Dear Diary,

The last person I expected to be on the line when I answered "Vitale Vivification, I'm Bernadette, how can I help you today?" was Kate Beghana. Yet, there she was...calling me...to go have drinks.

I was so shocked I said yes. Idiot move, I know.

We met up at Lyre at 7:30. She was wearing a sun dress and her dark skin was glowing like she'd been tanning somewhere exotic. I'm so pale I think I glow in the dark at this point. She went to the bathroom so when the bartender asked, I ordered her usual gin and tonic along with my usual root beer highball. When Kate asked me how I knew what she drank I couldn't speak. I felt like was choking on my own tongue and stared stupidly at the napkin in front of me.

Thankfully the bartender was the annoying kind and, since Lyre was quiet right then, he asked if we went to Latimer. It was an easy assumption since Lyre is popular among magic students.

Kate explained that we were recent graduates. She then gave him the cold shoulder and asked me how freelance necromancy was treating me. She'd seen my flyer at The Grind.

The bartender didn't take the hint and asked if I was a necromancer. Real brain trust, this one.

"Bernie graduated top of her class," Kate said. I was ready to dig a hole in the floor and join Lady Delia Arnault in her grave.

Bartender then asked if my rates were better than Crane Renovations. I took to drinking deeply by that point and could only nod as the alcohol burned my throat.

"I have a job, if you want it. I'll..." He looked around for a moment then leaned towards me. I could smell his cologne a mile away and when he leaned in it felt like a cloud of synthetic pheromones washed over me. Did I mention I felt like digging my own grave at that point for relief?

The bartender offered to cover my tab for a month if I could handle a job for him related to his grandmother. Kate was ecstatic and before I could even ask what kind of job it was told him to make it two months, in writing. I gaped at her like a puffer fish while they worked out the deal.

After it was all said and done, Kate gave a half-hearted apology for charging ahead without checking on me. She said she was glad to see me doing well and wanted to have drinks again "real soon." I agreed, set up a meeting time with the bartender tomorrow to figure out what his deal was with his grandma, and went home to crash.

...

Bartender's name is Kyle. Of course it is. And Kyle's problem, Diary? He was supposed to be house sitting for his grandmother, who, btw, is very much alive! (She's vacationing in Florida.) Thing is, part of the house sitting gig was to care for her beloved garden.

Grandma is back in a week and said garden looks like a good setting for a zombie apocalypse film. Not a green leaf in sight. I don't know what the lady was known for growing but I doubt it was sticks, rocks, and dirt.

Kyle wanted me to revive the whole damn garden that he hadn't even noticed much until a day or two ago when grams called and asked about it.

Thankfully it wasn't a technically difficult spell and didn't require a dead loved one or midnight. It did, however, require blood and bone. We got some pigs blood from the butcher who asked if we were going to pull a Carrie and to make sure that it didn't get back to him if we did. The bone meal we got from the garden center at the local super store. I mixed it in a plastic tote with a stick I broke off one of the dead bushes. Then I slashed Kyle's hand to mix his sacrificial blood in.

Kyle fainted at the sight of his own blood. It was a blessing. At least I didn't have to deal with his babble. Dude had the nerve to ask me if Kate was single...I should have went old school and sacrificed all of his blood and resurrected him afterward. That tended to be messy and required me moving his body around. I don't have an assistant to help me and he was bigger than me so...I'm just glad he fainted.

Anyways, I did the Locus Revificarum rite and things happened about as you would expect. Big bursts of green, flowers bloomed, yadda yadda. Kyle will be pruning the next few days to get some order out of the place otherwise Grandma is coming home to a jungle.

Two months of free drinks in my future, I went home and prayed for a decent client.