Page 16 of For Better or Hearse
Phone in hand once more, Ash pans the collection. “Well?”
“The dark green slinkshow of a sundress.” Tessie peeks over Bear’s shoulder. “Add a gold necklace and hoops. Flip-flops.”
Ash wrinkles her nose and fights a shudder. “I don’t have flip-flops.”
“Wise decision,” Solomon says, popping in to steal Bear away from Tessie. “Your chances of being hunted by a seagull are low, but never zero.”
“See?” Ash says, lifting her chin. “Bearded baby daddy speaks the truth.”
Tessie sighs, and when Solomon dips close and kisses her brow, she smiles.
Ash flips her phone’s camera so the dresses are on screen again. “Which green? Emerald?”
“Evergreen.”
Leave it to her cousin to get picky with her Pantones.
Tessie nods her approval. “It’s giving big main character energy.”
Ash scowls. “I don’t want to be a main character. I want to be that statue in the corner of the room that sometimes gets mistaken for a ghost and scares the shit out of people.”
When Ash is sure Solomon’s out of eyesight, she strips. Then she slides the slinky green dress, snakelike, onto her curves. Once it’s in place, she holds the phone up and takes in her reflection in the mirror. With her wild hair and red partially painted lips, she looks…
Messy. The thought hurts.
“Ash?”
She doesn’t reply. She can’t. Not with the way she itches in her skin. That age-old feeling of not belonging. Even the suite is too fancy for her. Polished and pretty and light, when all she has is dark edges.
Fuck. She hates this feeling.
“You look beautiful, but you also look like you’re going to puke,” Tessie says gently.
Ash swallows, stares at her reflection. She doesn’t think she could get any paler. “I feel like I’m going to puke.”
“Okay, okay. Sit down. Water,” Tessie cries. Ever since she became a mother, she’s been obsessive about hydration.
Screw the water. Ash’s anxiety is bouncing all over the place. She collapses on the edge of the bed and sucks in one shallow breath after another.
Somewhere in the suite, the creak of a door. Augustus is awake and on the move.
“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine,” she tells Tessie, desperate to erase the look of doubt on her cousin’s face. “If loving Jakob taught me anything, it’s that I will befineno matter the situation.” She flaps her arms, airing out her armpits. “See? I’m not even sweating. I’m going to have a mai tai and hang with some vengeful strangers who hate my guts, and at the end of the trip, we’ll all be best fucking friends.”
“Ash—”
“Tessie. It’s going to befine. It’s an adventure. Paradise. It’s not trauma; it’s spicy sadness.”
Tessie needles her brow. “Only dogs can hear you right now.”
A knock at the door startles her. “Ash, my dear?”
“Go.” Tessie blows a kiss at the screen. “And remember: observe, do not absorb.”
“Right,” Ash mutters. “Observe.”
After she hangs up, she goes to the mirror and finishes herlipstick. Bright, matte lips of red. Ash narrows her expertly lined cat eyes at her reflection. She looks menacing and unaffected and unloved. Like a vampire from the Middle Ages.
Good.