Cemetery Tours (5 page)

“Well, well, who is this?”
  A woman decked out in a bright magenta sundress covered with tiny sequined flowers and magenta heels to match appeared next to Kate.  She brought with her a cloud of perfume so thick that Michael had to hold his breath to keep from coughing.  

“Val, this is our new neighbor, Michael.
  Michael, this is my boss and very good friend, Valerie.”

“Nice to meet you.
” Michael shook her hand and tried his best not to inhale.

“Very nice indeed,” she grinned.
  To Kate, she muttered very indiscreetly, “You were right, Sweetie.  He is cute.”  

Michael was sure his cheeks were blushing as vividly as Kate’s as she chuckled nervously, “Okay Val, thank you.”
  Valerie winked and flounced off to flirt with Gavin and his friends.  “So that’s Val...”  Kate announced, still rather pink in the cheeks.  

“She seems nice,” Michael replied with a sheepish smile.
 

“Well, she’s definitely not shy,” Kate responded.
  “And on that note, I think I’m going to start herding everyone down to the pool.”

“Before we go, would you mind if I used your bathroom?” Michael asked.

“Not at all.  Just pretend that it’s not messy.  Gavin seems to think that shoving stuff to one side of the counter is the same thing as cleaning.”  

Knowing that the only bathroom in the apartment connected to Gavin’s bedroom, Michael slipped inside and waited until the noise and chatter died down.
  Once he was certain the apartment was empty, he opened the door to Gavin’s room and looked around.  The room was dark, but the light from the bathroom spilled through the open door just enough to illuminate every corner.  

No ghost.
 

“Looking for something?”
  The voice made Michael jump.  He whirled around and found himself face to face with Gavin.  

“Sorry I - ” Michael wracked his brain for an excuse that would explain why he’d just been caught snooping around his neighbor’s bedroom.
  “I thought I heard something in here.”  

Gavin shook his head.
  “You and Kate.”

“What about her?”

“She’s always hearing strange noises.  Back in our old apartment, she was convinced she’d hear someone walking around late at night.”

“But you never heard anything?”

“No,” Gavin replied simply.  “To be honest, I think the break-in traumatized her a lot more than she likes to let on.  She’s always had a crazy imagination.  As a kid, she would actually make imaginary friends for herself out of poster board.  She’d give them names, hometowns, back stories, birthdays, you name it, she thought of it.  I think now, because she imagines things so vividly, she thinks too hard about the break-in and scares herself into believing she hears someone walking around our apartment.  But what do I know?  I’m not a shrink.”  

“It sounds plausible,” Michael agreed, reeling from the information that Kate knew, or at least suspected, that someone other than Gavin was living with her in the apartment.
  The real challenge was going to be working that into a conversation without sounding, well, creepy.  

“I don’t know.
  I just hope she’s okay.  She’s been through a lot more than I have this year.”  

“She seems happy,” Michael told him.

“Yeah,” Gavin replied listlessly.  “Anyway, we should probably head on down to the pool before she sends a search and rescue squad to check on us.” 

~*~

Down by the pool, Michael and Gavin were greeted by the tantalizing aroma of cheese, pepperoni, and sausage pizza.  The sun had almost set and the sky glowed a deep shade of violet.  The lights inside the pool illuminated the entire area, and someone had brought an old 1990s boom box that filled the night air with a popular country song that Michael recognized but couldn’t name.  

“Ugh, this song is awful,” Gavin complained loudly.
  “Someone change it to something good.”

“Hey, I love this song,” Kate, who was already shoulder-deep in the clear blue water, called.
  “Besides, it’s summer.  Summer time is country music time.”  

“Yeah, well, it’s my birthday and I say it goes.”
  Kate’s face fell into a playful pout.  

“You’re lame,” she quipped before she slipped beneath the restless surface of the pool.

About thirty minutes later, everyone was lounging around, eating, drinking, talking, and laughing.  By that point, Michael had all but forgotten that he was supposed to be on a mission to find out all he could about the ghost. 
But
, he reasoned with himself,
he wasn’t there this time
.  Maybe Michael had been wrong all along and the ghost hadn’t been waging some crazy vendetta against Gavin.  Maybe it was just a random haunting and he had left them for good.  Unfortunately, the rational voice in the back of his mind told him that probably wasn’t the case.  

As they all gathered around to eat, Michael found himself in a small group that consisted of a very chlorinated Kate (he tried to pretend he hadn’t choked on his soda when she’d first climbed out of the pool in her dark blue bikini), a girl Gavin used to work with named Toni, her girlfriend Leah, and Gavin’s friend Alex, who’d annoyed Michael from the moment he decided to grace them with his presence.

“Guys, watch this,” he’d announced, grinning stupidly as he took a seat on the pavement next to Michael.  “Hey, Kate, what color is the pool?”  

“Hilarious, Alex,” Kate remarked.
   

“I hope you don’t wonder why you go home alone,” Toni told Alex, who stared at her like a deer in the headlights.
  Michael decided that he liked Toni.  

“So Michael, how about you?
  Do you have a girlfriend?  Or a boyfriend?” Leah asked.

“Um, no.
  I’m single.”  He glanced over at Kate, but only for a moment.  Out of the corner of his eye, however, he could swear he saw her smile.

Later on that evening, everyone gathered around a platter full of cupcakes, throughout which were placed twenty-six candles, and sang “Happy Birthday” to Gavin.
 

“Did you make the cupcakes?” Michael asked Kate as Gavin blew out his candles.

“Actually Toni and Leah made them.  The last time I tried to bake something, half of my senior class ended up with food poisoning.”  

“Yikes.”

“Yeah.  It wasn’t pretty.  Fortunately for me, I didn’t eat any of it,” Kate grinned.  She snatched up two cupcakes and handed one to Michael.  He followed her to an isolated corner of the pool, where she sat down and dangled her feet in the water.  He followed suit.  “Well, I don’t want to jinx anything, but I’d say the party’s going well.  Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, it’s been great,” Michael agreed.
  “Though I’m not sure how I feel about your friend Alex.”

“Yeah, he’s um... out there,” Kate remarked, glancing over at Alex, who looked like he was trying to balance a beer bottle on his head.
  “He’s one of Gavin’s old college buddies, so I kind of had to invite him.”

“You know, Gavin’s looking a lot better than he did last week,” Michael offered.

“You think so?” Kate asked, taking a large bite out of her cupcake.  

“Yeah.
  Yeah, he really does.”  

“I hope he’s getting better.
  I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to him.”

“You know, I was talking to him up in the apartment.
  I think he worries about you just as much as you worry about him,” Michael said.  

“I know.
  I wish he wouldn’t.  He doesn’t need to worry about me.  It’s just ever since the accident, my entire family has treated me like a china doll, like the slightest thing might break me.  Then of course, with Gavin being sick and the break-in, I feel like they’re just waiting for me to keel over,” Kate explained.  “I must sound like such a hypocrite to you after the way I fussed over Gavin.”

“You’ve both had a hard couple of months.”

“Yeah.  To be honest, they had it a lot worse than I did.  I don’t even remember the accident.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope.  But my parents and Gavin described it to me in such excruciatingly vivid detail that I might as well remember it.”

“What happened?”

“I was driving a road I drive almost every day, hit a patch of black ice, and drove straight into a tree.  Totaled my car and apparently wreaked some serious havoc on the poor tree.  I’m just thankful that I drove into it and not oncoming traffic.”

“That wouldn’t have been good.
  Not that your accident was good but... it’s good that no one else got hurt...” Michael rambled.  

“Tell me about it.
  I definitely wouldn’t want that on my conscience.” She finished her cupcake and licked the remaining frosting off her fingers.  “Well I don’t know about you, but I’m getting back in the pool.”  With that, she hopped off the edge of the pool and into the water.  Michael watched as she slipped beneath the pale blue waves, only to resurface a few seconds later.  “Come on,” she beckoned.

“Oh, I’m not much of a swimmer,” he told her.
 

“You don’t have to be a swimmer.
  This water is four feet deep.”  

“Yeah, but it’s cold.”

“If you don’t get in, I’m going to splash you.”

“No you won’t.”
  With a swift flip of her hand, Kate sent a shower of chlorine water raining down on Michael, who tried unsuccessfully to shield himself from the droplets.  “Oh, you asked for it.”  Michael tossed his shirt aside and heaved himself into the pool.  Kate grinned and dove underwater.  Before Michael knew it, she was halfway across the pool.

“I was a lifeguard in college,” she explained upon seeing his stunned expression.
 

Before long, several others joined them in the pool.
  At one point, Gavin ran up to his apartment and reappeared with an old, beat up volleyball.  Michael had only played volleyball once or twice, and never in a pool.  His lack of experience became apparent the first time the ball was lobbed to him.  He’d leapt out of the way so quickly, a casual observer might have thought he was trying to dodge a bullet.  Kate, who seemed wildly amused by his flagrant fear of being hit in the face, turned out to be a regular water-volleyball pro.  

“Did you play in high school?” Michael asked her after a particularly powerful serve.
 

“Oh heck no.
  I was too artsy to be any good at sports.”

“You seem pretty good to me.”

“It doesn’t require a lot of talent to hit a ball over a net.  No offense,” she grinned playfully.

“Thanks.”
 

“Head’s up!” Someone on the other side of the pool called.
  Michael looked up just in time to see the ball soaring through the air.  Before he could react, the ball hit its target and Kate doubled over, clutching the left side of her face.  

“Kate!” Gavin yelled and thrashed his way through the water, trying to get to her.
  Michael placed a hand on her shoulder as blood dribbled down the side of her face and into the pool.

“Come on.
  We need to get you out of here.”  She nodded in reply.  Gently, he took her arm and guided her over to the steps.  

“Kate, are you okay?”
  Gavin demanded as Michael wrapped a towel around her shoulders.  

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, sounding like she couldn’t breathe through her nose.
 

“Do I need to call an ambulance?” Gavin asked.

“No, it’s just a little nosebleed.  I’m fine,” she insisted, looking up at her brother.  The area around her left eye was red and swollen.  “See?  It’s already stopped.”  

“It’s not your nose I’m concerned about.”
  By that point, the rest of the party had climbed out of the pool.  Toni, who’d hit the ball, was beside herself, apologizing profusely over and over again.

“Don’t worry about it, Toni,” Kate told her.
  “You can’t play volleyball without getting pummeled at least once.”  

“Kate, I think we need to get you to the E.R.” Gavin told her again.

“Oh my God, I’m fine.  If this had happened six months ago, you’d be telling me to suck it up and put some ice on it.  Which is what I’m going to do now.”  Clutching the towel close, Kate turned on her heel and marched up to her apartment.  Gavin heaved a frustrated sigh and rubbed his forehead.

“I’ll go with her,” Michael told him.
 

“Thanks,” Gavin muttered.
 

By the time he made it up to their apartment, Kate was already standing at the kitchen sink with a wash cloth full of ice pressed to her eye.
 

“Hey,” Michael offered.
  “You okay?”

“Yep,” Kate answered.
  “Though I might look like the Phantom of the Opera in the morning.”  

“I don’t think that will happen,” Michael told her.
  “I’m really sorry.”