Dead, Sweet Boy (Book One - Dead, Sweet Series) Read online

  “This is my favorite cake,” Claudia cried. “How did you know?”

  Rick, mom and Patty loved my hair. I could tell that my mother didn’t think much of Claudia’s hair and her makeup, but she really made an effort to give Claudia a little party. She might have even enjoyed how much Claudia appreciated it.

  After the cake and ice cream, Claudia, Rick and I ended up out by the pool. That’s when Rick and I filled Claudia in on the beast from the night before. She listened intently while she painted my nails a shiny blue, not missing a spot or a word.

  “Bigfoot,” she exclaimed.

  “No, there isn’t a bigfoot around here,” Rick said. I got a little upset when he decided that it was okay to fill Claudia in on Mack haunting the town.

  “That has nothing to do with last night,” I snapped.

  “Oh my God. How do you know? What were you guys doing in that boat? A little rocking?”

  Rick laughed, but I didn’t. “No, we weren’t. What does that have to do with anything?” I snapped. My eyes darted to Rick, who wasn’t looking my way. I wondered what would have happened if we hadn’t been interrupted by that thing. Certainly I wouldn’t have let things get out of hand. I never had before with guys. Why would this be any different?

  “Maybe Mack was jealous,” said Claudia.

  Ricks face went serious. I felt it too. He had left out the kiss in his story, and I denied that anything was going on. But now that she said that, it was strange that we heard the thing right when we kissed. We caught each other’s eyes, and it was clear we both had the same thought at that moment.

  I looked away, rolling my eyes and trying to act unaffected by Rick’s acknowledgement that we might have done something that would upset Mack. “No, it wasn’t Mack. Whatever this was, it was evil. I felt how evil it was,” I explained, but then I thought about the dream. The nightmare.

  Rick got up to go to the bathroom. He didn’t look so comfortable anymore.

  “So what really happened in the boat,” she asked, as soon as he was gone.

  I shook my head.

  “Oh come on. You can tell me. Is he your man?”

  “I don’t know. I think he wants to be, but I’m such a freak that I can’t just go with it.”

  “And the boat?”

  “I kissed him.”

  “Did he kiss you back?”

  “Yes, he kissed me back. And yes, that’s when the monster came after us, but it isn’t Mack, so just get that out of your head.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll drop it for now. We’ll talk about it later. Hey, you know what we should do? We should have a slumber party. What do you think? We can stay up all night and watch movies.” And then without pausing for a breath she said, “But really Sun? I think you’re a little confused about Rick. Sounds like you’re the one that started everything. So just go with it. That’s the normal thing to do. You don’t have to be a freak. I’m just say’n.”

  She caught me off guard. Before I could figure out if she was right or not, Rick came back in the suit I gave him earlier and jumped into the pool, splashing us both. A streak of blue nail polish shot up my hand when Claudia screeched and moved to avoid the splash.

  “Oh, you are so going to get it,” she threatened.

  I knew she was going in the water. “Don’t you want a suit?” She looked down at her new clothes and put the fingernail polish down. “Yeah, let’s suit up before we drown him.”

  As we looked through my bathing suits and changed, I realized something about that day. Although I never would have chosen the word ‘girly’ to describe Claudia, we were having a girly type of time together. I never had any girlfriends, except for groupies and girls the guys in the band dated. Those weren’t really girlfriends.

  “Oh, I definitely call the red bikini,” Claudia squealed.

  We giggled while we changed; knowing that we wouldn’t have the same effect on him when we jumped in, because he was already wet, but it was fun to play. It was something I didn’t think possible when Rick was driving me home from my six month confinement. But it was. And I couldn’t feel more hope. Yes, hope was the right feeling.

  It was a fun night of playing in the pool and laughing. Rick didn’t seem to mind that whatever plans he wanted to make with me that night were changed, and I think he genuinely enjoyed Claudia’s company.

  After we changed back into dry clothes, my mom came out with some hot chocolate, to warm our blue lips, Claudia told her about our sleepover, and she couldn’t be more thrilled. She offered to make us nachos, and told us we could use all of her beauty equipment. “Better yet, we should all go to the spa tomorrow,” mom offered.

  I thought Claudia was going to trade me in for my mother, she was so excited. “I’ve always wanted to go to a spa. How cool. Do they do everything there?”

  “They do it all,” my mom answered.

  “Bikini waxes? Oh man I want a landing strip. What color should I get?”

  “Really? I mean serious Claudia. You didn’t just say that in front of my mother and Rick. You don’t see anything wrong with that?”

  “What? Your mom’s a girl too, just a little older than us. It’s not like she hasn’t heard or seen that before. Dude, relax. Your mom knows more than us.”

  My mom laughed. Rick laughed too. Was I the only person who was embarrassed? I could never say anything like that aloud to my mother or anyone. Come to think of it, I had never talked to anyone about sex. I tried to talk to Mack a couple of times, you know, ask him if he had done it and if he had, what it was like. You would think I had asked him to bend over and show me everything, he was so upset. It was silly. I knew he had done it, at least with Linda. There was that time when band practice was at Rick’s house and Linda showed up. They had a fight earlier in the week and she insisted on talking. They went to sit in Mack’s car. After what seemed like ages they came back in, with Linda all adjusting her clothing in a way to make it obvious to the rest of us that she was back.

  I shook my head to get rid of the song, Just Like Heaven. It was The Cure’s version. I loved it when AFI did the song, but The Cure was blaring away, blocking the other people around me out as I thought about Linda and her moment.

  “Sunny what do you think,” my mother’s voice tried to chime in. But I was locked into the lyrics, mostly because of my own curiosity about sex and how juvenile it made me feel when someone like Linda or Claudia could talk so plainly about it. Sex.

  Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick

  The one that makes me scream, she said

  The one that makes me laugh she said

  And threw her arms around my neck

  Show me how you do it

  And I promise you I promise that

  I’ll run away with you

  I’ll run away with you

  I was missing something in my development. Other girls knew so much more about everything than I did. Oh I was an expert with music, but I was lost in a group of girls, or when I was alone on a date with a guy.

  “Sunny,” Claudia said. I could just barely hear her because I was singing now.

  Spinning on that dizzy edge

  I kissed her face I kissed her neck

  And dreamed of all the different ways I had

  To make her glow

  Linda knew what it was all about, and I knew she was all about Mack. When a picture of the two of them moving together in his car, came into my head, I gasped. When I stood to my feet, Rick took my hand.

  “She’s doing that thing she does again,” Claudia explained in a tone that had accepted my quirk long ago. “I just ignore her until she comes back to this planet.” I could hear her.

  “Sunny, are you Okay,” my mother asked.

  “No, I mean yeah. I was just remembering something. Sorry.”

  “Dude, you were singing not thinking.”

  “So what Claud.”

  “So nothing. So you were singing. I was just say’n, that’s all. And I’m not sure you got the words to th
at song right. Hey, your mom wants to treat us the spa tomorrow. What do you think?”

  “Spa, yeah I guess so.” I looked down at Rick’s hand that was holding mine. He still wasn’t running. I looked at Claudia, who accepted me just the way I was. Mom looked worried, but then I think it made her worry just to hear me breathe.

  While Claudia and her new friend, my mother, got all caught up in spa talk, Rick let me know that he was going to take off. We cut through the house to get to his car, and once outside I wanted to make sure I let him know how grateful I was.

  “It was nothing Sunny. It’s just a cake.”

  “Yeah but you wanted to do something tonight.”

  “And we did. I had fun. Really.”

  Neither of us knew where we stood or what to do. The last kiss ended badly and then all the talk about Mack. It was appropriate when he leaned over and kissed me on my cheek. It felt right and it felt warm. I was so pleased with him.

  “I’ll give you a call tomorrow after work,” he offered. “You guys have fun at the spa.”

  “My mom was something else, huh?”

  “She’s great. I like your mom,” he said.

  “No, I mean she’s different.”

  “We’re all a little different. Aren’t we? She went through it too you know.”

  “I guess I didn’t think about that. I mean that she’s different in a good way.”

  “So are you Sunny. I’m glad you’re home.”

  Claudia had no qualms about involving my mother in part of our evening. We helped her make the nachos and Claudia invited her to join us. It was much easier to talk to mom with Claudia there. And my mom was able to get Claudia to talk about her childhood some. I think we were all tired of heavy conversations, so we kept it all light when we talked and before my mother excused herself, she gave me a kiss. On her way out, she kissed Claud on her head.

  “Your mother is so cool. She’s a mother but she’s really a great lady.”

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t think so? You should spend an evening with my mother.”

  “I didn’t say I don’t think so. She’s changed a lot since I’ve been away. I’m not sure what happened, but yeah, I’d have to say she’s pretty okay.”

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “He’s another story. He’s not home much now that I’m home. And he drinks even more now.” I explained how things at my house used to be, and that without Mack, I would have been completely alone.

  “So Mack was your only friend?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Why? I don’t understand. What about Rick and the other guys in the band? Didn’t you have any girlfriends?”

  I tried to explain the special relationship between Mack and me, but she kept asking why I didn’t have more friends.

  “You live in this great house that would be perfect to have friends over and the only friend you had was Mack? Something doesn’t sound right about that. I would have people over all the time. Man if I had all this? I would have a ton of friends.”

  So that was it and it was a little like the pot calling the kettle black. She wasn’t so different from me. So she had reasons not to let anyone into her house. Claudia couldn’t let anyone into her house or her world, because of what a sick mess it was. I didn’t let anyone in because…“Mack and I were friends when we were in diapers.”

  “So what? It’s not right to have only one friend in your whole life Sunny. What kind of hold did he have on you?”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t make it sound like there was something strange about me and Mack. You didn’t know him, and you’re just getting to know me.”

  “Fair enough, but Sunny, I really can’t imagine you having only one friend. I think you make a great friend.” She made me smile and was forgiven. It was unexpected. Everything about Claudia was a surprise. “So finish giving me the 4-1-1 on lover boy. He’s perfect for you. I’m so jealous and want you to fix me up with someone like him, well more like me.”

  “He is special, isn’t he? It’s so weird, because to tell you the truth, I never really noticed him like I am right now. He was just one of the guys in the band. One of Mack’s and my friends. Really more Mack’s friend than mine.”

  “Sounds like Mack shielded you from the world and its inhabitants.” She caught the look I shot her. “Don’t say it. I’ll drop it.” She gave me a look that told me she was annoyed, and changed the subject. “So are you guys officially going out then?”

  “Not really. We had that kiss and that’s about it. What could we do, what with the monster or whatever that thing was?”

  We both looked out into the backyard, toward the river. “Do you think it’s out there now?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to know. Let’s not talk about it.”

  “I don’t know Sunny. I think we have to get to the bottom of this. Whatever it was, it went after you and Rick. It might strike again, or it might go after someone else. It’s kind of strange that it’s there all the sudden and it was never a problem before. It’s only right dude, to figure it out.”

  “And just how do you want to get to the bottom of the mystery? I’m not going looking for it. Be my guest if you want to. The boat’s down at the dock, at least I think it is,” I said, waving my hand back and forth in front of her face.

  “Get out of here. I’m not saying that we should be the bait or something stupid like that. What do you take me for? We can’t go after it, but maybe we can find someone who can tell us what it is. There are people who know about this stuff. I mean this stuff is really real.”

  “What kind of people? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Maybe there’s Indian burial grounds here, or maybe something happened on this river that we don’t know about. Or…just maybe…it has something to do with Mack’s death.”

  “I’m not doing this,” I snapped. Claudia followed me into the house. When I went into the bathroom to take a shower, she followed. I was completely caught off guard when she stripped down and got in with me.

  “I’m not trying to upset…”

  “What are you doing? Why are you in the shower with me?”

  “I’m taking a shower.”

  “There are plenty of bathrooms in this house.”

  “Are you dense Sunny? Girls take showers together all the time.”

  “Not me. I’ve never taken a shower with another girl. I’ve never taken a shower with anyone.”

  “Hand me the soap.”

  I did, but I still wasn’t comfortable. Where the hell was I supposed to put my eyes? The fact that I wasn’t comfortable didn’t bother her at all. She went right on soaping herself up and explaining her take on the monster and Mack. “Just listen to me. Just because I have an idea doesn’t mean that we have to do it, and it doesn’t hurt anything to talk about it. Can you just listen to me? And quit freaking out about me being in the shower with you. In the six months that we lived together in that small room, did I ever give you a reason to freak out? Like I wanted to touch you or something?”

  I shook my head to say that she hadn’t.

  “So nothing has changed. I had to take showers with my cousins all the time when my mother would dump me there. It saved time and water. And guess what? My heart still goes bump bump every time I see a cute guy. Man, your boobs are bigger than they look when you’re dressed. You should show the girls off a little. I would.”

  My hands moved immediately to cover all the nakedness they could. Claudia just laughed at me. “Sunny I’m joking. Cripe relax would you? I see boobs every time I look in the mirror. Not quite as big as yours, but I have them. See?” She laughed again while she cupped her hands under her breasts and jiggled them up and down.

  “Stop it Claudia,” I squealed. My hands left my nakedness to cover my eyes.

  She laughed harder. “Sunny, I’m sorry. Come on, I’m only teasing you. Man you’re an easy target. Here, turn around. I’ll wash your back,
” she said, guiding my shoulders to turn. I expected to crawl out of my skin, but I didn’t. Nothing freaky at all and when she was done, I was instructed to wash hers. “You need to keep an open mind. How can you be happy about Mack wandering around out there if it’s true?”

  “It’s not true.”

  “You don’t know that. Lots of times there’s truth to rumors. What if it is true? Hand me your razor.” I did and I think I blushed. “Hey are you going to get a bikini wax? We should get a bikini wax.”

  “I don’t know what’s more frightening. The thought of facing Mack’s ghost or a bikini wax. Can’t we just do something simple?”

  “I think we can take them both on.”

  She went on and on about people who knew how to find ghosts and who communicate with the dead. When we were dried off and in nightgowns, she redid my nails. The more she talked the easier it got to listen.

  “This is a problem for you. How are you going to get any sort of normal life going, if Mack is walking around town aimlessly? Sounds like the poor guy is lost. Now I’m not an expert on this stuff, but I do watch everything there is about ghosts and ghost hunts. Have you even gone to the cemetery?”

  “No.”

  “So you didn’t go to the funeral or visit the cemetery. You need to do that Sunny.”

  “I will. When I’m ready.”

  “You’re ready. Believe me. It’s time.”

  Now she was going too far by deciding when I was ready to go to Mack’s grave, and all the ghost talk. I kept telling myself it was like she had said and it didn’t hurt to talk about it, but it was getting on my last nerve. When I was about to put an end to it, she changed the subject.

  “Tell me what you think about my eyebrows. Should I let them grow in a little thicker like yours? I just love your eyebrows but I’m not sure they’re me.”

  She fascinated me. How could I be angry? The night went back to girly talk and movies. We pulled out the couch and snuggled in together. We talked about boys, and she confided in me that she was still a virgin too. It was so special and I couldn’t believe that I had gone so long without having a girlfriend. Especially since that very girl had spent six months or so with me. I really must have been a vegetable.