The Mutual Admiration Society by Kagen Lesley

Author:Kagen, Lesley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503941038
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2017-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

12

THE DEAD MAN’S FLOAT

After Birdie and me make our getaway from Mr. McGinty, we stop on top of the steep, grassy hill that overlooks the cemetery pond, because even as desperate as I am to see my fiancé, the Finley sisters need to take a breather before we head over to our Mutual Admiration meeting. We gotta recombobulate ourselves.

“It’s very important to always look your best when spending time with the man of your dreams,” was another suggestion from that Good Housekeeping magazine article, and I’m pretty sure after chasing Birdie around during her wild streak, collapsing in a pile of fallen leaves behind Mr. Gilgood’s mausoleum, and making a break for it from Mr. McGinty, that I don’t look shipshape. More like “The Wreck of the Hesperus.” (Joke!)

My already wavy hair has gone springy, my tan T-shirt has come untucked from my shorts, I’m drenched in Indian summer sweat, and Daddy’s little dreamboat isn’t anything to write home about, either. One of her pigtails got undone, her mouth that’s ringed in chocolate is clashing with her cheeks that are pinker than a bubble gum cigar, and her shorts have a new grass stain across the seat in the shape of our state.

“Tessie?” she asks me as she rolls around on the ground.

“Yeah?”

“I been thinking.”

That’s never a good sign.

“Mommy named you after Saint Theresa the Little Flower,” Birdie says, “so shouldn’t bees come after you more than they come after me?”

Naming me after that sainted gal was just wishful thinking on my mother’s part. “Like I told ya all the other times you asked me, the reason bees are attracted to you more is because you’re a sweeter kid than me, honey, and you gotta remember not to call her Mommy.”

“Roger that, Tessie,” she says, and goes back to rolling around on the ground to try and locate the imaginary stinger I made her think she has in her heinie, which is fine by me. I need some time to pull myself together the best I can for Charlie. He better still be waiting for us at the weeping willow tree next to the pond that most cemetery visitors find such a lush oasis in the middle of row after row of unending sadness.

Staring down at the water from up here, I’m remembering how Mr. McGinty told me a long time ago that the pond was dug in the first place because “Beauty can help fill the cracks in people’s hearts and comfort their souls.”

There was a time not that long ago when the sweet smell of flowers drifting over from the graves, songbirds in the trees, and the feel of the pond mud oozing between my toes with someone I love and who loves me back did make my heart and soul feel good, but those days went away when Daddy did. I still do get a little glimmer of hope when I fish with Mr. McGinty, skim rocks across the pond with Charlie, or pick wildflowers that grow

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