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“The ‘mesmerist/tarot reader’ who offers palm readings for five dollars from her den?”
“That’s the one. She does a special course of ‘Smoke-Free Sessions.’ It’s five hypnosis sessions for two hundred and fifty dollars. Pricey, but it’s done the trick.”
Mama Ginger had left at least two packs of Revlon-stained cigarette butts in her wake every day since I’d known her. In fact, she once lit up in the middle of her annual physical, right after her doctor told her that she was at risk for seven kinds of cancer. People take bad news in different ways.
I could only guess that the faint cigarette smell still lingering on Mama Ginger was nicotine that had seeped into her DNA.
“I’m chewing this silly gum.” She sighed, rolling up her sleeve to show me a nicotine patch on her arm. “And I only smoke after meals, but really, I’m feeling much better. I can walk all the way to the mailbox without a break.”>Unless you have some sort of psychic ability, ghosts decide when they want you to see them. Which is good, because I don’t think I’d want to walk around seeing dead people on every corner. Just when Jettie had decided to let Gabriel see her, she was seeing a whole lot of him. Ever poised, he wrapped an afghan around his waist and held a perfectly civil conversation with her. The utter mortification forced me to block most of it from memory. I know she brought up the phrase “steam cleaning” a lot.
Gabriel promised to call and made himself scarce. There was practically a Gabriel-shaped hole in the door.
“Where have you been?” I asked her, hands on bare hips. “I haven’t seen you for four days. And then you just waltz in without so much as a how do you do? Am I going to have to ground you to get you to spend time with me? It’s that boy you’ve been seeing, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jettie huffed. “Your grandpa Fred is becoming an ass in his post-old age. We spent the last three days fighting. Do you know how difficult it is to win a conversation with a man who no longer fears death?”
I nodded. “As a matter of fact, yes, I do.”
“If we’re going to talk about boys, can we discuss the fact that Gabriel only wears pants on every other visit here?” Jettie asked.
“No. Instead, I will change the subject and announce to you that there is a new potential addition to Half-Moon Hollow’s ghostly population. Grandpa Bob died on Tuesday. Grandma Ruthie said there was some sort of medication mix-up.”
“The hell there was.” Jettie cackled. “Fred says it’s all over the golf course. Bob Jessup died because he couldn’t quite make out the dosage on his ‘little blue tablets,’ and he took too many. Apparently, it was their anniversary, and Bob wanted to rise to the occasion.”
“Oh … oh, just, oh.” I shuddered, clapping my hand over my lips. “I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. Is Bob still wandering around out there?”
“Oh, no, he’s moved on. He just made a quick stop at his son’s house to say good-bye. He happened to run into Sago Raines, who’s been haunting the place for years. They talked for a bit before he went into the light. Sago was down at the golf course spreading the news faster than you can say ‘erectile dysfunction.’ “
“Lalalalalalala.” I sang, pressing my hands over my ears, but even that couldn’t keep me from hearing her.
“I just wish I could get to Ruthie long enough to tell her every dead soul in the Hollow knows her dearly departed had to have pharmaceutical help to—”
“Enough!” I cried. “First, you and Grandpa Fred, and now—just enough. I’d pierce my own eardrums, but they would just grow back.”
“Ageist.” Jettie sneered.
“Exhibitionist,” I retorted.
“I don’t think you can afford to throw any naked stones here, pumpkin.”
I nodded. “Touché.”
4
Because of the lifelong mating urge, werewolves do not adjust well to being widowed. In some cases, a surviving mate will die of mourning pains.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
Perhaps sensing that Bob’s could be her last grand-dame funeral, Grandma Ruthie wanted to bury Bob in style. NATO summits were less tense than the planning of this shindig. Bob’s adult children claimed that Bob, an avid fisherman, wanted to be cremated with half of his ashes spread into Lake Barkley and the other half interred with his late first wife. Grandma Ruthie, incensed that she might be upstaged, insisted that Bob’s intact remains be buried adjacent to her “compound” of husbandly burial plots down at Oak View Cemetery. She made such a scene at the funeral home that Bob’s shell-shocked offspring let her have her way, plus total control of the funeral program from the “Amazing Grace” opener to the “It Is Well with My Soul/Old Rugged Cross” closing medley.
There was only one place to host this weird-ass parody of grief: Whitlow’s Funeral Home, where Grandma Ruthie had been mourning husbands since 1957. In fact, three generations of Whitlows had helped Grandma Ruthie bury her spouses. And apparently, none of them knew anything about decorating. Honestly, who finds dark wood paneling, blue velvet upholstery, and 3-D pictures of Jesus comforting?
With her “frequent flyer” status, Grandma Ruthie was treated like a queen from the moment she walked in the door. She never settled for the rattling Coke machine and sprung couch in the sadly worn family lounge. When the stress of public mourning became too much to bear, Grandma Ruthie retreated to the senior Mr. Whitlow’s private office, where he stocked her favorite brand of butter cookies and an ample supply of bottled sweet tea. Membership has its privileges.
Visitations were held on the evening before the burial, giving the community the chance to offer condolences to the bereaved and give their real opinion of the deceased outside the bereaved’s earshot. Grandma Ruthie was ensconced in the front row of the chapel, sending petulant looks at Bob’s children. She was still pouting over their last-minute refusal to let her take over the memorial video or the photo board. Somehow, they seemed insulted that Grandma wanted to focus on the last five years of Bob’s life, omitting his first marriage to their late mother and the existence of his children and grandchildren. She did get her vengeance by making a memorial Wheel of Fortune puzzle board spelling out “Ruthie Loves Bob” and putting it in the lid of his casket. Bob was a huge Wheel fan.
Based on the craftsmanship, I suspected my sister, Jenny, had a hand in this.
Grandma Ruthie simply did not understand why she was not being given the authority and respect due a widow. She claimed to have given Bob some of the happiest years of his life. The fact that Bob had been unconscious or hospitalized for most of that time seemed irrelevant.
