From Dead to Worse

patting his arm as he went by me. He gave me a pleased look.
    Everyone was getting married or falling in love. I was happy for them. Happy, happy, happy. I pasted a smile on my face and went to Piggly Wiggly. I fished Amelia’s list out of my purse. It was pretty long, but I was sure there’d be additions by now. I called her on my cell phone, and she had already thought of three more items to add, so I was some little while in the store.
    My arms were weighed down with plastic bags as I struggled up the steps to the back porch. Amelia shot out to the car to grab the other bags. “Where have you been?” she asked, as if she’d been standing by the door tapping her toe.
    I looked at my watch. “I got out of church and went to the store,” I said defensively. “It’s only one.”
    Amelia passed me again, heavily laden. She shook her head in exasperation as she went by, making a noise that could only be described as “Urrrrrrgh.”
    The rest of the afternoon was like that, as though Amelia were getting ready for the date of her life.
    I’m not a bad cook, but Amelia would let me do only the most menial chores in fixing the dinner. I got to chop onions and tomatoes. Oh, yeah, she let me wash the preparation dishes. I’d always wondered if she could do the dishes like the fairy godmothers in Sleeping Beauty , but she just snorted when I brought it up.
    The house was spanky clean, and though I tried not to mind, I noticed that Amelia had even given the floor of my bedroom a once-over. As a rule, we didn’t go into each other’s space.
    “Sorry I went in your room,” Amelia said suddenly, and I jumped—me, the telepath. Amelia had beaten me at my own game. “It was one of those crazy impulses I get. I was vacuuming, and I just thought I’d get your floor, too. And before I thought about it, I was done. I put your slippers up under your bed.”
    “Okay,” I said, trying to sound neutral.
    “Hey, I am sorry.”
    I nodded and went back to drying the dishes and putting them away. The menu, as decided by Amelia, was tossed green salad with tomatoes and slivered carrots, lasagna, hot garlic bread, and steamed fresh mixed vegetables. I don’t know diddly-squat about steamed vegetables, but I had prepared all the raw materials—the zucchini, bell peppers, mushrooms, cauliflower. Late in the afternoon, I was deemed capable of tossing the salad, and I got to put the cloth and the little bouquet of flowers on the table and arrange the place settings. Four place settings.
    I’d offered to take Mr. Marley into the living room with me, where we could eat on TV trays, but you would have thought I’d offered to wash his feet, Amelia was so horrified.
    “No, you’re sticking with me,” she said.
    “You gotta talk to your dad,” I said. “At some point, I’m leaving the room.”
    She took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay, I’m a grown-up,” she muttered.
    “Scaredy-cat,” I said.
    “You haven’t met him yet.”
    Amelia hurried upstairs at four fifteen to get ready. I was sitting in the living room reading a library book when I heard a car on the gravel driveway. I glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was four forty-eight. I yelled up the staircase and stood to look out the window. The afternoon was drawing to a close, but since we hadn’t reverted to standard time yet, it was easy to see the Lincoln Town Car parked in front. A man with clipped dark hair, wearing a business suit, got out of the driver’s seat. This must be Marley. He wasn’t wearing a chauffeur’s hat, somewhat to my disappointment. He opened a rear door. Out stepped Copley Carmichael.
    Amelia’s dad wasn’t very tall, and he had short thick gray hair that looked like a really good carpet, dense and smooth and expertly cut. He was very tan, and his eyebrows were still dark. No glasses. No lips. Well, he did have lips, but they were really thin, so his mouth looked like a trap.
    Mr. Carmichael looked around him as if he were doing a tax assessment.
    I heard Amelia clattering down the stairs behind me as I watched the man in my front yard complete his survey. Marley the chauffeur was looking right at the house. He’d spotted my face at the window.
    “Marley’s sort of new,” Amelia said. “He’s been with my dad for just two years.”
    “Your dad’s always had a driver?”
    “Yeah. Marley’s a bodyguard, too,” Amelia said casually, as if everyone’s dad had a bodyguard.
    They were walking up the gravel sidewalk