Something Buried, Something Blue Page 23

  “I don’t want you!”

  He tilts his head at her, brows furrowed.

  She hastily corrects herself. “I mean, I don’t need you.”

  Realizing she doesn’t sound particularly convincing, even to her own ears, she turns away, face flaming, and opens the refrigerator. She grabs several bottles of Dom Pérignon, kicks the door closed, and clumsily sets the armload on the counter, where plastic-wrapped platters cover nearly every inch of space. One of the green bottles teeters too close to the edge and topples off.

  Bella reaches for it and misses.

  Drew, however, makes a diving catch. He looks up at her from the floor. “Still think you don’t need me?”

  Despite herself, despite everything, she can’t help but grin as she takes it from him. “You just saved me two hundred bucks.”

  “My pleasure. But I don’t think you should open that one just yet, unless you want to douse yourself and everyone around you in eau-de-champagne.”

  “Speaking of eau-de . . . Do you smell perfume, by any chance?”

  Back on his feet, he leans closer to her, sniffing her neck, and she’s reminded that her dress is, indeed, far too low-cut.

  “It smells good.”

  “No, I didn’t mean—I’m not wearing any perfume. But I smell flowers. Do you?”

  “Is it my cologne?”

  “No, that’s not floral.” The words seem to lodge in her throat. He’s standing unnervingly close to her.

  She dares to look up at him, hoping to find reassurance that she’s merely imagining the connection between them, along with everything else that isn’t really happening.

  But when their eyes meet, she knows that this, at least, is real.

  He reaches out and pushes a strand of hair back from her face. “Bella, I—”

  “Mom!” The front door slams shut. “Mom!”

  Bella and Drew leap apart guiltily. He grabs a dish towel from the counter as Max and Jiffy burst into the kitchen chattering about the awesome movie. Bella jerks open a drawer and rummages through it with trembly hands.

  “Hey, guys, how’s it going?” Drew asks.

  “I didn’t know you were here!” Max gives him a high five.

  “Are you guys going on a date night?” Jiffy asks with interest.

  “Date night?” Drew echoes, looking amused.

  Dismayed, Bella asks, her voice a little too shrill, “Why would you think that?”

  “Last time my dad came back to visit us, that’s what he wore when he went on date night with my mom.” He indicates Drew’s jacket and dress pants, then waves a hand at Bella. “And my mom wears some kind of smelly perfume, just like you.”

  Bella looks sharply at him. “I’m not wearing perfume.”

  “You’re not?” He shrugs.

  “Why? Do you smell it?”

  “Yep.” He gestures at the three-tiered wedding cake on the table. “Hey, by the way, can I have a piece of that?”

  “I already asked, and she said no,” Max tells him. “It’s for the wedding.”

  “What wedding?” Jiffy sidles closer to the cake.

  “Some wedding.”

  “Can we please have cake, Bella?”

  “Maybe later. Do you smell flowers, Jiffy?”

  “I see flowers!” He leans over the cake. “They’re made of frosting. Look, Max!”

  “Can we have frosting flowers, Mom?”

  “Not now. Maybe later. Jiffy, do you smell flowers?” she persists.

  “Yeah. They stink. They should go outside and blow the stink off.”

  Both boys snicker. Then Max asks, sniffing so that his nose nearly touches the icing, “Do the frosting flowers have a smell?”

  “Why? Can you smell them?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I can,” Jiffy says. “I smelled them outside, too, when Luther dropped us off.”

  “Is he here?” Drew asks.

  “No, he had to go play tennis. But he said he’ll be back later and save him some food,” Max says.

  Jiffy nods vigorously. “He probably wants cake, too, by the way. We should probably cut some for him now. And for us.”

  “Later.” Bella takes a deep breath of the floral-scented air and levels a look at him. “So you smell the flowers right now?”

  “Yep. Did you put perfume into the frosting? Because I don’t know if that would be so good, but I can taste it to make sure.”

  “My mom didn’t make the cake. Mrs. Drumm did.”

  “Did she put perfume in the frosting?” Jiffy wonders, and Drew rests a hand on both boys’ shoulders.

  “Hey, guys, how about if we go over to Melrose Park and throw a football around?”

  “Yes!” they shout in unison.

  “Great.” He looks at Bella. “Okay with you?”

  “It’s more than okay. But Jiffy has to get his mom’s permission.”

  “She’ll permiss me. She always does.”

  “Well, you need to ask her to make sure.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Then we’ll stop by the house,” Drew says. “Come on, grab the football, Max, and let’s go.”

  “I don’t have a football.”

  “How about you, Jiffy?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you have a Wiffle ball and bat?”

  “Nope. My dad said he’d give me that stuff sometime, but I think he forgot.”

  “My dad didn’t forget! I’ll go get them!” Max scampers from the room as Bella remembers, with a pang, how Sam used to play ball with him.

  Jiffy gives Drew a pointed once-over. “Your mom prolly doesn’t permiss you to play outside in your good clothes.”

  Drew grins. “I’m pretty certain she’d be okay with it.”

  “Well, you need to call her to make sure.”

  “I wish I could,” he says so wistfully that Bella can’t help but wonder about Drew’s mom, and his dad, for that matter.

  Really, she knows nothing about his past. So how can she possibly be thinking about kissing him?

  Again, her face feels hot. She forces herself to think of something else, like . . .

  Like flowers. How she can possibly smell them inside the house, where there are none?

  And it isn’t just her. It’s Jiffy, too.

  Jiffy, whose mother is a medium.

  Jiffy, who occasionally says things that no ordinary kid would say and who often seems to know things that no one in the world could possibly know.

  “Hey, sorry about that,” Drew says in a low voice, and she looks up, startled, to see him watching her. “I shouldn’t have done that in front of the boys.”

  “No, they didn’t see.”

  “What?”

  “What?” she echoes, realizing he might not have been talking about what she thinks he’s talking about.

  “I probably should have asked you before I suggested taking them to the park.”

  Oh! The park! Right, the park!

  Not the near-kiss or whatever was going on when Max and Jiffy showed up.

  “No, it’s—it’s fine! It’s great! I was actually hoping the movie would last longer,” she babbles, “because after he got home I was going to make him stay upstairs with the Chances. I mean the cats. I mean the cat and the kisses. Kittens.”

  She hurriedly turns away from the faintly amused expression in Drew’s eyes.

  “He’s not going to the wedding, then?”

  “Max? No.” She jerks open the fridge and begins plucking containers from the shelves. “Kids aren’t welcome.”

  “In that case, I can take him out for dinner after the park.”

  “That would be great.” Arms full, Bella kicks the refrigerator door shut and looks helplessly at the counter for a spot to unload.

  “Here, let me get that for you.”

  As Drew reaches to relieve her burden, the back door opens and Odelia steps into the kitchen.

  “We’re here to help,” she says.

  Bella sees that “w
e” includes Millicent, who is holding a small stack of books. She’s changed into her version of casual clothing: dark, wool pants and a cashmere cardigan.

  Odelia now sports a one-piece purple jumpsuit with a zipper up the front. She gestures at her Nikes. “Bella, do you think Johnny will mind that these are white?”

  “She probably won’t even notice.” Bella is conscious of Drew’s proximity as he continues to take refrigerated items from her arms beneath Millicent’s narrowed gaze.

  “Who’s Johnny?” Jiffy asks Odelia. “And why would he mind if your shoes are white? And why did you call him she?”

  “Johnny is the bride, and he is a she. I mean, she is a she.”

  “Can I see him?” Jiffy hurries over to the door to peek outside, nearly sideswiping the two women. “Oops, sorry, Odelia and . . . Lady.”

  “Jiffy, that’s Max’s grandma, Millicent,” Bella says. “Millicent, meet Jiffy, a good friend of Max’s. And this is Doctor Bailey. He’s . . .”

  He’s also a good friend of Max’s, and of Bella’s. But she’s not about to admit that, given the way her mother-in-law looked at him this morning—and is looking at him again now.

  “. . . our veterinarian,” she says instead. “He’s here to rescue a stray kitten.”

  Yes, a kitten. Not a kiss. There are no kisses here. No, sir.

  Millicent looks harder at Drew holding containers of strawberries and salad greens, not a kitten in sight.

  “What are those?” Jiffy has zeroed in on the books she’s holding.

  “They’re for Max. They . . .” She pauses to clear her throat. “They used to belong to his father.”

  “What are their names?”

  “The books? A Wrinkle in Time, The Phantom Tollbooth, Charlotte’s Web—that was Sam’s favorite.”

  “Max already has that book.”

  Yes. When Sam became too sick to play catch with Max, he bought Charlotte’s Web and started reading it aloud, chapter by chapter. They never did get to finish the story.

  Once in a while, at bedtime, Max asks Bella to continue it. “Please, Mom? I want to know what happens to Wilbur the runt.”

  “We’ll get to it,” she promises, but she hasn’t had the heart to do it just yet.

  Remembering father and son snuggled together in bed with the book, Bella turns to face the sink and runs the tap for no reason.

  “Maybe you can give me some books,” Jiffy suggests to Millicent. “I like to read. I’m good at all the two-letter words and three-letter words. Now I’m learning some four-letter words.”

  No comment from Millicent, but that gives Odelia and Drew a chuckle, and even Bella has to smile. She turns off the water and dries her dry hands on a dish towel.

  “I found it, Doctor Drew!” Max bursts into the room. “Let’s go!”

  “Where are you going, Max?” Millicent asks.

  “To the park to play ball.”

  She says nothing to that, but her face is taut.

  “We don’t have time to stop at my house,” Jiffy announces, “’cause it’s going to rain pretty soon.”

  “Soon?” Bella follows his gaze to the window. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes,” Odelia tells her. “We’d better start pouring that bubbly. If they drink enough, maybe they won’t notice that the weather’s turning.”

  “Hey, how come Johnny’s wearing a Halloween costume?”

  “That’s not a Halloween costume, Jiffy,” Odelia says. “She’s a bride.”

  “A dead zombie bride?”

  “No, just a regular beautiful bride.”

  “Well, she looks like a dead zombie,” Jiffy insists.

  Glancing out into the yard, Bella confirms that Johneen is still upright. She does, however, look even more peaked as she chats with Calla and Blue.

  “What do you mean, Jiffy?” Bella asks, uneasy once more. “Why do you think she looks like a dead zombie?”

  “She just does.” He shrugs. “Can we go now, Doctor Drew?”

  “Do you need me, Bella?”

  She assures him once again—perhaps a tad too firmly—that she does not.

  He ushers the boys out the front door, and Odelia hurries over to join Bella at the back, murmuring, “I don’t like this.”

  “You don’t like what?” Bella asks in a voice too low for Millicent to hear.

  “What Jiffy said when he looked at Johnny.”

  Bella doesn’t like it either, but the last thing she wants is for Odelia to start getting crazy again.

  “We need to talk,” she says. “I know what you—”

  “Pardon?” Millicent asks pointedly from across the room.

  “Sorry, we were just trying to figure something out.”

  Millicent doesn’t ask what it is. Nor does she ask if she can help them, but Bella puts her to work anyway, hulling strawberries to dip in chocolate fondue. Then she rounds up Pandora, still mingling in the yard, to help serve.

  A short time later, the guests are seated at the tables, toasting and sipping Dom Pérignon as Pandora and Millicent prepare main-course platters in the kitchen and Bella and Odelia serve the salads.

  According to the hourly forecast, they’ll make it through dinner before the rain begins. According to the heavens, that seems less likely by the minute.

  The lake has gone from cobalt and placid to a dense, rippled fog-gray. Overhead, drying foliage whispers ominously. The air is thick with the scent of storm and wood smoke. Chimney tendrils snake from Dale rooftops into a murky sky that’s darker than it should be at this hour, casting the tables in shadow.

  Odelia was right, though. Now that the champagne is flowing, the guests don’t seem particularly concerned about the weather. The men are still wearing their suit coats, and a few women have donned wraps, but everyone seems blissfully oblivious.

  Everyone . . . except Johneen.

  The bride alone appears troubled, though perhaps not by the prospect of rain. She begins to pick at her salad as the others dig in.

  Is it any wonder? Odelia’s warning is probably still ringing in her head. Perhaps she’s wondering whether she just made a colossal mistake.

  Or she might be pouting because Virginia is seated beside her. As Parker pointed out earlier, it wouldn’t be right to put his cousin at a table filled with strangers.

  Leaving the guests to eat their salads, Bella follows Odelia back toward the house but stops her on the back steps.

  “What’s wrong, Bella?”

  “I need to talk to you for a second.” Hearing a distant growl of thunder, she cuts right to the chase. “I know what you’ve been up to.”

  “What I’ve been up to?”

  “Trying to get Johneen to call off the wedding.”

  Odelia shrugs. “I know you didn’t want me to talk to her, Bella, but—”

  “But you did it anyway.” She sounds like a mother scolding a naughty child, but she can’t help herself.

  “We all do what we have to do, Bella. I deliver messages to those who need to hear them.”

  “Well, your delivery method isn’t terrific. And it didn’t change anything. She still married him.”

  “Yes, but I—”

  “So maybe you caused this big stir for no reason,” Bella goes on, frustrated by Odelia’s mild expression. Doesn’t she realize that you don’t go around . . . stealing wedding rings and erasing people’s private files? “Did you ever think that maybe you misinterpreted the warning?”

  “That’s always a possibility, but—”

  “Daisy!”

  The shout comes from the yard behind them.

  Turning, Bella sees that Parker has jumped to his feet and is waving his arms wildly.

  Johneen seems to have disappeared altogether.

  Did she throw a tantrum and run off? Or flee the approaching storm?

  No, there she is—lying on the ground beside the table. Her dress is askew, and her bouquet, which had been on the table beside her plate, lies scattered around her. She must have tripped
and fallen, just like Odelia predicted, although . . .

  I don’t feel as though my vision involves Johneen slipping or tripping and falling.

  The other guests, looking alarmed, are hurrying toward her as Parker flails and shouts.

  “Please, someone . . . help her!”

  But as Bella rushes to the stricken bride, she realizes it might already be too late.

  Johneen’s eyes are fixed on the stormy sky, and her lovely face is no longer pale.

  It’s blue.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Borne away on a stretcher within a few frantic minutes of Bella’s 9-1-1 call, Johneen Maynard is barely clinging to life.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Parker asked repeatedly in the rush to save her. “Is she choking?”

  It seemed the logical assumption. Frankie, well-trained in first aid as a coach, reached her stricken friend before Bella could get across the yard. She repeatedly tried the Heimlich maneuver to no avail, so switched over to CPR.

  The medics took over the chest compressions as they rushed her to the ambulance, and the panic-stricken groom rode off with them.

  As whirling red lights and sirens fade into the distance, Bella struggles to catch her breath. Her chest is tight with panic, her lungs filled with inexplicably floral-scented air.

  The guests, still clustered by the tables, appear shell-shocked by the catapult from joy to sorrow. Several of the women are weeping.

  Calla is not, though she’s clearly distressed. Her hair has fallen from its updo, and she’s leaning heavily on Blue Slayton’s shoulder.

  His expression is more thoughtful than disturbed. He’s absently stroking Calla’s hair, staring at the storm clouds mounting over the water.

  Odelia and Pandora aren’t teary-eyed either. The two women appear to have called a temporary truce and are whispering to each other. Like Calla and Blue, they seem to radiate a unique calm in the eye of this terrible storm.

  Is it because they’re Spiritualists? Do they react to matters of life and death differently because to them, there simply is no death? Certainly there’s a level of comfort in the idea that the soul survives.

  Plus, at least three of the four had premonitions that something might happen to Johneen, so unlike the rest of the group, they weren’t entirely caught off guard.

  As for the fourth . . .