Curtains for Romeo

by Jessa Archer

  “Actually, I do. I’m the lead reporter for The Clarion these days and unfortunately, my editor tasked me with writing a human-interest piece on your move back to Caratoke. Us being old friends and all. I have to get a photo to go with the article, so say cheese.” Alicia held up her phone and snapped the picture before I even had time to smile. She tucked the phone back into her little red handbag and then turned on her heel to walk away.

  “You’re not going to ask me any questions for the article?”

  “Now why would I do that? I have all the information I need right here.” She tapped one well-manicured finger against her temple. “Plus, there’s some actual news to cover over at Muncey.”

  As Alicia clacked off down the sidewalk, a tall man in a police uniform rounded the corner of the building. She altered her course slightly to intercept him, placing one hand possessively on his chest as she leaned in to ask him a question.

  That sight triggered a massive case of déjà vu. Suddenly I was sitting on a bench outside the high school, a few weeks after my fifteenth birthday. It must have been a Friday, because Travis was wearing his Caratoke Tiger Sharks jersey and the team only did that on game days. Alicia walked up to him that day and rubbed her hand across his chest.

  But Travis’s eyes had not been on Alicia Brown. He’d been looking at me, which had royally pissed off Alicia. And now, more than twenty years later, Alicia was royally pissed yet again. Travis waved her vaguely toward the theater, and then began walking toward the bench where I was sitting.

  Alicia glared at his back, then stomped off toward the auditorium. For one brief second, I felt sorry for her. My mom had told me both of them were married—not to each other—but it was clear that Alicia still carried a torch.

  To be fair, it was really, really easy to see why. I have never been one of those women who goes all weak-kneed over a guy in uniform. But Travis Lamm was even better looking at forty, in his Caratoke police uniform, than he had been at eighteen in that football jersey. And he’d looked mighty fine in that football jersey.

  I stood up as he approached, trying to decide on the appropriate greeting for a first love you hadn’t seen in nearly two decades. Did you shake hands or hug it out?

  Travis decided for me. He grinned, opened his arms wide, and I stepped into them. It was a quick, friendly hug. Five seconds, tops. But there was way too much history between us—ancient though it might be—for me to be totally unaffected.

  “Kind of a lousy welcome home. You doing okay?”

  For a second, I thought Travis meant seeing Alicia, but then I realized he was here investigating Amundsen’s death.

  “Let’s just say I’m in no hurry to eat lunch,” I told him. “But you’re probably immune to that kind of thing by now.”

  “No, ma’am. That’s something you never get used to.”

  If it were anyone else, I’d have been annoyed at the ma’am, especially when I’m two years younger than the person doing the ma’aming. But that word is second nature to Travis, like drinking iced tea with enough sugar to send most people—or at least those not born in the South—into a diabetic coma. If you are male, Travis calls you sir. If you are female, he calls you ma’am.

  The last time we’d spoken face-to-face was on a short trip to Mexico when Travis was about to start his junior year at North Carolina State. I was taking the occasional class at UCLA during what I hoped would be a short hiatus between acting jobs, after Private Eye High ended. In retrospect, I think we both realized the Cancun trip was goodbye. But we held on for a bit longer, just talking less often. Writing less often. One day, I realized it had been over a week since we’d spoken, and I finally screwed up the courage to call and end things officially. He’d sounded a bit relieved. Maybe I’d sounded that way to him, too, and maybe I had been relieved. But it still hurt, and I’d had more than one good long cry over what might have been in the months afterward.

  It was a minor miracle that we lasted as long as we did. Travis came out to LA twice, and didn’t much care for it. I’d rarely managed more than a month off in the summer when we were shooting the series. We were both in Caratoke for the Christmas holidays, but that left a whole lot of time apart and eventually, the absence took its toll. He finished college, joined the state police, and spent the next decade in Raleigh, according to the sporadic updates Mom passed along when she ran into Travis’s sister at some college event. And then about a year ago, the Caratoke chief of police retired. They wanted someone with local ties, so Travis moved back.

  “I didn’t realize you were replacing Amundsen until I spoke to Dean Prendergast just now,” he said, smiling down at me. “It’s good to see you. Can’t say I ever thought you’d end up back in Caratoke.”

  “Makes two of us. But…life tosses you a curveball every now and then.”

  “You can say that again.” Travis’s cell phone buzzed and he checked the text on the screen. “Medical examiner just arrived. Listen, Tig, we’re going to need to get a full statement from you about finding the body. You can stop in at the station and give it to one of the deputies if you like. Or…I could drop by your mom’s house, assuming I’m done here at a decent hour?”

  “Sure. It will give us a little time to catch up on the past…” I trailed off, doing the mental math.

  “Well, I just turned forty,” he said. “So…eighteen years?” The crinkles around his eyes were deeper now, and there were little touches of gray at his temples. But those sexy dimples still appeared when he smiled.

  I gave myself a brisk mental shake. Travis Lamm was married, and no matter how sexy the dimples, I needed to imagine a big red NO TRESPASSING sign on his forehead.

  “I gotta run,” he said. “But I just wanted to say how sorry I am about your mom’s accident and that I couldn’t be here for the funeral. I had…something going on with the family out of state. Miss Caroline was always one of my favorite people. It’s hard to believe she’s gone.”

  Travis turned and jogged back toward the auditorium after those last words. I was glad he didn’t wait for me to respond, because my reaction to his condolences was something between tears and nervous laughter. I’d buried my mother nearly three months ago, and Travis was right. It was hard to believe she was gone.

  Especially when I kept seeing her. Hearing her.

  I’d chalked it up to grief at first. My mom had been in her early sixties, and in very good shape, so her death was unexpected, although I guess accidents are by definition unexpected. A group of students found Caroline at the bottom of the stairs in Markham Hall one morning. She’d fallen and snapped her neck. They said she must have tripped. Someone had spilled soda on the landing and didn’t bother to clean it up. The bottom of her shoe was sticky, so that seemed as plausible an explanation as anything else.

  At least it was a quick death. Probably painless. The medical examiner had told me that she died instantly.

  But then I’d seen my mother the day after the funeral, standing next to a pine tree in the backyard. She was dressed in her favorite sweater and jeans. Watching me. Watching Paige. I couldn’t bring myself to ask my dad or Paige if they’d seen her, too. They’d both been upset enough as it was.

  But I did ask my best friend, Justin, who had driven down from New York for the service. Justin Padgett had a psychic on speed dial, so I knew he’d be open-minded. He told me he didn’t see Caroline, but he was adamant that it didn’t prove a thing. “She was your mother. If she was going to make an appearance to anyone, I’m pretty sure it would be either you or Paige. Talk to her, sweetie. Find out what she needs.”

  Two weeks later, when I flew back out alone to deal with getting the house on the market, she was waiting in the kitchen. Just hanging out by the refrigerator as I talked with a realtor about the renovations he thought they’d need to complete if I wanted to put the house in the vacation rental program. And later, Mom was standing at the window as I drove off with Attila, who had been staying with a friend of her mother’s since the funeral. I�
�d hated to uproot the cat again, but I knew Mom would have wanted him to be with family.

  I’d held up fairly well throughout the funeral and even when I boxed up my mother’s belongings. But I broke down at the sight of her standing in the window, watching me drive away. I put the car in reverse and went back to the house, with every intention of following Justin’s advice and finding out what she wanted. What she needed.

  But by the time I was inside the house, my mother’s ghost was gone again. I’d stood in the living room, calling my dead mother’s name. Feeling more than a little crazy.

  Before this morning, Caroline Alden’s ghost hadn’t spoken a word. And when she finally did speak, it was to tell me that I could borrow a pair of shoes. Not some bit of wisdom from beyond, or something she wished she’d told me but could never find the words. Not even that she loved me, although that was something she’d said many, many times, so it wasn’t like it desperately needed saying again.

  I stared down at my mother’s shoes, which actually did fit quite nicely, and decided that I might as well head home early. Paige wouldn’t be finished with school for a few more hours, but Attila might enjoy the company. Although maybe he didn’t feel alone in the house. He had seemed pretty happy curled up next to Caroline’s ghost.

  A calm, reasonable voice in my head said, That ghost is not really there, Tig. You just wish your mother was still alive and your overactive imagination is granting your wish.

  The real irony, however? That voice in my head sounded just like my mom.

  Chapter Four

  When I stepped through the kitchen door, grocery bags in hand, I was surprised to see Paige already inside, sitting in the window seat next to Attila. For a moment I thought it was Caroline, because Paige was in the exact same spot where I’d seen, or imagined that I’d seen, my mother that morning.

  Several boxes marked Kitchen were now ripped open, apparently in a quest to locate the peanut butter, which Paige was eating directly out of the jar. With her fingers.

  “Before you yell at me,” she said, “there was no bread. Or crackers. Or bananas. I couldn’t even find a spoon.”

  “Please tell me you at least washed your hands.”

  “Yes, I washed my hands. Okay, technically, I rinsed them, because I don’t know where the soap is, either.”

  I should probably have given her more grief about it, but Paige is the only one who eats peanut butter anyway. And it was pretty clear from her expression that my daughter was in dire need of comfort food.

  “So…I take it school sucked and you want to pile everything back into the trailer and drive back to Burbank?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Bet I had a worse first day.” I opened the half gallon of milk I’d just bought and slid it toward her.

  Paige raised one eyebrow. “I seriously doubt that. Even counting your mishap on the doorstep, and the fact that you were probably late.”

  “Okay. You tell me about your day and then I’ll tell you about mine. Attila can be the judge.” When she didn’t respond, I added, “Surprising Nathan probably wasn’t the best idea, sweetie.”

  “I know, I know. You told me so.”

  “No, I didn’t actually tell you…although I’m kind of wishing I had now.”

  “Seriously, Mom? You made me watch that movie, Grease. The message couldn’t have been any clearer if you’d printed out a giant sign that said, Tell Nathan you’re moving to Caratoke. But…” She didn’t finish the sentence, just shrugged and went over to rinse the peanut butter from her fingers.

  “But what?” I prompted.

  “But what if he wasn’t happy about me moving here? It’s not like I had a choice. And at least this way, I got an honest reaction.”

  “So…he wasn’t glad to see you?”

  “I don’t know. He was really happy at first, but then he seemed kind of mad that I didn’t tell him. And there’s this other girl who kept giving me the stink eye, so…maybe I was just his summer lovin’, you know?” She capped the peanut butter and put it in the pantry, then began helping me put away the groceries I bought.

  “You said you guys agreed you shouldn’t be…exclusive, though. Right?”

  “R-i-i-ight. Because I was in California and he was here.”

  “Well, give it a little time. It all worked out for Sandy and Danny in Grease, didn’t it?”

  “Eventually. Will you buy me one of those black leather catsuits to get his attention?” she asked with a sly grin.

  “No. I will not.”

  “Can’t blame a girl for trying. Anyway, Nathan was only part of my rotten day. They don’t offer two of the classes I was taking, so I have to arrange to finish them online—which means I’ll be home early on Monday and Wednesday. The art teacher is an absolute jerk, and the Spanish teacher has the worst accent I’ve ever heard. I will be taking my lunch from now on, because seriously…yuck. And one of the teachers picked up on the Alden part of my last name, and actually told the class that I’m your daughter and Grampa’s granddaughter. Which meant everyone started asking if I knew any TV stars. I named a few, because they asked—”

  “And now you’re a snob who thinks she’s better than everyone else.”

  “Exactly.” Paige heaved a loud sigh. “So, yeah. Top that.”

  “Well, let’s see,” I began. “One: I stepped in dog poop. Two: I was nearly ten minutes late.”

  “I already knew those.”

  “Attila says they still count. Three: I apparently look old enough to have starred in a TV show from the 1970s. Four: I found a dead body in the trap room under the stage. And five: I ran into my least favorite person from high school.”

  I left out the fact that I also ran into my most favorite person from high school, because I really didn’t think Paige was in the mood to talk about high school romance. And also, it didn’t fit the narrative of my horrible, hideous, no good, very bad first day. Well, except maybe for the part about how unfair it is that men seem to get sexier as they get older.

  “Okay,” Paige said. “Back up to the dead body part. You mean like a dead rat or something?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Dead human. Previous drama professor, Jerry Amundsen.”

  “Oh, wow. Was it an accident?” There was a little hitch in her voice when she said the last word. I suspect she was thinking about the other accident, just a few months before. The one that took her grandmother.

  “I don’t know. They’re still investigating.”

  Paige was silent for a moment, then said, “Attila’s verdict is that we had equally bad days. We both deserve sushi for dinner, as long as we bring him back a piece.”

  “Deal. But only if you help me at least get the kitchen unpacked. An officer will be stopping by to take my statement about finding Dr. Amundsen, and it would be nice if I could offer him an iced tea.”

  We managed to get the kitchen into semi-decent order and then grabbed takeout from a place with sushi that Paige claimed was almost as good as anything she’d had in LA, but at half the price. She was right, and Attila was very happy with his payment for judicial services rendered. When we finished eating, I put a pitcher of tea in the fridge to chill, and then Paige and I began lugging boxes upstairs.

  I dropped off one of the boxes in my old room. It looked different, mostly because it had recently been repainted, but the bunkbed was the same one I’d slept in as a kid. When I turned around, though, I realized there were two boxes marked Paige already in the room and Paige was standing in the doorway with a third box.

  “Aren’t you taking Nana’s room?”

  “Yeah. Just…force of habit, I guess. Hey, you can have the top bunk every night now!”

  The third bedroom in the house had been set up as an office long ago, so Paige and I always shared this room when we visited. Paige loved the top bunk, but I slept on it as a kid, so we made a game of racing to the room to see who would be first to claim it.

  I carried my box into Mom’s room, which also loo
ked different. The realtor said it would be easier to rent with updated decor, so I invested in new bedspreads and drapes for all of the bedrooms. But the biggest difference was that most of Mom’s things were gone. Her jewelry box should have been on the dresser, along with framed photos of me and Paige. The pillow that I embroidered for her when I was a kid should still be on the bed, along with the quilt that my great-aunt made back in the 1950s.

  All of those things were stored, either in the attic or in the closet. I considered putting everything back the way it used to be. If I did that, it would feel like my mom’s room again. But at some point, I knew I’d need to make it my own room.

  A compromise seemed in order. I went into the closet, pulled the jewelry box down from the shelf where I’d stored it, and put it back in its usual spot on the dresser, along with two pictures of Paige, one of them on the beach with Caroline. There. That was better.

  My mother was sitting on the edge of the bed when I turned back around. There was a sad smile on her lips. I stood there for a moment, trying to think what to say, what to ask. And, honestly, whether to call a psychiatrist and say I needed to see someone as soon as possible.

  She spoke first. “You have company.”

  The doorbell rang on the last word. I gave my mother’s ghost an annoyed frown. “Fine. But you are not off the hook. We obviously have things to discuss.”

  I hurried downstairs to discover that Paige had beaten me to the door. Travis, who had changed out of his uniform, was standing on the porch, holding a paper bag.

  “Mr. Lamm? What are you…” Paige’s voice sounded pleasantly surprised at first, but then shifted to thinly veiled disappointment as she leaned to look around him and realized he was alone. “Oh. You’re here about the body. Mom didn’t say you were the officer stopping by.”

  Travis laughed. “No, Nathan isn’t with me. He has some…thing with the basketball team tonight. You surprised the heck out of him this morning.”