“He’s more like my friend than a mentor. I talked to him on the phone last week. He’s a quiet man, but he’s really funny, actually. He’s just very private now, especially after . . .” She stopped.
After his daughter died, I filled in for her. Again, I waited for her to say it, to tell him all about the daughter of Gideon Chase, her best friend in the world for years and years, and how she’d died in a tragic accident. Or for her date to bring it up, because if he knew anything about Gideon Chase, he’d probably heard of me. I’d been famous, after all. A little bit famous, anyway. I had fans.
“Like I said, I owe him a lot,” Ro said. “He wrote me a letter of recommendation for USC.” She took a bite of her frozen yogurt. “But I’ve been talking way too much about me. Tell me about you.”
Blah blah blah, said her date. Blah. Blah. Blah. He clearly loved to talk about himself. It took forever for the conversation to come back around to Ro.
“So, you’re a writer,” he finally said. “What kinds of things do you write?”
Plays, she told him. Short stories. Poems. The occasional screenplay. And then she talked about how she was a bartender, which she enjoyed because she got to hear so many interesting stories. She liked New York, but she missed California. The beach. Her parents and her friends. She missed the sunny days.
She talked and talked, but she never mentioned me.
Not one word.
You expect her to talk about her dead friend when she’s out on a blind date? asked the Yvonne in my head. She probably barely remembers you. You should go home now. What happens to Ro doesn’t concern you anymore.
Yvonne was right. I knew she was right. But Ro had been my very best friend, the person I used to think knew me better than anyone else.
I had to see what her life was like without me.
I followed Ro home and then came back and spent the rest of the weekend basically stalking her.
She lived in the Bronx with her great-aunt, a sweet old lady who went to mass at a church down the street twice a day. Ro called her Gran Tía, and she washed the dishes and took out the trash and carried groceries into the house, ever the dutiful niece. Her room was on the top floor of her aunt’s house, and once I saw her up there at her desk in front of the window, writing.
I wondered if she ever wrote about me. If she still thought about me sometimes, and felt sad that I had died.
Her date’s name had been David, by the way. When she’d gone home that night, her aunt had come out to meet her in the yard and asked her about how her date had gone, and she’d said (and I quote), “It went fine. David’s fine,” and when her aunt laughed and poked her in the ribs and asked, “So you’ll be seeing more of this fine guy?” she’d shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”
I couldn’t stop peeking in the windows at her—I couldn’t stop staring—noticing all the ways that she was different and all the ways that she was exactly the same. Her hair was long again, for instance. It was black and wavy and she wore it braided over one shoulder most of the time. Her face was slightly longer and leaner than it had been, but her body had filled out. She actually had breasts. And hips. She was so . . . old. Twenty-three, I calculated. A college graduate. Old enough to hold down a full-time job and be out there in the city on her own.
She’d grown up.
Still, her laugh was the same, and I recognized the scar above her left eyebrow from where something had flown out of the lawn mower one time and clipped her, and she had needed stitches to close up the gash. Her freckles were still there. Her dark eyes still had that sparkly quality, that mischievous expression that always used to make me giggle.
She was still Ro.
So many times that weekend I thought about showing myself to her. It would have been so easy to slide the hood off, step out from the shadows where she could see me, and call her name. I imagined over and over what would happen then. She’d stare at me, her face all disbelieving, and she’d come closer, and she’d say, “Holly? Oh my God, Holly?” And I would smile and nod and maybe cry, and then she’d probably hug me.
But then what? How could I tell her what had happened to me? How could explain why I still looked like a seventeen-year-old girl when I was supposed to be in my twenties? How could I make her understand why I wasn’t actually buried in the Forest Lawn cemetery?
It was Sunday morning when I finally tore myself away, when I made myself face the truth. I was dead to Ro. There was nothing for me to give her, or for her to give me. Besides, she’d dumped me long before I’d died. She had a life, a life where she could apparently just call up my dad and talk to him anytime she wanted. A life filled with people to meet and places to explore. Where she had a future.
She had a life. I didn’t.
I almost got all the way home before I decided I couldn’t stand to be in my apartment, so I walked. I walked and walked and walked. Alone. I was always alone. I was always going to be alone, I realized.
Not going anywhere anytime soon.
Stuck, forever.
Lost.
I could see them, right there in front of me—the people and places and things that other people saw. But I couldn’t touch their world. I couldn’t be a real part of it. I was just a ghost.
Eventually I stopped walking. I’d been wandering for hours, not paying attention to where my feet were taking me. I didn’t even know where I was.
I turned in a slow circle, looking around. On one side of me was Central Park, the south end. I recognized the rows of horses pulling carriages and food vendors and foot taxis. God. My apartment was at Eighth and Third. It was going to take me forever to get home. I glanced across the street. The building on the corner with the black awning looked familiar. There was an American flag posted on the left side of the door, and a red-and-white flag with a winged foot in the center of it on the right. This, too, felt super familiar.
I squinted to read the gold lettering on the awning.
New York Athletic Club.
That’s why it was familiar. That’s where Ethan’s pool was.
The pool.
The one I’d seen only in his dreams.
NINE
I SHOULDN’T BE HERE, I thought.
And yet there I was, standing in my Hoodie just inside the entrance to the New York Athletic Club. It was an impressive room: marble floors and ornate wood paneling and a row of gorgeous chandeliers that made you feel like you’d stepped back in time. I’d been standing there invisibly for five minutes, learning the pattern of the doorman’s walk back and forth across the lobby and trying to make a decision about what to do.
I should just get out of here, I told myself. This is crazy.
But instead I waited until the flood of guys going in and out of the club slowed to more of a trickle, and I could slip into an elevator alone. From there it wasn’t too hard to get to the athletic part of the building. I kept telling myself that I was just going to take a peek at the pool. I wanted to see what it looked like in real life, and what was so awesome about this particular pool that it made Ethan want to go back there in his subconscious mind. I mean, he dreamed about this pool constantly. I’d just get a look, see for myself, and then I’d go.
In the empty women’s locker room, as I pulled back my hood and became visible again, my heart started slamming into my ribs. I knew Boz would lose his freaking mind if he saw me here on Dave’s monitors. But there were no cameras in the athletic areas of the club. Not the locker rooms. Or the pool. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to a swimming pool. Not since I’d been dead, anyway.
On the way out I stopped and surveyed myself in the long wall of locker room mirrors. I was kind of a mess, wearing the Hoodie with black skinny jeans and cheap black-and-white-checkered canvas flats. Minimal makeup—a bit of concealer and mascara. My eyelids were slightly puffy. I frowned at the small pimple below my mouth. Every single morning I had to cover up this same tiny little zit that I’d had when
I died. Since my body reset itself every day, I was stuck with a perpetual pimple for the rest of eternity. An unfair thing to do to a teenage girl, if you asked me.
And you could stand to lose five pounds, said the Inner Yvonne, even though that’d be impossible. But your hair looks amazing. Fortunately, just before I died I’d also had a Brazilian blow-out, so my hair was a shiny, just-colored golden blond that fell almost to my waist. It did look pretty good, even loose and unstyled and a bit tangled.
But how I looked didn’t matter anyway, since I was just going to pop in there and check out the pool. In and out. That’s all. No big deal.
The room was smaller in real life than it had been in Ethan’s dream. The floor was covered with thousands of tiny white and blue porcelain tiles, and occasionally they spelled out NO DIVING along the edges of the water. The walls were also laid with tiles, dark blue near the floor and then the pattern getting lighter and more sporadic as they approached the ceiling, which was white and high and arching, with chandeliers every few feet to light the room at night. Along one wall were four hazy eight-paned windows. A set of lounge chairs with navy cushions lined up against the other wall. There was a banner of red and white triangles across the pool, the red ones printed with the winged foot, which apparently was the logo for the NYAC. The water cast ripples of light onto the walls, and the air was heavy with the smell of chlorine.
So, there, I’d seen it. I should go. I should have gone right then, in and out just like I’d planned, but that’s when I also saw Ethan.
He was swimming in lane three.
Of course he was. From the moment I’d realized that I was standing across the street from the club—Ethan’s club—I’d known I would go in, and that somehow I’d find him there. I didn’t let myself think about the rules I was breaking, approaching Ethan Winters III—Scrooge 173—in real life. I told myself I was only there for the pool. But I wasn’t fooling anyone. Least of all myself.
I made my way carefully along the edge of the pool, picked an empty chaise at the far side, and sat down. There was an abandoned copy of the New York Times on the seat next to me, and I stole it. I unfolded the newspaper across my lap and pretended to read.
What are you doing? said a warning voice in my head. This wasn’t Yvonne. It sounded suspiciously like Boz.
I want to see Ethan, I replied. When I was sifting his memories, I never really got a good look at him, after all. It was dark in his bedroom. The surveillance photos and videos that circulated around the office weren’t the best quality. They couldn’t do him justice. I just wanted to see this guy in real life. I’d sit for a few minutes and watch him, and then I’d go.
But that wasn’t the real reason I’d come in here. Deep down, I knew that, too. It’s why I hadn’t worn the Hoodie.
Even though I’d never actually met him, Ethan was the person I felt closest to. I understood him—what he was going through. What he would go through. Maybe I just wanted to be around another person for a while. So I wouldn’t feel so terribly alone.
“Hey, I haven’t seen you in here before.” Some guy put his foot up on the chaise next to mine and leaned toward me, dripping pool water on my pants.
Ugh. The pool obviously wasn’t nice and deserted the way it’d been in Ethan’s dream. It was populated with men: men with hairy chests and men wearing bathing caps and goggles and men who shouldn’t be wearing Speedos, but were. Gross. I’d guess that this one was over the age of thirty. Double gross.
“I said, I haven’t seen you here before,” the dripping guy said. “What’s your name?”
“My name’s none of your business.” I tried to focus on my fake reading.
“Ah, don’t be like that,” said the guy. “I’m just trying to make conversation.”
I lowered the newspaper. He had slick dark hair and a farmer’s tan, but it was easy to see that he thought he was a ten while he was actually more of a seven, and he was used to women being impressed by him. The kind of guy with a ten-thousand-dollar wristwatch.
“Do you have a good lawyer?” I asked him.
His cocky grin disappeared. “What?”
“I’m seventeen,” I said loudly. “So I’ll ask again: Do you have a good lawyer? Because you’re going to need one if you get involved with me.”
He took off. I glanced toward the pool. All I saw in lane three was a dark head bobbing in the water. I lifted the newspaper again, and started to read a fascinating article about Hollywood’s new feminist treatment of women in the movies. Using a quote from Gideon Chase, no less. It was like my dad was following me around.
“Hello, sweet thing.” Another guy. “I like your shoes.”
“Not interested,” I said. And seriously? My shoes were awful. “Go swim or something.”
He muttered something that rhymed with the word witch and stalked off. I started to go back to my reading, but then I realized something very important.
Ethan wasn’t in the pool.
Wait. Where was he? I put down the newspaper and sat up. I didn’t have to look far, because he was basically standing right beside me, drying himself off with a red towel that’d been folded up on the chair next to mine. I’d been sitting next to his stuff the entire time.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at me. He gathered his things and started off for the locker room.
That’s when I lost my brain entirely.
“Wait,” I called.
He stopped. Turned back. The red towel was slung around his shoulders but otherwise his chest was bare, his hair wet and glistening. I blinked up at him.
Speak, Holly, I thought. Anytime now.
“Uh, can I ask you a question?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“What’s a guy like you doing in here surrounded by these creepy old men?” Yes, I was stupid. I got this one chance to talk to Ethan, and the best I could come up with was a version of the old “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”
But the corner of his mouth turned up. “I could ask you the same.”
A slow panic was starting to build in me that pretty soon would be a fast panic. I was talking to the Scrooge. Why was I talking to the Scrooge? And, more important, at least for the time being, what was I planning to say to him?
“Exactly,” I said.
“Exactly?”
“You and I don’t belong here,” I said. “I’m . . . uh . . .”
I had to be someone else, I realized. I couldn’t be Holly Chase, because Holly Chase was Havisham, and Havisham was the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Ethan was going to have a pretty intense date with the Ghost of Christmas Past for a few hours in late December. I had to be someone else. Someone who might actually be here sitting by the pool for a good reason.
My mind raced.
“I’m waiting for my . . . dad,” I said, “who keeps insisting on dragging me to this stupid club while he drinks brandy with his business partners. I’m here under protest.” Okay, that hadn’t been a terrible explanation. It was pretty good, actually. I quickly thought up a scenario in which I was the daughter of some high-powered business exec. “What’s your excuse?”
The side of his mouth hitched up again.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m just half afraid to talk to you,” he said. “After seeing how you dispatched those guys who came up to you earlier.”
So he had been watching me. I tilted my head back to look at his face, fighting a smile. His eyes were dark gray today, like distant storm clouds. God, he was hot. And now we were obviously going to have an entire conversation. If I was being someone else, I could do that. I was never going to see him like this again, obviously. Nobody else would ever have to know. Why not have some fun with it?
“Those guys were too old for me,” I said. “Are you too old for me?”
“I’m seventeen.”
“Then you may stay,” I pronounced. “For now.”
He hesitated. But then he said, “I’m honored,??
? and slid into the chair next to mine. “So are you planning on actually swimming while you’re here at the pool?”
I shrugged. “Never learned how.” Ha, this wasn’t even remotely true. When I was alive I’d never lived in a house that didn’t have a pool. My dad used to call me his little fish. But, again, at that moment I wasn’t Holly. It was kind of nice being not-Holly. Freeing.
“So you don’t swim, but you wanted to sit by the pool. Indoors. With the creepy old men.”
“It’s the last place my dad would think to look for me.”
“Ah, so you’ve got daddy issues.”
“I have boredom issues.” I smiled. “But now you’re going to entertain me.”
“Oh, I am?” he said wryly. “How?”
“You’re going to pretend to be my boyfriend,” I said casually. Even as the sentence came out of my mouth, I couldn’t believe I said it. This not-Holly girl was kind of fearless.
He gave me an incredulous look. “And why would I do that?”
“To keep all the creepy old guys off me, of course. It’s the only gentlemanly thing to do here.” It was so easy, I was finding out, to turn on that part of myself who remembered how to handle boys. I hadn’t had a real conversation with a real live non-Project-Scrooge-related boy in five years. You’d think I’d be rusty. But it was like riding a bike. I could still flirt.
It was quiet for a minute while Ethan thought about this. I waited.
“All right,” he said finally. “I’m your boyfriend.” He leaned back in his chair and looked around us. The pool area was almost empty now. No real threat of creepy old guys, obviously.
He reached for my hand.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m being your boyfriend. Sweet thing.” His warm fingers enclosed mine.
I got an image from his past. Something with a little girl wearing a tiara. I pushed it quickly out of my consciousness. The last thing I needed right now was to space out because I was honing in on his past. Which I already pretty much knew.
“Hot lips,” I tried out.
“Baby.”