CHAPTER 4
Three days later, Nick arrived at Aubrey’s before dawn and guided Adrienne to a waiting taxi.
“Is all this cloak and dagger stuff really necessary?” Adrienne pulled her jacket around her shoulders. Without the sun to warm it, the moist air felt brittle and cold. She glanced up at the cloud-shrouded moon before stepping into the taxi. “It’s still nighttime.”
Nick settled in beside her, pulled the door closed, and gave the driver instructions.
“Five a.m., technically morning,” he corrected her. “A.m. stands for ante meridiem, which is Latin for before midday.” In his wool pea coat and dark jeans, he blended into the monochromatic cityscape. “P.m. stands for post meridiem, which is Latin for after midday. But in Uruguay, madrugada is the early morning before sunrise.”
“Well, right now it is definitely B.A.W.,” Adrienne argued.
“What’s that?”
“Before Adrienne Wakes.”
“But you are awake,” Nick argued.
“Only because you asked me to be here.” Adrienne slid her hand around his arm, more for warmth than for companionship. “I don’t know why we have to record you singing in the dark. You were great at Uncle Jose’s.”
“This was your idea,” he reminded her. Nick had sung only one song in the back room, and five on the stage. Adrienne had worried Nick would be angry when Jose pulled down the partition between the two rooms, leaving Nick and his guitar exposed to the bursting-at-the-seams mob gathered in and around the small café, but Nick had smiled and taken it all in stride. He had moved from one song to another with grace and had even taken requests from the crowd.
“There’s a difference between singing in the café and in a cemetery. Besides, I think the Recoleta will be amazing at this hour.”
They traveled the quiet city streets in silence until the taxi driver pulled up beside an enormous pair of wrought-iron gates.
Once they paid the fare, climbed from the taxi, and peeked through the cemetery’s giant white marble pillars, Adrienne decided the Recoleta would be amazing at any hour of the day.
Nick steered her past the entrance.
“Where are we going?” Adrienne asked.
“This way,” he whispered.
She followed him wordlessly, their footfalls loud in the early morning stillness. A few cars rushed up and down the nearly deserted street. Dogs without leashes or owners prowled while cats watched from their perches on windowsills. A sleeping man lay curled on the sidewalk beneath a collection of broken-down cardboard boxes.
“Here.” Nick led her through an open wooden door in the stone wall. They tiptoed past a gardening shed and a wagon plied with shovels, a weed-whacker, a leaf blower, and other yard tools.
“Any idea where we’re going?” Adrienne whispered. On the boat ride home from Uruguay, Nick had been quiet and then she hadn’t heard from him again until last night when he’d told her to be ready at 5:00 a.m. Now, she wondered if he’d spent yesterday scoping out the cemetery, looking for the perfect stage. The tombs came in all shapes and sizes, from grandiose mausoleums to Gothic chapels, Greek temples, fairytale grottoes, and elegant mini-mansions.
“We’re traveling the labyrinthine city of the dead,” Nick whispered. “Be quiet though. We don’t want to get arrested for trespassing.”
Adrienne’s steps faltered as she thought about spending time in an Argentine jail. She paused for a moment, watching Nick move away from her, then hurried after him, because she was quite sure she’d be lost without him and he seemed to know where he was headed. She argued with herself that soon the cemetery would be open to the public and no one would realize that they had entered earlier. After promising herself that she would make a large donation, she felt better about their breaking and entering.
The farther they wandered into the cemetery, the more muffled the city noises became. The faint moonlight glinted off the marble. Adrienne paused in front of a tomb that looked like a doll’s house bedroom.
Nick read from the plaque. “Liliana Crociati died on her honeymoon in Austria in the 1970s. Her parents reconstructed her bedroom within her tomb, and at the entrance placed a bronze statue of Liliana in her wedding dress, with her beloved pet dog at her side.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the cold passed through Adrienne as she thought about her own wedding dress.
“I thought I’d sing over there,” Nick said, pointing at a portico resembling a Greek temple. He sat on the steps, set his guitar case at his feet, and unlatched the case. “You might want to check the lighting.”
Adrienne pulled out her phone and pressed the camera app. The gray morning light and accompanying mist made an eerie backdrop. It really did look amazing, as did Nick.
She froze when she heard it. Jingling.
The expression on Nick’s face told her that he heard it, too.
The story of the suicidal gravedigger floated back to her. You can hear his keys jangling as his ghost walks the cemetery’s narrow pathways at dawn.
