Prom Nights from Hell(16)
«Can you read palms?» Yun Sun asked Madame Z.
Madame Z exhaled, and she was barely engaged as she traced her finger over the plump pad below Yun Sun's thumb. «You will be as beautiful as you allow yourself to be,» she told her. That was it. Those were her pearls of wisdom.
Yun Sun seemed as underwhelmed as I was, and I felt like protesting on all our behalves. I mean, seriously! A tree in the forest? Be careful of heights? You will be as beautiful as you allow yourself to be? Even with her somewhat convincing touches of atmospheric creepiness, the three of us were getting cheated. Me in particular.
But before I could say anything, a cell phone on the desk rang. Madame Z picked it up and used a long orange nail to punch the talk button.
«Madame Zanzibar, at your service,» she said. Her expression changed as she listened to whoever was on the other end. She grew brisk and annoyed. «No, Silas. It's called a… yes, you can say it, a yeast infection. Yeast infection.»
Yun Sun and I shared a glance of horror, although-I couldn't help it-I was also delighted. Not that Madame Z had a yeast infection. I mean, ick. But that she was discussing it with Silas, whoever he was, while all of us listened in. Now we were getting our money's worth.
«Tell the pharmacist it's the second time this month,» Madame Z groused. «I need something stronger. What? For the itching, you idiot! Unless he wants to scratch it for me!» She twisted on her swivel chair, pumping one Juicy Coutured leg over the other.
Will looked up at me, his brown eyes wide with alarm. «I will not be scratching it for her,» he stage-whispered. «I refuse!»
I laughed, thinking it a good sign that he was showing off for me. The Madame Z experience hadn't gone as intended, but who knew? Maybe it would end up having the desired effect after all.
Madame Z pointed at me with the lit end of her cigarette, and I ducked my chin contritely, like Sorry, sorry. To distract myself, I focused on the strange and varied clutter on her shelves. A book called Magic of the Ordinary and another titled What to Do When the Dead Speak-But You Don't Want to Listen. I nudged Will with my knee and pointed. He mimed choking the poor deceased bastard, and I snortled.
Above the books I saw: a bottle of rat poison, an old-fashioned monocle, a jar of what looked like fingernail clippings, a stained Starbucks cup, and a rabbit's foot, claws attached. And on the shelf above that was… oh, lovely.
«Is that a skull?» I asked Will.
Will whistled. «Holy cannoli.»
«Okey-doke,» Yun Sun said, averting her eyes. «If there really is a skull, I don't want to know about it. Can we leave now?»
I took her head in my hands and pointed her in the right direction. «Look. It still has hair!»
Madame Z snapped her cell phone shut. «Fools, every one of them,» she said. Her pallor was gone; apparently talking to Silas had shaken her out of her funk.
«Ahh! I see you found Fernando!»
«Is that whose skull that is?» I asked. «Fernando's?»
«Oh God,» Yun Sun moaned.
«Wormed his way to the surface after a gully washer, out in Chapel Hill Cemetery,» Madame Z told us. «His coffin, that is. Crappy wooden thing, must'a been from the early nineteen hundreds. No one left to care for him, so I took pity on him and brought him here.»
«You opened the coffin?» I said.
«Yep.» She seemed proud. I wondered if she'd worn her Juicy Couture during the grave robbing.
«That's gross that it still has hair,» I said.
«He still has hair,» Madame Z said. «Show some respect.»
«I didn't know dead bodies had hair, that's all.»
«Skin, no,» Madame Z said. «Skin starts to rot right away, and believe me, you don't want to smell it when it goes. But hair? Sometimes it keeps growing for weeks after the deceased has made his crossing.»
«Wowzers.» I reached down and tousled Will's honey-colored curls. «Hear that, Will? Sometimes the hair keeps growing.»
«Amazing,» he said.
«What about that?» Yun Sun asked, pointing to a clear Tupperware container in which something reddish and organlike floated in clear liquid. «Please tell me it didn't come from Fernando, too. Please.»
Madame Z waved her hand, like Don't be ridiculous. «That's my uterus. Had the doc give it to me after my hysterectomy.»
«Your uterus?» Yun Sun looked ill.
«I'm going to let 'em toss it in the incinerator?» Madame Z said. «Fat chance!»