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“Why do you think he does it, Gwen?” Isobel asked. “Every year he comes back, and every year he leaves the roses. It’s been going on for decades now, and why? What’s the point?”
“You know,” Gwen said as she unfolded her paper napkin and laid it in her lap, “corpses are notorious for playing hard to get.”
Isobel dropped her hand, letting her arm flop against the table. She shot Gwen a scathing glare. “I’m being serious,” she said.
“Well,” Gwen started, thinking. “Obviously, he gets the flowers from the rose garden. The one I saw in my dream.”
“But why?” Isobel pressed, her frustration growing even though she knew full well that Gwen would be unable to answer her questions, especially since she did not know half of what Isobel did. Ever since Pinfeathers had shown her the scene from the hospital, Isobel couldn’t stop turning the events over and over in her mind. It had become like a sore she couldn’t stop worrying and picking at. Or more like a nightmare she couldn’t forget.
Gwen shrugged and bit into her roll. She chewed thoughtfully, her foot tapping against the checkered linoleum floor beneath their table, a clear sign that Isobel had once again said something to ramp up her nerves. “I dunno,” she said. “Paying respects? That’s a given. I don’t think anyone really knows just why he does it. From what I understand, that’s part of the mystery. Call me clueless—which, remember, I pretty much am—but I would have thought that if anyone knew why, you might.”
“I . . . I thought I did,” Isobel said. “But . . . I don’t. Not anymore.”
Isobel looked down at her chicken patty. A moment of silence passed between them while the surrounding sounds of talking and laughing swelled louder. Then Gwen reached her fork across the table and stabbed one of Isobel’s Tater Tots. “FYI,” she said. “Dunno about you, but I’m all set for the trip. Even got a gas card the other day so my parents can’t track my debit when I refill.”
“Gwen. I’m . . . I’m really scared.”
“Finally,” Gwen said without missing a beat, even though her fingers trembled while she tried to tear open the plastic packet of salad dressing. “Your first healthy reaction.”
“Things are different,” Isobel said. “They’re changing. I mean . . . they’ve changed,” she corrected.
“How about your mind?” Gwen glanced up, feigning hopefulness. “Tell me that’s changed.”
“No,” Isobel said. “I . . . I know what I have to do. I just . . . Gwen? I . . . I need you to do me a favor.”
“Should I just put that on your tab?”
Isobel ignored the joke. “If . . . if I don’t come back from this—”
Gwen dropped her fork onto her tray, her hands snapping into a referee’s time-out gesture. “This conversation is not going to happen.”
“Please,” Isobel said. “It’s important.”
“Listen.” Gwen propped her elbow on the table and aimed a finger in Isobel’s face. “Say what you gotta say, get it out of your system, and then keep it zipped about the not-coming-back crap,” she said. “This is the first and the last ‘if I should die before I wake’ spiel you get. Got it?”
“It’s not a spiel,” Isobel said, “it’s just, I need to know if you’ll do something for me.”
“What?”
Isobel took in a breath and let it out. “Varen’s stepmom,” she said. “I . . . sort of ran into her this morning. She . . . doesn’t know who I am, but she saw me with Varen on the night before he disappeared. I think she knows I was involved. So, if . . . if I don’t come back, will you give her this?” Isobel pushed a hand into her pocket. Taking out a folded slip of well-worn paper, she pressed it to the table and slid it toward Gwen.
“What is it?” Gwen asked. She plucked the paper from the table and began to unfold it.
“Don’t,” Isobel said. “Please. It—it’s a note from Varen. The last one he gave me. I found it in the pocket of his jacket after . . . I just thought that—if—if I can’t—I mean, if neither of us ever—it might help her . . . not understand, but . . .” Giving up on trying to find the right words to explain her reasoning, she said, “I just thought that maybe the one thing that gave me hope . . . can be the one thing that will give her closure. If it comes to that.” She shrugged. “That’s all.”
Gwen refolded the note. Without asking any more questions, she tucked it away in her purse.
“I’ll keep it,” she said. “Then, when you get back, after you and the dark one are done making out and planning a future filled with little blond-haired, green-eyed, pigment-challenged rug rats, I’ll bring it over and you can add it to your scrapbook, right before you start cooking me dinner. I like vegetarian lasagna with cottage cheese instead of ricotta.”
“Gwen?”
“And don’t forget the mushrooms. Garlic bread, too, please. That is, as long as your vampire lover doesn’t object.”
“I want to say thank you,” Isobel said. “For . . . everything.”
“No,” Gwen said, “thank you for the delicious dinner. I can almost taste the baklava you and Darth Vader will be making for dessert. Something tells me you’re gonna have to look that one up, though.” Snatching her napkin out of her lap, Gwen pulled a pen from her purse. Scribbling the dessert name onto the flimsy paper, she slid it across the table to Isobel. After a slight pause, she twiddled the pen and then snatched the napkin back. “Oh, hell,” she said. “I’ll just write the whole damn recipe down. In the meantime, you can stop looking at me like I’ve just pulled you out of quicksand or something.”
“But it feels like you have,” Isobel said.
