Oh, God. He was going to kiss me.
What’s worse-I really wanted him to.
Maybe it was because I still had a warm fuzzy feeling running through me from talking to Black. Or maybe it was the emotional toll of the day. Or maybe it was just the fact that I hadn’t gotten it in long enough that I was beginning to forget what it was even all about.
But I found my mouth drifting toward his.
He leaned in a fraction closer, and his lips brushed over mine. I was surprised at how soft they were, that anything about him was this soft. They tasted like toothpaste, minty and clean. His goatee grazed against my cheek, sending shivers down my spine as I closed my eyes, drinking in the moment. I think I sighed into his mouth as his tongue touched my lips, gently parting them.
“Hello? We’re back!”
I jumped off the sofa like a jack-in-the-box, immediately putting two feet of distance between Cal and me as the aunts bustled through the front door.
“In here,” I said. I licked my lips, tasting Cal there, and felt my cheeks burn a bright candy-apple red.
Aunt Sue and Aunt Millie bustled into the room, dropping an armload of items onto the coffee table: a bag of sandwiches, a two-liter bottle of Coke, and a purple Tupperware container with Hello Kitty painted on the side.
“What’s this?” I asked, pulling back the lid on the container.
“Hattie.”
“Hattie? Hattie Carmichael!?” I took one giant step back from the Tupperware.
Aunt Sue nodded. “We picked her up from the crematorium on the way home.”
I wrinkled my nose. “And brought her home in Tupperware? Don’t they usually give you an urn for that?”
“They wanted to charge us two hundred dollars for an urn,” Millie piped up. “Can you believe the nerve? I mean, we’re just going to spread her ashes tomorrow anyway. Who pays two hundred dollars for an urn they’re only gonna use for one day?”
I was at a loss to answer that question.
“So, Millie offered to go down the street to the dollar store and pick up a pretty ceramic jar or something,” Aunt Sue said.
I looked down at the plastic container. “That’s not a ceramic jar.”
Millie shrugged. “I think my eyesight might be slipping a little.”
Understatement alert.
But Aunt Sue waved her off. “No matter. This works. In fact, it’s better. Spill resistant lid.” She flipped the Tupperware upside down and shook it. “See?”
I looked from one wrinkled face to the other. Then to Cal for help. He just grinned, holding up his hands in a surrender motion as if to say, “Hey, they’re your aunts.”
“So, you are coming with us to spread the ashes tomorrow, right?” Aunt Sue asked.
I nodded. “Right.” It was the least I could do. Especially considering Mrs. Carmichael was now residing in a leftovers receptacle.
“Good. We’ll leave at eight. The gates open at nine.”
“Gates?” I asked, grabbing onto the word. Suddenly I had a bad feeling about this.
Aunt Sue blinked innocently at me. “Yes. They don’t open until nine in the fall.”
“What doesn’t open until nine?’
“Disneyland.”
Mental forehead smack.
“Disneyland? Wait-you’re spreading Mrs. Carmichael’s ashes at Disneyland?”
The aunts nodded in unison.
“It’s what Hattie wanted,” Aunt Sue spoke up. “She was the first Mickey Mouse, you know. Her fondest memories are of the Magic Kingdom.”
“It is the happiest place on earth,” Millie added solemnly.
I shook my head. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s not legal to spread human remains there.”
“No one will ever notice,” Aunt Millie assured me.
I had a hard time believing that.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” I looked to Cal to back me up.
Thankfully, he nodded in agreement this time. “She’s right. They have security cameras all over that place.”
Aunt Millie waved me off. “No one’s going to bother a couple of old women.”
“Dropping ashes from a Hello Kitty container?!”
“Oh, we got that covered,” Aunt Sue assured me.
I hated to even ask. “Covered?”
She nodded. “We’re going to transfer her into one of those souvenir soda bottles as soon as we get in the park. No one will bother us carrying around a soda pop. Then we’ll just kinda tip the cup over a little and, voila, she’s in her favorite place.”
I felt faint.
“Where exactly are you going to do this?”
“On It’s a Small World,” Aunt Sue replied. “Hattie loved that ride. Hattie was the first Mickey Mouse, you know.”
Yes. I knew.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I said for the third time in as many minutes.
But I got two pairs of bony arms crossed over two pairs of saggy boobs and two matching glares. “This is what Hattie wanted,” Aunt Sue told me. “She was taken from this world too soon. The least we can do is honor her last wish. You’d honor my last wish, wouldn’t you?”
I bit my lip. “Yes?” Only it came out more of a question.
“Then it’s settled. We leave at eight.”
I opened mouth to protest…but realized it was futile. With or without me, these two were going to deposit Hattie Carmichael on It’s a Small World tomorrow. Unless I wanted to spend the afternoon bailing them out of jail, I’d better make sure they did it stealth-like.
“Oh, this is going to be so fun!” Aunt Sue said, clapping her hands. “I love Disneyland. You know, Hattie Carmichael was the very first Mickey Mouse.”
Lord help me.
The next morning I awoke to the sight of fuzzy Elvis staring down at me. Again. What I wouldn’t have given to be back in my own room.
I stumbled out of bed, rubbing my eyes, making my way on autopilot through the house toward the scent of coffee. Cal was already at the kitchen table, sipping his cup, reading the paper. Aunt Sue was frying bacon. Or, more accurately, burning bacon.
I wrinkled my nose. “I think it’s done.”
“What?” she asked, over the sizzling sounds.
“I think the bacon’s done!”
“What did you say?”
“It’s burnt!” I yelled.
Aunt Sue looked down at the blacked strips in her pan. “Oh. So it is. Oh well, I guess we’ll just have eggs,” she said, shrugging her shoulders as she reached into the refrigerator.
Just in case, I popped a couple pieces of sourdough into the toaster.
“By the way,” Aunt Sue said, cracking eggs into a bowl, “your cell’s been going off all morning.” She gestured to my purse sitting on the counter.
I popped it open and looked at my phone readout. Four calls. All from Felix. I bit my lip. Apparently he’d read my column.
I was just contemplating putting the phone on mute, when Cal slammed his coffee cup down on the kitchen table behind me.
“What the hell is this?” he asked.
I spun around to find Cal-a very pissed off Cal-holding up today’s Informer.
I guess Felix wasn’t the only one doing some early morning reading.
“Um…my column.”
“Obviously. Are you out of your mind?”
Aunt Sue angled around him to read it, then did a subdued little, “Oh, my,” her big, round eyes going my way.
I crossed my arms over my chest in a defensive posture.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Cal asked.
“What? I should just sit back and let this creep systematically destroy everything around me? I can’t go home, I’m being babysat twenty-four seven, my neigh-bor’s dead, and someone’s trying to blow me up! Everywhere I go this guy is threatening me. I’m sick of it!”
“The police-” he started.
But I cut him off. “The police aren’t doing jack. You saw them test the scene yesterday-they came up with nothing. I’m tired of chasing leads to nowhere. I’m calling this guy out in the open.”