by Milda Harris
"Bye guys," Mike said, as Sarah dragged him away, totally grateful at the chance to get away from us.
Kyle turned to Suzie, "You want to dance too?"
Suzie nodded and turned to us, "See you guys later."
Then they walked away too, hand in hand. Ethan and I were finally alone. We stared at each other, suddenly awkward with one another. I felt a little nervous. We had been about to dance before, but suddenly the air was charged with possibilities.
"Dance?" Ethan asked.
I nodded and took his hand. Ethan led me a little ways onto the dance floor and placed his hands on my hips, drawing me toward him. I hooked my arms around his neck. I caught the scent of his cologne. He smelled amazing. We started moving to the notes together, side to side. My stomach was doing nervous excited flips. Now this was the best moment of my life.
Ethan looked down at me and I looked up at him, our eyes meeting. I leaned up to kiss him. I really couldn't have asked for a more romantic Homecoming Dance moment. It was so perfect, but just as our lips were about to touch, we both jumped as the music stopped with a screech, ending in dead silence. Then I heard the girl screaming, and screaming, and screaming.
Chapter 2: Gawking
Within about five minutes, they cleared everyone out of the school. I had never seen the staff and the students evacuate the building so fast. I think they did it even faster than during a fire drill, actually. It was pretty impressive.
The police arrived within fifteen minutes and I saw Detective Dixon among them. I recognized him right away from the Styrofoam cup he was carrying in his hand, which he promptly threw into the trash on his way into the building. I needed to send that guy an anonymous letter about recycling and the environment. Or, maybe I should just drop off a travel mug for him at the station. Anonymously.
Everyone was gossiping and rumors were rampant. The latest thread was that Casey Hunt had found a girl dead in the girl's bathroom. Casey was a junior and a popular girl wannabe, so some people were questioning if her story was even true or if it was an elaborate popularity stunt. In my head, I thought it could go either way. I wasn't a huge fan of Casey's, being that she, like Ariel, enjoyed making fun of me as long as it made her look cool. Still, the police being involved definitely made it look legitimate. I couldn't see Casey lying about finding a dead body and calling the police if it wasn't true.
Supposedly, Casey had been about to go in and pee, when she opened the bathroom stall, which was unlocked, and found a girl dead in the stall. According to the rumors, there was blood everywhere, like in Kill Bill style, but somehow I thought the gossip mill was starting to embellish the gore. We weren't in a slasher movie like Friday the 13th or something. Someone would have heard the murder happen if it wasn't quick. So, the exact cause of death was unknown and probably greatly exaggerated by all of the student gawkers.
The thing was, nobody seemed to know who the dead girl was and if she was a date from another school or if she was someone we all knew. People were checking on their friends, to make sure they were okay. It was really kind of scary. I glanced around for the people I'd be worried about, like Kyle and Suzie from Chemistry class. And, of course there was Ariel, but I had to remember not to care too much about her. Still, I saw that she was okay and happily clinging to her date, Troy.
That's when I noticed that Troy was looking at me. I managed a smile. I liked Troy and if I hadn't been totally gaga over Ethan and been wrapped up in a murder mystery where Troy was the prime suspect when I first met him, well, we might have had a shot. Troy smiled back at me and waved. That's when Ariel noticed that he wasn't paying attention to her and started in on him. His attention quickly focused back on her. Poor Troy. What had I gotten him into by introducing him to Ariel?
I was happy to have Ethan by my side, holding my hand in his. He was actually pretty quiet now that I thought about it. I looked at him in concern. I totally understood if this was bringing back bad memories for him. I mean, we had only just solved his half sister Liz's murder and here there was another murder, mere weeks after her death. I wouldn't blame him for freaking out a little. At least her murderer was behind bars, awaiting trial, and would hopefully be put away for a long, long time.
"You okay?" I asked, squeezing his hand.
Ethan looked at me, like he just realized I was there. "Uh, yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking about Liz."
I nodded. I knew it. Ethan frowned at me.
"What?" I asked.
Ethan seemed to think better of what he was thinking, "Nothing."
"You sure?" I asked. Ethan really looked like he wanted to say something, but was torn about saying it. It felt like it might be important. I waited, watching him look at me indecisively.
"Well," Ethan started and then hesitated again. "I was just going to ask you not to get involved in all of this."
"All of what?" I was confused.
"The murder investigation," Ethan said simply.
This time, I frowned. "What makes you think that I would do something like that?"
Ethan smirked at me, "Do I need to remind you how impulsive you were when you stole off with Troy by yourself to get information out of him? Or, when you taunted Liz's killer and almost got yourself killed?"
Ethan did have a point. When I got it into my head that I was right, I didn't pay any attention at all to any realistic opinions even if they were coming from my crush object. I never realized I was so impulsive, though. I guess I really could be when I thought I was right. The thing was, I had done the right thing in all of those instances - those impulsive moments had helped us move forward and solve the case.
The funny thing about this whole conversation, though, was that I hadn't even thought about investigating this murder. Ethan had asked me to investigate Liz's murder with him. It hadn't been my idea. Well, okay, maybe I had offered to help him out of the goodness of my heart and my huge crush, but Ethan was the one who had started investigating first! So far, I hadn't even considered looking into this murder. I didn't think I had, at least. I mean, I was as curious as the rest of the student body about what had happened. It did just shock and freak out everyone at the Homecoming Dance, which I had been attending. For all I knew, it could have been me. That was scary. The poor girl. Her poor parents. They all deserved to know who killed her.
Okay, maybe Ethan had a point because now I suddenly did want to investigate the case. The way he was looking at me, though, sent off warning bells in my head. Even though I had successfully helped him solve his half sister's murder, Ethan didn't want me near this one.
"I promise," I heard myself whisper as I stared into his eyes.
Ethan smiled back at me and I saw the tension around his eyes, dissipate, "Thank you."
That's when I heard it. The girl in front of me whispered it to her date, but I suddenly heard a collective whisper as the gossip passed from group to group, "The dead girl is Madison Brown. She's a senior."
I felt a chill crawl up my spine and goosebumps form on my arms. Did I know her? The name sounded really familiar. I couldn't wait to go home and look up her yearbook picture to find out who she was or her profile, if it was public. It really could have been any of us. I wanted to find out who did it. Uh-oh. Suddenly I realized that it was going to be really, really hard to keep my promise to Ethan, maybe even impossible.
Chapter 3: Graveyard Crashing
I went to visit my mom at the graveyard most Sundays. In the spring, I planted flowers. I wasn't a gardener by any means, so I planted whatever was decently priced and pretty and hoped it would all look nice in front of the headstone. Mostly, I hoped they would make it through at least one season. I knew my mom wouldn't care anyway about what kind of flowers I'd planted. She'd just have appreciated my effort. Then, in the summer, I tried to keep the plants alive in the muggy and super hot heat. The fall had me trying to help them survive for as long as it stayed warm enough and when it finally turned toward winter, I brought cut flowers when I could and just laid them in front of the headstone.
When it was nice outside, I actually brought my lawn chair and a book and just spent the day with my mom at the cemetery. Is that weird? Maybe it was a little different to most people, but it was not totally unusual, actually. Culturally, people did it. Okay, maybe they didn't do it in American culture, but other cultures did have more rituals and customs concerning the dead and their spirits and the afterlife. Consider the Latin American holiday Dia de Los Muertos or in English, The Day of the Dead, where the celebrants build elaborate alters to the deceased and celebrate with their favorite foods and beverages. The intent is to encourage the spirits of the dead to visit their living loved ones. I think that sounds pretty nice, having my mom come and visit me. Still, I wanted to visit her more than once a year. I'd take what I could get on her part and just hoped her spirit stopped in when I was there.
Today, I planned on just sitting with my mom for the day at the cemetery. It was always quiet and serene there. It was probably a good place to meditate actually, if you were into that kind of thing. I needed to think. Originally, I planned to share the details of my date with my mom and the romance of the Homecoming Dance to make up for the lie about the one I went to when she was alive, but the murder at school the night before had shaken me up. I had even dreamt about it. I was a detective trying to solve the case, but just as I was about to uncover the real killer, I woke up. Figured. I hoped Ethan wouldn't be mad at me for dreaming about solving the case. I knew there was a part of me that wanted to do it in real life too, but I had promised.
I hadn't even gone home to look for Madison Brown in my school yearbook, like I wanted to. I stayed off of Facebook and her wall and didn't look at my Twitter stream to see what my fellow classmates had been posting about the dance and the murder. I had changed into my pajamas, taken the pins out of my hair, washed the make-up off my face so I wouldn't get a zit, and went to bed, cuddling with my cat, Scarlett. So, I had been good so far about keeping my promise to Ethan. Well, except for the dream where I had been a detective.
I set up my lawn chair, sat down, and turned on my brand new e- reader. My dad thought I'd love it and gave it to me when I was in the hospital. He was right. I was super excited about getting it. In fact, I was so excited, I didn't know what to download first. I mean, I loved my book, books and I'd always have a bookshelf of the real deal. The cool thing about the e-reader, though, was that it let me carry around a gabillion books at once. I could have my whole bookshelf with me at all times. It was almost as great as Wired's peanut butter banana milkshake. Almost. I had downloaded four books so far. Not that many for a week spent relaxing, but Ethan had distracted me for part of that too, well, him and getting ready for the Homecoming Dance.
I perused my books. I was going to read Amanda Hocking's book Switched first. It was inspiring that she had become an indie bestseller and besides, I loved paranormal romance. So, if it was anything like Twilight or The Vampire Diaries, I was in. I was just about to start on the first chapter when I saw one of my graveyard friends. No, not one of the walking dead - zombies aren't real.
It was this little old lady who came to visit her husband's grave. Her name was Leonora Viola and she had to be in her late eighties, although I had never actually asked her specifically. She and her husband, Jacob, had this great love affair. They met as kids in the 1930s or something like that and he was the only boy she ever dated. They got married after high school and they lived happily ever after...until he died. She had never felt heartbreak until that day and it almost destroyed her. He was the love of her life and since now he was dead, she made it a point to visit him and keep him as a part of her life. It was the only way she could deal with it. Leonora complained about her kids, who tried to urge her to move on. She didn't want to move on or meet someone else. She was eighty plus years old. She didn't want to wash another man's socks and cook him dinner. She was done with that. Jacob had been the love of her life and there wasn't going to be another one like him. She had no urge to settle. Leonora wanted to spend her free time reading, knitting, and watching old movies, especially ones that she and Jacob had watched during their lifetime together. The rest of her time Leonora wanted to spend at the graveyard, chatting with her husband.
I know a lot of people would think that was totally weird and that Leonora should see a psychiatrist, but I thought it was sweet. Besides, she was eighty something and she didn't seem depressed or anything otherwise. Leonora knew she had a great life. She always talked about how lucky she was that she had met the love of her life so young, married him, and had a wonderful life with him. She still wanted him in her life, even if it was just chatting with him at the graveyard. Like me and my mom, this was the closest Leonora and I were going to get to a relationship with the people we had loved and lost.
So, despite the age difference, we had become great friends. We understood each other. While Leonora wanted to chat and spend time with her husband, I wanted to spend it with my mom. Most of the people in my high school didn't get that. I didn't blame them. Funerals, graveyards, and the like are creepy when you have your whole life ahead of you and don't even think you could possibly ever die. Most of the kids my age had never really known anyone that had died. Even if someone like their grandparents did, they considered them a billion years old and it didn't quite reach them that it was real and a part of life. I knew about real death, though, because of what happened to my mom. So did Leonora. Her kids misunderstood her too, just like the people in my high school. We weren't morbid, wanting to spend a day or two a week in the graveyard. We were visiting the people we loved.
"Morning, Kait," Leonora said, walking over to me after she said hello to her husband.
"Morning, Leonora," I said, putting down my e-reader.
"I read the story in the paper about the high school. Did you go to the dance? Are you okay?" Leonora asked.
She didn't know anything about the whole Ethan's half sister's murder mystery and that I had been shot. I hadn't been to the cemetery in weeks, actually. I had been too wrapped up in crushing on Ethan and solving the murder mystery. If Leonora had known about that, I knew she'd freak out. She liked me a lot, sort of like a granddaughter, really. It was sweet and I felt the same way about her. She was like my grandma and I didn't want to give her a heart attack or something by telling her. So, I just answered her question, without going into details about the real things I was thinking about - like Ethan, solving the murder, and my promise.
"I'm fine," I said. "And, I was at the dance."
Leonora grinned, ignoring the whole murder aspect of the Homecoming Dance immediately, "With a boy? Is it like I said with my Jacob? Did you feel that spark I told you about? Like the one I felt that day Jacob walked me home and I just knew?"
I tried not to smile too big. Leonora had known Jacob was the one since he walked her home from school one day when they were kids. Well, teenagers. It was hard to think of Leonora as my age, but she must have been about the same age when Jacob walked her home, give or take a year, and she fell head over heels in love with him that day.
Things were different now. Nobody walked girls home from school anymore. Well, basically nobody walked. And, Ethan and I had just started going out. I mean, I didn't know if we were technically even dating. How did you know? I mean, we had gone to the dance together and he had kissed me a few times before that. Was that dating? And, then if we were dating were we boyfriend and girlfriend? I mean, I thought you'd just know, but I didn't. It wasn't like we had decided on it or anything. It was all so confusing. Was it supposed to be as easy as just knowing like Leonora said? Was it bad that I didn't already know? Were we doomed? Now, I was suddenly worried. Wait, I didn't need to be worried. Ethan like liked me. I think.
I ignored my inner turmoil, not wanting to bother Leonora with my mental battle about the status of my and Ethan's relationship, so I smiled and said, "Um, I don't know. I mean, I like like him, but we just went to the dance together, so..."
"Maybe bring him by sometime?" Leonora ask
ed hopefully.
I nodded before I thought better of it. Sure, Ethan knew I crashed funerals, but he didn't know I hung out in the graveyard and had graveyard friends. Did I want to introduce him to that world too? I wasn't so sure. He had been so accepting of the funeral crashing. That was one thing. Hanging out in graveyards was another. Still, I couldn't disappoint Leonora. All of my grandparents were dead. She was the closest thing I had to a grandma. It seemed kind of fun thinking about her meeting Ethan, eventually. Like, after we decided if we were really going out. I was a little afraid she'd interrogate him, actually, now that I thought about it.
"So, are you going to that girl's funeral?" Leonora asked.
"Who?" I asked and then remembered after I said it. My brain had been on Ethan, which sometimes glitched my brain into forgetting everything else. Leonora knew about my hobby crashing funerals.
"The girl from the high school who died," Leonora reminded me. "So sad. She was so young. Too young. In this day and age, I can hardly believe it when I read a story like that. You be careful, though. Sounds like some nutcase is on the loose."
I hadn't thought much about it. I mean, even if I wasn't investigating, should I go to Madison Brown's funeral? My brain had been focused mostly on Ethan and the dance in the last week and now, it was mostly on Ethan and the mound of homework from school that I was going to have. Well, and ignoring the fact that I wanted to investigate the murder. Normally, I'd have already found the girl's obituary and started doing research on her for the funeral. Since she went to my high school that would have been easy enough. I just had to pull out my yearbook and check Facebook and Twitter. Madison was bound to be somewhere in one of those online mediums.
"Maybe," I said, wondering if Ethan and I might make plans instead. "Depends on what else is going on."
Leonora looked at me knowingly, "Sounds like love to me."
