Last Dance by Linda Joy Singleton Page A

Love Lucy episode. So I crossed the room toward the lone woman.
    Up close her hair was more pink than red, reminding me of cotton candy. She wasn’t holding a book as I’d expected, but an electronic game. She hunched over the game, her fingers clicked keys rapidly, accompanied by musical sounds of beeps, crashes, and booms.
    She hadn’t noticed me, so I tapped her shoulder. “Excuse me …”
    Startled, the woman jumped. Her hands slipped from her game and an explosion blasted. The tiny screen went dark.
    She whirled accusingly. “You killed my wizard!”
    “I-I didn’t mean to,” I stammered.
    “I would have beat my highest level if you hadn’t interrupted.”
    “I was just trying to get your attention.”
    “Well you certainly did that. I didn’t even get a chance to save my score.” With a groan, she tossed her game aside on an end table.
    “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say, and held out my hands in apology.
    “What’s done is done.” She shrugged, then surprised me with a smile that showed off pearly dentures. “I’ll simply try again later. So what do you want?”
    “Nothing much … I mean, I just wanted to ask about your …” I flushed with embarrassment. “Your shirt.”
    “This silly thing?” She plucked at a fold in her T-shirt. “I got it at Tansy’s Trinkets for $13.95. But you can find them just about everywhere in Pine Peaks.”
    “A lot of people were wearing them when we drove through town.”
    “What do you expect?” she asked with a shrug. “It’s October.”
    “But why all the interest in Chloe? I never heard of her before today. All I know is that she died fifty years ago.”
    “Fifty-four years to be exact.” The elderly woman’s faded blue eyes gazed into space, as if she were seeing the past. “The whole tragedy could have been avoided if Chloe had listened to me.”
    “You actually knew her?”
    “Better than anyone. She was my dearest friend. We were together so much, people mixed us up, calling me Chloe and her Cathy. My father nicknamed us the ‘Stormy C’s’ because we could get really wild.”
    It was hard to imagine this frail cotton-candy-haired woman as “wild.” But I nodded, encouraging her to continue talking. Call it perverse, but this whole ghost celebration intrigued me.
    “We did everything together,” she explained. “We made up silly lyrics to our favorite songs, practiced dance steps, and double-dated. Of course, her parents were so strict they didn’t allow her to go out much, so she’d sneak out the basement window. Since our birthdays were two days apart, our families combined our parties. But it’s not Chloe’s birthday they celebrate now.” A bitter shadow crossed her wrinkled face. “It’s her death day.”
    “How’d she die?”
    “It’s too terrible to talk about. They called it an accident, but I knew better.” Cathy’s thin lips pursed and her eyes narrowed with fury. “It was his fault.”
    “Who?”
    “I won’t speak ill of someone no longer around to defend himself.” She shook her head. “But if it weren’t for him, Chloe wouldn’t have gone out that night. She would have married Theodore and still be alive. She was engaged to Theodore and he adored her. It was a secret, but of course I knew all about it.”
    “Theodore must have been heartbroken when she died,” I said softly.
    “She broke Teddy’s heart long before that. She was my friend and I loved her, but I didn’t approve of how she treated Teddy. He deserved someone better.”
    Like you? I wondered. “What happened to him?”
    “He had a long distinguished career in the Navy, becoming an admiral. When he retired, he moved here into the cottage next to mine. He never married and won’t talk about Chloe. I’m the only one who ever visits him. All the fuss over Chloe, yet the Chloe Museum doesn’t even mention their engagement.”
    “Chloe has her own museum?” I asked, astonished.
    “Seems a bit silly, doesn’t it?