Page 32 of The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street
I closed my eyes. “It had a high neck with lots of frills in the front, and a tied bow at his throat.”
Sophie nodded. “Was the collar standing straight up or folded over a little?”
“Folded over,” I said without having to think about it. There’d been a large dark spot on his shirt, and my gaze had lingered there. But I’d noticed the bow.
“Hmm,” she murmured, nodding.
“Hmm, what?” I asked.
“Well, it’s just that you told me that the bricks from the cistern came from the old Vanderhorst plantation, right?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Before the plantation was turned into a winery, the graduate program at the college would use the mausoleum there to train the students on various cemetery preservation techniques—usually involving shoring up crumbling tombs and cleaning headstones. It was hard to get students to go back. A lot of them said they got bad vibes. But a few say they actually saw something.” She grimaced. “You know how sometimes people think they see a shadow and then blow it all out of proportion, so others jump on the bandwagon and say they saw something, too? My students and I hang around a lot of old buildings and cemeteries, so I’ve learned to take it all with a grain of salt.”
“And you never mentioned this to me?”
Sophie gave me the same kind of look I imagined she gave Blue Skye when her little girl pushed her plate of organic quinoa onto the floor. “Really, Melanie? Since when do you want to talk about ghost sightings? Like never.”
“Whatever,” I said, mimicking Nola. “So, what did they see?”
“Apparently it was a full apparition of a man wearing late-eighteenth-century clothing. None of them stuck around long enough to get a lot of details, but they saw it long enough to register that he was missing his eyes. Kind of hard to miss that detail, I’d guess. And there was something odd about his shirt. Like there was a big stain on it.”
Small beads of cold sweat formed at the base of my neck. “Was he holding anything?”
Sophie thought for a moment. “I don’t remember them saying anything about that—they might have and I just forgot. Or they ran away too fast to notice it. Meghan Black is one of the students who claim to have seen something—since she’s working in the cistern, you can ask her. Just don’t tell her I told you. I really don’t want to give any credence to this kind of thing.”
I frowned. “Why? Because you don’t believe in ghosts?”
“No. Because I do. I’ve been your friend for too long to doubt theirexistence. See, Melanie? Some people actually do learn, change, and grow as they experience new things.”
The alarm on my watch beeped. It was one of those new watches that did everything except make dinner and clean the dishes, but the only thing I’d mastered since Jack had given it to me for my birthday was setting the alarm.
“I’m sorry—I’ve got to go. I have just enough time to get the letters at the house before my appointment at the archives.” I glanced around at the Ashley Hall moms hanging evergreen boughs and signs indicating the various wreath-decorating station stops. “Looks like you have plenty of volunteers, so you won’t miss me.”
“Hang on.” Sophie pushed a clump of plastic stems in my direction. “Take these with you. I’ll have my grad students condition the real boxwood clippings so we can use them for the workshop.” She picked up a plastic stem and held it delicately between two fingers, as if it might be contagious. “Really, Melanie. Even for you, this is pretty pathetic. I should make you work with the students to condition the stems. It would be a good lesson for them to learn what happens when we take shortcuts.”
She looked as if she might actually be serious. I spotted Veronica walking across the courtyard toward us and I eagerly waved her over. “Perfect timing—I think Sophie needs you.”
I reached under the table and pulled out my shopping bag. “I’ll send Jack over with the minivan later to retrieve the faux boxwoods—I saved the receipt just in case.”
“Just in case I noticed?”
“I wouldnever.”
Sophie didn’t return my smile. “Remind me sometime why we’re still friends.”
“Well, it’s definitely not because we admire each other’s style,” I said, indicating her pants before backing away until I was a safe distance from being pelted with a pomegranate, then turned and left.
When I returned home, I stashed my shopping bag in the dining room so it was out of sight until I could safely reclaim it and bury my new shoes in my closet. Not that I expected to fool Jack; he noticedeverything about me. I couldn’t part my hair a different way or paint my nails a new color without him noticing and saying something nice about it. Several of the women I worked with complained that they could paint their bodies blue and streak naked through their houses and their husbands wouldn’t even look up. I supposed I should be grateful, especially when every compliment came with a kiss—or two—but I was always afraid that one day he would stop. Then I’d revert to the old insecure Melanie, who couldn’t believe that Jack Trenholm had picked her.
I walked over to Jack’s office door and hesitated for a moment before gently rapping on it. “Jack?”
“Come in.”
I pushed the door open and was surprised to see him sitting on the floor with papers strewn all around him. He had a stack in his lap and was apparently sorting them. I closed the door and leaned against it. “Are you speaking to me yet?” Since the photo incident, we’d shared a bed but not much else. All our verbal exchanges had been excruciatingly polite, the aura of disappointment surrounding him as thick as the humidity before a hurricane.
He sighed and looked up at me. “I’m sorry, Mellie. I’m not trying to shut you out. I’m just trying to figure out what else I can do to make you trust me. To share everything with me. Even when you don’t think it’s the best timing.”
