by Kristy Tate
His phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket. Seb. “Hey, I was just thinking about you,” he told his cousin. In a roundabout way.
“How’s it going?” Seb asked. “Are you two coming home soon?”
“In a roundabout way,” he said, echoing his thoughts.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’ll get there, eventually.”
“That’s good.”
“What do you mean?”
Seb cleared his throat. “Listen, I know I told you that I wanted you to bring her home, but I was wondering…”
Nick’s throat tightened and his breath caught. “Spit it out.”
“Well, do you think you could try and keep her down there for a while?”
“Why?”
Seb grunted. “Abuelo is going to Rome for a month.”
“Rome? That doesn’t sound like something a dying man would do!”
“He said he wants to see the Vatican before he dies.”
“Okay, but what does that have to do with Adrienne, or me?”
“I have some things I need to work out. They require some…finesse.”
“What sort of things? Therese-type things?”
“Ah, so you know about her?”
“I think everyone does.”
“Not everyone,” Seb said grimly.
“Seb, tell me, if it wasn’t for Abuelo and the business—” Nick had a dozen questions he wanted to ask, but he pressed his lips closed when Adrienne appeared in the doorway, backlit by the afternoon light. Even with her hair wet and her face scrubbed clean of make-up, her beauty took his breath. A faint sunburn touched her cheeks and nose. Her dress clung to her damp skin. “I gotta go,” Nick told Seb in a strangled voice.
“Wait, will you keep her down there?”
“It might be expensive.”
“Whatever it costs.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Nick said before ending the call. He turned his phone to silent and put it back in his pocket.
“So you’ve come up with a plan?” Adrienne settled into the chair across the table from him.
“Iguazu Falls, Machu Picchu, Punta Arenas—”
“Punta what?”
“It’s near Antarctica. There’s a penguin colony. Patagonia. The Glacier National Park.”
“Wow. This sounds expensive.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I can’t let you pay for me.”
“Why not?” He grinned. “Consider it a business expense.”
“I’m going to make videos of you singing in all these locations?”
“Hmm, I’ll be a Where’s Waldo with a guitar.”
“I love it! But…”
“But what?”
“I need to start thinking about going home.”
“Why?”
Her eyes welled with tears. “Oh, Nick, what am I going to do?”
“You are going to travel South America with me.”
“I’m going to make you a star is what I’m going to do,” she said, “but we don’t need to travel to do that.”
“But it’ll be more fun this way,” Nick told her.
She tipped her head, hiding her eyes. “True,” she murmured. When she looked up, she looked more hopeful. “Where do you want to go first?”
“I thought we’d make a circle,” he said, turning his laptop and showing her his proposed map. “Iguazu Falls, Machu Picchu, Patagonia, the glaciers.”
“Why not Brazil?”
“We’d need to get a visa, but we could stop in Venezuela, maybe Costa Rica and Cancun on our way home.”
“It all sounds so…incredible.”
Nick wanted to tell her that the most incredible, unbelievable part of the whole thing was that Seb, always so smart, had turned into an idiot of a husband. “But it’ll take a few days to get our flights set up, so until then, tell me—are you afraid of ghosts?”
“Why?”
“I want to sing in the Recoleta Cemetery before dawn.”
“Did you say ghosts?”
“Quite a few, actually,” he said.
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “They say Rufina Cambaceres was mistakenly buried alive near the turn of the last century. Local workers heard screams a few days after her burial, and when her coffin was disinterred, they found scratch marks on her face and on the insides of the coffin. It was later thought that she had been in a coma when they buried her.”
“That’s terrible, but what makes you think she haunts the cemetery?”
“Well, I would if I were her.”
Adrienne snorted at this logic.
“There’s more. David Alleno worked for years as a gravedigger, carefully saving his money for his own plot and a statue of himself. It is said that as soon as the architect he had commissioned for the statue finished the work, Alleno went home and killed himself. Apparently, you can still hear his keys jangling as his ghost walks the cemetery’s narrow pathways at dawn.”
“And that’s when you want to go?”
“I can’t think of a better time. Can you?”
“Is it open?”
“We’ll sneak in with the gardeners.”
Adrienne laughed and shook her head.
“What?”
“You’re incredible.”
So are you, he thought, battling back images of Adrienne in her swimsuit.
She cocked her head, studying him. “You’re willing to break into a cemetery, brave security that may possibly be armed and ghosts wielding who knows what weapons, but when it comes to singing for a crowd of strangers, even though you have an amazing voice, you want to hide out in the next room.”
“That’s right,” Nick said without hesitation.
CHAPTER 4
Three days later, Nick arrived at Aubrey’s before dawn and guided Adrienne to a waiting taxi.
“Is all this cloak and dagger stuff really necessary?” Adrienne pulled her jacket around her shoulders. Without the sun to warm it, the moist air felt brittle and cold. She glanced up at the cloud-shrouded moon before stepping into the taxi. “It’s still nighttime.”
Nick settled in beside her, pulled the door closed, and gave the driver instructions.
“Five a.m., technically morning,” he corrected her. “A.m. stands for ante meridiem, which is Latin for before midday.” In his wool pea coat and dark jeans, he blended into the monochromatic cityscape. “P.m. stands for post meridiem, which is Latin for after midday. But in Uruguay, madrugada is the early morning before sunrise.”
“Well, right now it is definitely B.A.W.,” Adrienne argued.
“What’s that?”
“Before Adrienne Wakes.”
“But you are awake,” Nick argued.
“Only because you asked me to be here.” Adrienne slid her hand around his arm, more for warmth than for companionship. “I don’t know why we have to record you singing in the dark. You were great at Uncle Jose’s.”
“This was your idea,” he reminded her. Nick had sung only one song in the back room, and five on the stage. Adrienne had worried Nick would be angry when Jose pulled down the partition between the two rooms, leaving Nick and his guitar exposed to the bursting-at-the-seams mob gathered in and around the small café, but Nick had smiled and taken it all in stride. He had moved from one song to another with grace and had even taken requests from the crowd.
“There’s a difference between singing in the café and in a cemetery. Besides, I think the Recoleta will be amazing at this hour.”
They traveled the quiet city streets in silence until the taxi driver pulled up beside an enormous pair of wrought-iron gates.
Once they paid the fare, climbed from the taxi, and peeked through the cemetery’s giant white marble pillars, Adrienne decided the Recoleta would be amazing at any hour of the day.
Nick steered her past the entrance.
“Where are we going?” Adrienne asked.
“This way,” he whispered.
“Here.” Nick led her through an open wooden door in the stone wall. They tiptoed past a gardening shed and a wagon plied with shovels, a weed-whacker, a leaf blower, and other yard tools.
“Any idea where we’re going?” Adrienne whispered. On the boat ride home from Uruguay, Nick had been quiet and then she hadn’t heard from him again until last night when he’d told her to be ready at 5:00 a.m. Now, she wondered if he’d spent yesterday scoping out the cemetery, looking for the perfect stage. The tombs came in all shapes and sizes, from grandiose mausoleums to Gothic chapels, Greek temples, fairytale grottoes, and elegant mini-mansions.
“We’re traveling the labyrinthine city of the dead,” Nick whispered. “Be quiet though. We don’t want to get arrested for trespassing.”
Adrienne’s steps faltered as she thought about spending time in an Argentine jail. She paused for a moment, watching Nick move away from her, then hurried after him, because she was quite sure she’d be lost without him and he seemed to know where he was headed. She argued with herself that soon the cemetery would be open to the public and no one would realize that they had entered earlier. After promising herself that she would make a large donation, she felt better about their breaking and entering.
The farther they wandered into the cemetery, the more muffled the city noises became. The faint moonlight glinted off the marble. Adrienne paused in front of a tomb that looked like a doll’s house bedroom.
Nick read from the plaque. “Liliana Crociati died on her honeymoon in Austria in the 1970s. Her parents reconstructed her bedroom within her tomb, and at the entrance placed a bronze statue of Liliana in her wedding dress, with her beloved pet dog at her side.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the cold passed through Adrienne as she thought about her own wedding dress.
“I thought I’d sing over there,” Nick said, pointing at a portico resembling a Greek temple. He sat on the steps, set his guitar case at his feet, and unlatched the case. “You might want to check the lighting.”
Adrienne pulled out her phone and pressed the camera app. The gray morning light and accompanying mist made an eerie backdrop. It really did look amazing, as did Nick.
She froze when she heard it. Jingling.
The expression on Nick’s face told her that he heard it, too.
The story of the suicidal gravedigger floated back to her. You can hear his keys jangling as his ghost walks the cemetery’s narrow pathways at dawn.
“Do you hear that?” Nick whispered.
She nodded.
“You don’t think…” she murmured. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“What do you think? I’m Catholic.”
She thought about pointing out to him that she was too, but this miffed her. She’d always felt that Seb and the rest of his family considered her faith not as solid as their own because she’d converted. She hadn’t been born into it, baptized as an infant, and schooled in the catechism. Part of her wanted to shake her finger and scold Nick. As the jingling drew closer, another part of her wanted to run and hide behind his strong back.
A fuzzy gray dog emerged from the shadows. He poked his head around a monolith and studied them with dark eyes. With his matted fur and apologetic expression, he reminded Adrienne of a dust bunny that skitters to hide beneath furniture with every breath of wind.
“Aww.” Adrienne dropped to her knees to bring herself to the dog’s level. “Come here, boy.”
The dog bolted and the jingling, once loud, faded.
Adrienne slowly stood. “I always wanted a pet.”
“Yeah? Why don’t you get one?”
“Seb’s allergic.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Nick said.
“Besides, I work, Seb works. Neither of us is home very much. It wouldn’t be kind.”
“Maybe I’ll get a pet and he can live with me at the Bar. You can visit.” Nick balanced his guitar on his knee and plucked a few strings, tuning it.
“I wonder what the health department would say about that.” Adrienne didn’t take Nick seriously. He was always making over-the-top generous gestures that no one in the family ever took him up on. Adrienne sank back to the ground and sat cross-legged on the frigid concrete. She pointed her phone at Nick. “Ready?”
Nick strummed his guitar and the tune floated through the air. Gently, he began to sing.
“But the summer faded, and a chilly blast,
O'er that happy cottage swept at last:
When the autumn songbirds woke the dewy morn,
Little 'Prairie Flow'r' was gone.”
The dog crept out from behind a monolith and inched toward Nick as if afraid of being run off. Adrienne widened the scope so she could include the creature in the video. The sun too edged out of hiding and tinged the morning air with pink.
“For the angels whisper'd softly in her ear,
'Child, thy Father calls thee, stay not here.'
And they gently bore her, rob'd in spotless white,
To their blissful home of light.”
Beside Nick, the dog rested his head on his outstretched paws, and closed his eyes as if in prayer while the sun cut through the shadows.
“Though we shall never look on her more,
Gone with the love and joy she bore,
Far away she's blooming in a fadeless bow'r,
Sweet Rosalie, 'The Prairie Flow'r'.”*
The sad music swam around Adrienne. She was so caught up, she didn’t notice the tears washing her cheeks until Nick stopped playing. She sniffed and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “That was beautiful. I’m not the only one who thinks so,” she said, nodding at the dog.
Nick smiled. “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
Someone behind her applauded.
Adrienne twisted around so she could see the groundskeeper. He had his wide straw hat pushed back off his forehead and a grin on his face. “Encantadora!”
Nick stood and gave a little bow.
Adrienne wagged her finger between the two men. “You had this set up, didn’t you? All that ‘they may send us to jail for trespassing’ business wasn’t true, was it?”
“Would you like me to hold you captive in my gardening shed?” the man asked.
Adrienne held up her hand. “No, of course not.” She balled her fists and planted them on her hips. “But you lied to me,” she said to Nick.
“I was teasing,” Nick said.
But this still bothered her and she tried to understand it.
“Do you know who owns this dog?” Nick asked the gardener.
“The Lord, for God made all creatures, no?” The gardener frowned at the dog. “This dog is one of the many who live on the streets and fend for themselves.”
How sad not to have a home and someone to care for you, Adrienne thought. She froze when she realized the same could be said of her. She had a home, but no one was there, and Seb, who should have been there, had proved himself incapable of caring for her the way she had cared for him. Was this Seb’s fault, or her own for expecting too much from him? Not that loving just one person was too much to ask of most people, but maybe it was too much to ask of Seb. Maybe she’d been wrong to assume that he could keep his vows. Maybe he was incapable of devotion.
“I know someone who will love him,” Nick said. “He just needs to be cleaned up.”
“Tio Jose?” Adrienne dropped to her knees beside the creature. “She’s a girl. Aren’t you beautiful.” She stroked the fur between the dog’s ears. “You should name her Ximena.”
“Why’s that?” Nick asked.
“It’s the Spanish female equivalent of Simon, which means ‘listener’ and she was listening to you.�
� She addressed the dog. “That’s what everyone loves to do, huh, sweetie? It’s not just you. By the time we’re through, everyone is going to be listening to Nick.”
“Let’s go. I want to clean Ximena up and maybe take her to a vet before giving her to Tio Jose.”
“I want to come,” Adrienne said.
“Of course,” Nick said as he scooped the dog into his arms. Ximena snuggled against him.
“Well, no one asked me, but I would love to come, too,” the groundskeeper announced. “But, sadly, I must stay here and protect the Recoleta from trespassing musicians and stray dogs.”
#
“You’re doing what?” Aubrey’s trowel froze midair and she stared at Adrienne.
“It’s going to be like a musical tour of Latin America,” Adrienne explained as she went for her suitcase in the bedroom she shared with the plants.
“And Nick agreed to this?” Aubrey trailed after Adrienne and sat on the bed to watch Adrienne fill her bag.
“Amazing, right?” Adrienne frowned at all her warm-weather clothes. It would technically be summer in Patagonia, but it would still be chilly. She hugged herself briefly, thinking of the penguin preserve and the midnight sun. She would need to buy some rugged shoes for hiking, a jacket, and a couple of sweaters.
“Something’s not right,” Aubrey murmured.
“Why do you say that?”
A scowl settled over Aubrey’s brow. “Why would Nick do this? It’s so out of his character.”
“But it’s good for business.” Adrienne finished her packing and studied her sister. Aubrey wore the same expression she always wore while playing chess and considering her next move.
“Nick isn’t that interested in business. He needs it to support his music, but it’s a means to an end—not an end to a means.”
“I’m not even sure I know what that means.” Adrienne didn’t like to admit that her sister’s reasoning often left her confused.
Aubrey blinked at her. “How can you not see this? You know him better than I do. He’s not like Seb.”
