A Ghostly Reunion

by Tonya Kappes

  With premade arrangements, the loved one had already decided what they wanted for their own funeral. Morbid? Maybe, but that was my line of work.

  “I think you have made a wonderful decision,” I told a client on the phone who was coming in later next week to get set up on a payment schedule for his premade arrangements. “Your family might not understand now, but when you are called home by the good Lord, they will see this was a blessing in disguise.”

  I wasn’t beneath using the Lord’s name when it came to business. After all, Sleepy Hollow was in the Bible Belt and we did love our Baptist religion. Anytime the Lord’s good name was used, people took notice. It was the way of life here. Two things we took serious: religion and politics. Other than that, it was all gossip.

  The light rap on my office door caused me to look up. Fluggie Callahan stood at the door with her blue knit shirt tucked plum down in her pants that were pulled up plum under her armpits. A long red scarf circled her neck and hung down in front of her.

  “I’m glad you are here.” Her eyes bore into me from under her Coke-bottle glasses perched up on her nose causing her white eyelashes to jump out even more. Her sandy-blond hair was pulled up in the normal scrunchie and bobby pins stuck all over the base of her head kept the stray hairs from falling down. “I need the scoop on Jade Lee Peel.” She plunked a file on my desk bigger than the phone book. “And from what I understand, you are in charge of the class reunion, which means you know her because you went to school with her.”

  “What scoop?” I asked, and leaned back into my chair.

  “The reality show.” Fluggie pushed the file across my desk.

  Fluggie was the owner, editor and reporter for the Sleepy Hollow News. We had worked together a few times when I needed some insider information for one of my Betweener clients and her journalism sleuthing skills came in real handy. Of course she didn’t know about my Betweener job and by the looks of things, that job had come to a complete stop. I was happy to say that no ghosts of any type had visited me and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

  “Reality show? You mean the show she was on years ago when she moved away from Sleepy Hollow. That music channel’s reality show?”

  “No, I mean the one that’s all hers. The one the camera crew is here for.” She tapped her fingernail on the file.

  My jaw dropped. “So”—I opened the file—“that’s what that film crew was all about.”

  “You saw the film crew? They are already filming then.” Fluggie pulled out her notebook and wrote something on it. “When did you see them?”

  “This morning.” I skimmed the pages Fluggie had in the file. Most of them were pictures from the internet Fluggie had printed off, but one caught my eye. I took it out of the file. “I was doing yoga with the Auxiliary women when she rolled into town with a film crew taping her every move. She was going into Higher Grounds. I’m sure Cheryl will be more than willing to tell you about it if she’s going to get some free press from you.”

  “From what I gathered, the filming wasn’t set to begin until the night of the reunion.” Fluggie shrugged.

  The thought of Jack Henry on her arm as she walked into the café burned me to the core. I didn’t want the world to see my boyfriend on her arm. That would make a mockery out of me, which was not only bad for business, but bad for me.

  From what I gathered, without reading, the article was about Jade Lee signing on to do a reality TV special about what it was like to be a hick from a small town and growing into a swan.

  “Hick?” My voice escalated. “She was far from a hick. She is going to make us look like some backward town.”

  “If she features Sleepy Hollow, our economy might just get a bump.” Fluggie smiled. “I’d love to get the scoop from her and get my article online before anyone else and let it go viral. That’s why I’m here actually.”

  “I’m not following.” I put the article down on the desk. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to get me an exclusive.” Fluggie set her pen and paper on the edge of the desk and crossed her arms.

  “Are you kidding me?” I shook my head. I muttered, “This town has gone nuts.”

  “You owe me.” Her brows raised; her head slightly tilted to the right. “I got you all that information on Cephus Hardy and those other dead people.”

  “If you remember”—there was no way I was going to let Fluggie hold some little bits of information over my head—“I paid that debt by getting the council to reopen the newspaper.”

  When I first needed Fluggie’s help, the Sleepy Hollow News had gone under and she’d been working at another paper. Long story short, I got the council to approve the newspaper and Fluggie had a job running it.

  “You forget I write all the obits and lately I’ve noticed Burns Funeral Home”—Fluggie reminded me of Eternal Slumber’s number one competition—“is getting a lot of bodies, not to mention press in the paper when they are having viewings.”

  How could she? I glared at her. Fluggie was good at hitting below the belt.

  “I want a free ad as big as a page.” I straightened my shoulders. “And I want you to write up a really nice article about Eternal Slumber and premade funeral arrangements and how important those are. And . . .” My little brain was working overtime. “I want you to do an exclusive on the whole reunion weekend starting with The Watering Hole tonight with a photo of Jack Henry Ross and me coming into the bar, arm in arm.”

  “Like a societal page? Who’s Who in Sleepy Hollow?” She pondered.

  “Yes.” I snapped my fingers. It would be like an announcement for my relationship with Jack Henry.

  “Deal.” Fluggie Callahan stuck her hand out. I took it. “Only if you get me a sit-down face-to-face, pictures and all.”

  “Now you’re pushing it.” There was a churning in my belly. I knew I was going to regret it. The last thing I wanted to do was ask a favor from Jade Lee Peel.

  Within a few minutes, Fluggie was gone and I was heading out the front door of Eternal Slumber.

  The sun was shining and the birds were chirping. There was no denying Sleepy Hollow was going to have great weather not only for the parade tomorrow morning, but the entire reunion weekend. It sure did seem like Mother Nature was helping me.

  A flurry of activity was going on in front of the square with people gathered around, moving like a wave away from the town square. Jade Lee Peel emerged from the crowd right in front of Girl’s Best Friend Spa, where Mary Anna Hardy greeted her at the door. A man with a camera stepped behind Jade and Mary Anna, both smiling so big for the camera. This whole situation stunk so bad it could knock a buzzard off a gut wagon.

  “It seems like the whole town has gone crazy.” Hettie stopped me on the sidewalk in front of Pose and Relax. She put the chalkboard sign with the daily classes written on it on the sidewalk.

  “Closed?” I questioned when I read the sign.

  “Yeah.” Hettie smiled. “Jade’s assistant came by and rented the entire store for the day. Jade loves yoga and wants to film her sessions while here.”

  “You’ve been Jaded,” I warned. “Just like the rest of this town.”

  “What?” Hettie clasped her hands in front of her.

  “First Higher Grounds, then Girl’s Best Friend, now you,” I growled. “Next thing you know, she’ll try to get Granny to let her film the Inn and not to mention her plan for Jack.”

  “What about Jack Henry?” Hettie asked.

  “Nothing.” I shook off my gut feeling that Jade was somehow going to incorporate a lost love into her little TV show. After all, that would make her ratings soar.

  “Don’t tell me you won’t be happy for Sleepy Hollow if we get a little publicity out of this?” Hettie made a good point.

  “You aren’t from here. I am.” I pointed to myself. “Like my Granny said, pretty is as pretty does and she was not pretty.”

  “People can change and maybe this is her way of giving back.” Hettie always did turn the gla
ss half-empty theory into the glass half-full. “You’ve got everything you wanted.” She went down the list. “You have Eternal Slumber all to yourself. Jack Henry is all yours. And you love living here.”

  “You’re right.” I took in a deep breath of fresh air. “Besides, we were kids. Of course people grow up, mature and change.”

  “Right. See.” Hettie smiled. “Feel better?”

  “A little.” There was a knot in my gut. Most people change. Jade was not like most people.

  I glanced down the street. The crowd had somewhat dispersed. It was a good time to walk down there and talk her into an exclusive with Fluggie.

  Chapter 6

  “Look what the cat dragged in.” Jade Lee, Tina Tittle and the young girl along with Marla and the camera crew were the only people in Girl’s Best Friend Spa. “Or should I say the Grim Reaper?”

  Jade giggled, pleased with her little funeral home dig. She was sitting in one of the stylist chairs with one of Girl’s Best Friend black capes snapped around her neck. Mary Anna had on plastic gloves and used a paintbrush tool to brush on the goop of gel-like purple stuff on Jade’s hair.

  “Jade,” Tina scolded her. Tina gave me a sympathetic look before she went back to flipping the pages of one of the many tabloid magazines Mary Anna had stacked for her clients to read while they got their hair done.

  “What?” Jade shrugged. “I was just joking.”

  One of the cameramen positioned himself between me and Jade with the big lens pointing at me.

  “Where are all the stylists?” I asked Mary Anna, and ignored Jade and the cameraman. I did notice the plain girl in the corner of the spa texting away on two different cell phones.

  “I couldn’t have everyone in here gawking at me.” Jade’s voice oozed with condescension. “I have to always buy up the shops for the day when I visit.”

  Mary Anna busied herself with the paintbrush to apply the color on Jade’s exposed roots.

  “But don’t worry.” Jade’s upper lip curled up and she squished up her nose. “I won’t be doing anything with Eternal Slumber while I’m here. I don’t plan on using your services.” She cackled.

  “Oh no.” Suddenly Mary Anna’s happy-go-lucky attitude went straight down the tubes. She grabbed Jade by the arm and jerked her out of the chair.

  Another cameraman flung a camera up on his shoulder and glued his eye to the viewer. He followed closely behind them.

  “What?” Jade jerked away from Mary Anna’s grip and turned to the camera. She straightened her shoulders, tilted her head to the side and chin down, giving the camera a nice big smile. She batted her lashes. The cameraman slid his eye from the viewer and looked at Jade with both of his eyes. A smile crossed his face. He looked through the viewer and circled the camera around Jade from all angles.

  “This is the wrong color.” Mary Anna pushed Jade down into the chair in front of the water bowl.

  “Wrong color?” Jade asked. Her voice was uneasy with a spice of irritation.

  Mary Anna pushed the chair back to a reclining position and turned the water on high pressure. She looked at me with a hint of weariness in her eyes. She worked her hands through Jade’s hair as fast as she could as the water shot out of the sprayer at full speed and sloshed up against the sides of the bowl.

  It was apparent that after five minutes of power washing Jade’s hair and many different products Mary Anna had applied to the wet mess, the lime-green color was not going to wash out like Mary Anna had hoped.

  “Give. Me. A. Mirror.” Spit flung out of Jade’s mouth with every word. “Now!” Her hand shot toward the young assistant.

  The young girl gulped. In all my years of being an undertaker, I’d never seen the fear of death on anyone’s face . . . until now.

  The girl’s hand was shaking as she lifted a handheld mirror up to Jade Lee’s line of vision. “It is a nice shade of Jade,” the girl squeaked.

  “Jade!” Jade jerked the mirror down to her side. I swear, if her eyes could’ve thrown flames at her assistant, the girl would be charred right then and there. “You imbecile!” Her teeth clamped together; her lips moved at rapid speed. “If I wanted to wear the color of my name, don’t you think I’d let a real professional do it and not this. . . .” Her eyes drew up and down poor Mary Anna, who was trembling in her stiletto heels. “This thing!”

  Tina Tittle and I gawked in horror. Jade had completely lost her mind.

  “Now, Jade,” Mary Anna said in a sweet, angelic tone, “I can fix this.”

  Jade pushed herself up from the chair and moved the mirror back up to her face. Now, if it were me, I might have laughed and then started to cry, but clearly Jade was not me.

  “You.” Jade held her voice in a steady, low tone. She pulled the mirror down to her side. “You will never have another client as long as I’m living.”

  “But it was a simple mistake.” Mary Anna talked fast, but Jade Lee was much quicker.

  “Towel.” She snapped her fingers at her assistant. The girl quickly got a towel.

  “I’m sure this can be fixed,” the girl squeaked. “And remember the reality deal.”

  At first Jade looked like she was going to wrap the towel around the girl’s neck, but then she softened. She gripped the towel, twisting it around in her hands.

  All of us sat there wondering what Jade was going to do with the towel. I kind of wanted her to twist it around and snap it at Mary Anna’s legs like we did when we were kids at the swimming pool, but she didn’t. She curled it around her head and made it into a turban.

  “Mistake?” Anger seethed from every pore in Jade’s body. She stalked toward Mary Anna. Mary Anna backed up until she was pressed against the rinsing bowl. She was stuck between porcelain and the devil. “Creamer in coffee is a mistake. This is an outrage and you are making me look bad. Out of the kindness of my heart I was going to give this so-called spa—which really is nothing more than five and dime—a little shout-out on my show, but I wouldn’t send my dog here, much less my beloved viewing audience.” Jade turned on the balls of her fancy shoes and took one step forward before she turned back around.

  Mary Anna didn’t move. It looked as though she’d become one with the bowl. She might’ve even dirtied her underpants. Now I’d for sure seen the fear of death on someone’s face.

  “I hope you have some other little skill you learned, because this”—Jade lifted her hand and snapped it in the air—“is over! I hope you got all that.” She looked straight into the camera.

  “Oh yes,” the man agreed. “I got it.”

  The young assistant looked at Mary Anna and me with sad eyes before she took her place behind the cameraman who was behind Jade as they rushed down the sidewalk. Poor Tina Tittle lagged behind.

  “I tried to warn people.” I sighed, looking over at Mary Anna who was still in a state of shock. “I told you that you’ve been Jaded.”

  Chapter 7

  It didn’t take long for the scuttle between Miss Prissy Pants, aka Jade Lee Peel, and Mary Anna Hardy to spread throughout Sleepy Hollow, which made it a perfect time for me to approach Jade about doing that interview I had told Fluggie I’d set up.

  The rocking chairs on the front porch of the Inn were taken by guests and not one of them was Jade, but one was the assistant. The white van I had seen earlier from where the cameramen had emerged was parked in the gravel parking lot next to the Inn.

  “Hi there.” I gave a slight wave on my way up the steps to the girl.

  “Ms. Peel doesn’t want any company.” The girl’s face was stern, her eyes forward.

  “So.” I shrugged. “I’m here to see my Granny. She owns the Inn.” I pointed to the screen door. “I help out sometimes.”

  “Oh.” The girl took her toe and rocked the chair back and forth at a less-than-soothing speed.

  “You know.” I sat down in the chair next to her when the other guest got up. “If you go at a slower pace, you will find your stress level will go down.”

 
“There is no amount of rocking in this chair that will get rid of the tension in my shoulders.” The girl let out a heavy sigh, giving another big push. “I mean.” The girl looked at me as though she were pondering if she should talk to me. She continued, “It’s hair.”

  “Green hair.” I couldn’t stop the smile as I spoke. I put my hand in the air and began to practice the pageant wave Marla Maria had taught me while I had my very brief stint as a pageant contestant when I was trying to help her husband, Chicken, cross over. Elbow, wrist, elbow, wrist. I did my best pageant wave and remembered how much I disliked all the beauty queen stuff. The things I did for my Betweener clients. “Can you imagine her riding around the town square in the morning with green hair?” A fit of laughter made me double over in my chair.

  A cry of relief broke from her lips. “So I’m not being ridiculous?”

  “Heck no.” I covered my mouth with my hand to try to get the laughter to stop. Everything I have ever wished to happen to Jade when we were growing up had just come true. Just like Granny said, pretty is as pretty does and right now her pretty was only skin-deep.

  “It was a little funny how her hair turned green like her name.” Her shoulders shook as she tried to keep her laughter in. “It was fun while it lasted.”

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “She went crazy on the phone with her stylist when we got back here from the spa and . . .” She pointed to her head. “She told the stylist she was fired if she didn’t get here to fix her hair. She even had a private jet ready at the airport.”

  “Wow.” I just couldn’t believe the clout Jade had.

  “I feel awful for how she treats people around here.” The girl turned toward me. “Keisha Venford.”

  “Emma Lee Raines.” I nodded back.

  “Yeah. I know.” Keisha’s brows lifted. “Ms. Peel gave everyone the rundown of who we could talk to and film before we got here. And you are not on the list.”