Trenton checked the hall again and saw her: red hoodie cinched tight, sunglasses on, a bright spot of color in a sea of blacks and grays, startling, like a spot of blood on a clean floor. He started to move out into the hall to greet her, but she put a hand on his chest and piloted him backward into the bathroom again and closed the door behind her.
“Look,” she said, taking off her sunglasses and wrenching off her hood. “I don’t have much time.”
She had changed her hair color again. It was dark brown now, like his.
He was filled with sudden joy. The world shrank down to the size of a single room: Katie was here, with him. “I thought you ran away,” he said.
“That’s funny,” she said.
“Or your parents shipped you off.”
“My parents don’t know where I am,” she said. A brief look of pain, or maybe worry, passed across her face. “Listen, Trenton. I need you to listen to me. I have to explain a few things to you, okay?”
“I’ve been up shit’s creek since the fire,” he said. He was still dizzy, but now he thought it might be because they were standing so close. He could see individual freckles under her makeup, like tiny stars. “But I made sure Amy didn’t tell.”
“Listen.” She grabbed both of his arms. Surprised, he sat backward, onto the toilet. Thankfully, the lid was closed. “Just shut up for two seconds, okay? I have four things to tell you.” She released him and straightened up. He said nothing. She began pacing. The bathroom was so small she could only take two steps in either direction before having to pivot and return. “One. I have to go away soon.” She was ticking off items on her fingers.
“Where are you going?”
“Just listen, for Christ’s sake. Two. I’m a liar. I’ve lied to you about a lot of things. But I’m not a bad person.”
“Okay.” Trenton wondered if he should stand up again. He didn’t like how she was pacing. It was making him nervous. But he didn’t want her to yell at him, either.
“Three.” She stopped in front of him. Her eyes were like an animal’s—big and pleading. “I like you. You’re kind of an idiot, but I do.”
Trenton was going to protest, but then the weight of her words hit him—I like you—and he felt like something had just knocked into his chest. He couldn’t even breathe. He was afraid that if he so much as moved, he would send the words scattering back into nonexistence, into untruth, like cockroaches startled by a sudden light.
But Katie was watching him, expectant, clearly anticipating a reply.
“What’s the fourth thing?” Trenton asked, in a voice that barely sounded like his.
For the first time, Katie smiled. “This,” she said, and dropped onto her knees on the rug in front of the toilet, and put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him.
For a half second, he was seized with terror; then, just as quickly, his anxiety passed, and when she slipped her tongue into his mouth, he found he wasn’t worried about what to do, or whether he was using too much pressure or too little. He just let go. It was like falling into a warm bed after an exhausting day. It was dark and sweet and soft. Now even the room disappeared. Now there was only her mouth and her breathing, her warm hands on his shoulders.
The kiss lasted for minutes, hours. He was dimly aware of a growing crescendo, as if applause were swelling from an unseen audience. At a certain moment, the crescendo crested, and a sudden flood of awareness passed over him, and he realized he was hearing not applause but footsteps and shouting.
The bathroom door swung open, smacking hard against the tub.
Katie accidentally bit his lip.
Trenton drew back, wincing.
Minna was standing in the doorway, gripping Amy’s hand. Crowded next to her were two cops. Trenton recognized one of them as the guy Minna used to date.
Danny was breathing hard, as if they’d come from a long distance. “Vivian Wright?” he said.
Katie looked at Trenton and sighed. “Busted,” she said.
Amy touched a finger to her lips and said, “Shhh.”
ALICE
“I knew she was a liar.” The new ghost is bitterly disappointed: Trenton is still alive. She begins to cry, and Sandra hushes her sharply.
“Stop it,” she says. “There’s no use blubbering. It won’t do you any good.”
“Nobody asked you,” she says. Then: “I told you I wasn’t Vivian.”
“You told us different things,” I say gently. I feel a momentary ache of sadness for her: the ache of an empty room after a party has dispersed. Every minute, she forgets how to be alive. She loses her lines and separateness; she is drawn into the air, blown apart on the wind coming through the open windows. “Who are you, really?”
She sniffles, a sound like the faint stirring of mice in the walls. “My name’s Eva,” she says at last. “It was Eva. I don’t know what I am now. I—I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“Join the club, sister,” Sandra says, but without conviction. I can tell that she, like me, is tired of pretending.
Trenton, Minna, Amy, the two policemen, and Katie—or Vivian, rather—have returned to the living room, which is now empty of other mourners. The cops have placed six chairs in a semicircle and everyone is seated.
“Detective Rogers will be here any minute,” the cop with the bad complexion says. “Everyone just sit tight.”
“What I want to know,” Danny says to Vivian, “is why you picked the Davison house. How’d you know they’d be away?”
“Can I see your badge?” Amy asks him.
“Shhh, Amy,” Minna says. But Danny passes the badge over.
“Internet,” Vivian says. She almost—almost—sounds embarrassed. “Their house was listed on vacation rentals.”
“Why did you do it?” Trenton asks her in a low voice.
She looks down, picking at the hem of her jacket. “I don’t know. Just to get away for a while. Be somebody else. It felt kind of nice to have everybody looking for me, though.” She looks up at him. “Will you?”
“Will I what?” Trenton says.
A smile flickers over Vivian’s face, moving so quickly it doesn’t touch her eyes. “Will you look for me?”
“Yes.” Trenton’s voice cracks. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yes.”
“Are we done here?” Minna directs the question to Danny. “In case you’ve forgotten, we were in the middle of a memorial service. We’re burying my dad today.”