“So what’s the deal with your dad?” Ren asked. “Hasn’t he been the caretaker at the cemetery for like forever?”
“Yeah, he said it’s been seventeen years. My mom died, so that’s why I came to live with him.” Ah! I mentally clamped my hand over my mouth. Lina, stop talking. Bringing up my mom was a surefire way to create awkwardness around people my age. Adults got sympathetic. Teenagers got uncomfortable.
He looked at me, his hair falling into his eyes. “How’d she die?”
“Pancreatic cancer.”
“Did she have it for a long time?”
“No. She died four months after we found out.”
“Wow. Sorry.”
“Thanks.”
We were quiet for a moment before Ren spoke again. “It’s weird how we talk about that. I say ‘I’m sorry’ and you say ‘thanks.’?”
I’d had that exact thought maybe a hundred times. “I think it’s weird too. But it’s what people expect you to say.”
“So what’s it like?”
“What?”
“Losing your mom.”
I stopped walking. Not only was this the first time anyone had ever asked me that, but he was looking at me like he actually wanted to know. For a second I thought about telling him that it was like being an island—that I could be in a room full of people and still feel alone, an ocean of hurt trying to crash in on me from every direction. But I swallowed the words back as quickly as I could. Even when they ask, people don’t want to hear your weird grief metaphors. Finally I shrugged my shoulders. “It really sucks.”
“I bet it does. Sorry.”
“Thanks.” I smiled. “Hey, we just did it again.”
“Sorry.”
“Thanks.”
He stopped in front of a set of curlicue gates and I help him push them open with a loud creak.
“You weren’t kidding. Your house is close to the cemetery,” I said.
“I know. I always thought it was weird that I live so close to a cemetery. And then I met someone who lives in a cemetery.”
“I couldn’t let you beat me. It’s my competitive nature.”
He laughed. “Come on.”
We walked up the narrow, tree-lined driveway, and when we got to the top he held both arms out in front of him. “Ta-da. Casa mia.”
I stopped walking. “This is where you live?”
He shook his head grimly. “Unfortunately. You can laugh if you want. I won’t be offended.”
“I’m not going to laugh. I think it’s kind of…interesting.” But then a tiny snort slipped through and the look Ren shot me pretty much blew my composure to pieces.
“Go ahead. Get it all out. But people who live in cemeteries really shouldn’t be throwing stones, or whatever that saying is.”
Finally I stopped laughing long enough to catch my breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing. It’s just really unexpected.”
We both looked back up at the house, and Ren sighed wearily while I did my best not to insult him again. Just this morning I’d thought I lived in the weirdest place possible, but now I’d met someone who lived in a gingerbread house. And I don’t mean a house sort of loosely inspired by a gingerbread house—I mean a house that looked like you could possibly break off a couple of its shingles and dip them in a glass of milk. It was two stories high with a stone exterior and thatched roof lined with intricate gingerbread trim. Candy-colored flowers blanketed the yard, and small lemon trees were planted in cobalt-blue pots around the perimeter of the house. Most of the main-floor windows were stained glass with swirling peppermint patterns, and there was a giant candy cane carved into the front door. In other words, picture the most ridiculous house you can imagine and then add a bunch of lollipops.
“What’s the story?”
Ren shook his head again. “There has to be one, right? This eccentric guy from upstate New York built it after making a fortune on his grandmother’s fudge recipe. He called himself the Candy Baron.”
“So he built himself a real-life gingerbread house?”
“Exactly. It was a present for his new wife. I guess she was like thirty years younger than him, and she ended up falling for a guy she met at a truffle festival in Piedmont. After she left him, he sold the house. My parents just happened to be looking, and of course a gingerbread house was just the right kind of weird for them.”
“Did you guys have to kick out a cannibalistic witch?”
He gave me a funny look.
“You know . . . like the witch in Hansel and Gretel?”
“Oh.” He laughed. “No, she still comes to visit on major holidays. You meant my grandmother, right?”
“I’m so telling her you said that.”
“Good luck. She doesn’t understand a single word of English. And whenever she’s around, my mom conveniently forgets how to speak Italian.”
“Where’s your mom from?”
“Texas. We usually spend summers in the States with her family, but my dad had too much work for us to go this year.”
“So that’s why you sound so American?”
“Yep. I pretend to be one every summer.”
“Does it work?”
He grinned. “Usually. You thought I was American, didn’t you?”