“Because you don’t want my white bread.”
She snorted. “You’re right, I don’t. I love you, but I don’t want your baked goods.”
He smirked as he fished a thick curl of candied lemon peel from his milkshake. “Rye seems interesting. And as long as they’re good to you, I like them.” He wasn’t sure how much those words were worth when they were coming from him. He’d gone back to Zedd again and again. But it didn’t make them less true. Déjà too deserved someone to treat her like a queen.
“You haven’t told them about your ghost-sensing ability?” he asked.
“No! They love my art, but I don’t know how into me they are. And I don’t want to ruin it by revealing some morbid quirk about myself that I can’t shut off.”
“Darling, you paint still lifes of things that have no business being at a picnic. If Rye loves them – which they’d better because your work is fabulous – then I’m sure learning about this talent of yours isn’t going to faze them.”
The jukebox fell silent, and Déjà’s nails clicked against her milkshake glass, but most of her nervous energy seemed to have evaporated. She smiled and squeezed his hand. “You know, I don’t know why I built up this ‘talent’ so much in my head as a terrible thing I shouldn’t talk about, but I always thought if I told someone, they wouldn’t want to be around me anymore. I’m not sure about telling Rye, but I’m glad I told you. Thanks. Really.”
“We’re always getting in our own ways, aren’t we?”
“I can’t see the ghosts but often I” – she leaned back and looked at the ceiling – “I get an image that accompanies one. It’s never something I’ve seen in real life, but–”
“Your paintings.” The things sitting on the picnic cloths amid glossy fruits and wine glasses in Déjà’s still lifes had an unsettling organic quality, like something an untrained AI would render if asked to depict human organs. He shivered involuntarily. “Ghost picnics. I am thoroughly creeped out now, and I mean that in the best way! It’s marvelous. You’ve got to tell Rye.”
“No!”
“Have you even told them what colors their aura is?” The look on her face said that no, she hadn’t. He swiped a lock of hair from his eyes. “Next time you see them, lead with that. They’ll think nothing could be sexier than someone who can see not only who they are on the outside, but theiressence. And then when art comes up, you seduce them further with your inspiration for your paintings.”
She laughed. “No way. Not everyone has a hard-on for strange things.”
“But the people who matter do. And Rye had better. If they don’t, they’re no good for you anyway.”
They finished their milkshakes amid talk about Rye and the upcoming funeral party. When Cosmo mentioned that his sixty-year-old boss who maybe flirted with him on occasion was on the guest list, Déjà made no comment, which was a relief. He’d much rather talk aboutherbudding relationship than the shambles of his own love life.
He hugged her goodbye and drove home, absorbed with what candles would melt the prettiest on the steps of the abandoned church out on Cherry Lane.
Ximena, his landlady, stood beside the rose bushes at the edge of the parking lot. Wearing a sun hat and gardening gloves with a pinstripe dress and pearls was certainly a statement. As he parked and stepped out of the car, she shook a pair of pruning shears at him. “Mijo, that boyfriend of yours is sitting on your doormat bawling his eyes out. I told him you weren’t there, and that only made him cry harder. Please take him inside or get him to go away.”
Shit. Cosmo stared at the fleshy pink roses blooming on the bush beside Ximena, certain he could still taste petals in his mouth. He pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered under his breath. “He’s myex-boyfriend. And I do not want to deal with this.”
She snipped off a scraggly branch and tossed it onto a pile in the dirt. “Should I call maintenance to escort him away? Or the cops?”
“Cops? No, no. He just… He does this.”
Ximena put her hands on her hips. A grid of light filtered through her sun hat and onto her irritated expression. “My ex was the same. I got a restraining order. Best decision I ever made.”
Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. He said, “I’ll keep it in mind. Love your look today, by the way. Very nineteen-fifties Better Homes & Gardens.”
Her gaze slid down his body, and she wrinkled her nose. Today he was wearing green hotpants, a crushed velvet sport jacket, and chunky glass earrings shaped like lemons. “Er, thank you.”
She didn’t want his compliments. Fine. He headed past her and climbed the stairs. Hoarse sobs drifted from the second level. Zedd sat on the welcome mat in ripped jeans and motorcycle boots, his cheek pressed against Cosmo’s door. Tears and snot ran down his face, and he clutched a striped sweater in a white-knuckled grip. So that’s where that went.
Cosmo stopped at the mat, jaw clenched. “Go away.”
Zedd looked up. His breath ratcheted, coming in wet gasps, and his whole body quaked. Though his throat worked, no sound came out. Dropping the sweater, he snatched the lapels of Cosmo’s jacket and bawled into his stomach. “I thought you were dead!”
“Not until next week.”
Wiping his nose on his sleeve, he said, “But the obituary. I couldn’t believe it, but – but I went to your gallery and your boss said it was real.”
Props to Royce for getting in the spirit, but the obit wasn’t supposed to be printed until Friday,afterCosmo had passed out party invitations. “The obituary was in the paper?”
“On their website. Juan saw it and texted me. I don’t understand. Is it some kind of performance art?”
