Chapter 7 Dead Man’s Party
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, and not because 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 think he’s at 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 was no 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.”
He started to turn for the bags of decor clustered beside a collapsed pew, but the church door creaked open, and Royce walked inside. He put his hands behind his back the way he did when surveying Cosmo’s installation work in the gallery, then nodded approvingly.
He stopped before Cosmo. His silky charcoal tie was patterned in black embroidered paisleys. And it was crooked. “There’s the man of the hour. You look like a gothic bride.”
“Thank you.”
“And where’s the groom?”
Déjà grunted and threw Royce a glare. She protectively linked her arm in Cosmo’s. “That position isn’t available.”
“Ah. Then are you a friend? Or a friend?”
“None of your business.”
Cosmo glanced at Mom, intent to put this conversation to rest before anything mortifying came out of someone’s mouth, but Royce said, “It is my business when Cosmo’s romantic affairs seem to infiltrate the gallery on a regular basis.”
Good heavens. That wasn’t true; Zedd had only shown up the one time, but once was bad enough. “Déjà has been my best friend since Art History 101. You met her at the Night Gallery afterparty, remember?”
“My attention must have been elsewhere,” Royce said.
“Yeah, on Cosmo.” Déjà squeezed his arm. “Because he’d been drunk on champagne, and you probably thought there was an opportunity to–”
Cosmo put up his hands. “We’re going to start soon. Royce, be a love and dump the ice into the coolers, please. The tiny wines need to be chilled. Déjà, some of the candles have gone out. Can you relight them?”
Royce headed to the hors d’oeuvres table and ripped open a bag of ice. Déjà pursed her lips, adjusted Cosmo’s veil, then pulled a lighter from her pocket.
Now he needed something for Mom to do that was out of earshot of anything else potentially embarrassing. People from different social circles mixing was a point of awkwardness he hadn’t considered when planning this thing. And being alive for your own funeral meant you were witness to it.
Mom took the skull votive from his hands and headed toward a bare windowsill beside the drink cooler.
She touched Royce’s shoulder and said something.
When he turned to her, she smiled that tight smile she got when she wasn’t sure if someone was friend or foe.
Cosmo wiped his hands down his face. It was too bad he didn’t have that casket, because there was a good chance he would prematurely expire if this kept up.
Well, it was his party; he could die if he wanted to.
More people filtered in – art colleagues, old coworkers, people from parties, cousins, friends-of-friends, and even that girl from the coffee shop down the block. He couldn’t remember inviting some of them, but that was okay. There weren’t a lot of sturdy pews, but still plenty of places to sit.
A curvy Black person with a short, fluorescent orange afro approached, their hair color a sharp contrast to the muted church walls. They looked like a model for a commercial where the product wasn’t even shown, but whatever they were selling, you needed it before it sold out.
“Hello, Rye,” Cosmo said.
“Hey. Pretty sure I’ve been to all of the same parties you have in the last year,” they said. “This is by far the most incredible, and it hasn’t even started yet. Did you have to clean up a lot of trash to get this place ready?”
“There were some beer bottles and a couple junkie needles, but it was practically untouched. No one comes in here because it’s haunted, you know.” He paused. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Yes.” They whispered the word as if saying it any louder might summon one, but their eyes glittered. “I’m drawn to all of that paranormal stuff.”
He’d thought so. “Isn’t it thrilling to be able to experience something past your notions of the world? To touch beyond that barrier, even in a small way.” He brushed back his veil, then gripped Rye’s jacket and leaned in, hoping his face looked pained. “Rye…”
Rye frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Rye…” Cosmo gasped and let his knees buckle enough to tip Rye off balance and make them lean closer. “You– You have to do something for me. It’s my last wish as – as I leave this mortal coil.”
They scoffed, the concern in their eyes replaced with amusement. “I guess I can’t refuse that.”
Cosmo clawed at Rye’s jacket. “It’s Déjà. You must…”
At the mention of Déjà, Rye straightened and glanced around the room. “Yeah?”
“You must give her the love she deserves.”
Their eyes bulged. “Is it that obvious that I like her?”
“Yes. And she wants you too.”
“She does?”