by Terri Garey
And when it was over, I was able to wait patiently while Kelly joined the line of people who waited to have a word with the family. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the widow and the teenager. The boy looked miserable, the woman shell-shocked.
"May I help you, child?"
I jumped, not having heard the chubby priest come up beside me.
"I'm fine." Off guard, I had no idea how to address him. Was I supposed to cross myself or something! "I'm fine, Father."
He gave me a kind smile, resting a hand on the back of the pew. "Are you sure? Something tells me you're in trouble."
I couldn't help but think of Psycho Barbie. Something's been telling me the same thing.
"Everything's fine, really. I'm just sad for the family." I glanced back toward Kelly and saw her in deep conversation with Mrs. Morgan. Both she and her son were paying rapt attention to whatever Kelly was saying, the grieving widow even smiling a little through her tears.
Father O'Reilly (I remembered his name now) was still standing at the end of the pew. I looked up to find him staring at me. "You have both darkness and light surrounding you, child. You must be strong enough not to let the darkness win."
"I beg your pardon?" I was surprised he could see anything through those Coke bottle glasses. I'd never met the man, and I was nobody's child… not anymore. "I said I was fine."
Father O'Reilly wasn't listening. He sketched a cross in the air and said, "Bless you, my child."
For some reason, it kinda ticked me off. "I didn't ask for your blessing, Father."
"Consider it a gift, freely given. After all, we must do unto others as we would have them do unto us."
Exactly what the voice inside the Light told me to remember. Like I was ever gonna be allowed to forget.
"So did you get Mr. Morgan's eternal soul taken care of?"
I knew I sounded way too cheerful, but I was so happy to leave Forest Lawn behind us that I didn't care. The parking lot was nothing but a smudge in the rear-view mirror.
Kelly glanced at me from the passenger seat, but she wasn't smiling. "I think so. His wife was so relieved about the money that she believed every lie I told her."
"What?" Not what I expected to hear. "What lies? What money?"
"The money Keith Morgan stashed in a safety deposit box at a bank his wife knew nothing about. He hid the key under the water heater in their garage."
What a sleazebag, hiding money from his wife.
"I told her I worked for the bank, and that I'd been authorized to tell her where to find the key. I said her husband had left written instructions on file." Kelly didn't look too happy about her good deed of the day. "I wish I didn't have to lie to her, but I couldn't tell her about her husband's ghost. She would've thought I was a lunatic and then never known the money even existed."
I thought of Barbie, and all the lies Keith Morgan must've told to both women over the years. "Why in the world should she spend it on paying her husband's way into Heaven? I mean, the guy doesn't exactly sound like a prize." I'd never met him, true, and my perceptions were colored by an angry spirit's rantings, but anyone who could turn a soul as bitter as Barbie's was not cool with me. "Then he has the bad taste to get himself killed in a drunk driving accident, and takes his mistress out with him. Very public, very humiliating. If I were Mrs. Morgan, I'd spend the money on a vacation." A trip to Paris and a passionate fling with a Eurotrash boy toy would probably be just the thing, but I didn't say it.
Kelly sighed and shook her head. "I don't care what she does with the money." She stared out the window, the bruise on her temple still visible even after Evan's careful application of cover-up. "It's not up to me to play God. I did what an unquiet spirit asked and now he'll leave me alone." There was a silence as we sped along the highway. "Right?"
A simple question with no simple answer. I gave her the only one I had.
"I don't know." My fingers gripped the steering wheel just a little tighter. "I've only had this problem for a month. It's too soon to tell."
"Does it get any easier?" Kelly turned her head and looked at me.
Yeah, if you don't mind dead people bugging you until you take care of their unfinished business.
I stuck with the honest answer. "No."
"When did you see your first ghost?"
I thought of Irene Goldblatt and heard, in my head, her likely opinion of the situation: Ech. Poor meshugeneh. What does she think—that you're an expert or something? I grinned at the memory of the little Jewish grandmother who'd bullied me into accepting the inevitable, and the unbelievable.
"When I woke up in the hospital after my heart failure, there was a woman in my room who'd choked to death on her husband's matzo balls. She wanted me to tell him it wasn't his fault."
Kelly's eyes got big. "Did you do it?"
I nodded. "Yeah. But first I had to convince him the message came from his dead wife." Poor Morty would never be able to hear the theme song from Laverne & Shirley again without thinking of Irene, and neither would I.
"Why did you do it?"
Another simple question with a complicated answer. I thought about it a second, then realized it wasn't so complicated after all.
"Because it was the right thing to do."
"I knew it!" Kelly's outburst startled me. One minute she'd been depressed, and now she was crowing like she'd just won the lottery, rocking back and forth in her seat. "I knew it! You're not the vain, selfish person you want me to think you are!"
Gee, thanks. "I'm plenty vain, thank you."
Kelly laughed, settling back into the upholstery. "You're a nice person."
"No, I'm not."
"You like helping people."
"No, I don't."
She leaned forward again and said, "Then why are you helping me? You don't even know me. I could be an axe murderer for all you know."
Peace Corps volunteer, long-lost twin, axe murderer Just my luck. I pretended to concentrate on my driving, but the car was finding its own way home.
"What about paying for a nice funeral for the mother you never met, huh?" Kelly was throwing out examples like confetti. "You even donated a three-hundred-dollar dress to bury her in. I saw the price tag. You've invited me into your home—into your life—even though you know how things used to be between Joe and me."
"'Used to' are the key words there." I couldn't really defend myself against her accusations of being a do-gooder, but I could insist on her getting the facts straight. "And I bought that dress on eBay for a lot less than three hundred dollars."
"See?" Kelly looked triumphant. "You've invited me to stay with you even though you're jealous about Joe. That proves you're a good person."
Puh-lease.
"I'm not jealous, because I have no reason to be jealous. And whether or not I'm a good person, well"—I shook my head—"you'll just have to come to your own conclusions."
Try and steal my boyfriend, and you'll find out what a good person I'm not.
"Why didn't you tell me she was such a Polly Pure-bread?"
I had my feet drawn up, snuggled against Joe on the couch. His hand was warm in both of mine, his arm trapped between my jean-clad thighs. He'd taken off his shoes and was resting his feet on the coffee table, not at all unhappy to find me waiting in his living room when his shift in the E.R. was over.
"You never asked me," came the typically male answer. "I did tell you she was in the Peace Corps." He gave me a tired grin before taking a swig of the beer I'd picked up on the way over. "What did you expect?"
I shrugged, enjoying the feel of his body against mine. "I don't know." I'd already told Joe about my day at the mortuary. I'd be going back for another funeral tomorrow, but thankfully, Kelly had agreed to hold a graveside service for Peaches, so I wouldn't have to go inside. It had been a relief to get Kelly settled into the guest room at my house, and an even bigger relief when she said she wanted to turn in early. "Somebody more like me, I suppose."
Joe laughed, risking a swallow
of beer. "Like you?" He shook his head. His dark hair looked like he'd been combing it with his fingers. "There's nobody like you."
The simple way he said it me feel better than anything had in a long time. I knew bullshit when I heard it—this wasn't it. Confidence gave me the courage to ask some of the questions I hadn't asked yet.
"If things don't work out, do you promise we can just be honest with each other?"
"Whoa." He put down his bottle. It hit the end table with a light thunk. "What do you mean, 'if things don't work out'? Are you planning to dump me?" He kept his tone teasing, but I could tell he wasn't thrilled at the direction the conversation was going. "You're not thinking about doing something noble or anything, are you?"
I made a rude noise, unable to believe how quick people were to accuse me of good motives today.
"That's the only way things won't work out, Nicki." Joe squeezed my hand, leaving it trapped between my thighs. "I've already told you, what Kelly and I had is long dead. She left me for another guy, and—" He shrugged and shook his head. "—I didn't even care. I was so wrapped up in my residency that it was almost a relief. I didn't have to feel guilty about neglecting her anymore." I could hear the sincerity in his voice. "Her showing up right now is great timing. I can get the divorce taken care of and move on with my life." He gave me a sideways smile, all the more sexy because of the look in his eyes. "Now that I have a reason to."
I leaned over and gave him a quick kiss, unable to resist a tired man in scrubs. This man, anyway.
"It might not be that simple." I gave him another kiss for good measure. "Life isn't always simple." I squeezed his fingers with one hand and ran the other up and down his arm, liking the rasp of hair against my palm. Joe had such strong, capable hands. I'm sure plenty of his patients noticed—I had, even while lying in a hospital bed, feeling like death warmed over.
Which, technically, at the time, I was.
"Let's be honest, Joe. Kelly obviously still has feelings for you, or she wouldn't be here."
He held up a finger. "Kelly came looking for you, not me."
"She knew you were in Atlanta. You were her 'unfinished business,' remember?" Joe looked away, impatient. "I want us both to see things clearly here. I want us to be honest with each other about what happens next. This can get very complicated." He sighed, but he was listening. "Your soon-to-be-ex-wife, who happens to be my twin sister, is living in my house. We're both either psychics or lunatics, your divorce isn't final, and my best source of advice is a gay man who plays with dolls." If mannequins weren't life-sized dolls, I don't know what was. "Somewhere in the middle of all this, you and I are supposed to have some fun, and my sister and I are supposed to become bosom buddies." If we don't kill each other first.
Joe laughed. He had the cutest crinkles around his eyes. "You have a real flair for summing things up, don't you?"
I grinned back, glad he didn't mind my bluntness. "Only one of my many talents," I teased. "I can also tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue."
That earned me a wicked grin. "Why does that not surprise me?" He leaned in, and a quick kiss turned into a mock-tickling match that left me pinned me to the couch, laughing and helpless.
"I promise to be honest with you, if you promise not to forget about the fun," Joe said, grinning down at me. He looked awfully pleased with himself for somebody who'd just bested a mere girl. "You've spoiled me, Nicki Styx. Dr. Joe no longer wants to be a dull boy." He rubbed the tip of his nose against mine. "Everything will work out. You'll see."
I smiled up at him, wanting only to believe that it would. Then he kissed me, slow and deep, and I forgot all about twin sisters and cherry stems for a while.
* * *
CHAPTER 6
It was nearly two in the morning when I got home, nearly two-thirty before I fell asleep, and nearly dawn when I felt the mattress sag. Someone was sitting on the bed, near my feet.
Drifting, I kept my eyes closed. Morning light filtered through my lids, but it was faint enough to ignore as long as the curtains were drawn. It took a moment to dawn on me that since I was in my own bedroom, not Joe's, I should be alone.
I shifted, lifting my head to peer toward the foot of the bed.
There was a woman sitting there.
"Don't be afraid." She lifted a hand in my direction. An unmistakable Southern drawl, comforting and kind. "There's no need to be afraid." A sun-ripened scent, fresh fruit and flowers.
Peaches.
I was scrabbling, all elbows, arms, and knees. In two seconds I had my back against the headboard. The room was dim, and it was hard to make out her face. Then I saw what she was wearing, and my heart did a flip—the hot pink chiffon Kelly and I had taken to Mr. Bates, the cadaver-man.
A lump rose in my throat. This was my biological mother. Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Funny, it had never mattered much to me that I was adopted. Now it was overwhelming.
"You must be so mad at me." Peaches put her hand down, folding it into her lap. "I've made a mess of things, as usual. I wouldn't blame you a bit if you were to tell me to go away. You girls were supposed to be together. I always thought you were together."
That lazy Southern accent was deceptive—she was doing some fast talking. "I made a terrible mistake giving you girls up. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't wish I'd done things differently. And then I go and get myself killed just when I had the chance to make it right." She sighed. "All because I didn't want my seat belt to wrinkle my outfit. Vanity, thy name is Peaches."
Her friendly chatter left me numb. This was hardly an ordinary meeting. Lila Boudreaux—Peaches—might be the woman who gave me life, but she was still a stranger.
Besides, she was dead.
And I had no idea what to say to her.
"I came to say good-bye," Peaches said.
"Shouldn't you have said hello first?" The words popped out before I could stop them.
"I didn't know who you were when I came into the store, Nicki. I was confused at the time, scared, worried about your sister. By the time I put it all together, what was I supposed to say? 'Hey, darlin'… it's me, your dead mama?' "
I bit my lip and said, "No offense, but showing up dressed for your own funeral probably isn't the best way to get to know me. Neither is popping up in my backseat with a cryptic comment about some guy lying to Kelly, and then disappearing on me." This was way too freaky—I didn't need a mother nobody could see but me. I'd had a wonderful childhood with wonderful parents. No childhood traumas, no abandonment issues here. "I don't mean to be rude, but this is never going to work. It's not like we can have a meaningful relationship at this late date, is it?"
"You're a feisty little thing, aren't you?" There was a smile in her voice. "And I like how you get straight to the point. I always had trouble with that. My mama would say Teaches, I asked you what time it was, not how a watch works.'" A flash of white teeth in the dimness. "And so pretty. Just look at you." I didn't know how she could see me when I could barely make out her face—all I could see was the pale oval of her cheeks, the bump of her nose. "You've got style. I always wondered what you girls would be like, whether you'd think the same, dress the same, act the same."
I ignored the phrase "you girls." There was no "you girls"—Kelly was still a stranger.
"I'm glad to know you two are so different. Kelly's the quiet one, and you're the spitfire. It makes for a nice balance. Good feng shui."
Feng shui? Please. I might technically be a twin, but I still considered myself an original. I smoothed the sheets over my knees and kept my "unbalanced" thoughts to myself.
Peaches looked down, fingering the pink chiffon. "I love the dress," she offered.
"Good. I'm glad." I wished I had the nerve to turn on a light. "It's vintage," I added automatically, "1960s, chiffon with satin banding."
"It's beautiful. I thought you might like to see me in it, the way I would've looked if…" Peaches trailed off, while I swallowed the lump in my throat.
Then she stood and held out her arms, modeling the dress. The room was lighter now, morning making its arrival known even through the curtains. "I'd like you to remember me like this—like a real person"—a graceful pirouette of hot pink chiffon—"not a wax dummy in a box." Her voice broke, then steadied. "Let this be both our hello and our good-bye, Nicki, and forgive me for being such a poor excuse for a mama."
I stared at her, trying not to cry. Dark hair, hot pink clothes, flair for drama. I had the oddest sensation of déjà vu. And then I realized—it was like looking through a glass darkly, and seeing an older, slightly different version of me on the other side.
"There's nothing to forgive." I wasn't going to cry. I wasn't. "I'm not mad at you, never have been. I had two great parents who thought I hung the moon, and I have a great life with great friends." I took a deep breath and added softly, "It's okay you gave me up for adoption. I'm okay. You can go into the Light with a clear conscience."
Peaches tilted her head. "Your parents must've loved you very much."
Another lump rose in my throat. I didn't answer.
"Their love fills this house even now, like the scent of fresh-baked cookies."
"Nicki's Amazing Chocolate Chunks," my mom had called them. Sunday afternoons, usually during football season, it'd been a ritual for her and me to make them for my dad.
"I know you'll be all right, Nicki. You were the lucky one." Peaches looked away, toward the curtained window. "Kelly's the one I'm worried about."
Of course. I resisted a roll of the eyes. I didn't know my sister all that well, but I already knew she was tougher than she looked.
"She doesn't have a great life with great friends and loving memories to fall back on." In profile, Peaches looked like Kelly—they shared the same stubborn jut of chin. "She doesn't have anybody now, except for you."