Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Walking to school a week after Antoine’s death, Edgar had seen his friend leaning against the bodega where they had always met up for the rest of the walk. A lightning bolt of relief struck him first, and then a hot rush of longing to throw his arms around Antoine’s skinny shoulders and smell the scent of fabric softener that always clung to his clothes, the warm scent of shea butter on his skin, and the bright hint of apple always on his breath.
Then he’d seen Antoine’s face. A blank, dead face with no trace of the sweet, smart, funny boy who’d been Edgar’s everything. That was when the choking cold had come.
And it had never really left, just twisted into a shiver that lived in his shoulders. Made him hunch them to his ears. One more layer between Edgar and the world.
He hadn’t told his siblings about seeing Antoine because every time someone said Antoine’s name, Allie and Poe looked at Edgar with such naked pity that it made him want to cry. He didn’t tell Cameron for obvious reasons. The waterlogged horror haunted his dreams for months, until he had trouble recalling what living Antoine had looked like. And when the other ghosts came, there was a shade of Antoine in every one.
10
Jamie
Every Saturday morning since Jamie had moved into Carl and Germaine’s guesthouse, they had enjoyed coffee, fruit, croissants, and gossip with the couple. Jamie loved to sit on their back porch, shaded with banana leaves. They’d breathe in the scent of flowers and sip the strong chicory coffee that Germaine brewed with cinnamon, molasses, and a pinch of salt and lightened with cream, the way his mother had made it and her mother before her. With croissant flakes on their fingers and the taste of butter on their lips, the three of them (and whichever friends of Germaine and Carl’s had stopped by) would talk until the heat of the day drove them inside.
This morning, when Jamie opened the screen door to the porch, Carl and Germaine were already sipping coffee with their friend Muriel. Jamie loved Muriel, though they found her a touch intimidating. She was elegant and beautiful, with a long fall of salt-and-pepper hair, which she caught up with ornate pins or braided over her shoulder in a complicated plait. Today, it was piled on her head in knots and secured with what looked like silver spoons. Knowing Muriel, they might be actual silver. Once Jamie had admired a pocket watch she wore, and she’d given it to them on the spot, saying she’d love for them to wear it. The next day, Carl had told them it had belonged to Muriel’s grandfather and was probably worth a mint.
“Dear Jamie!” Carl greeted them enthusiastically. One of the things Jamie loved most about Carl was how genuinely excited he was at all times to see someone he liked.
Indeed, moving in with Germaine and Carl had been the best thing that had happened to Jamie in the last year. Jamie was fairly sure their own parents loved each other, but it was in a language Jamie didn’t speak—a language of obligation, appearances, and dismissal of anything that didn’t conform to their desires. It wasn’t dissimilar from the way they loved their children.
Germaine and Carl, however, loved one another the way Jamie wanted to love and be loved. Theirs was a love of delight, curiosity, and mutual growth, and watching it gave Jamie hope that someday they might live with a partner who saw them clearly, adored them, challenged them, and gave them grace when they failed to live up to those challenges.
It was from Germaine and Carl that Jamie had learned something else too: that without honesty in a relationship, you had nothing.
“Late night, huh, kiddo?” Germaine asked, raising an eyebrow and pouring them a coffee.
Jamie kissed Carl’s cheek, took the cup and saucer from Germaine, and kissed his cheek, then sat next to Muriel on the wicker love seat.
“Hello, darling. Lovely to see you,” she said and kissed both their cheeks.
“You too, Muriel. It’s been a while.”
She sighed. “Yes, I’ve been unusually busy the last few months. And you know how I like to be nocturnal in the summertime,” she lamented, the latter directed at Carl and Germaine. Jamie could certainly see why though. Summer in New Orleans was brutal, and some days melted even the hardiest.
Muriel regaled them with her work on a new initiative to bring gardens to schools in the city and the work that her friend Greta was doing to facilitate it.
“Carys’ partner? I actually saw Carys last night.”
Germaine’s deep brown gaze focused on Jamie. “I thought you had a date last night?”
“I did,” Jamie said.
“And?” Germaine demanded. He was patient about everything except gossip.
Jamie groaned and slid down in their seat.