I opened an envelope and found my ticket and a card that read, “After the service, please present this card to pick up the floral arrangements; otherwise they will be disposed of.”
My eyes read the ticket repeatedly.
A ticket.
For a funeral.
Never in my life had I witnessed such an odd event. When I rounded the corner to the main street, I noticed even more people had gathered around and were posting letters to the walls of the building.
My curiosity hit a new high, and after circling around a few times in search of parking, I pulled into a parking structure. I parked the van and climbed out to go see what everyone was doing there and whose funeral was taking place. As I stepped onto the packed sidewalk, I noticed a woman kneeling down, scribbling on a piece of paper.
“Excuse me,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder. She looked up with a bright smile on her face. “I’m sorry to bother you, but…whose funeral is this exactly?”
She stood up, still grinning. “Kent Russell, the author.”
“Oh, no way.”
“Yeah. Everyone’s writing their own eulogies about how he saved their lives and taping them to the side of the building to honor his memory, but between you and me, I’m most excited to see G.M. Russell. It’s a shame it had to be for an event such as this one, though.”
“G.M. Russell? Wait, as in the greatest thriller and horror author of all time?!” I gushed, realization finally setting in. “Oh my gosh! I love G.M. Russell!”
“Wow. Took you long enough to connect those dots. At first I thought your blond hair was dyed that color, but now I see that you are actually a true-blue blonde,” she joked. “It’s such a big event because you know how G.M. is when it comes to public appearances—he hardly makes them. At book events, he doesn’t engage with the readers except for his big fake grin, and he doesn’t ever allow photographs, but today we’ll be able to take pictures of him. This. Is. Big!”
“Fans were invited to attend the funeral?”
“Yeah, Kent put it in his will. All the money is being donated to a children’s hospital. I got solid seats. My best friend Heather was supposed to come with me, but she went into labor—freaking kids ruin everything.”
I laughed.
“Do you want my extra ticket?” she asked. “It’s super close up front. Plus, I’d rather sit beside another G.M. fan than a Papa Russell fan. You’d be shocked by how many people are here for him.” She paused, cocked an eyebrow, and went digging through her purse. “On second thought, maybe not, seeing as how he was the one who croaked and all. Here you go, they’re opening the doors now.” She handed me her spare ticket. “Oh, and my name’s Tori.”
“Lucy,” I said with a smile. I hesitated for a moment, thinking how weird and out of the ordinary attending a stranger’s funeral in an arena was, but then again…G.M. Russell was inside that building, along with my flowers, which were going to be tossed in a few hours.
We made it to our seats, and Tori couldn’t stop snapping photographs. “These are amazing seats, aren’t they? I can’t believe I snatched this ticket up for only two thousand!”
“Two thousand?!” I gasped.
“I know, right? Such a steal, and all I had to do was sell my kidney on Craigslist to some dude named Kenny.”
She turned to the older gentleman sitting on her left. He had to be in his late seventies, and was handsome as ever. He wore an open trench coat, and underneath it, a brown suede suit with a polka dot blue and white bowtie. When he looked our way, he had the most genuine smile.
“Hey, sorry, just curious—how much did you pay for your seat?”
“Oh, I didn’t pay,” he said with the kindest grin in the world. “Graham was a former student of mine. I was invited.”
Tori’s arms flew out in a state of complete and utter shock. “Wait, wait, wait, time out—you’re Professor Oliver?!”
He smirked and nodded. “Guilty as charged.”
“You’re like…the Yoda to our Luke Skywalker. You’re the Wizard behind Oz. You’re the freaking shit, Professor Oliver! I’ve read every article Graham ever wrote and I must say, it’s just so great to meet the person he spoke so highly of—well, highly in G.M. Russell terms, which isn’t really highly, if you know what I mean.” She chuckled to herself. “Can I shake your hand?”
Tori continued talking through almost the whole service, but stopped the moment Graham was called up to the stage to deliver the eulogy. Before his lips parted, he unbuttoned his suit jacket, took it off, unhooked his cuffs, and rolled up his sleeves in such a manly-man style. I swore he rolled each sleeve up in slow motion as he rubbed his lips together and let out a small breath.
Wow.
He was so handsome, and effortlessly so, too.
He was more handsome in person than I thought he’d be. His whole persona was dark, enchanting, yet extremely uninviting. His short, midnight black hair was slicked back with loose tiny waves, and his sharp square jaw was covered with a few days’ growth of beard. His copper-colored skin was smooth and flawless, not a blemish of imperfection anywhere to be found, except for a small scar that ran across his neck, but that didn’t make him imperfect.
If I’d learned anything about scars from Graham’s novels, it was that they, too, could be beautiful.
He hadn’t smiled once, but that wasn’t shocking—after all, it was his father’s funeral—but when he spoke, his voice came out smooth, like whisky on the rocks. Just like everyone else in the arena, I couldn’t tear my eyes from him.
“My father, Kent Russell, saved my life. He challenged me daily to not only be a better storyteller, but to become a better person.” The next five minutes of his speech led to hundreds of people crying, holding their breaths, and wishing that they, too, were kin to Kent. I hadn’t ever read any of Kent’s tales, but Graham made me curious to pick up one of his books. He finished his speech, looked up at the ceiling, and gave a tight grin. “So, I’ll end this in the words of my father: Be inspiration. Be true. Be adventurous. We only have one life to live, and to honor my father, I plan to live each day as if it’s my final chapter.”
“Oh my gosh,” Tori whispered, wiping tears from her eyes. “Do you see it?” she asked, gesturing her head toward her lap.
“See what?” I whispered.
“How massive my invisible boner currently is. I didn’t know it was possible to be turned on by a eulogy.”
I laughed. “Neither did I.”
After everything finished, Tori exchanged numbers with me and invited me to her book club. After our goodbyes, I made it to the back room to collect my floral arrangements. As I searched for my roses, I couldn’t help but think how uncomfortable I felt by the lavishness of Kent’s funeral. It almost seemed a bit…circus-like.
I wasn’t one who understood funerals, at least not the typical mainstream ones. In my family, our final goodbyes normally involved planting a tree in our loved one’s memory, honoring their life by bringing more beauty to the world.
As a worker walked by with one of my floral arrangements, I gasped and called after her. “Excuse me!” The headphones in her ears kept her from hearing me, though, so I hurried, pushing my way through a crowd, trying to keep up with her. She walked up to a door, held it open, and tossed the flowers outside before shutting the door and walking off dancing to the sound of her music.
“Those were three-hundred-dollar flowers!” I groaned out loud, hurrying through the door. As it slammed, I raced over to the roses that had been tossed into a trash bin in a gated area.
The night’s air brushed against my skin, and I was bathed in the light of the moon shining down as I gathered the roses. When I finished, I took a deep inhale. There was something so peaceful about the night, how everything slowed a bit, how the busyness of the day disappeared until morning.
When I went to open the door to head back inside, I panicked.
I yanked on the handle repeatedly.
Locked.
Oh crap.
My hands formed fists and I started banging against the door, trying my best to get back inside. “Hello?!” I hollered for what felt like ten minutes straight before I gave up.
Thirty minutes later, I had sat down on the concrete and was staring at the stars when I heard the door behind me open. I twisted myself around and gasped lightly.
It’s you.
Graham Russell.
Standing right behind me.
“Don’t do that,” he snapped, noting my stare glued to him. “Stop noticing me.”
“Wait, wait! It—” I stood up, and right before I could tell him to hold the door, I listened to it slam shut. “Locks.”
He cocked an eyebrow, processing my words. He yanked on the door then sighed heavily. “You have got to be kidding me.” He yanked again and again, but the door was locked. “It’s locked.”
I nodded. “Yup.”
He patted his slacks pockets and groaned. “And my phone is in my suit jacket, which is hanging on the back of a chair inside.”
“Sorry, I would offer you my phone, but it’s dead.”
“Of course it is,” he said moodily. “Because the day just couldn’t get any worse.”
He pounded on the door for several minutes without any results then started cursing the universe for an extremely sucky life. He walked over to the other side of the gated area and placed his hands behind his neck. He looked completely exhausted over the day’s events.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, my voice timid and low. What else could I say? “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He shrugged, uninterested. “People die. It’s a pretty common aspect of life.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t make it any easier, and for that, I’m sorry.”
He didn’t reply, but he didn’t have to. I was still just amazed to be standing so close to him. I cleared my throat and spoke again because being silent wasn’t something I knew how to do. “That was a beautiful speech.” He turned his head in my direction and gave me a cold hard stare before turning back around. I continued. “You really showcased what a kind, gentle man your father was and how he changed your life and the lives of others. Your speech tonight…it was just such…” I paused, searching my mind for the right words to describe his eulogy.
“Bullshit,” he stated.
I stood up straighter. “What?”
“The eulogy was bullshit. I grabbed it from outside. A stranger wrote it and posted it on the building, someone who’d probably never spent ten minutes in the same room as my father, because if they had, they would’ve known how shitty of a person Kent Russell was.”
“Wait, so you plagiarized a eulogy for your father’s funeral?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds awful,” he replied dryly.
“It probably sounds that way because it kind of is.”
“My father was a cruel man who manipulated situations and people to get the best bang for his buck. He laughed at the fact that you people paid money for his pile of shit inspirational books and lived your lives based on the garbage he wrote about. I mean, his book Thirty Days to a Sober Life? He wrote that book drunk off his ass. I literally had to lift him up out of his own vomit and filth more times than I’m willing to admit. Fifty Ways to Fall in Love? He screwed prostitutes and fired personal assistants for not sleeping with him. He was trash, a joke of a human, and I’m certain he didn’t save anyone’s life, as many have so dramatically stated to me this evening. He used you all to buy himself a boat and a handful of one-night stands.”
My mouth dropped open, stunned. “Wow.” I laughed, kicking around a small stone with my shoe. “Tell me how you really feel.”
He took my challenge and turned slowly around to face me, stepping closer, making my heart race. No man should’ve been as handsomely dark as he was. Graham was a professional at grimacing. I wondered if he knew how to smile at all. “You want to know how I really feel?”
No.
Yes.
Um, maybe?
He didn’t give me a chance to answer before he continued to speak. “I think it’s absurd to sell tickets to a funeral service. I find it ridiculous to profit from a man’s death, turning his final farewell into a three-ring circus. I think it’s terrifying that individuals paid extra to have access to a VIP gathering afterward, but then again, people paid to sit on the same couch Jeffrey Dahmer sat upon. I shouldn’t be surprised by humans at all, but still, each day they tend to shock me with their lack of intelligence.”
“Wow…” I smoothed out my white dress and swayed back and forth. “You really didn’t like him, did you?”
His stare dropped to the ground before he looked back up at me. “Not in the least.”
I looked out into the darkness of the night, staring up at the stars. “It’s funny, isn’t it? How one person’s angel could be another’s biggest demon.”
He wasn’t interested in my thoughts, though. He moved back to the door and started banging again.
“Maktub.” I smiled.
“What?”
“Maktub. It means all is written, that everything happens for a reason.” Without much thought, I extended my hand out toward Graham. “I’m Lucy, by the way. Short for Lucille.”
He narrowed his eyes, not amused. “Okay.”
I giggled and stepped in closer, still holding my hand out. “I know sometimes authors can miss out on social cues, but this is the moment when you’re supposed to shake my hand.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Surprisingly, that’s exactly when you’re supposed to shake a person’s hand. “
“Graham Russell,” he said, not taking my hand. “I’m Graham Russell.”
I lowered my hand, a sheepish grin on my lips. “Oh, I know who you are. Not to sound cliché, but I’m your biggest fan. I’ve read every word you’ve ever written.”
“That’s impossible. There are words I’ve written that have never been published.”
“Perhaps, but if you did, I swear I’d read them.”
“You’ve read The Harvest?”
I wiggled my nose. “Yes…”
He smiled—no, it was just a twitch in his lip. My mistake.
“It’s as bad as I think it is, isn’t it?” he asked.
“No, I just…it’s different than the others.” I chewed my bottom lip. “It’s different, but I can’t put my finger on why.”
“I wrote that one after my grandmother passed away.” He shifted his feet around. “It’s complete shit and should’ve never been published.”
“No,” I said eagerly. “It still stole my breath away, just in a different kind of way—and trust me, I’d tell you if I thought it was complete trash. I’ve never been a good liar.” My eyebrows wiggled and my nose scrunched up as I moved on my tiptoes—the same way Mama used to—and went back to staring up at the stars. “Have you thought of planting a tree?”
“What?”
“A tree, in honor of your father. After someone close to me passed away, she was cremated, and my sister and I planted a tree with her ashes. On her birthday we take her favorite cake, sit beneath the tree, and eat the cake in her honor. It’s a full circle of life. She came in as energy of the world, and went back into it as the same.”
“You’re really feeding into those millennial stereotypes, aren’t you?”
“It’s actually a great way to preserve the beauty of the environment.”
“Lucille—”
“You can call me Lucy.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Lucy is a name for a child. If you ever truly want to make it in the world, you should go by Lucille.”
“Noted. If you ever want to be the life of the party, you should consider the nickname Graham Cracker.”
“Are you always this ridiculous?”
“Only at funerals where people have to buy tickets.”
“What was the selling price?”
“They ranged from two hund
red to two thousand dollars.”
He gasped. “Are you kidding me? People paid two thousand dollars to look at a dead body?!”
I ran my hands through my hair. “Plus tax.”
“I’m worried about the future generations.”
“Don’t worry, the generation before you worried about you, too, and it’s obvious you’re a bright, charming personality,” I mocked.
He almost smiled, I thought.
And it was almost beautiful.
“You know what, I should have known you didn’t write that eulogy based on how it ended. That was a huge clue that it wasn’t written by you.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I actually did write that eulogy.”
I laughed. “No, you didn’t.”
He didn’t laugh. “You’re right, I didn’t. How did you know?”
“Well…you write horror and thriller stories. I’ve read every single one since I was eighteen, and they never ever end happy.”
“That’s not true,” he argued.
I nodded. “It is. The monsters always win. I started reading your books after I lost one of my best friends, and the darkness of them kind of brought me a bit of relief. Knowing there were other kinds of hurts out in the world helped me with my own pain. Oddly enough, your books brought me peace.”
“I’m sure one ended happily.”
“Not a single one.” I shrugged. “It’s okay. They are all still masterpieces, just not as positive as the eulogy was tonight.” I paused and giggled again. “A positive eulogy. That was probably the most awkward sentence I’ve ever said.”
We were silent again, and Graham went back to the banging of the sealed door every few minutes. After each failed attempt, he’d heavily sigh with disappointment.
“I’m sorry about your father,” I told him once more, watching how tense he seemed. It’d been a long day for him, and I hated how clear it was that he wanted to be alone and I was the one standing in his way. He was literally caged with a stranger on the day of his father’s funeral.
“It’s okay. People die.”
“Oh no, I’m not sorry about his death. I’m one of those who believe that death is just the beginning of another adventure. What I mean is, I’m sorry that for you, he wasn’t the man he was to the rest of the world.”
The Elements Series Complete Box Set Page 83
