After hauling the giant stuffed alligator out the door, Cosmo punted it over the balcony railing. It bounced off a rose bush, then rolled into the parking lot.
Tears needled his eyes, but he sucked them back. He was not crying over this fool again. Zedd wasn’t average, but he wasn’t any good either, and Cosmo was an idiot in a haunted studio, clinging to love that didn’t exist.
He grabbed his phone, his keys, and the pizza, and hurried down to his car. Zedd was pulling on his shoes, but he abandoned one and strode towards him. Cosmo jumped into the car, put it in drive, and hit the gas. It lurched onto the sidewalk and Zedd leapt away, cursing. The car thumped over the stuffed alligator. Cosmo backed over it, then peeled out of the parking lot.
7
DEAD MAN’S PARTY
Cosmo - Three Years Ago
Soulful synthesizer filled the church. Candles twinkled from windowsills, orange light bobbing against cloudy, cracked panes. Spiderwebs fluttered in the draft like confetti streamers. Holes gaped in the roof, and pigeons lurked in the rafters. It had taken some scrubbing to get rid of the worst of the bird droppings, but Cosmo didn’t mind the slightly decrepit ambiance.
Between Mom insisting on decorating, and friends handing out invitations and even moving things out of his apartment, he felt utterly useless. His attempts to help had been swatted away because Déjà said dead people weren’t in charge of hosting their own funerals. Luckily, he’d prepped all of the food in advance before anyone could take the task from him.
He hadn’t planned on moving, and he’d had to break his lease to do so. It was easy to explain it as just another part of his mission to bid farewell to his old life, andnotbecause he was terrified of living in a studio with a ghost who liked to sneak up behind him in the bathroom.
Stevie hammered the keyboard beneath water-warped prints of the Virgin Mary. The funeral music dissolved into an enthusiastic rendition of “Tainted Love.” Bless her.
“There are spirits here, yes?” Cosmo didn’t mind – he expected it, really – as long as none of them followed him home like lost puppies.
“Yeah.” Déjà tied red strands of confetti to the bare curtain rods over the windows. Chains with moon phase charms jangled on her netted headdress. “But here, more than usual.”
“Rowdy ones?”
“No. They seem quite at peace.”
That was a nice thought. If he died and had the ability to haunt people, he absolutely would, but peaceful ghosts seemed like appropriate guests for his send off to his new life.
Cosmo set his urn on a pedestal at the head of the room, then turned it until the little placard with his name on it was facing forward. Flower-laden photos of him on easels flanked the urn. “I’m half-expecting the ghost from my studio to appear in a pew during our party. Do you thinkhe’sat peace?”
Déjà set a jar of pens and a tray of paper strips next to the urn. “No. He made noise and opened doors and touched you. He’s rowdy. The rowdy ones aren’t at peace, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing that.”
She said she didn’t know how she knew these things, but that they were true. Cosmo didn’t question it. He was grateful she was opening up to him at all about it. Some things you couldn’t keep bottled inside, and you needed the right friend to tell them to. Déjà had been that person for him many times, and it was long overdue for him to return the favor.
Something tugged on Cosmo’s veil, and he gasped, imagining the bespectacled phantom from his studio pulling it off his head.
“Hold on, girlfriend. You’re going to rip it.” Déjà held him steady and plucked the veil free. “Snagged on a splinter. Everything here is splinters.”
“A waist-length veil was maybe not the best choice, but the short ones didn’t drape right over my hair.” And how was he supposed to appear spectral if his veil looked like a napkin he’d placed on his head?
A full moon charm waggled between Déjà’s painted-on eyebrows as she adjusted his halo of a headband. She stepped back and smiled. “I hope we all look so good when we move on.”
He hadn’t told her about sleeping with Zedd. When he’d arrived at her apartment, she’d chalked up his emotional state and his refusal to return to the studio to being touched by the ghost. The truth itched on the tip of his tongue, but there wasno point to speaking it. He’d thrown Zedd out, changed his number, and wasn’t going to give him an ounce of his thought ever again. It was Cosmo’s funeral, but Zedd was the dead one.
Mom approached with a sack hemorrhaging Halloween garland. Metallic orange jack-o’-lanterns winked amid black tinsel, and thick clots of faux cobwebs were stuck to some of it. It looked like something she’d pulled out of the storage unit. He could clearly picture her digging through tangles of Christmas lights and glittery craft stick ornaments he’d made as a kid, looking for decor that paired with her only child’s funeral party. Getting interrupted by that nosy neighbor – what was her name? – and Mom listening politely with her jacket pulled tight around her.
Did she keep her erotic sapphic paintings in the storage unit? Cosmo could only imagine the look on the neighbor’s face if she happened to see them while Mom was looking for decorations.
After brushing a stray curl from her face, Mom fished inside the bag of the garland, and even though Cosmo didn’t want the church to look like a suburban haunted house, if she wanted to put it up, he wasn’t going to stop her.
She pulled out a cardboard box and handed it to him. “There’s another in here.”
He prized open the lid, revealing a ceramic skull with an open top, a candle holder nestled in the bottom.
Mom retrieved a second one and poked her fingers through the eye sockets. “When the candle inside melts, the wax runs through the holes and makes it look like it’s crying. Which is more sad than grotesque, but I figured with your artwork…” She shrugged.
“Oh, how fun. They’re very cute. I’m sure we have candles in here that will fit.”
