16
It’s cool to contact the dead, but crucial to connect with the living.
Jules could always count on Vicky to knock sense into her, whether intentionally or not. Sitting alone in a garden, at three
in the morning, waiting for a chance encounter without a can of pepper spray, was a ludicrous idea. Her overprotective mother
would’ve cautioned against it. But as soon as they piled into Leo’s sports car, doubts crowded her mind. Go and connect with
the living or stay and contact the dead? The debate raged on. Even as they cruised ahead, the long strings of guilt pulled
her back.
The drag show was long over when they arrived at the club Sebastien had chosen, but a queen would host a private karaoke party
for a fee. Leo was greeted as a hero when he ordered the mandatory round of drinks. Cher was their host for the hour. Rather
than take turns at the mic, Sebastien, Matty, Vicky, and Ayesha all rushed the stage. Together they belted one disco anthem
after another. Cher, in a spot-on Bob Mackie re-creation, all beads and feather trim, dragged Leo onto the dance floor to
join her in the shuffle or whatever other dance moves John Travolta had perfected in Saturday Night Fever.
Jules watched the scene play out from a corner.
A veil separated her from the others. Her friends laughing, stumbling, singing “Hot Stuff.” Leo looking handsome on the neon-drenched dance floor, his dark hair stained red and blue.
Everyone, Cher included, looked a little frayed at the edges but not him.
He looked vibrant. He could dance the night away or debate H.
P. Lovecraft’s patchy legacy or complete a crossword puzzle on the spot.
She was so busy admiring him that she missed when the music and the singing and the dancing stopped. Leo crossed the dance
floor, coming straight at her, sure-footed, focused, tearing down the veil on his way. Jules panicked and retreated. It was
stupid, but she’d never seen the man so determined. He caught up with her and said, “Follow me.”
He didn’t leave it to chance. He took her arm and led her out a door marked Exit. It opened to a dim stairwell. She wouldn’t
have felt safe with any other person but him.
“What’s troubling you?” he asked.
“Nothing!” she replied. “I’m—”
“Let me guess,” he interrupted. “You’re tired. You have a headache.”
“All of the above,” she said.
“Once more,” he said, gravel-voiced. “What’s troubling you?”
“What do you want, Leo? For me to spill my guts to you?”
“I’m asking a simple question,” he said. “Are you in trouble? Is it serious?”
She broke out in a cynical laugh. The effort to pull it off made her waver. Leo moved her away from the open mouth of the
stairs and waited until she was steady on her feet. With his hands on her hips, she suddenly felt less safe.
“Leo, I’m fine. I promise.”
“Every look you give me might as well be an SOS signal,” he said. “You’re hurting. Do you expect me to turn a blind eye?”
“So what? If someone is having a bad day, you leap in and demand they explain themselves?”
“You’re not just having a bad day, and you’re not just anyone.”
Who had he made her out to be? She was a mess, a wreck, yet she’d rather die than have him sign on as her caretaker. Besides, he couldn’t help her. He couldn’t crawl inside her and separate her left brain from her right, her good sense from whatever was preying on it.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Make me.”
Why not tell him? The load was heavy, and she was exhausted from carrying it. And maybe the thing to do was dump it on someone
else, watch what they did with it. She decided against it. Leo had been clear from the start. He didn’t believe in the afterlife.
Their destiny was to become compost. If she went on about visions of a ghost in the garden, he’d never look at her the same
way again. Hosting a séance in his hotel room was one thing. If anything, it was a story to tell his friends or material for
a novel. No. What he wanted was the cool, the mysterious July Levy Jones, a character she’d created, not the wreck that she
was becoming. For him, she could put on an act. She could play that role.
Jules spilled onto Leo like water, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He could touch her, feel her body, but
no more than that. Leo kissed her as if he’d be the last to ever do it, no other lover, no one else. Not a tough act to follow,
but the finale.
They stumbled and she pinned him against the wall.
Oh, this was fun! She had the upper hand, and while she privately celebrated, Leo outmaneuvered her.
He unbuttoned her shirt and bit her through the lace of her bralette.
With his nose, he pushed the delicate fabric out of the way and caught her tender nipple between his teeth.
She begged him to do it again: “Harder!” He dragged his teeth along her sensitive skin, tugged at her nipple, awakening every nerve ending.
It had been so long since she had felt anything beyond the baseline pleasure that any battery-operated device could provide.
And her body that she’d so carelessly offered up betrayed her.
She found herself clinging to him. He spun her around by the waist and pinned her back to his chest. Her breath grew ragged as his hands fully explored her body, his erection hard on the small of her back.
Leo kissed the nape of her neck, whispered her name, and suddenly, inexplicably, things turned tender. He wrapped her in his
arms and their breathing synced. She closed her eyes, overcome by peace rather than passion. How could he so easily find his
way into spaces he didn’t belong?
“July, when will you talk to me?”
She turned and met his mouth. “Shut up and kiss me.”
His laughter against her skin made her melt between her legs. “Why does it feel like if I take this offer, I’ll miss out on
whatever you’re hiding behind curtain number one?”
She kissed him. “Don’t worry your pretty head about it.”
“Give me something,” he said even as his fingers inched up the hem of her short skirt. “I want to know.”
Game over.
Jules reluctantly pulled away from Leo’s body, the strained pull of saltwater taffy. He truly was a persistent motherfucker
and would not drop this, though she physically needed him to. What could she say to throw him off her scent?
“You may not know this, but I lost my mother a while back.”
“I figured.”
She startled. “How do you figure?”
“Your books are dedicated to Ruby,” he replied.
Ruby.
“That’s a close read if you remember the dedication,” she said.
He held her gaze evenly. “I figured it was someone special, someone close to you. Google did the rest.”
“She was special.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jules blinked and went to work, buttoning her shirt. “Happy? Look at what you’re missing out on now.”
“It’s fine. What I want can’t be accomplished here in this stairwell.”
She doubted that. “What exactly do you want?”
“If you’re not ready to talk openly, then you’re not ready to know.”
The door swung open. Matty poked his head through the doorway.
“Sorry to disturb,” Matty said. “Thought you’d like to know the drinking games have begun.”
“Can’t do it,” Leo said. “I’m driving.”
A convenient excuse. After Matty was gone, she cocked a brow at him. “We all have our secrets, don’t we?”
“Some more complicated than others,” he replied.
“Well, if you’re still holding out for the prize behind the curtain, congrats! You’ve won a brand-new car!”
“July, I’m serious.”
He was so serious, she could map the lines of worry and confusion on his face and find the exact points where the emotions
intersected. The problem was: she couldn’t hold it against him. Someone ought to rescue her from the ghost in the garden,
from the machinations of her mind, from her own recklessness, but she could not let this go on. For his benefit more than
hers, she had to nip this dark rose in the bud.
Jules went to him, kissed his jaw, and scraped her lips on the stubble there. “I’m serious, too,” she whispered into his skin.
“Do me a favor. Mind your fucking business.”
They returned to The Aurora around witching hour. Jules waited in her room for the others to settle in for the night, staring
out the window. The garden’s stillness was unsettling. But Ruby was traversing a realm to communicate with her. Whatever her
motives, she wouldn’t let her down.
It was time. Jules left her room, crossed the sleepy lobby, and stepped out into the garden.
She marched straight to the bench and waited.
The tower was dark, but the light in Leo’s room was on.
Jules could feel his hands on her body. Though she’d showered, his scent lingered.
Her heart was like a broken toy, the bits rattling loose inside it.
As it turned out, she could be cruel, but only to good people who were trying to be nice to her.
Why had she pushed him away? If she ever needed help, it was now.
Jules lowered her eyes, focused, and rehearsed what she might say. The rustle of the palm trees quieted her mind and ushered
that deeper darkness, so complete it extinguished the stars. The night expanded, and there she was. She emerged from the flower
bed, eyes like coal, limbs like dried kindle, brown skin pale like ash, surrounded by white jasmine. Jules wished her heart
would swell with love, but it didn’t. Her blood ran cold, but she would not make the same mistake twice. No distractions.
She got straight to it, starting by reminding Ruby who she was in case she’d forgotten.
Jules rose onto shaky legs. “I’m your daughter, your only child. You were the only person I ever loved. One day we will be
together again. Mama and baby girl. For now, I want to ease your mind. Please don’t worry about me. I’m well and successful. Remember those silly stories? Translated into sixteen languages. You’d be
proud. My only regret is that I can’t share my success with you.”
Though Jules addressed the apparition directly, she thought of her as a go-between, hoping she might pass the message along
to her actual mother, who was resting in peace. With her hands joined as if in prayer, she waited for a reaction. Time stretched
on and just when doubt settled, she watched Ruby, her mother, her very young mother, fold over and scream without uttering
a sound or a word, her impassive face now distorted in anger and obvious resentment. The intense emotion sent Jules tumbling
backward, hands clasped over her mouth.
A floodlight switched on. The back door to the main house opened and squealed shut. In the night, someone said, “Everything alright, miss?”
Jules closed her eyes, knowing that when she reopened them Ruby would be gone.
At four in the morning Jules crawled into bed, profoundly humiliated. How selfish, how self-centered of her to rattle on like
that, to boast about her accomplishments as if it mattered. She’d stupidly bought into the notion that the departed hovered
above in some heavenly landscape, beaming down on their loved ones with admiration and pride. At her graduation she was told:
We know your mother is with us, cheering you on. When her first book was published, they said: Your mother is so proud of the young woman you’ve become. We know it.
If they were to be believed, her mother was forever beaming with pride, never stewing with resentment. Ruby was young when she died.
She had more living to do. Who said her sole ambition was to live through her daughter? She had dreams and ambitions of her
own.
After high school, Ruby left her home in New Orleans to find work in New York City’s theater district as a costume designer.
She’d only been in the city six months when she got pregnant with Jules, thus fulfilling her devout grandfather’s prophecy
that she’d never amount to anything. Ruby’s mother was a widow who supplemented her livelihood as a seamstress by making dolls
from scraps of cloth. She cut Ruby off. To her family she was an embarrassment, and Jules, the product of sin and debauchery.
Jules’s grandmother never once inquired about her, never made her a doll for Christmas.
And here Jules was, thinking about herself again.
There was a Ruby before she crashed into her life, disrupting her plans.
A Ruby before July. A rebellious, reckless Ruby.
That was the version who returned. It explained so much.
Jules had trouble connecting with the lady in the garden because she appeared too young to be her mother.
That Ruby wanted the future she’d planned before Jules hijacked it.
And she was grieving; that much was clear.
Jules knew enough about grief to detect it even in the vacant eyes of otherworldly beings.