Read Online Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story by Sarah M. Glover - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sarah M. Glover
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too many documentaries to think otherwise. If the car crashes didn’t kill them, then the overdoses, the suicides, or the auto-erotic asphyxiation most certainly would. Margot had been more than willing to recite an impressive list of dead rockers last night on the ride home.
But Andrew was here now. In San Francisco. The Lost Boys would be playing at the Skellar again tonight. What would it hurt to see him one more time? To see him standing there, to see those clear, maddening blue eyes that she hadn’t seen before. To see his hands.
“Emily?” Margot asked, grounding her back into the reality of the freezing four-by-four bathroom. “Are you going to be in there long? I need to shower.”
Emily opened the door. Margot stood there, the picture of composure, back from her morning run without a drop of sweat upon her. Not even a wisp of her blue-black hair that framed her pointed chin and strict cheekbones dared to disobey her.
Margot had once explained that she was a perfect genetic combination of a painfully beautiful Filipino mother and a never-to-retire Marine captain father. The resulting agile mind for figures, coupled with such an agile figure, continued to discombobulate the most seasoned of her physics professors, long after she had finished her PhD.
“So has she returned yet, or is she officially declared a spoil of war?” Margot asked, meaning Zoey, of course, who, as of two a.m., had not surfaced.
However, there was no judgment in her voice as to their roommate’s whereabouts. The creak of Margot’s bedroom door opening in the early morning hours was not an unfamiliar sound in the apartment, although not a common one. It was inevitably followed by the fumble of heavy shoes and the curses of a man stumbling and trying to dress while being led to the front door. For as long as Emily had known Margot, none of her men had ever been invited to stay for breakfast. They had, according to Margot, never earned the right.
“No sign of her. You remember she knew one of the musicians? She could be in L.A. by now for all we know.”
Margot looked askance at her as she shut the door behind her. Emily padded across to the kitchen, the walls of their soon-to-be-vacated apartment looking depressing and worn now stripped of Zoey’s vibrant canvases. At first, the apartment had belonged to Margot and Zoey, but Zoey’s tiling work often took a back seat to the creation of those canvases and other forms of her “art,” and Margot felt that the third bedroom/closet should be put to better use. Whether Emily was the first to respond to their ad, or the only one, didn’t matter; their friendship was instantaneous. Even Margot’s incongruous shrine to every Catholic saint imaginable (courtesy of her mother, who never stopped trying to lure her back to the church), with its prayer cards and little plastic figurines which sat peering out from the mantle, did not dissuade her.
Emily had finished her first cup of coffee when Margot reappeared wearing a black turtleneck and obedient slacks, waving her phone over her head. “She has good news and bad news—which do you want first?”
“The good.”
“Oh, ever my little optimist. All right, please bear in mind this is highly subjective, but the ‘good’ news is that she has a line on a ‘killer’ apartment—her words, not mine. But that she has to—” she paused to scroll down the message and read further “‘—experience it in natural light. Dirt cheap, available right away. Tell Em it’s near her work and has charm out the wazoo.’”
“And the bad news?”
“It seems we’re all going to the ball, Cinderella. She got us reserved seating at The Lost Boys’ show tonight, compliments of this Christian of hers. And it seems they also want to take us out for drinks afterward.”
“No.”
“I’ll give her this, she works fast.” Margot poured herself a mug of coffee.
“No…no, no, no.”
“Listen, if I have to go, you have to go.”
“No,
But Andrew was here now. In San Francisco. The Lost Boys would be playing at the Skellar again tonight. What would it hurt to see him one more time? To see him standing there, to see those clear, maddening blue eyes that she hadn’t seen before. To see his hands.
“Emily?” Margot asked, grounding her back into the reality of the freezing four-by-four bathroom. “Are you going to be in there long? I need to shower.”
Emily opened the door. Margot stood there, the picture of composure, back from her morning run without a drop of sweat upon her. Not even a wisp of her blue-black hair that framed her pointed chin and strict cheekbones dared to disobey her.
Margot had once explained that she was a perfect genetic combination of a painfully beautiful Filipino mother and a never-to-retire Marine captain father. The resulting agile mind for figures, coupled with such an agile figure, continued to discombobulate the most seasoned of her physics professors, long after she had finished her PhD.
“So has she returned yet, or is she officially declared a spoil of war?” Margot asked, meaning Zoey, of course, who, as of two a.m., had not surfaced.
However, there was no judgment in her voice as to their roommate’s whereabouts. The creak of Margot’s bedroom door opening in the early morning hours was not an unfamiliar sound in the apartment, although not a common one. It was inevitably followed by the fumble of heavy shoes and the curses of a man stumbling and trying to dress while being led to the front door. For as long as Emily had known Margot, none of her men had ever been invited to stay for breakfast. They had, according to Margot, never earned the right.
“No sign of her. You remember she knew one of the musicians? She could be in L.A. by now for all we know.”
Margot looked askance at her as she shut the door behind her. Emily padded across to the kitchen, the walls of their soon-to-be-vacated apartment looking depressing and worn now stripped of Zoey’s vibrant canvases. At first, the apartment had belonged to Margot and Zoey, but Zoey’s tiling work often took a back seat to the creation of those canvases and other forms of her “art,” and Margot felt that the third bedroom/closet should be put to better use. Whether Emily was the first to respond to their ad, or the only one, didn’t matter; their friendship was instantaneous. Even Margot’s incongruous shrine to every Catholic saint imaginable (courtesy of her mother, who never stopped trying to lure her back to the church), with its prayer cards and little plastic figurines which sat peering out from the mantle, did not dissuade her.
Emily had finished her first cup of coffee when Margot reappeared wearing a black turtleneck and obedient slacks, waving her phone over her head. “She has good news and bad news—which do you want first?”
“The good.”
“Oh, ever my little optimist. All right, please bear in mind this is highly subjective, but the ‘good’ news is that she has a line on a ‘killer’ apartment—her words, not mine. But that she has to—” she paused to scroll down the message and read further “‘—experience it in natural light. Dirt cheap, available right away. Tell Em it’s near her work and has charm out the wazoo.’”
“And the bad news?”
“It seems we’re all going to the ball, Cinderella. She got us reserved seating at The Lost Boys’ show tonight, compliments of this Christian of hers. And it seems they also want to take us out for drinks afterward.”
“No.”
“I’ll give her this, she works fast.” Margot poured herself a mug of coffee.
“No…no, no, no.”
“Listen, if I have to go, you have to go.”
“No,
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