Chapter 6 Tainted Love
TAINTED LOVE
Cosmo - Three Years Ago
Tapping the straw of his matcha milkshake, Cosmo stared at Déjà from across the diner booth. “I think my studio is haunted.”
“Hmm?” Déjà flipped open one of the funeral home brochures spread out on the table. She pursed her lips, her lipstick as dark and glossy as her Guiness-and-cocoa milkshake.
As incredible as it would be for Cosmo to bid goodbye to his old life from inside a silk-lined, mahogany casket, it was simply too expensive, and he’d already dropped a hundred dollars on the obituary.
Déjà pointed to a brochure. “I just had a thought. What about cremation instead? We can get an urn, and then instead of ashes inside, people can write down the things they most love about you and put them inside. Then whenever you’re feeling down, you can pull them out and read them.”
He grinned and clapped his hands. “I love that. But you didn’t hear what I said.”
“You can get an urn for like thirty bucks.”
Swiping away the brochures, he said, “I think my studio is haunted.”
Déjà chewed on her straw. “Of course it is. You live there. Cosmo the Flamboyant Ghost.”
“You don’t believe me.” He thought she of all people, with the ability to see auras, wouldn’t make fun of him for such an idea. “Right, so an urn. Do they come in red?”
“Hang on. You’re serious? What happened?”
A waitress in a car hop dress skated past with a tray of sodas. College students crowded the central counter, and someone at the jukebox started up a rockabilly version of “Walkin’ After Midnight.”
Cosmo slid into the other side of the booth beside Déjà and pulled his milkshake over.
“Things have been a little odd for a while now. I thought the voice I keep hearing, always on the phone with customer service or a hotline, was a neighbor. I’ve been playing music to drown him out.
But last night, I slipped on my bathmat and grabbed the shower curtain for leverage.
The whole thing ripped down, along with the shower caddy.
” He scrubbed at the sudden goosebumps on his arms. “When it happened, someone let out the most dreadful shriek from the front room.”
“You sure it wasn’t you shrieking?”
He licked whipped cream from his straw and turned up his nose.
“Fine. I suppose I’ll withhold details about the shadow and the footsteps in the hall because you don’t want to hear about my spooky new friend.
” The bathroom door had creaked open on its own, then a long silhouette drifted across the wall.
Cosmo had almost called Déjà then, but opted for crawling under the sheets and shielding himself with the stuffed alligator from the theme park.
Déjà collected the pamphlets, shuffled them, then slapped them back on the table. “They’re everywhere.”
“What are?”
“Ghosts.” Her teeth pressed into her bottom lip. “They’re in my apartment, they’re in yours. They’re in this soda shop.”
Cosmo stared. “Now this is more what I was expecting from you.”
She regarded him uncertainly, looked out the window, then pushed the brochures into a neat stack. “You don’t think it’s weird?”
“It’s very weird. Tell me more. Why would they haunt a soda shop? I mean, they do have incredible milkshakes, but… Do you think someone died in my studio?”
Her hands seemed to have taken on a nervous energy, fussing with the greasy salt and pepper shakers and laminated menus sitting askew in their rack.
She rescued one of the maraschino cherries from her milkshake’s wilting cream and bit it off the stem.
“They – they go wherever they want. It doesn’t mean they died there.
Sometimes they’re rowdy and people can hear and see them. ”
“But you see them all the time?”
“No. Just feel them. But I don’t… I don’t really want to talk about this. I’ve never told anyone.”
Déjà looked smaller than Cosmo had ever seen her, her shoulders hunched and fingers nervously picking at the corner of a brochure.
They were brochures for a party in his honor.
She was here for him, while struggling with something in secret.
Cosmo always garnered attention, but it wasn’t fair for his gravity to be sucking up all the focus of their friendship.
He patted her leg and said, “You are fascinating and lovely. And I’m a shit friend. I’m sorry that I’m not a safe enough space for you to share that kind of thing with me.”
“You’re always safe.” She gave him a squeeze. “And you’re not shit. I just never knew how to bring it up before, I guess.”
“You introduced yourself by telling me what colors my aura is made up of. If that’s not a weird ice breaker, I don’t know what is, and I knew then that we’d get along great.
I’m always here if you want to talk about this, and I promise I won’t judge.
” He waved a hand. “And even if the studio is haunted, it’s constituent to my upcoming party.
I haven’t even died yet, and I’m already hanging out with ghosts.
” He tugged on a curl. “I’m thinking of wearing a black veil. Is that gauche?”
Déjà’s pinched features softened. “Not nearly as gauche as painting your face white or wearing a bedsheet with eye holes cut out.”
“Ugh. How vulgar. Can you imagine?”
She stared out at the car-studded parking lot, a hand on her chin, as chatter and rockabilly music filled the space between them. When she turned back, she said, “Do you like Rye?”
“I prefer white to be honest.”
“You racist.”
“Hot and thick. Slathered in butter. I want to really be able to sink my teeth in.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Sounds kinky. Why don’t you invite me to these parties?”
“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 their essence.
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 about her budding 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 my ex-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.”