Don’t ask me why. I think I’m fabulous, but I’m not entirely sure what he sees in me (except the fact that I’ve saved his life a few times. But he’s returned the favor).
The only reason we aren’t spending this February fourteenth together is because he’s currently enrolled in medical school four hours away, and he’s doing rotations (and also still interviewing for residencies).
Yeah, my boyfriend’s in medical school. He wants to be a pediatrician. He’s hoping to get a residency at St. Francis Hospital nearby (the medical school residency “matching program” is this whole big thing. He finds out where—-and if—-he’s been matched next month), but I’m not optimistic. We’ve already been so lucky simply finding one another, it seems selfish to wish for more.
What a guy like him is even doing with a girl like me, I still can’t figure out . . . but then again, Hector “Jesse” de Silva has secrets, too. And some of them are even darker than mine.
Not darker than the guy’s with whom I was spending my Valentine’s Day, though, that’s for sure.
“Let’s just say I’m your fairy godmother,” I said to him, lowering myself from J. Charles Peterson’s grave. I’d like to say I did it gracefully, but I’m afraid I did not, due to butt freeze. I tried not to let it show, however. “And I’m here to make you sure you get to the ball on time. Only in this case, the ball is the afterlife. Come on, if we hurry, you can still make it before midnight. Only I’m not sure Cinderella”—-I pointed at the grave the NCDP had just desecrated—-“will be there waiting for you. Or that if she is, she’ll be too happy to see you.”
The NCDP still seemed startled. He wasn’t exactly my idea of Prince Charming, but his girlfriend—-a pretty, popular, honor student—-had evidently found something in him to love.
“Y--you can see me?” he stammered, his eyes narrowing behind his black--framed glasses. He had the whole look down—-whatever look it was that he was going for, some kind of tortured artist/Steve Jobs thing, except that this kid was black. I dress in dark colors for night jobs so as not to be noticeable to security guards. He seemed to be wearing it to express the darkness of his soul. “No one—-no one has been able to see me since the accident.”
Accident. That was a nice touch.
“Obviously I can see you, genius,” I said. “And I’m not the only one.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at the towering oak tree just beyond J. Charles Peterson’s grave. Cementerio El Encinal meant Cemetery of Many Oaks (I’m taking Spanish so that when Jesse and I have kids, I’ll understand what he’s saying when he yells at them in his mother tongue). “Your girlfriend’s family got tired of finding all of their floral arrangements kicked to bits, so they installed a security camera three days ago. Your little antics have gone viral. They even made the nightly news.”
He stared in the direction of the video camera. “Really?” But instead of looking ashamed of his disrespectful behavior toward his beloved’s grave, his face broke out into a grin. “Cool.”
The contempt I’d been feeling for him kicked up a -couple of notches, which is never a good thing in a mediation. We’re supposed to feel nothing toward our “clients”—-nothing except compassion.
But it’s hard to feel compassion toward a cold--blooded murderer.
“Uh, no, not cool,” I snarled. “And don’t go waving to Mom just yet. For one thing, I disabled the camera for the night. And for another, you’re dead, in case it still hasn’t sunk in. You have no physical presence anymore—-at least to anyone but -people like myself. All that camera records when you show up is static. -People think it’s a—-”
“Ghost?” He smirked.
God, this kid was a pill.
“Some of the less reputable news outlets speculate it might be a ghost,” I admitted. “Others think it’s a pair of vandals working in tandem, one destroying the flowers while the other messes with the camera. Others think the family is trying to perpetrate a hoax on the media and law enforcement, who take grave desecration seriously. That’s not a very nice thing to do to -people who are going through a period of mourning over the death of a beloved daughter.”
That, at least, sunk in. He stopped smirking and scowled at the grave he’d just vandalized. It had a brand--new headstone over it, in pink marble, the kind with a photo etched beside the name.
Jasmin Ahmadi, the epitaph read. Beloved daughter, sister, friend. Too soon taken, forever to be missed.
The photo showed a dark--haired girl laughing into the camera, a twinkle in her eyes. Jasmin had been seventeen years old at her time of death.
His headstone was a few rows over, but it was much simpler, flat gray granite with an epitaph listing only his name—-Mark Rodgers—-and dates of birth and death. There was no photo. The year of his birth—-and date of his death—-was the same as Jasmin’s.