with a bottle of vodka.” His meaning was clear; he preferred to grieve in private, and I respected that.

  Everyone there would be at our wedding, so our goodbyes, although heartfelt, weren’t drawn out. I left through the front door, accompanied by Ahren, and went to the employee entrance where we were buzzed in.

  “We meet again,” Mr. Everly commented. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t anything. It was just his way.

  “Hi,” I returned. I mean, what was I supposed to do with that?

  “Genevieve, Ahren,” greeted Taylor, who was genuinely glad to see us. He was never fake in his job. When he extended condolences, you knew he meant every word. “Are we ready?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I answered and led the way.

  The casket was opened and ready for me to give its occupant a piece of cake for the road. “Hey, Mr. Simonov.”

  “Excuse me, Genevieve?” Mr. Everly interrupted my little ritual.

  “Is something wrong?”

  He was checking one paper against another then against something else. “I have a Vladimir Sergei Simons.”

  One thing I had also learned about the departed Mir, I was about to share with Mr. Everly. “He had it changed. His birth certificate reads Simonov, I think. But everything else should be Simons.”

  “Do you know why?” He tilted his head to the side, as if I was trying to pull the wool over his eyes. Really, did he think I was in on some secret plot to cremate the wrong Russian old guy?

  “He shared the name with a gun. He changed it in the sixties, according to his grandson.”

  We all kind of stood there, me with a giant piece of cake and an eco-friendly fork in my hands. Ahren was behind me to the side and Taylor began to examine the papers that Mr. Everly was holding.

  I waited until they’d worked it out and finally, I laid the cake over his resting hands, fork between his fingers. “See you later, Mir. Share with Delilah. She’s stingy when it comes to the filling.”

  ****

  We lay in bed. The wind had picked up, bringing with it what felt like an arctic chill. The dampness from the river seemed to settle in me, and I felt cold, constantly, but there was something else.

  Ahren’s fingers drifted along my ribs. His touch was light, his body warm, but I shivered with a sudden chill all the same. He pulled the thick blankets over us.

  “Maybe we should get you some pajamas, Gen.”

  I liked to sleep naked with him, a habit he started and I adopted. I loved that I could reach over and help myself to him anytime I liked without the hindrance of clothing. “That doesn’t work for me,” I explained.

  “What’s wrong, Gen?”

  “I was going to ask you pretty much the same thing.”

  I leaned on my elbow and watched the shadows cross his features, barely visible in the moonlight. He said nothing, and that silence turned into something that was starting to freak me out.

  “Kinda scaring me. Are you having second thoughts?” That’s what I was wondering when we were at the funeral.

  “Are you kidding me?” he asked.

  “You’re off. Something’s off, and what’s worse, you’re not telling me something.”

  He pulled me to lie on his chest, just over his shoulder. “I’ll feel better once we’re married. I think I just need to know we’re official before I can relax.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not about a piece of paper,” he cut me off. “Or being able to say you’re officially my wife. I just can’t shake this feeling. But you know, it’s probably this cold snap.”

  Ahren seemed to know exactly what I was thinking and I was getting better at reading him as well. If I had to guess, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I guessed we’d always live with that. We’d forget about it, until something worried us again, then reality would remind us of the what-ifs. It was mostly unspoken, but it was there.

  “Would you feel better if something did happen, then we could get it out of the way and have something to attribute that feeling to?”

  He stared at me, or I was pretty sure he was. His head faced m
e, but the light was behind him.

  “Did you have something in mind?” His tone was serious, almost on the verge of pissed-off.

  “I have a confession.”

  His entire body went still. He even stopped breathing.

  “I killed the orchids in Delilah’s greenhouse.”

  I had one job to do. One. Ahren had given me specific instructions. “I won’t be able to get there this week while I get everything ready for the office before our wedding. Can you give the white orchid…” Then he gave me a sheet of paper with how many drops of this and that. Then there was something I had to add, a product called potash, but by the end, I was so confused, I gave every plant a little drop from each bottle, a scoop of that pot stuff sprinkled on top, and a big drink of water.

  I went back later in the week, yesterday, in fact, and the orchids, all of them, looked sick. I suppose, with orchids being a high-maintenance plant, killing them was understandable.

  I went on to explain, “In fact, it smelled funny in the greenhouse.”

  “In what way?” he asked.

  “Like rotting flesh.” I replied.

  And, with our passionate love making ten feet from a corpse, we should know.

  Ahren’s body began shaking. Then he sat up, literally dropping me on the pillow. Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh no, no no no. He was furious. I was just like Ned Flanders, when he killed Maude’s ficus. I was a murderer. A stone-cold killer of plant life.

  Then he took a deep breath and let out the loudest, most powerful laugh I’d ever heard from him.

  I sat up and threw my hand to my chest. “I thought you were pissed!” I half-snapped, half-giggled, only because his laughter was contagious.

  “No, I think that probably ended my feeling that something wasn’t right in our world.”

  And if I could have bottled that hopeful statement, I would have. We could have used it.

  The nice people of Greer’s Rest were giving me a wide berth. In fact, if I had to guess, someone had told them to. I thought it might be Rocky looking out for me, careful of my delicate state and checking my emotional temperature. Of course, I would have liked Bryce to be there, and Delilah, and my parents. As I walked down Main Street though, all done up for Christmas, I had a thought. I would have liked to run it by Ahren first, but in the end, I decided it would be a nice surprise.