I wake to a playful smack on my butt. I lift my head, my hair in disarray, and wipe the drool from the side of my face.
“Attractive,” Greier teases me, leaning over the bed.
“You should talk,” I quip and then let my not-so-attractive head plummet back onto my pillow. He chuckles.
“Even half-asleep, you can bite my head off with a single blow.”
“It’s my day off,” I grumble, jamming a pillow against my head. “What the hell did you wake me for?”
His muffled laughter penetrates its feathered protection before he tears it away and brings it down again on my head.
“It’s my day off, too. I want you to go somewhere with me.”
It’s Sunday. Izzie told me he rarely takes time off. But when he does, it’s usually a Sunday. He works so hard every day of the week. At the bar from morning until closing.
“Get your lazy bones up.”
I glance outside the window. It’s early and gray and foggy. It’s nice that he takes time for himself. He deserves it. Truly. If anyone does, it’s him. I just wish he’d leave me out of it when it involves waking at dawn.
“What is it with you and Izzie waking a bitch when she’s trying to sleep in?”
“It’s a gift,” he says on his way out of the room.
I fight back a smirk, my head oscillating in assumed disapproval before flopping back onto the bed. I moan when my body sinks into the pillow top mattress.
“Up!” he calls from the other room.
What is he? Psycho?
I manage to crawl out of bed and into some clothes. I ask where he’s taking me, but he keeps his mouth shut tighter than a vault. We snag coffee and an order of beignets en route to our mystery location. It’s perfect for a cool, foggy morning. We park along a white marble wall and finish our breakfast of fried, sugar-covered dough and hot black coffee in the warmth of his Challenger.
When I look to see where he’s taken me, the dual plaques on both sides of the entrance give me pause.
SAINT LOUIS CEMETERY NUMBER ONE
“A graveyard?”
“City of the dead, and yeah.” He steps out of the car and walks around the front-end to open my door. Hesitantly, I slide out and stare at the metal sign, the low hanging fog loitering around us.
“Come on.” He engulfs my hand in his and guides me inside.
If he considers this a date, it might be the weirdest in history. I follow him through the rows of marble mausoleums. Not that I have much choice with his hand firmly gripping mine. As we move deeper inside, I realize how eerily beautiful this place actually is in the dense fog.
“Why is everyone buried above ground?” I ask.
“Because this city sits atop water,” he answers, “and when it rained, the coffins rose from the grave. It wasn’t pretty.”
“No, I’d imagine not.”
I shudder slightly.
“Are you alright?” He squeezes my hand tighter. “You’re not creeped out, are you?”
“I’m fine. It’s actually kinda peaceful here.”
He smiles at me as we round a corner and stop in front of a mausoleum. It doesn’t appear to be different than any other grave in this place. Except for one very simple, very important detail.
This one belongs to his mother.
Margarete Catherine Bordeaux
January 21st 1960 – February 4th 1994
Today is February 4th, 2018.
Greier releases his grip on my hand and kneels at her grave, placing something from his jacket on the ground at the base. He mutters a few gentle words and then stands, taking his place beside me. I realize the object he set down is a little bag of beignets. He must’ve ordered them when we made the stop earlier.
“They were her favorite,” he murmurs with a lazy shrug, as if he isn’t sure what I’ll think of him bringing food to his deceased mother.
“I think it’s very loving, Grey.”
I set my hand on his upper arm, and he smiles stiffly.
“I miss her every single day. It’s been hard not having her in my life during those moments. Moments that change you. Sometimes I think it actually gets worse with time.”
“That makes sense.” I nod my head in agreement. “It’s been a long time since you’ve seen her. Maybe we never stop missing a person, we simply get used to it.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He slips my hand into his again and clenches it. He stares down at them linked together and then at my face.
“Is this too much?” he asks, his hand tightening around mine.
That’s a loaded question, and it’s pointed right between my eyes.
They dance from our hands to his mother’s grave and then back to his face. Even though I sense us becoming something more, something deeper than the surface, something that could destroy us, I reply, “No,” and squeeze my grasp a little tighter in return.
Facing the vault, we stand quietly for a short time. I think about what this means. What does it mean that he brought me, in a sense, to meet his mother? To me, this seems like something you do when you care about someone. Or they hold a special place in your life. If this really is a “date”, it’s the strangest, most endearing one I’ve ever been on. This is more than I wanted. And yet I can’t unlatch my hand from his. I like the way it feels. I like the way it makes me feel.
“How did she pass?”
“Cancer. She was thirty-four. I’ve outlived my young mother by three years. There’s something profound and unsettling about it. People say it’s the natural way of things. But, not when you’re fourteen years old.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
I never thought to ask Greier’s age. I assumed he was in his mid to late thirties. He doesn’t have that youthful naiveté about him like some boys in their twenties. Clearly, he’s old enough to have experience with life, losing his mother, caring for his father, owning a successful bar, but still young enough to need guidance on his path.
“What about you?” he asks, derailing my train of thought.
“Me?”
“Well, I’ve introduced you to my parents. Least you could do is tell me something about yours.”
Shit.
How can I get out of talking about the parentals without lying to him further about my situation?
“I’m not on good terms with them.” There. Sweet and simple.
“I see.” He lightly tugs on my hand. “Thanks for coming with me, Rae. Even though I brought you without your knowledge of where beforehand.”
“I’m glad you brought me.” I rest my head against his arm. “Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this.”
His mouth presses into the top. “There’s no one else I’d want to bring.”
I stare up at him, and he’s already staring down at me, a gentleness in his eyes.
Is it immoral I want to kiss him? Right here among the white mausoleums. There’s an attractive vulnerability to him bringing me here, sharing this piece of himself with me. I get the notion he doesn’t do this often. And that gives me a fuzzy sensation deep inside. It’s like the sun has come out from behind the clouds, making me warm and tingly. It starts in my chest, swelling and spilling to my limbs and pooling in my stomach. It’s a heady sensation. In the middle of this city of the dead, I have never felt more alive.
Still gawking at each other, he asks, “Are you ready to go home?”
I nod.
It’s been mere weeks, and that apartment above Bourbon is already more like home than anything I’ve ever known.
“She must’ve been a special woman,” I comment as we start back toward the front of the cemetery, “your mother.”
“What makes you say that?” he asks, an almost hidden smirk tweaking his lips.
“Because of the man you are today.” I slip my arm in his, moving closer to his side. “I assume that has a lot to do with her.”
Bobbing his head in agreement, his sullen expression morphs into one of pride as he guides me back to his car.
“She sure was.”