Tuesday Mooney Talks To Ghosts

by Kate Racculia

Dex wasn’t much of a hugger, or an expresser of earnest personal emotion—he was expressive, sure, his whole life was one extended urge to Madonna-style express himself. But when he really felt something, he was much more likely to keep it to himself, to keep it down deep, to turn it over and over in his soul like the Precious. Which, he had always assumed, was probably why he and Tuesday clicked in the first place. They suspected how deeply the other felt things, and it was almost too deep to talk about. So they didn’t. But after he set down her box—it was so light!—he wanted to hug her, hug her hard and not let go, and he thought, for the first time ever, that she might not stiffen into a block of ice if he tried. She might go boneless. She might cry. He almost went for it. He would have, if she hadn’t stubbed the cigarette out on the table at that moment and followed it with a wet raspberry. She turned to him.