“No, but I’m trying to learn. What about you?”
“Pretty much every day. Eating out is expensive and it’s a habit. I have to vary my routine, so no regular takeout and definitely no delivery.” I take a bite of sandwich. “This is good. It’s spicy.”
“Chipotle mayo. Cora smears it on everything. Makes things taste less bland. I’m glad you like it.”
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Pizza. What’s yours?”
“Chinese. Specifically, Kung Pao chicken. I’ve gotten pretty good at cooking in a wok.”
“Yeah? Maybe you can teach me how.”
“I’d love to.”
It’s a worthless offer. This is a future thing that requires planning. Future and planning are two words I don’t have much association with, and Beau knows it. This whole conversation is make-believe. We might as well be talking about moving in together or where we’ll vacation next summer. We ride out the fantasy anyway. It’s a very nice fantasy.
“You’re really good at finding needles in Internet haystacks. Do you like it?” I ask.
“Surprisingly, yeah. I’m not good with people like Cora. I prefer the behind-the-scenes work where I don’t have to make conversation or have people staring at me, wondering where they know me from.”
“Awkward.”
“Very awkward.”
“It’ll get better. People will move on to the next Internet sensation and forget all about you.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Will you do me a favor?”
He glances unexpectedly at me. “Sure?”
“I need you to go somewhere with me and I want you to promise you won’t reject it without giving it a try.”
“Sounds dirty.”
“It’s not. The dirty part can come later…pun intended.”
He barks out a laugh. “Well, when you put it like that…”
Almost three hours later the shops are closing up without a Marie sighting. I knew this was a lost cause, but I keep my thoughts to myself. It takes Beau another fifteen minutes to call it a night. I remind him of the favor he promised me and give him directions on how to get there. I’m not sure what his reaction is going to be. If he’s going to think this is stupid and try to blow it off or give it a try. I’m not even sure it will do him any good, but I feel like he needs this.
We pull into the parking lot of a cemetery. I can feel it in Beau the moment he realizes what this is all about. The air around him vibrates with anger and the weightier emotion of grief. He turns the car off and sits back in his seat. I bet he’s regretting that promise he made me.
I get out of the car and walk through the gate. Behind me a car door slams and reluctant footsteps approach. I use the light of my phone to check the info I jotted down. Three more rows up, on the left. I turn off the road and onto the thick grass. It’s so quiet here at night. In the distance, a dog barks. A balloon bats against a tombstone pushed by the breeze that makes the trees whoosh above us. There’s no other sound except the soft crunch of our footfalls. I stop at a grave with a simple mixed bouquet stuck into a buried vase.
Cassandra’s grave.
Beau stops a few markers away. When I turn to him, he’s looking off into the distance, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched and hard. His jaw works with all of the things he’s trying not to say. He won’t look at the grave or at me. I walk forward past the headstone to a little bench under a tree some ways away. Beau doesn’t follow. I sit so I’m looking away from him over the graveyard. Moonlight and silence make the scene eerily serene. I close my eyes and hope Beau accepts my gift. It might be the only thing I can give him—peace.
Chapter 17
Beau
I know why Vera brought me here, what she’s hoping to accomplish. I’m supposed to find closure. My eyes won’t focus through the anger and I can barely breathe for the fisting in my chest. Cassandra lays buried feet from me. This is the closest I’ve been to her since that night I kissed her goodbye. I can’t reconcile these two things. This finality doesn’t exist in my mind. Logically I know she’s dead, but until now the reality of it never really hit.
I make myself walk closer until I’m standing at her feet. Her headstone pronounces her a cherished daughter, sister, friend. She was more than that, and, at times, less. I’m not supposed to be pissed at her, but I am. She wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect, but what we shared was, in its way. Until she ruined it. I hadn’t forgiven her when she died. We were trying to work things out. The sex was easy and a way we could try to reconnect. But even as I kissed her goodbye I doubted I could get over what she’d done.