A Rose From the Dead (3 page)

“A
crowd isn’t necessarily a bad thing, right?” I said, dodging poky walkers. “I mean, it could be that my floral arrangements are a big draw, couldn’t it?”

Then I heard a loud, harsh female voice say, “We have rules at this convention, Mrs. Dove. You were given a copy of those rules before you set up your booth. Now, you’ll have to dismantle your display at once and move everything in by a foot on each side.”

Dismantle it? After we spent two hours setting it up? Okay,
that
was bad.

We wove through a dozen onlookers to find the source of that grating voice—a startlingly attractive, fortysomething woman in a tight, zebra-print, sleeveless wrap dress. The woman was obviously a fitness buff, as was evidenced by her well-toned arms, firm bust (with a major display of cleavage), tiny waist, long, shapely legs, and curvaceous rear end—which every male seemed to be checking out. To her outfit she had added a bloodred rose tucked above one ear into her long sweep of platinum hair. She held a clipboard in one hand and a red marker in the other, and was fixing Delilah with a glare that would make ice shiver.

It wasn’t fazing Delilah, however, who calmly regarded her from beneath the wide, translucent brim of her pale pink hat. “Sybil,” she said with her easy Southern drawl, “we’ve been coming here long enough to know how to set up a booth. We are well within the limits.”

Max Dove pushed through the crowd to step up beside his wife, but anyone who knew Delilah knew his support was unnecessary. She might have been a genteel lady with a soft voice, big hairdo, and impeccable manners, but beneath that deceptively innocent heart-shaped face, Delilah was the proverbial steel magnolia.

Not only was she strong willed, but she was also physically strong, a quality that enabled her to do the heavy lifting often required in her line of work. Yet Delilah was able to hold her own without flexing a muscle, uttering a single swear word, or even raising her voice. It was all in her attitude.

“If you have any doubts, Sybil,” Delilah continued, reaching into a box of supplies hidden beneath the table skirt, “perhaps you’d be kind enough to see for yourself?” She smiled angelically as she offered Sybil a tape measure.

The sudden strum of harp strings across the aisle made the crowd chuckle. The young woman I’d noticed earlier was seated at a tall golden harp, running her delicate fingertips up and down the strings, the wide sleeves of her long, flowing black dress falling back to reveal thin, pale arms. Her eyes were closed and her pale face gazed upward as though she were somewhere far away. I doubted she even knew what was happening in front of our booth.

Sybil maintained her frosty glare for another ten seconds, then swung around to cut a swath through the onlookers, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll be back to measure later,
Mrs. Dove.
”

“We’ll be here,” Delilah sang out.

Sybil marched past, giving me a glimpse of what could have been a model’s face, except that it was coated with makeup that gave her skin an otherworldly, almost plastic appearance. Her full lips, painted with an iridescent rose red lipstick, were now twisted in annoyance, and her big amber eyes glared from inside a shimmery, smoky circle of eyeshadow. Her long platinum mane slapped her back like a treacherous wave beating against the shoreline, telling the world that Sybil Blount was not a woman to be messed with.

Then she saw Marco and stopped in midstride, her march becoming a hip-swinging sashay, her hostile expression dissolving into a flirtatious smile. “Well,
hello.
I haven’t seen you around here before.” She reached for his hand, which he reluctantly let her shake. “I’m Sybil Blount, chairperson of the convention.”

“Marco Salvare,” he said, watching her with slightly narrowed eyes.

“Marco, is it?” she said in a sultry voice, behaving as if they were the only two in the room. “What mortuary are you with, Marco?”

“I own a bar.”

“A bar? Well, aren’t
you
a hottie.” Sybil still had his hand, and now her gaze was stripping away his clothes. “What’s the name of your bar, Marco?”

“Down the Hatch.” He politely withdrew his hand but didn’t step back, even though she was edging closer. Hadn’t he figured out yet that she was hitting on him? Wasn’t he aware of the people around us straining to hear their conversation?

Sybil leaned into him, murmuring, “Maybe you can drop down
my
hatch one of these days, Marco. What do you think about that?”

Okay, that did it.

“Hi, I’m Abby Knight from New Chapel,” I said, inserting myself between them, although I had to step on Marco’s foot to get him to move back. I grabbed her hand and shook it like a dusty throw rug at the back door, raising a cloud of the sharp, tart scent she wore. “I own Bloomers Flower Shop. Marco came with me to help me set up my flower display.” I pointed from him to me so she’d be absolutely clear about our connection.

“How nice for you.” Her unmerciful gaze swept over my face. “Stop by my booth after lunch. I’ll help you hide those horrid freckles.” She turned to Marco and, with a wink, said in a husky whisper, “See
you
later, cutie.”

“I don’t think so, Sybil,” I muttered as she turned to talk to someone else.

“Behave,” Marco growled.

“Me? I’m not the one who let Sybil paw me. And she’s old enough to be your mother, by the way.”

“No way.”

Delilah took us by the arms and ushered us back to the booth. “Don’t let Sybil get under your skin, Abby. She’s just a big ol’ clucking hen who likes to strut around reminding everyone that she’s the chairperson. And she’s forty, by the way.”

“See?” Marco said to me.

“Darlin’, gloating is ungentlemanly,” Delilah chided. “And just so you know, Sybil
was
pawing you. See all those males watching her strut up the aisle? Purely half of them have felt her pawing and the other half are waitin’ their turns.” Delilah gave a gleeful laugh.

“Listen to Delilah,” Max said. “She knows Sybil’s ways. At every convention we’ve ever been to, Sybil has always tried to get a rise out of Del.” He cupped a hand around his mouth, pretending his wife couldn’t hear. “That’s because Sybil is jealous of Del’s natural beauty. Nothing artificial about her looks.”

Delilah blushed prettily. “Darlin’ man, she’s not jealous of
me.
She’s jealous of my hats.” She patted the one on her head.

Delilah adored hats and had a closet dedicated to them. She never suffered from hat head because her blond hair was back combed, then sprayed to a helmetlike stiffness with her favorite hair spray, which she carried in her purse at all times, along with her powder compact and a tube of pink lipstick. Her clothing style was classic, mostly pastels, and her ever-present pearls were always the genuine article. She was a true Southern lady.

Hearing laughter, I turned to see Sybil halfway down the aisle, slapping the chest of a young male sales rep as if he’d just told the funniest story she’d ever heard. He put his arm around her waist and whispered something in her ear, and when she turned to whisper something back that had him nodding excitedly, I noticed a piece of paper stuck to the seat of her skirt that read:
STAND BACK
!
I BITE
.

Everyone around us saw it, too, which caused a lot of snorts and titters as people drifted off, leaving me with a perfect view of Ross and Jess giving each other high fives. The sign writers, obviously. I would have found the joke funny if they hadn’t already gotten me.

Hmm. Maybe it was time to settle that matter.

“So, we don’t need to worry about the booth being the wrong size?” I asked the Doves.

“We measured everything carefully,” Delilah assured me. “Besides, Sybil will be onto something else in a minute anyway, won’t she, Max?”

“Or onto some
one
else,” I said, giving Marco a pointed glance. He responded by rolling his eyes.

As if on cue, we heard a furious screech. “There she goes,” Delilah said. “She must have discovered that sign on her derriere.”

At the end of the aisle, Ross and Jess were laughing so hard they had to hold each other up.

“Would you excuse me for a few minutes?” I asked my friends. “I have to take care of something.”

“Abby,” Marco called, “where are you going?”

He’d figure it out.

“Hey, guys,” I said, striding right up to them. “I need to talk to you.”

I would have expected them to appear at least slightly embarrassed when they saw me, but not those two. They had the nerve to look quite pleased with themselves. Thing One, dressed in designer loafers, khakis, and a green golf shirt, stepped forward. His blond-tipped hair was styled so that one lock curled perfectly above his right eye, unlike Thing Two, whose hair had a bed-head look. He wore brand-new Nikes and ripped-at-the-knees blue jeans with a white T-shirt that said
DROP DEAD
. Real professional.

“What’s up, Red?” Thing One asked, flashing his pretty-boy smile.

“I’m not a crayon, okay? It’s Abby. Remind me again—which one are you, Dumb or Dumber?”

“It’s Jess, and what’s
your
problem?”

“Hey!
I’m
Jess,” Thing Two said, giving his brother a not-so-playful punch in the arm. Jess the Mess. He’d be easy to remember.

“Hey, man, lay off me,” Ross said, knocking his hand away.

“
You
lay off.”

I let out a bored sigh as the brothers argued and shoved.
This
was why I never dated younger men. Go below the age of twenty-four and you’re asking for a babysitting gig. “Hello-o-o. I just wanted to thank you for locking me in the phone booth this morning. It was a great way to start the day.”

“It was a joke,” Ross said with a shrug of one shoulder. “Lighten up.”

“Jokes have punch lines,” I reminded him. “Here’s one for you. What do you call two individuals who confine another individual in a phone booth–coffin?”

“I give,” Jess said dryly.

“Felons—which is what you’ll be if you ever pull a stunt like that on me again, because I will press charges so fast your skulls will spin. Got it?”

Ross patted his mouth, as though yawning. “I’m sorry. What was that again?”

Jess took a more serious stance. “Cool down, little dudette. We thought you were, you know, looking for some fun. Not like the old farts around here.”

“The old farts, as you call them, deal with death and loss,” I said. “That tends to diminish the fun aspect.”

“Give me a break,” Ross said. “These booths, this convention—it’s all about commerce. So there’s no reason why these dudes have to take things so seriously. I mean, okay, so you’re a mortician. Get over yourself. Everyone gets bagged eventually. Have some fun with it.”

“Bagged?”

“Toe tagged, gone sour, whatever.” Jess flicked his tongue at me, which had a silver stud embedded in the tip. It explained the clicking noise when he talked. Charming.

“That’s not an attitude you see much in funeral directors,” I said. “How do your clients feel about that, considering their state of grief?”

“We don’t deal with clients. We’re management.” Ross nudged his brother. “Hey, look, Jess. Here comes the Diva of Death again. Is our sign still there?”

I glanced around and saw Sybil with her clipboard.

“It’s gone,” Jess replied with a snicker, clicking his tongue stud. “You should have seen her, Red. She was strutting around like, ‘Oh, look at me, I’m so hot.’ She didn’t have a clue that there was a freakin’ sign on her ass.” They both laughed.

“Why do you want to embarrass her?” I asked them. “What has she done to you?”

“Nothing,” Jess the Mess said, “and that’s the way we want to keep it. We’re too cool to fool. Hey, Ross. Let’s get her again.”

“Dude, what should we do?”

“You’re asking me? Come on, Mr. Cool, you’re the one with the ideas.”

“If she finds out who’s behind these pranks, I wouldn’t want to be you,” I told them.

“It won’t be a problem.” Ross cast a sly glance at his twin. “She’d think it was an invitation.”

“An invitation to what?”

“Well,
hello
, boys,” I heard Sybil say from behind me, her voice dripping with sweetness. She practically elbowed me out of her way in her eagerness to get close to them.

Have at ’em, Sybil.
I turned and headed toward my booth, but just a few yards short of my target, I stopped when a fragile figure in black suddenly appeared in front of me, her incense enveloping me in a dry, dusty fog of aroma.

I pulled back in surprise as the harpist said in a sad, whisper-thin voice, “No one understands her.”

“Understands who?”

“Sybil.” The harpist closed her eyes, swaying to some inner tune as her gossamer dress billowed around her. She had a very large forehead, short, dyed-black hair parted in the middle, silver glitter eyeshadow, white makeup, and black lipstick. Up close, she was also much older than I’d thought, appearing to be in her midthirties.