Remembrance (The Mediator #7) (2 page)

Still, it felt wrong to say
I’m sorry for your loss
to Paul, considering he was acting like the world’s biggest jackhole.

It didn’t end up mattering. Paul wanted something from me, but it wasn’t my condolences.

“Yeah, you’re talking to one of
Los Angeles
magazine’s most eligible bachelors,” he went on, oblivious. “Of course my parents aren’t too happy about it. They had the nerve to take me to court to contest the will, can you believe that?”

“Uh . . . yes?”

“Funny. But justice prevailed, and I’m now the president and CEO of Slater Industries. I’ve got a home on both coasts and a private jet to fly between them, but—as the magazine put it—no one special with whom to share them.” I could hear the mocking tone in his voice. “Interested in being that special someone, Suze?”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” I said coolly. “Especially since you can’t think of anything more creative to do with your new fortune than knock down other people’s houses. Which I don’t think you can even do legally. Mine’s nearly two hundred years old. It’s still got the original carved newel post on the staircase from when it was built in 1850. It has stained-glass windows. It’s a historic landmark.”

“Actually, it isn’t. Oh, it’s quaintly charming in its own way, I suppose, but nothing historic ever occurred there. Well, except for what happened between you and me,” he smirked, “and considering the way you’ve been avoiding me these past few years, I guess I’m not the only one who remembers that as being historically significant.”

“Nothing ever happened between us, Paul,” I said. He was only trying to get under my skin, the same way he’d tried to get under my bra at graduation. That’s how he operated, much like a chigger, or various other bloodsucking parasites. “Nothing good, anyway.”

“Ouch, Simon! You sure know how to hurt a guy. I distinctly recall one afternoon in my bedroom when you did not seem at all repulsed by my advances. Why, you even—”

“—walked out on you, remember? And no one can tear down a house that old. That has to be a violation of some kind of city code.”

“You slip enough money to the right politicians, Simon, you can get permits to do anything you want in the great state of California. That’s why they call it the land of opportunity. Congratulations, by the way, on your stepfather’s success. Who would have thought that little home-improvement show of Andy Ackerman’s would become an international sensation. Where’d your parents move to with all the money he’s raking in from the syndication rights? Bel Air? Or the Hills? Don’t worry, it happens to everyone. I’m sure they haven’t let fame go to their heads. Your mother is a lovely woman with such gracious manners, which is more than I can say for her only daughter—”

“You say one more word about my mother,” I snarled, “and I will end you, Paul, like I should have done years ago. I will find you, wherever you are, remove your head from your body, and stuff it up your—”

“You already used that one,” Paul reminded me. “So I take it that you
do
have a sentimental side, Suze. How surprising. I always knew you had a soft spot for that undead boyfriend of yours, of course, but I never expected it to extend to real estate. Oh, wait—Jesse must be more than just a boyfriend now that you managed to reunite his body with his soul. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit out of the loop lately—and who has time to read their alumni newsletter anyway? Have you two tied the knot? Wait, silly me—of
course
you have. It’s been six years since high school! I know a love as passionate as the one you and that necromantic cholo shared couldn’t
possibly
wait six years to be consummated. And from what I remember, Hector ‘Jesse’ de Silva respected you far too much ever to try to get into your pants without the sanctity of holy matrimony.”

I felt my cheeks begin to burn. I told myself it was indignation at his racism—
necromantic cholo
? Really?—but I knew some of it was due to a different emotion entirely. I was happy Paul wasn’t in the same room with me, or he’d surely have noticed. He’d always been discomfortingly sharp-eyed.

“Jesse and I are engaged,” I said, controlling—with an effort—my impulse to swear at him some more. In the past, anytime Paul was able to evoke any kind of emotion from me at all—even a negative one—it pleased him.

And the last thing I’d ever wanted to do was please Paul Slater.

“Engaged?” Paul crowed. “What is this, the 1950s? People still get
engaged
? Do people even get
married
? I mean, straight people?”

I really should have thought before I acted and never called him in the first place, I thought miserably, eyeing a poster Ms. Diaz, the Mission Academy guidance counselor, had stuck on the wall over by the entrance to her office. It was one of those posters ubiquitous to the profession, a blown-up photo of a kitten struggling to hang on to a tree branch emblazoned with the words
Aim High!

Too late, I realized I ought to have aimed high and approached Paul with cool dispassion, not let my emotions get in the way. That was the only way to handle him.

But he’d always been good at pushing my buttons.

All
my buttons.

“Isn’t an engagement a little old-school for a modern girl like you, Simon?” he went on. “Oh, wait, I forgot . . . Walking Dead Boy likes to do things the old-school way, doesn’t he? Does that mean”—he sounded more pleased with himself than ever—“you two are
waiting for marriage
?”

I felt another overwhelming urge to lash out and punch something, anything, maybe even the tabby kitten in the poster. But the wall behind it was three feet thick, built in the 1700s, and had withstood many a Northern California earthquake. It would definitely withstand my fist.

“That is none of your business,” I said, so icily that I was surprised the phone in my hand didn’t freeze to my face.

I was trying hard not to clue Paul in to how annoyed I was with my boyfriend’s prehistoric notion that we not only couldn’t marry until he was in a financial position to support me and whatever children we might have (even though I’d assured him I was on the pill and planned to stay on it until I’d finished my MA and had a job with full dental, at least), we couldn’t move in together.

Even worse, Jesse insisted we had to wait until we’d formally exchanged vows—in a church, with him in a suit, and me in a white dress and veil, no less—before we could enjoy conjugal relations. It was the least he could do, he insisted, out of “respect” for all that I had done for him, not only bringing him back to life, but providing him with a life worth living.

I’d let him know many, many times, and in no uncertain terms, that I could live without that kind of respect.

But what else could you expect from a guy who’d been born during the reign of Queen Victoria? Not to mention murdered in—then buried behind, then spent 150 years haunting—the very same house Paul was threatening to tear down?

This had to have something to do with
why
Paul was tearing it down. I’d always suspected Paul of being jealous that in the end I’d chosen the ghost instead of him.

But how could I not? Even in the days when Jesse hadn’t had a pulse, he’d had more heart than Paul.

“Waiting for marriage,” Paul repeated. He was hooting with laughter that bordered on tears. “Oh, God. That is so sweet. It really is, Simon. I think your stepdad’s TV show is about the wrong person. They should be filming you and that boyfriend of yours, and call it
The Last Virgins
. I swear it’d be the highest-rated show since
Ghost Mediator.
”

“Go ahead,” I said, lifting my heels to my desk and crossing my feet at the ankles. “Laugh it up, Paul. You know what Jesse’s doing right now? His medical residency.”

That hit home. Paul abruptly stopped laughing.

“That’s right,” I went on, beginning to enjoy myself. “While you’ve been out being named one of LA’s most eligible bachelors for doing nothing but inheriting your grandfather’s money, Jesse passed the MCATs with one of the highest scores in California state history and got a medical degree at UCSF. Now he’s doing a pediatrics fellowship at St. Francis Medical Center in Monterey. He just has to finish up his residency there, and he’ll be fully licensed to practice medicine. Do you know what that means?”

Paul’s voice lost some of its laughter. “He stole someone else’s identity? Because that’s the only way I can see someone who used to be a walking corpse getting into UCSF. Except as a practice cadaver, of course.”

“Jesse was born in California, you idiot.”

“Yeah, before it became a state.”

“What it means,” I went on, tipping back in my chair, “is that next year, after Jesse’s board-certified, and I’ve gotten my certification, we’ll be getting married.”

At least, if everything went according to schedule, and Jesse won the private grant he’d applied for to open his own practice. I didn’t see the point in mentioning any of these “if’s” to Paul . . . or that I didn’t know how much longer I could go on swimming laps in the dinky pool in the courtyard of my apartment building, trying to work out my frustration about my fiancé and his very nineteenth-century views about love, honor, and sex . . . views I’m determined to respect as much as he (unfortunately) respects my body.

Things have gotten steamy between us enough times for me to know that what’s behind the front of those tight jeans of Jesse’s will be worth the wait, though. Our wedding night is going to be
epic
.

Unless one of those many “if’s” doesn’t work out, or something happens to get the groom thrown in jail. Of all the obstacles I’d envisioned getting in the way of our very much deserved wedding night, Paul popping around again was the last thing I’d expected.

“But more important, it means someday we’ll be opening our own practice, specializing in helping sick kids,” I went on. “Not that helping other people is a concept I’d expect
you
to understand.”

“That’s not true,” Paul said. There was no laughter in his voice at all now. “I’ve always wanted to help you, Suze.”

“Is that what you call what you did to me graduation night, when you said you had a present you had to give to me in private, so I followed you outside and you threw me up against the mission wall and shoved your hand up my skirt?” I asked him, acidly. “You consider that
helping
me?”

“I do,” he said. “I was trying to help teach you not to waste your time on formerly deceased Latino do-gooders who consider it a sin to get nasty without a marriage license.”

“Well,” I said, lowering my feet from my desktop. “I’m hanging up now. It was not at all a pleasure speaking to you again after all these years, Paul. Please die slowly and painfully. Buh-bye.”

“Wait,” Paul said urgently before I could press End. “Don’t go. I wanted to say—”

“What? That you won’t tear down my house if I take lessons from you in how to be a more effective mediator? Sorry, Paul, that might have worked when I was sixteen, but I’m too old to fall for that one again.”

He sounded offended. “The thing with your house is just business. I only told you about it as a courtesy. What I wanted to say is that I’m sorry.”

Paul Slater had never apologized for anything before . . . and meant it. He caught me off guard.

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry for what I said about Jesse just now, and sorry for what happened that night. You’re right, Suze, I’d had way too much to drink. I know that’s no excuse, but it’s the truth. Honestly, I barely remember what happened.”

Was he kidding? “Let me remind you. After you tried to nail me against that wall, I gave
you
a present. It was with my knee, to your groinal area. Does that refresh your memory?”

“A man doesn’t forget that kind of pain, Simon. But what happened after that is a bit hazy. Is that when Debbie Mancuso came along?”

“It was. She seemed eager to tend to the wound I gave you.”

“Then you should be the one apologizing to me. Debbie’s ministrations were far from tender. She straddled me like she thought I was a damned gigolo—”

“Watch it,” I growled. “Debbie’s married to my stepbrother Brad now. And obviously I didn’t knee you nearly as hard as I should have if you were still able to get it on with Debbie afterward. The last thing you’re ever going to hear from me is an apology.”

“Then accept mine, and let me make it up to you. I have a proposal.”

I barked with laughter. “Oh, right!”

“Simon, I’m serious.”

“That’ll be a first.”

“It could save your home.”

I stopped laughing. “I’m listening. Maybe.”

“Give me another chance.”

“I said I’m listening.”

“No, that’s the proposal. Give me another chance.”

dos

The school office was air-conditioned, but the shiver I felt down my spine had nothing to do with the fact that my supervisors (some of whom dress in religious habit) liked to keep the thermostat at a crisp sixty-five degrees.

“I’m sorry,” I said, glad the shiver didn’t show in my voice. “I’m actually very busy and important and don’t have time for rich jerks from my past who want to make amends. But I wish you luck on your path toward transformative enlightenment. Bye now.”

“Suze, wait. Don’t you want to save your house?”

“It isn’t mine anymore, remember? It’s yours. So I don’t care what happens to it.”

“Come on, Suze. This is the first time in six years you’ve actually called me back when I’ve reached out to you. I know you care—about the house.”

He was right. I’d been upset when Mom told me she and my stepdad, Andy, were selling it—much more upset than Jesse when he heard the news.

“It’s only a house, Susannah,” he’d said. “Your parents haven’t lived there in years, and neither have we. It has nothing to do with us.”

“How can you say that?” I’d cried. “That house has everything to do with us. If it weren’t for that house, we’d never have found one another!”

He’d laughed. “Maybe,
querida
. Then again, maybe not. I have a feeling I’d have found you, and you me, no matter where we were. That house is only a place, and not our place, not anymore. Our place is together, wherever we happen to be.”