Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story (42 page)

Neil looked uncomfortable; he took a swig of his drink before he spoke. Emily had never heard Neil speak so candidly. This whole evening was full of surprises. “S.J. is famous for her mergers and acquisitions, insofar that she signs the talent then vivisects the band. Her
modus operandi
is to front the group, then go in for the kill and launch solo careers. I’ve seen her do it with her last several bands. It’s a pattern.”

“So you don’t trust her?” Christian leaned forward on the table.

“I don’t trust anyone in this business. Let’s just say I don’t care for her technique. I could be wrong in this case, but I never am.”

“Never?” Andrew asked, clearly intrigued by the content and tone of what Neil had just said.

“Only once.” Neil stared back at Andrew, his eyes a million miles away and yet totally focused on the young man that sat before him. “About a woman, actually, a very beautiful woman, but I get maudlin when I drink, so there.”

His eyes flashed to Emily, who knew he was thinking about his wife, and something inside of her wanted to reach out and take his hand.

“What I want to say to you gentlemen is that most of all, you need to do what feels right. Trust me, I know. This business has been in my blood since I heard my first live band. When I hear you play, I remember what I felt like back in London in the basement of that club, when I was younger than you are now. I’d forgotten that. You really don’t understand how great you are. It would be an honor for anyone to represent you. Just give yourselves a little more time before you make any commitments. You need to know who to trust.”

The band looked thoughtful and sat back in their chairs; the air around them seemed electric, alive with beginnings and fraught with peril.

“Whatever we do, we do it together, understood?” Andrew said. They all nodded. Without another word, the three of them held up their glasses and smashed them together.

“Okay, enough of this,” Christian cried. “Now let’s celebrate—Jesus, we’re going to be on the cover of
Rolling Stone
for fuck’s sake!”

“Waiter!” cried Andrew, laughing. “Another round!”

They all cheered and raised their glasses. “To The Lost Boys!”

By the time they staggered up their street, they were all pleasantly buzzed and singing at the top of their lungs. A few neighbors’ lights went on, and several dogs started to howl.

Christian howled in return. His arm hung over Zoey’s shoulder. She had a long-stemmed rose in her teeth, one of their winnings from the trivia contest.

Simon and Margot orbited each other. Simon eyed her over his glasses, shepherding her to stay on the sidewalk and not stray into the hedges and bushes that lined the road. Behind them, Neil held a bottle of wine, and although equally tipsy, he was definitely the adult supervision of the group. In the back of the pack, Andrew would stop Emily every few feet to kiss her and break into either laughter or song, using a Guinness bottle as a microphone.

They passed a tree, and before she could stop him, Andrew swung himself up into the branches.

“Andrew!” she hissed. “Get down! You’ll break your neck!”

“’T’ain’t my neck you should be worried about, darlin’.”

“Your hands then!”

“’T’ain’t me hands neither.”

“Why are you speakin’ Irish?”

“I was going for Scottish. Bugger.”

“Get out of that tree this instant, we’re losing them!” She pointed to the wayward party wobbling on ahead.

“Only if you promise me sometin’.”

“Anything, but please get out of the tree.”

A second later he began to climb dangerously higher and higher into the branches. Without warning, he sailed down the trunk with a whoop. She screamed.

His hand caught hold of a limb, and his face slung down inches from hers. She screamed again. “My ears, woman. Please. Now listen, I shall only get out of this shrub—”

“It’s a tree.”

“Whatever. I shall only get out of this tree-shrub if you promise me something. Else I’ll sit in here like I’m in bloody Greenpeace.”

“You’re insane, you know that? Yes, anything, what?”

“Marry me.”

Her heart skipped a beat, and she stared at his sloppy smile and tried not to laugh. “Didn’t we just—anyway, you cannot propose to me hanging from a tree.”

“Then I shall get down on one knee. See. There. Emily Thomas, would you do me the honor—aaaaahhh!”

In a flailing rush of leaves and flying arms, he fell off the branch and crashed into a bush below. White flowers exploded everywhere. She launched over to his prone body and tried to pull him out, but before she could find him in the darkened mass of greenery, two arms shot out and grabbed hold of her.

He rolled her out of the bush, over and over onto a lawn. Once she had caught her breath and stopped laughing, he stared down at her, and when he spoke, his voice was strangely hoarse and surprisingly sober. So sober, in fact, she wondered how drunk he really was.

“I love you, Emily.” His breath was uneven and tasted of barley, and his eyes glowed like the stars in the sky above him. “Marry me. Now, not later.”

She blinked back at him in shock. He probably wouldn’t remember a word of this tomorrow morning, she knew that, and for some inexplicable reason it made her want to cry. Swallowing down her hurt, she shimmied out from underneath him. Too overcome to say another word, she stumbled to her feet and, after a second, latched onto his hand and yanked as hard as she could. He staggered upright, crashing into her, his arms flailing around her waist.

“Easy there, cowboy. Let’s get you home.”

He began to sing as they hobbled along, and she blew the hair out of her eyes. Her mind raced in circles, wondering if his drunken proposal was how he truly felt, if those words were locked in his heart and he couldn’t find the courage to voice them earlier. And were they the words she truly wanted to hear but was too afraid to ask?

She hazarded another question, knowing that if he was indeed drunk, she wasn’t playing fair. “Andrew, why did you go on that train with Memphis?”

He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes and grinned. “I liked the chickens.”

“What the fuck?” Simon cried ahead of them.

A dilapidated Volkswagen minibus sat parked on the street in front of their house; its windows were fogged over and the sides dented. The bumper was held in place by a slew of stickers that read:
My other car is a broom,
Every day’s a holiday when you’re pagan!
and
Get a taste of religion. Lick a witch
.

Andrew and Christian started inventing their own sayings, causing the next-door neighbor’s dog to yowl, finally settling on
Something Wiccan this way comes
.

“That’s cleber,” Emily told them, beginning to feel the result of the countless drinks she’d ingested tonight, but still wanting an answer to her question.

“Berry, berry cleber. That’s why you love me,” Andrew replied.

“Berry, berry much.”

“Andrew,” Emily ventured, finding courage from God knows where, knowing she might never have another chance. “About what you said back there on the lawn, a little clarification would be nice—”

“Huh?” said Andrew, staring at their house. Candlelight was shining from the lower bay window. All at once, Emily got a sinking feeling in her spinning head that had nothing to do with alcohol.

The five of them tumbled up the stairs, and after much fumbling, Neil finally took hold of the keys and opened the door. He handed them back to Andrew who, with a growing sense of sobriety, quickly unlocked his front door and swung it open.

It was dark and difficult to see at first. The air was heavy with pot, but candles lit the room well enough to make out a series of shapes. Emily frantically pushed Zoey aside and approached a large table draped in a dark velvet cloth and covered with lighted tapers, chairs surrounding it. Three were occupied.

“Dwayne?” she stuttered, immediately recognizing the tattooed palm reader-security guard. “What are you doing here? Oh God.” She spun about, panicked. “Where’s Nora? Tell me you didn’t smoke Nora.”

Dwayne looked to either side, where Dinesh from the Columbarium and a man she didn’t recognize sat, and began to open his mouth. Suddenly, a beautiful woman stepped out from the shadows.

“Andrew,” she cried in greeting, arms outstretched.

“Mum?” Andrew stammered in disbelief.

“Mum?” Emily gasped. “Oh hell.” She tried to straighten her clothes and hair.

“C.C.?” Neil whispered. A look of amazement blanketed his face.

At the sound of his voice, Andrew’s mother stopped dead in her tracks. “Lainey.”

“C.C.?” Andrew did a double take between his mother and Neil.

“Lainey…” she said tentatively.

“Righteous!” Dwayne cried.

“What the hell are you people doing in my living room?” demanded Simon.

Thank God someone had a knack for the essentials.

18

“Y
O
, M
USE
-L
ADY
, Y
OU
live here too?” Dwayne crowed, stepping away from the candlelit table to greet Emily.

The rest of the crowd remained silent. The previous rapid fire greetings had rendered everyone slack jawed and speechless. Emily was most concerned about Andrew, not sure what he would say or how he would act given his current state of drunkenness, but the steady stare he leveled at his mother told her he might be far more sober than she suspected.

“Righteous seeing you again!” Dwayne beamed. “Imagine me standing in your living room when only a few days ago you were running up and down my al-ter-na-tive working establishment.” His mangy mop of hair bounced like a bobble-headed dashboard dog while he turned about, taking in the demolished state of the walls and ceiling before swinging his hazy focus back to her. “You’re looking better than the last time I saw you, I’ve got to say—had me kind of concerned there…still a little gnarly with the sticks in the hair and all, but who am I to judge, right?”

Her hands flew to her head, feeling the undeniable presence of twigs and blades of grass. Oh God, what must she look like?

“Hey, you ever find those ashes you were looking for?”

Nora! She had totally forgotten about Nora. The living room reeked with the smell of pot, and she panicked with the thought that her ashes might be burning, but then she remembered: Nora was safe on their fireplace mantle upstairs. A lungful of trapped air escaped her, and she stuttered a few unintelligible words, grappling with what she could possibly say to him.

Well, yes, Dwayne, I did in fact find Nora’s ashes, thank you very much. And I smuggled them out in the business end of your bong—hope you don’t mind.

From the foggy grin on his face though, Emily was fairly certain Dwayne didn’t miss his bong, as he was busy putting out a recently sparked doobie in his Starbucks cup. But what in the world was he doing in the middle of Andrew’s living room surrounded by his fellow baked comrades in the midst of what looked frighteningly like a séance? It was either that or the most bizarre Goth poker game ever.

“Emily…it’s Emily, right?” Dwayne asked her on the Q.T. with a whisper in her ear. “Which one of these amigos is named Andrew? Please tell me it ain’t John Lennon over there.” He gestured toward Simon, who had already lit up a cigarette. “Or is it the guy that came in with you to the shop? Now that would be totally awesome. The uptight English dude with the matching palm who owns, like…your soul? No offense, I’m talking, like, metaphysically.”

“Andrew?”

“Righteous.” Dwayne waved at Andrew in recognition, then looked back to her with a faraway glaze in his eyes. “Man, that’s one lucky bastard. I wish I had a woman who was put on this earth to be like my number one love slave. Imagine lifetimes of that shit. Yo, it must be like a supernova when you get it on. How do you stand it? Hard wired to want nothing but to sa-tis-fy…Listen, if you ever get tired of him, change your mind or anything, wanna branch out…”