For a few seconds silence found me again and then the parting of lips.
“You’ll be fine, Eunice. We’ll both be fine.”
“Well,” she said once more. “Unless your back goes out!”
Hushed laughter, heads bent close together.
“Stay with me tonight, Burgess?” she whispered. “So we can…practice.”
The wooden floor creaked with footsteps, and then all was quiet again.
“Jesus,” I said, and it was a prayer, a call for help. I was sending Guido up if neither of them came down by ten in the morning.
“That’s nice,” Scarlett muttered in her sleep and patted my cheek.
Before I could overthink the situation, the door jiggled once again and Maggie Beautiful flew through it. She was giggling because she’d had to shove it to get it to open, and she almost fell over. Aberto was quiet.
Clouds of hard liquor lingered in the air. Winter seemed to cling to their clothes, dispersing once their bodies were fully inside.
“Brr!” Maggie Beautiful seemed to shiver. “Itiscold! I wonder if the kiddos are up?”
“Not down here,” Aberto said.
“Maggie Beautiful,” I whispered.
A few seconds of silence.
“Is that a ghost? Can you hear it too, Berto? These houses are so old. There’s no telling what happened here! I can hear youuu,” Maggie Beautiful whispered back. “What do you want me to know?”
“You got flowers,” I whispered.
She sucked in a breath. “You hear that, Berto? I got flowers!”
“Yes.” She received a pity pat. “I heard.”
Click. Click. Click.Maggie Beautiful tapped her heel against the floor.
“Did I get flowers?” she asked. “Or do you want me to bring some to your grave?Oh! Were you poisoned? Did someone put poisonous flowers in your food?”
“The flowers are on the table by the front door.”
Click. Click. Click. Click.Her steps were almost hard, rushed.
“Did you do this?” she almost screeched at Aberto. “Is this some kind of a joke?”
“No—I ah, I did not send them.” His voice came out cool, but his words were rushed.
Before I could rise, in a sort of suspended slow motion, a glass vase flew over the sofa. There was barely enough time for me to cover Scarlett’s head before it connected with the wall and shattered in a bevy of sharp fragments.
Scarlett shot straight up. “I didn’t squeegee!” she shouted. Then she blinked a few times, bringing reality into focus.
I picked a daisy off my head, throwing it to the floor. Flower water had wet my hair and soaked my shirt.
Maggie Beautiful walked in circles. She couldn’t seem to stop. “Who sent them?” she screamed at me.
“What’s going on?” Scarlett asked. Noticing the glass shards all over the floor, she tiptoed around the mess and came to stand beside me. “Maggie Beautiful? What’s the matter?”
“Some sick joke! That’s the matter. This is not funny. Not funny at all!”
