“Which is why she’s immersed herself in his life. Really, the fact that she thinks she’s a descendant—”
“Is what proves she’s really a nutcase, since all the real descendants say she’s wrong and there’s no way they’re related.”
As well reasoned as it was, my argument was getting me nowhere fast. I could tell because, little by little, Ella’s lips pinched. Pretty soon, I couldn’t see them at all. It was time to pull out the big guns. When appealing to Ella’s softer side doesn’t work, sometimes there’s nothing left to do but tell the truth. “Marjorie horns in when I’m giving tours,” I told her, and not for the first time. Four years of working at Garden View meant four years of having to deal with Marjorie’s complete and total lunacy. I’d complained before, and each time, Ella had reminded me how important people like Marjorie are to the operation of the cemetery. Ella couldn’t afford to step on any volunteer toes, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—go right on complaining. “She pushes me out of the way to be the center of attention. She corrects me in front of tour groups even when I don’t need to be corrected and—”
“Marjorie does know an awful lot about Garden View and about our residents.”
“So you think it’s OK for her to step right in front of me and take over my tours? To grab the microphone out of my hands and tell a tour group that I’m mistaken and that if they’d just listen to her, they could find out the real story on the people buried here?”
Ella’s laugh was light, but not totally convincing. “Oh, Pepper, you’re exaggerating. Marjorie’s just enthusiastic. She’d never do anything so rude.”
“But she did. She has. She—” I was sputtering, and it wasn’t pretty, and since I am more interested in pretty than I am in the workings of Garden View Cemetery, I controlled my urge to scream. There seemed no better way to end the Marjorie lovefest than by distracting Ella. And nothing distracted Ella more thoroughly than cemetery business. “You want to tell me exactly what you have in mind for me to work on?” I asked her.
She saw the question as a surrender when it was really just a stall tactic. Thinking she had the upper hand, she scooted to the edge of her seat. “We’ll set up a sort of staging area in the conference room here in the administration building. You and Marjorie can sort through all the memorabilia the cemetery owns related to the president and catalog it there. I have a feeling Marjorie will want to include some of her own collection, too, and that’s fine by me. You know, she’s amassed one of the most amazing collections of Garfield memorabilia in the country. Together, you’ll need to decide what should go on exhibit, what special printed materials we’ll need, how we should celebrate . . . er . . . commemorate. It’s going to be such a wonderful experience for you, Pepper. And I know you can do it. After all, you were in charge of that cemetery restoration project earlier in the summer and—”
Ella kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. The Monroe Street Cemetery restoration wasn’t something I wanted to hear about. Not now. Not ever. Sure, I’d led my team in the successful revamping of one section of the old-and-moldy city-owned cemetery on the other side of town, but that doesn’t mean all my memories of the project were warm and fuzzy. I’d solved a murder and finally brought closure and peace to a restless ghost, but I’d also gotten shot at, nearly been killed in a car at the top of a flag pole (long story), and lost the guy who I thought was the guy who was going to be my guy for a long time when I finally confessed to him that I kept getting into dangerous situations thanks to the ghosts who refused to leave me alone. That was when he accused me of being a liar, not to mention as nutty as a fruitcake. Not so incidentally, it was also when he walked out on me.
I shook away the thought just as Ella was finishing up whatever it was she’d been saying. “. . . good on your résumé. Not that I hope you ever need one. I mean, I hope you’ll be working here for a long, long time. I’m not planning on retiring for another fifteen years or so, and by then . . .”
My brain went into full-freeze mode again. Thinking of working at Garden View for another fifteen years had a way of doing that to me. I might have sat there like that forever if not for the words that finally penetrated my slurpiness.
“. . . I mean, after everything that happened with that nice policeman boyfriend of yours.”
“Quinn?” Of course she was talking about Quinn. He was the only nice policeman boyfriend I’d ever had. Except that he wasn’t all that nice. At least not in the ways Ella defined the word. I didn’t realize I’d sat up like a shot until I already had my elbows on my desk. That’s when I also realized how uncomfortable Ella looked.
“I know it’s none of my business,” she said. The color that raced into her cheeks matched her beaded necklace. “Though really, I suppose it is. My business, I mean, because I mean, I really do think of you as one of my girls, Pepper. And you haven’t told me exactly what happened between you and Detective Harrison, but I know it’s something, and not something good. He hasn’t come around to see you here at work since you finished the restoration, and he usually stops in once in a while. He hasn’t called and left any messages. You haven’t said a word about him and . . . well . . . frankly, Pepper, you’ve been moping.”
“I haven’t. I never mope.” I had no choice but to challenge her because of course I’d been moping; only I thought I was only doing it at home where nobody would notice.
“You’ve been depressed.”
“That’s silly.” The denial tumbled out of my mouth at the same time I looked down at the new outfit I was wearing. Since I knew I wasn’t going to be out in the cemetery that day, I’d passed on the standard-issue khakis and polo shirt with the words GARDEN VIEW and STAFF embroidered over the heart in tasteful script. I was wearing an emerald green sleeveless front-zip cotton shirtdress with a waist-clinging belt and adorable Jimmy Choo snakeskin platform peep-toe sandals. They were gold. And did I mention adorable?
Yes, the outfit was new.
Yes, I’d bought it as well as the three other new outfits I’d worn to work in the past week in the hopes that a little shopping therapy would make me forget everything I wasn’t getting from Quinn.
No, I hadn’t thought anyone noticed.
I guess I was wrong.
I pushed away from my desk and dug my shoulders into the high back of my chair. “If you’re giving me this commemoration job because you think it’s going to help ease some kind of broken heart—”
“I figured you’d have some extra time on your hands.”
“And you think I’m crying into my pillow every night and this is somehow going to cheer me up. Number one, working with Marjorie isn’t going to cheer me up. In fact, one day with her and you’ll probably have to call Quinn yourself because there’s bound to be a homicide. Want to guess who’s going to be the victim? Number two, the whole crying into my pillow thing? Way overrated.” I ought to know, I’d been crying into my pillow each and every night for the last three weeks, and it hadn’t helped me feel one damned bit better.
Rather than think about it, I told Ella the same lie I’d been telling myself. “I don’t miss him, if that’s what you think. In fact, I’m glad he’s gone. And I’m not the least bit bored. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.”
“Yes, of course you do. Like working on this commemoration.” Ella got up and bustled to the door. Something told me she figured if she stopped listening and just kept on talking, things would work out fine in the end. She should have known by now: they never do. “That’s one of the things I admire so much about you, Pepper. I know you’re not fond of Marjorie. But you’re still willing to work with her. That’s really wonderful. It’s so refreshing. And it’s exactly why you’re going to go over to the Garfield Memorial right now. That way you and Marjorie can talk, and you can get to know each other a little better.”