Waking Up Dead Page 6

  “They should. You told me they said you were their best intern,” said Robert. “I guess you could get a job anywhere up there, though.”

  “But shug, you know how people are here. They may have already found someone else.” Kitty reminded. “Probably that trashy Nina Blackstone.”

  “Thought about that too. I’m going to meet with every last one of those people, lay out my repertoire, and show them the contracts they signed with not just me—uh, Aunt Ava, but with Berry Catering Company, which is now owned by me.”

  * * * *

  Penny Beecher almost hugged me as soon as I offered to fill in for Aunt Ava for the annual Alzheimer’s Organization Banquet at the Masonic Lodge in three days. Nina Blackstone secured other catering engagements, so Penny’s upscale options looked bleak. The Masonic Catfish Frying Team hunted for coconut oil to use in their recycled gasoline drum-fryers as we spoke. Vats of hot grease, drunk socialites, and Alzheimer’s victims added up to serious liability issues.

  Evil Ava stooped low enough to mention she knew Penny Beecher liked other women in order to get the job in the first place. Kitty saw her and an unidentified woman together late one night when she was shoving the sewing table she found by the curb in front of Penny’s house into her SUV. The silhouette of two women embracing in the bedroom prompted prim and proper Kitty to shimmy up the drain spout for a closer look. The lights went out before she discovered who the other woman was.

  I didn’t think about the consequences of how I got catering jobs when I was alive. I was a divorcee scratching to make a living. I deserved to be dropped off in the fiery pit. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

  My soul smoldered at the thought of how I got the Charles County Garden Society Cotillion catering gig. I asked its long-time president, Ouida Severson what color gown her son, Lindley, was wearing to the cotillion. He preferred dressing in ball gowns instead of the Confederate soldier’s uniform wore for the Civil War reenactment each year.

  Lindley bided his time and went to Memphis on banking conventions in order to get all dolled up. He waited until Ouida’s eightieth birthday soiree to convince her he was actually “cousin Linda.”

  The withered, overly made-up little lady agreed to meet with me. She let me go through my spiel minus the cross-dressing reference then crisply informed me she didn’t need me. She received a bid from a Nashville caterer with an impressive clientele.

  Good thing she was deaf and didn’t hear my teeth grind. I came back with a price guaranteed to undercut the snooty-hootie big city caterer. I didn’t need the money where I was going.

  She gave in with a warning not to serve the highly offensive, Paula Deen’s, Is It Better Than Sex? Cake, like Ava did last year.

  Thanks to all the dirt I slung in my previous life, these women might be pissed enough to murder me. Penny weighed all of seventy pounds, and Ouida was a candidate for the local nursing home. I seriously doubted they smothered me. However, they were rich enough to hire someone to do it.

  * * * *

  Jimbo’s floral shop reminded me of the Flamingo House at the Memphis Zoo. It looked worse than it usually did for the Valentine’s rush. Pink marabou feathered wreaths, table arrangements containing pink feathers intertwined with purple flowers, and greenery covered every inch of work space. Jimbo’s piebald head with its salt and pepper fringe of closely trimmed hair barely stuck out from behind a huge pink arrangement. He was only five feet five inches, and had to stand on a ladder to work on the monstrosity. He balanced precariously on a ladder as he worked on the monstrous arrangement.

  Jimbo didn’t see me step over a bag of feathers to get to him. A hand flew up to his heart. His mouth dropped open so wide he choked on an errant feather. ”Oh, my Lord, Stacy! You scared the living daylights out of me!” He climbed down the ladder and rushed over to hug me. A cloud of pink feathers trailed behind him.

  Stacy? Oh yeah. I forgot. It was so good to see my best friend that I gave him an extra tight embrace. “It looks like flamingos exploded in here! What are you doing?”

  “Well, I can see that graduation has made my quiet little Stacy more vocal.” He narrowed his eyes over rhinestone encrusted glasses. “And, before you call PETA, these are all fake. No birds were injured or even plucked in the making of these feathers.”

  “Who are these,” I gestured toward a particularly pink creation, “arrangements for?”

  “I am getting started on the Garden Society’s Summer Cotillion, ‘Pink Summer Nightmare’ or was it “Night’s Dream?” Who knows with those old biddies? It’s the one I was working on with your…” tears leaked under his glasses, “…aunt.” He took them off, found a tattered rag on a nearby table, wiped his eyes, then blew his nose in one well practiced move. “I am just devastated! I know you must be, too.”

  Jimbo led the way through some Pepto-Bismol-colored urns to a seating area piled high with wedding arrangement photos and “Bride” magazines. He wore black shorts and a black designer polo. They were black before they became covered in layers of pink marabou lint. The pink mark on his face matched the color scheme. I preferred not to ask him about his appearance. I questioned a bruise on his upper arm one time, and he didn’t speak to me for a week.

  “I was coming over to talk to you at the funeral. Even though I know how Kitty feels about me.”

  Jimbo set some urns outside his shop to load into his van, and Kitty took them. He caught her loading them in the Land Rover. They had a tiff. He threatened to tell everyone about her oddball habit. The plant stands now resided in the storeroom of his shop intact despite her efforts to run over them before she left the alley.

  “I got distracted when that crazy wind took those heifers out.” Jimbo reared back in the chair as he laughed at the memory. “Have you ever seen such a thing? It took the Sheriff and all three of his ‘Barney Fifes’ fifteen minutes to untangle them.”

  I laughed along with him and at him. He honked like a seal when he got tickled.

  “They deserved it. I hope the Prada they got from their trip to New York was ruined.”

  Every time he seal-laughed, I laughed. By the time I finally told him I inherited Ava’s business, and we‘d be working together on the cotillion, he was elated and my sparse eyeliner was shot.

  The bell on the door to the floral shop wasn’t working. The customer listening in on our conversation cleared her throat. He excused himself. This gave me time to inspect the row of topiaries on the counter closest to me. They looked like cotton candy swirled into giant phallic shapes sprayed with silver glitter.

  I walked between a column and the counter. The spun fiber begged to be touched. My hand made contact with the firm, black linen clad chest of Suriyel, not cotton candy. Heat ran from the tip of my finger to my center, lighting every neuron along the way.

  “You did that on purpose,” I whispered. My rogue hand refused to move. I spread over his heart to see if it actually beat. His heart kept an easy rhythm. Mine pounded away like a caged bird’s.

  “You moved to where I intended to land.” A wicked gleam filled his bronze-colored eyes.

  Neither of us moved. Raw power undulated from his hard body. Our eyes locked. His lips moved but I didn’t hear a word. I floated in the molten metal stream of his eyes where they lingered over my body. My breasts pebbled under the blue halter top. Bad decision to not wear a strapless bra this morning.

  “Stacy?” He detained my fingers in his warm hand. I didn’t realize I’d traced his well-toned pectoral muscle and headed southward.

  What…” Lust pulsed through me like an IV drug and forced my thoughts out of control. How stupid. I jerked from his hand and stepped away.

  He quickly masked the triumph that flitted across his face. “As I was saying, I just came to make sure you were not blowing something or someone up. I have to spend some time with you to help you control your powers. That amulet can be very powerful. I do not want it to end up in the wrong hands.”

  Now I didn’t have fa
llen angel powers? I’m so confused.

  He moved to the left and opened what I thought was a cloak. An expanse of silky black feathers appeared where the fabric was. “Meet me at your car as soon as possible.”

  My jaw dropped open. The man is even sexier with feathers. I reached out to touch them. He disappeared with a single flap of his wings. The pink feathers and marabou strewn about remained motionless. My hair flew back as if Suriyel caressed my head in passing.

  What did he mean by ‘wrong hands?’ “And, who does he think he is giving me orders?”

  “Orders? I wish she’d place more than one,” Jimbo clucked reentering the work room. “Child, what are you doing to my pink potted puffs? I’m going to have to re-do that one.” He whacked my hand away from the pink fluffy phallic-shaped topiary I stroked the wrong way. “Just stop it!”

  “Stupid hand,” I muttered and threw it down by my side. If I spent more time alone with Suriyel, I knew which body part would be the next to rebel.

  Jimbo moved past me to inspect the damage done to his precious creation. “Did your daddy spring for a Bluetooth or were you talking to yourself?”

  “Hunh?” My eyebrows slammed together. “Oh, um, sure.” Chalk another lie up for the heavenly log book.

  “Good, ‘cause I’d hate to have you sweet-talking my Pink Summer Nightmare creation just so you could hump it.”

  “Hell, Jimbo. What do you think one-hundred little drunk debutantes are going to do to it?”

  “Oh, my Lord! They really do look like pink peckers don’t they?” Honks of laughter shook Jimbo’s little paunch. “Can you just see Mrs. Severson’s face if I brought these in?”

  Destined for an afterlife spent in the fiery pit of Hell, I had nothing to lose and a whole lot to enjoy. I picked up some glittery pink fabric trim. “Just wrap this around the base of each one like a cock ring and bring ‘em on! I guarantee they will be the talk of the party.” Jimbo tipped his head obviously giving the suggestion serious consideration.

  I gathered my purse and waded through the pink debris toward the door.

  “Going already?”

  “Yeah. I’ll see you next Saturday. I’ve got to stop by the drugstore.”

  I sensed Suriyel before I saw him this time. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Tiny particles of light appeared and pulled themselves together to form an immensely hot fallen angel in the passenger seat. I swerved, and barely avoided the town square’s only fire hydrant.

  Big Mama raised us with manners, grace, and a heaping dose of the fear of God to keep us in line. The grace part didn’t take. I teetered dangerously on the fear of God part because I wanted to jump the angel’s bones in the back seat.

  Get a grip, girl, and not just on the steering wheel. “Glad to know you left the wings behind.” I did my best to sound dispassionate.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want you molting on the upholstery.”

  “I suggest you take a good look at your pants,” he responded with a cocky smile.

  A big pink feather waved at me from the middle of my crotch. “Well, hell. Gypsy Rose Lee’s got nothing on me except she can afford a bigger feather,” I quipped and plucked the offensive plumage.

  “You have one right there, too.” His fingers brushed my breast as he pulled the freeloading feather off.

  My nipple appreciated his assistance with my personal grooming and pebbled in response. “Wh-where do you want to go,” I stammered as I tried to remember the difference between the brake and the gas pedal.

  “Since you insist on driving everywhere, or better yet, let me drive.”

  One second I was the driver. The next second I wasn’t. The synapses in my brain snapped, crackled, and popped to process what happened.

  The fallen angel drove a car like I imagined he rode a stallion in Biblical times, hard and fast. His jaw was set in fierce determination as he burned rubber at the stop sign.

  “Slow down, lead foot. The police station is right there on the corner. I’m not one of the Sheriff’s favorite people right now, or have you forgotten?” I buckled my seat belt out of habit. The odds of rounding up a third body to hang out in weren’t good.

  Suriyel didn’t seem to care. He gunned the gas right in front of the police department. We literally vanished after a deputy came running out with a Wii remote in his hand.

  The exhilaration of driving at the speed of light lit his face. My face turned pea soup green as we emerged on a curvy stretch of Hwy 76, blew past several pastures, and screeched to a stop at the gate to the national park. Speed did not agree with me, but Suriyel did.

  I envisioned the way his well-defined muscles rippled as he rode me like that stallion. Our skin glistened with sweat.

  “Are you going to get out of the car or just sit there fanning yourself,” Suriyel asked, and held my car door open.

  I didn’t even hear the engine shut off when we pulled in the empty picnic area. A buckshot riddled sign pointed to the eighty-five foot tall waterfall. I beamed myself out of the car and into a sitting position on the hood.

  “That’s nice.” He crossed his arms. “What else can you do besides antagonize preachers and bowl women over with inanimate objects?”

  I blasted him with a look sure to splinter stone. What do you know? It did. A boulder in my line of sight just over his shoulder shattered. I ducked, involuntarily, at the thunderous sound. Rock shards shot into the sky and dust billowed.

  He raised an eyebrow at me and slowly pivoted to see what happened. “This is exactly why you need my help.”

  Suriyel offered me his hand.

  “All right already! A girl can’t have any fun with you!” I let him help me rather than prove a point and have something else explode. Besides, the thrill of holding his hand overwhelmed all those little neurons that carried negative thoughts a few seconds earlier.

  I slid down from the hood with all the grace of an elephant. He didn’t move when I invaded his personal space. There was barely enough room between us for all the electricity to rush through. I went in for a kiss. His eyes grew large. He fell over himself to get away from me.

  Arg! I need a fallen angel decoder ring instead of this stupid amulet. I stuffed my hands in my pockets as I followed him to the small pool at the foot of the waterfall.

  Suriyel exhausted his hummingbird-like patience trying to teach me to control my thoughts. I blew up two dead tree trunks and levitated a very startled buck.

  “Move this! Stack that! I don’t see what any moving and stacking has to do with controlling my powers!” I kicked over the pyramid of gravel I stacked for an agonizing two hours. “Ow!” The gravel wedged itself under my foot. I braced myself on a nearby picnic table, took the shoe off, and banged it out.

  Eyes closed, head bowed, Suriyel pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Of course you would not understand.” He paced then stopped. “You are a brash, impatient woman who is going to get her regenerated ass killed or worse—get the attention of the ‘fallen angel police’ as you so eloquently put it.”

  “I never said I was Gandhi. You knew that when you agreed to let me find my killer.” I pointed my shoe at him. “You’ve got no right to accuse me of being impatient, Mr.-Pot-calling-the-kettle-black!”

  The muscles in Suriyel’s athletic legs strained in the black linen fabric as he climbed on top of the picnic table and sat down. He patted the table for me to join him.

  “You treat me worse than a dog.” I pouted and tentatively rested a butt cheek on the far end of the table.

  “I am truly sorry.” He put his elbows on his knees. The veins bulged on his forearms. “You could not even begin to know what it has been like to be a fallen angel for thousands of years, bringing souls to Purgatory to await their final judgment.” Suriyel struck his leg. “I am impatient. The Archangel Michael is gathering troops for the end times. He wants me to join him because my collection record was spotless until you.” He cut a sideways glance at me. “I have no
idea why I let you slide. I guess I was tired of the unjustness of it all.”

  I stopped stirring the rocks below with my foot, then lifted the rest of me onto the picnic table. This closeness made me want to throw my body on top of his and take him on the picnic table for all of nature to witness.

  “Big Mama always said that what’s fair isn’t up to us in the eyes of God. Of course, most of what she said went in one ear and out the other.”

  “I was not talking about designated times to die and the causes of death as I suspect your mother was. I meant I have been patiently doing my penance for the time I spent on Earth. I have grown weary of paying the price for turning my back on God.”

  Jealousy reared its green head at the thought of him having sex, kids, and a life with another woman. I mashed it down and stood on it. Why on earth did I envy some other woman? Suriyel and I met in death. How can we have a life together?

  “Was it worth it?”

  Shadows crawled into his eyes. “I have spent centuries contemplating that question.” He slid off the table.

  I jumped down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that you’ve been telling me how you suffered for so long. I just wondered if she was worth it.”

  “No.” Suriyel spat over his shoulder. “The time I spent on Earth getting to know what being human is like only makes it harder to collect souls.” Suriyel slashed angrily at a bramble as he made his way over to the waterfall.

  I heaved a sigh at the stark reminder of the ultimate end of my journey. I got distracted by the way the muscles in his backside worked as I climbed up the bank of the waterfall behind him. Why did he climb instead of teleport?

  Everyone worked through their demons. Mine still lived in town. I ran into him with his new cosmetically-engineered wife at church. I put a Band-aid over things and moved on. I didn’t understand why Suriyel still harbored such animosity after thousands of years. I pitied him, for all the good it did. He’d be so tired of me by the time we found my killer, he’d slam-dunk me into the afterlife and never bat an eye.