Page 62 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

“I find them beautiful,” I say. “I always have.”

She smiles with all her teeth.

“I agree. They’re stunning.”

“Third myth: Death eats souls.”

I confess, on camera, “I have never eaten a soul. I don’t even eat shellfish.”

A ten-year-old in a soccer uniform pumps his fist.

“Ha! Knew it!”

Lavinia keeps the momentum going, reading questions aloud with the tongue-in-cheek pacing of a seasoned showwoman.

“Do dogs really see ghosts?”

“Yes,” I answer, because they do.

“Do you like cats?” someone asks in the chat, followed by four cat emojis.

“Much more than they like me,” I admit, which is true and also a little sad. Our cat, Marigold, has still not entirely warmed to me.

The shop erupts in laughter. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Atlas and Cassian holding up scorecards—a nine and an eleven.

Lavinia nearly doubles over laughing.

She spends the next several minutes reading questions from the chat, most of them affectionate, ridiculous, or some uniquely internet flavor of absurdity. I answer every one with complete sincerity. It has become something of a ritual, and from what I understand, it now occupies at least three hours of Lavinia’s week. She is, somehow, a minor celebrity with millions of followers, a reality I accepted only after it directly resulted in our winning a year's supply of kumquats through an influencer sweepstakes.

The mood stays light until Lavinia slows, her thumb pausing against the screen. Her expression softens as she reads one comment silently before turning the phone toward me.

The message is simple.

Thank you for being with my grandmother when she passed. I wasn’t ready to let her go, but I hope she wasn’t alone.

The shop grows still.

For a moment, every living thing—the customers, the flowers, the staff, even the small white moth clinging to the windowsill—seems to hold its breath.

I remember her.

She loved crossword puzzles, chamomile tea, and humming old church hymns while she folded laundry.

“She wasn’t,” I say quietly.

Lavinia rests her hand over mine, her thumb tracing one slow circle across my skin. Then she closes the chat with a practiced flick, leans over, and kisses my cheek.

The moment is not for the audience.

Looking around the shop, I realize this is how they see me now—not as the shadow at the end of every story, but as a neighbor. A friend. Awkward, occasionally overdressed, probably in need of a hobby.

The bell jingles again.

A mother enters with her daughter. The little girl can't be older than seven. She wears a bright yellow raincoat despite the clear spring sky, her dark hair cut in a blunt pageboy, her front teeth still making the slow, determined journey toward adulthood.

She stops just inside the doorway and points directly at me.

“You're on my mom's phone.”