peanuts, well, I wouldn’t live there for any amount of money.”
“How come?” I asked, curious.
“It’s haunted.”
My eyes widened. The woman saw she had an interested audience.
“My sister warned me,” she chattered on. “Said it wasn’t just the house. It was the family. None of them Scarboroughs was quite right in the head. That’s why Mrs. Barnes’s daughter ran off like she did. She had to get away.”
“From what?”
“Avril Scarborough, I suppose.”
I recognized the name from the gravestone.
“She was murdered, you know.”
“Murdered!” I repeated with disbelief.
The woman’s head bobbed. “The family covered it up.
Said it was an accident. It wasn’t.”
“How do you know it wasn’t?” I asked.
“I’ve seen the ghost. In the rear wing, the room above the kitchen, the only night I stayed there. Say what you want, but happy dead folks don’t come back to haunt.”
“Alice,” the older woman hissed. “I’m ready to go.”
“Never asks if I’m ready,” Alice muttered to me, then stepped forward to take the woman’s arm and guide her down the street.
I stared after them. My mother would have told me if someone in her family had been murdered. It’s just gossip compounded by Alice’s imagination, I thought.
For the next hour we were extremely busy. Still, as I ran my finger down a tax table and stuffed tissue in boxes, I found myself wondering what could have spawned Alice’s story. Small-town boredom? Jealousy of a family that had more money than others? Or was there a suspicious event that could be interpreted that way?
I became so lost in thought, I didn’t hear what a customer had just said to me. “I’m sorry. What?”
The red-haired girl gazed back at me with wide, clear eyes and smiled a little. “I didn’t say anything.”
I was certain she had, but perhaps it was the blond girl who had stopped with two friends to sort through items on our sidewalk tables. She looked like the passenger I’d seen in the front seat of Matt’s Jeep yesterday. Her two friends echoed whatever opinion she had. She liked the beaded purses, so they liked the beaded purses. She thought the jewelry was for old ladies, so they thought the jewelry was for old ladies.
I noticed that the redhead looked up at the girls once or twice, as if to say hello, but they didn’t acknowledge her.
Snobs, I thought. She seemed used to it and went back to her own browsing, lifting up a silver chain that dangled a clear blue stone. The gem had the same mystical look as her eyes.
“Try it on,” I told her. “There’s a mirror inside the store.”
She quickly put it down. “I can’t buy it.”
“So? Doesn’t mean you can’t try it on.”
She looked at me uncertainly, then smiled, picked up the pendant, and went inside.
When I turned to a woman waiting to buy a lace collar, I saw the two echoes watching me, but the blond quickly got their attention with a comment about the shop’s ugly old jewelry. I focused on finding my customer the right-size box, pulling out a flat piece of cardboard, then fitting the tabs into their slots.
“Matt! Hey, Matt!” the blond called out, and I glanced up.
My cousin and three other guys strode toward her and her friends.
So that’s what you look like when you smile, I thought. It was a terrific smile, I noted grudgingly, then lined my customer’s box with tissue.
“Hi, Kristy,” he greeted the blond. “Amanda, Kate.”
“We missed you,” Kristy said to him. “We didn’t see you at the game.”
“Oh, I think you did,” he replied lightly. “I was sitting with Charles, remember?”
“Your sports buddy.” I heard the sneer in her voice; raising my head, I saw it on her face.
“He’s my teammate,” Matt said, still smiling. “You’re always sitting with your teammates,” he added, nodding at the echoes.
Boy, did he know how to flirt with those eyes! The girls on either side of her giggled.
“They’re friends,” she told him, in a fake, quarreling voice.
“We don’t play a sport.”
“Partying,” he said. “Isn’t that one?”
They all laughed.
I stamped my customer’s check with an irritated thump.
Why was he so flirty and charming to some people and such a jerk to me? I handed the package to my customer.
“Thanks very much. Come again,” I said quietly.
Apparently, not quietly enough. I was turning my George Washingtons face up, counting the singles, when I realized that Matt’s group of friends had stopped talking. I looked up to see him staring at me.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. He sounded as if he’d caught me trespassing.
“Working. You got a problem with that?”
The blond-haired guy next to Matt glanced sideways at him and smiled.
“You’re supposed to be visiting Grandmother,” he told me.
“I don’t remember clearing my schedule with you.”
His friend laughed out loud, which annoyed Matt.
“In fact,” I added, “I don’t remember you showing an interest in anything I was doing.”
Everyone but the grinning guy looked uncomfortable.
Kristy moved closer to my cousin. “Who is she?”
I prickled at her tone.
“Megan, my cousin, sort of,” Matt replied.
“What do you mean by sort of?” asked the smiling guy.
“Matt’s father is my uncle, sort of,” I said.
The guy looked from Matt to me. There was a brightness in his blue eyes, a spark of laughter. I liked him immediately.
“So, who are you?” I asked bluntly.
“Alex Rodowsky.” He held out his right hand.
“Your sort-of cousin’s friend. I hope he’s not grumpy like this at home.”
“He is.”
Matt scowled.
“When he starts it with me,” Alex said, “I just ignore him.”
“Is he like this a lot?” I asked. “How long does he stay this way?” What a scowl!
“Don’t you know? You’re his cousin,” Alex pointed out.
“We met for the first time yesterday. Though Matt has disliked me long before that.” Alex looked puzzled.
I heard Matt suck in his breath and let it out slowly.
“Maybe we should talk at home, Megan.”
“Why, that would be a nice change!”
He didn’t reply.
“Megan?” Ginny called through the door. “Can you give me twenty singles?”
“Be right in,” I said, banding the stack of bills I had just counted.
Matt’s friends drifted off. The way the girls bent their heads together, I figured they were discussing me. I picked up the cash box to carry inside, but Ginny met me at the door. “Thanks, honey. I don’t know what I’d do
