Stefan’s voice: “Matt? She really wants to see you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Matt lifted his head up, blinking at the phone. “Elena, Elena…”
“I’m so sorry, Matt. You don’t have to come—” Matt laughed shortly. “Are you sure you’re Elena?”
Elena smiled the smile that had broken a thousand hearts. “In that case — Matt Honeycutt, I insist that you come and meet with us at Ground Zero at two o’clock. Is that more like it?”
“I think you’ve almost got it down. The old Elena Imperial Manner.” He coughed theatrically, sniffed, and said, “Sorry — I’ve got a little cold; or allergies, maybe.”
“Don’t be silly, Matt. You’re bawling like a baby and so am I,” Elena said. “And so were Bonnie and Meredith, when I called them. SoI’ve been crying nearly all day — and at this rate I’ll have to scramble to get a picnic ready and be on time. Meredith’s planning to pick you up. Bring something to drink or eat. Love ya!”
Elena put down the phone, breathing hard.
“Now that was tough.”
“He still loves you.”
“He’d rather that I stayed a baby all my life?”
“Maybe he liked the way you used to say ‘hello’ and ‘good-bye.’”
“Now you’re teasing me.” Elena quivered her chin.
“Never in this world,” Stefan said softly. Then, suddenly, he grabbed her hand. “Come on — we’re going shopping for a picnic and a car, too,” he said, pulling her up.
Elena startled both of them by flying up so quickly that Stefan had to grab her by the waist to keep her from shooting toward the ceiling.
“I thought you had gravity!”
“So did I! What do I do?”
“Think heavy thoughts!”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“We’ll buy you an anchor!”
At two o’clock Stefan and Elena arrived at the Fell’s Church graveyard in a brand-new red Jaguar; Elena was wearing dark glasses under a scarf with all her hair pinned up under it, a muffler around her lower face, and black lace mitts borrowed from Mrs. Flowers’ younger days, which she admitted she didn’t know why she was wearing. She made quite a picture, Meredith said, with the violet sari top and jeans. Bonnie and Meredith had already spread a cloth for a picnic, and the ants were sampling sandwiches and grapes and low-fat pasta salad.
Elena told the story of how she had woken up this morning, and then there was more hugging and kissing and crying than the males could stand.
“You want to see the woods around here? Check if those malach things are around?” Matt said to Stefan.
“They’d better not be,” Stefan said. “If the trees this far from where you had your accident are infested—”
“Not good?”
“Serious trouble.”
They were about to go when Elena called them back.
“You can stop looking all male and superior,” she added. “Suppressing your emotions is bad for you.Expressing them keeps you well balanced.”
“Listen, you’re tougher than I thought,” Stefan said. “Having picnics at a cemetery?”
“We used to find Elena here all the time,” Bonnie said, pointing to a nearby headstone with a celery stick.
“It’s my parents’ grave site,” Elena explained simply. “After the accident — I always felt closer to them here than anywhere. I would come here when things got bad, or when I needed to have a question answered.”
“Did you ever get any answers?” Matt asked, taking a home-preserved cucumber pickle from a glass jar and passing the jar on.
“I’m not sure, even now,” Elena said. She had taken off the dark glasses, muffler, headscarf, and mitts. “But it always made me feel better. Why? Do you have a question?”
“Well — yeah,” Matt said unexpectedly. Then he flushed as he suddenly found himself the center of attention. Bonnie rolled over to stare at him, the stalk of celery at her lips, Meredith scooted in, Elena sat up. Stefan, who had been leaning against an elaborate headstone with unconscious vampire grace, sat down.
“What is it, Matt?”
“I was going to say, you don’t look right today,” Bonnie said anxiously.
“Thank you,” Matt snapped.
Tears pooled in Bonnie’s brown eyes. “I didn’t mean—” But she didn’t get to finish. Meredith and Elena drew in protectively around her in the solid phalanx of what they called “velociraptor sisterhood.” It meant that anybody messing with one of them was messing with them all.
“Sarcasm instead of chivalry? That’s hardly the Matt I know.” Meredith spoke with one eyebrow raised.
“She was only trying to be sympathetic,” Elena pointed out quietly. “And that was a cheap comeback.”
“Okay, okay! I’m sorry — really sorry, Bonnie”—he turned toward her, looking ashamed—“It was a nasty thing to say and I know you were only trying to be nice. I just — I don’t really know what I’m doing or saying. Anyway, do you want to hear the thing,” he finished, looking defensive, “or not?”
Everyone did.
“Okay, here it is. I went to visit Jim Bryce this morning — you remember him?”
“Sure. I went out with him. Captain of the basketball team. Nice guy. A little bit young, but…” Meredith shrugged.
“Jim’s okay.” Matt swallowed. “Well, it’s just — I don’t want to gossip or anything, but—”
“Gossip!” the three girls commanded him in unison, like a Greek chorus.
Matt quailed. “Okay, okay! Well — I was supposed to be over there at ten o’clock, but I got there a little early, and — well, Caroline was there. She was leaving.”
There were three little shocked gasps and a sharp look from Stefan.
“You mean you think she spent the night with him?”
“Stefan!” Bonnie began. “This isn’t how proper gossip goes. You never just outright say what you think—”