"Are you about to tell a terrible joke?" I ask her, craning my neck for a cocktail server. Maybe alcohol will soothe the knot in my stomach.
"Nah." Kerrigan waves her hand. "I ran out of steam."
Cecily's parents and Duke arrive, and we finally get a round of drinks. Kerrigan tells everyone a ghost groped me, while Cecily and I make quick work of our blueberry mojitos. They are nowhere near as good as the first time we had them, but maybe it was the company that makes them better in my memory.
"At least the ghost was friendly," Duke jokes.
It's like we've switched places. Lacking a plausible explanation for the tightening around my throat, I now officially believe in occurrences of the supernatural kind. The Hamptons, excluding Cecily, believe I've brought brevity to their fear, and somehow it has reduced it.
I glance around the table at every face except for Ophelia and Cecily.I hope every one of you receives a visit from a dead woman of the night while you're sleeping.
Petty, but I don't care.
We catch the party bike in the street out front of the hotel. There are twelve seats, ten with pedals and a bench-style seat on the back meant for someone to ride but not pedal. Ophelia takes the seat, and the rest of us assume our positions around the bike. Much like the Road Kraken on the first day of our road trip, an employee of the party bike company tells us how to operate it, and then he leaves with a parting instruction to park the bike where it sits now and he will be there to pick it up when we're finished.
"When was the last time you rode a bike?" Cecily asks, daintily setting her feet on the pedals.
"Years," I answer, toeing a pedal and watching it spin.
"Same," she responds, pressing her palm on the wooden bar top running the length of the pedaler. "There are ice chests here," she says, pointing at the space in the center.
"I had them stock it for us," Ophelia says. "Figured I needed to get all of you liquored up before you sleep in a haunted hotel."
Cecily glances over her shoulder at me. I'm still rattled about what happened earlier, but the sight of Cecily leaning over and opening one of the ice chests makes for a great distraction. She's wearing a sweater similar to the one from our first date.
Cecily plunks hard seltzers in the drink cutouts in front of us. "Why are you looking at me like that?" She pops the top on her drink.
"I like what you're wearing. It reminds me of what you wore to Obstinate Daughter the first time we met."
Amusement trickles into her pretty brown eyes. "I can't believe you remember what I wore."
I reach for a strand of her hair, letting it slip through my fingers. "I remember everything about that evening."
A waving hand barges into our moment. "Hi, hello?" Kerrigan, of course. "Did I hear you say Cecily wore a sweater like this on your first date?" She pinches the fabric on Cecily's shoulder.
Cecily bats Kerrigan away, but Kerrigan isn't deterred. Her face lights up in triumph. "You wore a cardigan. You wore acardigan."
"Is it just me or is 'cardigan' starting to sound like a weird word?" Duke asks.
Kerrigan sits back, shaking her head at Cecily. "Cardigan," she repeats, stabbing the air between them. "I told you."
"What's the story here?" I ask. The bike begins to move, but I'm not pedaling.
"It's a long story," Cecily says.
Kerrigan leans on the counter to look at me. "I was right. The end."
"It would be great if you three would contribute to the operating of this bike." Duke's grimacing, speaking between clenched teeth.
Ophelia smacks the countertop. "Baby is a bitch to move. It's all hands on deck."
CHAPTER 52
Cecily
I'm not drunk,but I am most certainly not sober. We've hopped from bar to bar. Dom and I line danced at the first place, and then he played pool at the second place, pairing up with Duke against my dad and Rainbow, who shocked us all by being a shark. The third and final destination had trivia night. We split up into two teams. Dom, Kerrigan, Rainbow, and my mom. That left me with Duke, my dad, and Grandma. We were neck and neck until the end, when the topic was classic literature.
Dmitri, Ivan, and Alexei are the three familial title characters in what 1879 novel?
