Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story (22 page)

“Sweet girl.” His lips brushed hers. “Don’t.”

“Why were you here?” she asked as he began to nibble on her earlobe, causing her to sigh softly.

“I went to pursue you.”

Her senses were on fire with the scent of him in this tiny space, sweaty, musky, all sunlight in the woods. He snaked his arms around her neck and kissed her. She tasted him, wanting him to be real. Here, alive, and now—just as Nora had said.

“Andrew,” she managed to say, the thought of Nora grounding her back in reality and making her aware that if she didn’t do something soon, a second later they would most assuredly be naked and making wild love in a five-by-five yellow plastic house. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to bundle me off to some mental hospital?”

“They’re nasty places—” his lips drifted to her temple “—and the food is for shit.”

She laughed in his arms and forced herself to concentrate, not be swept away. “I saw Nora.” His lips didn’t stop. She went on. “The ghost that lives in our house.” She could feel him smile at the word “our.”

“Yes?”

Leaving out the details of the hidden passageway and her midnight voyeurism, she told him about her recent experiences with Nora.

Andrew paused his kissing. He drew back, his face surreal in this small space, unshaven as it was, with eyes that glimmered as his sharp intelligence crept back into them. “What do you suppose it means?”

“I don’t know, but I feel beholden in a weird way, like I’m supposed to help her. Like I was meant to help her—help them. I just can’t sit by and watch them pine away like that. I know it sounds ridiculous. A few weeks ago I wouldn’t have believed it, but I believe it now, don’t you?”

Andrew studied her for a long while. “Perhaps we should scour the house a bit more. There may be something of them left behind. I suppose I should ask Nick about it, as well.”

“You…you saw Nick? When?”

“Who do you think supplied the party favors—and the music for that matter?”

She stared at him in shocked disbelief. “So what does this make us then? The next Nick and Nora, off together to solve the mystery? All we need is a wire-haired terrier and we’re set, although I think it was a schnauzer in the book, right? But I forgot, she really doesn’t care for dogs.” She laughed, only to notice that he hadn’t. Oh Lord, she thought, nothing like plowing into commitment before they even had their first date. She felt herself turn crimson and wanted to melt through the plastic floor.

“Look at me, Emily.” She refused, swallowing down the knot in her throat. “Emily.” Andrew raised her face to his. “I’m not playing here, just so you know. Rather fond of you, if you haven’t noticed.”

Still avoiding his gaze, she quipped, “Here I thought you were showing appreciation to your fans.”

Andrew’s fingers brushed back the hair that had fallen in her face. “Evidently you weren’t listening. You heard what that man told us: you’re my slave, my concubine…my lover.” He drew out each word seductively as his finger brushed along her bottom lip. “My lover. My lover. My—” His last words were smothered by her lips.

“Your muse,” she sighed, her mouth on his neck, her teeth grazing the corded muscles there. Andrew groaned and clutched her hair in his hand when suddenly he stilled, as if her words had finally registered in his mind.

His muse.
All her hopes and fears were exposed in that one sentence, bounding around those little plastic walls. Her stomach clenched. Logically she knew there was no room in a love affair for three people, and if Andrew still longed for his old girlfriend, she needed to know where she stood before she went on. But emotionally she had laid all her chips on the table and was scared to death.

“Sorry. Didn’t want to bring up the past,” she blurted out, trying to keep her voice as business-like as possible. “It’s just that, you see, I’m sort of fond of you myself, and I don’t share very well.” Nora’s words resounded in her head.
Take no prisoners
.

“Look, I understand you’re only here for a while. You’re a musician after all, you live on the road, right? But I don’t want to be a fling, I don’t fling very well, either. I don’t have flingy parts. All I’m asking for is honesty. It’s kind of mandatory for me. So if you’re still in love with someone, that’s okay, I don’t want to take away your memories. But I won’t be a consolation prize. I need to matter. I need us to matter.”

Andrew didn’t say anything. He just stared at her. He came closer, the energy pouring off of him, burning the air around them like the moment on the stage when he had shouted after her. She felt the danger in him and it thrilled her—as she was sure it thrilled all the women who heard him play, as she was sure it had thrilled his muse. But she needed to know, she needed to hear him say it.

He cupped her face in his hands. “You matter, Emily, more than you could possibly comprehend. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. I want to be here. I’ve wanted to be here for a long time. A bloody long, long time.” He kissed her, a kiss a soul could drown in, and rested his forehead on hers. She could feel his heart beat against her chest.

“Me too,” she whispered back.

It wasn’t the answer she wanted, but it was the answer she needed. She might not be this muse of Andrew’s, even if the palm reader had told her so, but he did care—she knew that, she could feel that. She had asked Andrew for honesty, which he had given. What more could she expect? They had only just met, and somehow she knew that muse was a once in a lifetime title; perhaps it had just skipped this particular lifetime.

“Hey, mister,” a tiny voice barked from below. “You gonna be in there all day?”

Andrew smiled. She dropped her head and laughed softly against his chest. Her emotions were still so raw she didn’t know what to say. Her stomach, however, decided it for her and growled loudly. He chuckled at the sound, his lips pressed in her hair.

“So, where can a girl get some breakfast around here?” she asked. “I’m starving.”

“Funny you should mention that. I know this great place, a little rustic, but the music is really first class.” He hugged her to him, brushing his fingers against her cheek one last time.

11

N
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EEMED
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OTICE
Andrew and Emily’s entrance into the kitchen with the exception of Zoey, who looked up at them from the table with a shrewd smile.

As Andrew slinked to the sink for a glass of water, he passed Simon silently lording over the stove. The letters on his fingers stood out as he clenched the spatula. He had added a fishing hat to his earlier wardrobe of a faded
Che Guevara for Pope
T-shirt and camouflage jeans.

“You’re looking mighty keen, Paulie. Have a nice run, did you now? We were going to send a search party for the both of you.”

“Bugger off.”

Margot stood by the stove next to Simon, her arms folded over her starched white shirt as she inspected his progress.

“It’s all in the wrists,” Simon told her nonchalantly as he flipped a crepe high into the air. “You should really cook them on the bottom of the pan, but it’s quicker this way. Care to have a go?”

“I don’t cook.”

Simon ignored her and covered her hand with his, catching a crepe as it flashed in the air before them. She yelped in surprise.

Simon steadied her. “Nothing to get nervous about. If you drop it, I’ll make more.”

Her pale lips disappeared as she concentrated on flipping the crepe onto a plate on her own. “So, you really think Plisko has a leg to stand on?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You’re a smart girl, you know why. But as my aunt used to say, ‘you need to build a bridge and get over it, love.’ No one’s ever one hundred percent spot-on about anything, or anyone for that matter. That’s the nature of experimentation. You try and you fail, and you try again. It’s definitely the nature of cooking…you’ll want to save that one before it burns.”

She rescued the crepe, removing it from the pan with a good deal of determination. Simon nodded at her and began to crack eggs. “So. What are you up to this week?”

“I…I have a papers that need grading, and I’m going out to Berkeley to do some research on the ATA.”

“The Allen Telescope Array?” Simon asked, whisking the eggs in a bowl and handing it to her.

“Yes,” she answered after a moment’s hesitation.

“The one where they’re partnering with SETI?”

“How did you…how do you…Well, yes. I’m going to be using the telescopes on campus, but I got lucky and pulled the graveyard shift, three a.m. It’s when we’ll have a stellar view of Jupiter. Would you like to see it?” Margot ventured. “I can bring guests.”

“I don’t know. If we’re going at three a.m., I’d think you might be trying to get flirty with me.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. Strictly professional.”

“Then what’s the point?”

Margot peered toward the stove with the hint of a smile. “Your eggs are burning.”

The rest of breakfast passed in a limbo of silence. In the shifting sands of relationships, there was no traction to begin any conversation. Salt and pepper were passed, the butter dish made the rounds, and coffee was poured before Zoey asked, “So Emily, how about you? What will you be doing this week?”

“I’m ghost hunting,” she answered without hesitation.

The entire table went silent.

“What Emily is trying to say is that she is researching the history of the previous tenants of this house to discover how it may be relevant to the occurrences of disruption over the recent past, and she’s going to publish the results as the final paper in her psychology class,” Andrew explained, trying to gloss over the essentials lest they think both of them were lunatics.

“Ghost hunting? Does finding Nick in the bathtub count?” Christian asked.

“There was a ghost taking a bath in your flat?” Zoey’s mouth didn’t shut, but stayed in a shocked “O.”

“Nah, he was dressed in this kick-ass suit and sipping a martini.”

Andrew dropped his head into his hands. So much for subtlety.

“But I thought, I thought you were just making it all up about this Nora person?”

“She is a ghost. Was a person. I think she’s sensitive to such things,” Emily corrected her. She proceeded to describe to an astounded crowd her experience with Nora in the park.

“This is so cosmically relevant. Can you imagine, torn from being with the one you love? How do I help? Where do I sign up? Christian, you have to get involved in this with your aunt’s voodoo shop and all, baby,” Zoey said and clutched his hand in hers.

“Her place basically sold antiques, chere. Silver, jewelry—”

“Shrunken heads,” Simon commented with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, I could probably use the extra manpower. We’ll need to search the house for what might have belonged to them, anything that may have been left behind—diaries, letters, newspaper articles, anything that might help us in understanding their history. I’ll see what I can find online too, and I suppose if all else fails, we search the city.”

“So let me get this straight,” asked Margot, clearly not convinced yet. “You’re going to tell your professor, who happens to specialize in debunking anything related to the supernatural, that you’re writing about reuniting the ghosts of lost lovers by finding a dead body and solving the mystery of their separation?”

“Yes.”

“Are you out of your mind? He’s going to fail you.”

“But just think what he’d do if I could actually get some real data for once.”

“It’ll be the first time grave robbing is part of field study,” Simon pointed out.

“What?” Emily turned to the solemn faced drummer.

“No, he’s right,” said Margot. “According to your friendly ghost friend, you’ll have to first steal her ashes from the Columbarium, a huge basilica loaded with thousands of crypts, which is ludicrous in and of itself. And don’t forget that the other remains could be who the hell knows where. Either way, you’ll be plundering one grave at the least, which is, if I’m not mistaken, a criminal offense. And are you even sure this’ll work? Jesus, I can’t believe I’m actually having this conversation. Ghosts. This makes no sense whatsoever. And what about Vandin?” Margot pressed.

“I’m not sure how I’m going to present it yet, but I have a meeting scheduled with him.”

“When?” Andrew asked.

“Next week. I can’t remember, exactly.”

Andrew could tell she was lying. Had she even made an appointment yet? Despite her evident independence, this was one thing he wasn’t thrilled about her doing on her own, and he made a promise to himself that he would be conveniently sitting outside Vandin’s open office door during that meeting. There was no way he was going to allow her to be alone with him, not after what he had witnessed in his classroom.

“So when do we start?” Zoey asked.

“Finish your brunch first,” Margot told her with a disgusted shake of her head and flipped a crepe onto her plate.