Tomb With a View

“Apparently, we do.” I rubbed a finger under my nose. Already, Marjorie’s gardenias were getting to me.

“And if we have to design a celebration that will be the highlight of the cemetery’s year—”

“I guess that’s the plan.”

“There are some ground rules.” Marjorie straightened her shoulders and gave me a look that reminded me of a dead tuna. Not that I’d actually ever seen a dead tuna up close and personal, but I have a pretty good imagination. “I’ve watched as you give some of your tours. You play fast and loose with facts.”

“Which is why you always feel obliged to shove me out of the way, step into the spotlight, and take over.”

Her sigh was all about being pushed to the limit. “One does what one has to do.”

“One needs to remember,” I said, the emphasis on that first word, “that most of the people who come through Garden View on tours aren’t all that worried about drop-dead accuracy. They’re just looking to see the place. You know, to absorb a little of the atmosphere and hear some interesting stories, and maybe to see some stuff they consider art.”

“Stuff?” When Marjorie’s top lip finally unfurled, there was a smudge of red lipstick under her nose. “You obviously don’t take your work seriously.”

“As seriously as I have to.”

“You try to entertain people with cute stories. Rather, you should be working to educate them.”

“Oh, that would keep them coming back.” We were—what?—three minutes into this conversation, and already I was getting pretty tired of being lectured. Not to mention bored. Big points for me, though, I was doing a better-than-usual job of holding on to my temper. That is, until Marjorie started up again.

“If you’re going to be working for me—”

“Hold on there!” I’d been reasonable, and more than a little accommodating. But never let it be said that Pepper Martin is anybody’s doormat. It’s not for nothing that my parents stopped calling me by my given name, Penelope, and started in on Pepper. It was easier to yell, for one thing, and it reflected the temper that came with my red hair. At that very moment, the spurt of anger that shot through me felt as fiery as my gorgeous tresses.

I stuck out a hand in front of Marjorie’s face to demonstrate that she had to stop, and now. She swallowed whatever it was she was going to say, and sure that I had the floor, I propped my fists on my hips. “We need to get something straight, all right. Right from the start. The first thing is that I don’t work for you. It’s with you. Get the difference? If you don’t, you might want to back off right now. I’m the one drawing the paycheck around here. It might not be much, but to my way of thinking, that means I don’t answer to someone who pops in once in a while just to show off and make nice ladies like Doris Oswald cry.”

“Did I? Make Doris cry?” There was a chance I might have forgiven her if Marjorie had looked surprised rather than smug. She sloughed off the whole thing with a lift of one shoulder. When she did, another wave of gardenia washed over me. I sneezed just as she said, “That just goes to show you what a flighty, silly woman that Doris is.” There was a stack of weighty-looking books on a nearby chair, and before Marjorie lifted one, she scraped her hands against her khakis. She hugged the book to her heart.

“History is not an inaccurate science,” she told me, her voice warming with her passion for the subject. “History is facts and it is dates and it is what happened, not what almost happened or what could have happened. You’d think anyone who took the time to volunteer at a cemetery as important as this one would know that. Yet Doris breezed in here this morning, talking about our dear president as if she knew everything there was to know about him. She got his wife’s name wrong, for one thing. Called her Letitia instead of Lucretia and said Lucretia and the president were married in 1859 instead of 1858. Imagine.” She snorted. Never a pretty thing for a woman to do, but Marjorie took it to new unattractive heights.

“If Doris can’t stand to be corrected when she’s giving the wrong information, then maybe those of you who work here . . .” She paused here, the better to put the blame on me. “No doubt you can find something else useful for her to do, like stuffing envelopes or emptying trash cans. She needs to be kept away from visitors. We owe that much to the memory of our wonderful, dear James Abram Garfield.” Her voice clogged. Her eyes got all misty. “It’s my duty to do everything I can to let the world know what a capable leader he was, what an asset to this country. It’s the least I can do,” she said and she swiveled a stony look in my direction, daring me to contradict her. “After all, I am one of his descendants.”