The Afterlife of Holly Chase

  He was obviously worried that I was mad about the lying thing. “Yeah,” I murmured. Of course I wasn’t mad. I’d been in such a funk since the whole episode with Ro. And now Stephanie, who had turned out to be a fake friend. It was good, seeing Ethan. So heartbreakingly, unbelievably good I wanted to grab him and hold on to him and never let him go. But part of me wondered if this would be the last time we got to see each other as Ethan and Victoria. If everything went as planned, Ethan would be spending Christmas joyfully running around telling everyone Merry Christmas and trying to make everything right. And then maybe everything would be right. And he’d have his family back—Jack and his mom and his grandmother. And he’d be real friends with Dent. And he’d have a better life.

  But I knew it would be a life without me. I couldn’t kid myself about it anymore. The point of Project Scrooge was to change someone, inside and out. And when he was changed, Ethan wouldn’t be the same. We wouldn’t be the same. It’d be over.

  “And it was a great idea to go to a movie,” Ethan said. “We’ve never been to a movie together. It’s kind of, I don’t know, normal for you.”

  “I can be normal.” We sat down at one of the little tables and sipped at our lemonade. “I’m amazing at being normal.”

  “Yeah, you’re so humble, too,” Ethan said.

  “Well, you know, vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess,” I said, another one of Boz’s favorite Dickens sayings.

  Ethan’s eyebrows came together. “Who said that?”

  “Some old dead guy.”

  It was almost time for the movie. We gathered up our food and headed down the escalator to the basement, which was decorated with various artworks that depicted New York City, huge old movie posters, and—my favorite—an old wooden rabbit that used to be part of the Coney Island carousel. The basement was where all the individual theaters were.

  Evangeline’s Well was in theater two. Ethan wanted to sit in the very back. “So do you have plans for Christmas?” he asked as we settled into our seats.

  My heart started pounding just thinking about it. Christmas. Three days away.

  “I don’t do Christmas,” I said. “I refuse to participate on principle.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “You hate Christmas, too, huh? Why?”

  “My birthday,” I admitted.

  He paused with his cup of lemonade halfway to his lips. “Your birthday is on Christmas? How did I not know that?”

  “It’s the day after Christmas,” I corrected. “December twenty-sixth. Which is the worst possible day to have a birthday. It was just awful when I was a kid. Everyone was always so fixated on Christmas, they forgot about me. I never got to have my class sing me happy birthday or hand out cupcakes, and if my parents threw a party nobody ever came, because they all had, like, Christmas hangover.”

  “Poor baby,” Ethan said with a smirk, and I swung at him like I was going to punch him. He laughed.

  “Anyway. I hate Christmas.”

  “I agree,” said Ethan, taking a bite of scone. “Christmas blows. It always feels to me like people are playing a game on Christmas—the let’s-make-a-big-deal-about-nothing game. They don’t know when baby Jesus was really born, do they? No, it’s like everything else—it’s made up.”

  “It’s not like it’s even about religion, anyway,” I added. “At least not that I ever saw. It’s about the presents and the pageantry and the annoying fricking songs.”

  He nodded and smiled, glad to have a partner in disliking the holidays.

  “So do you have plans for Christmas?” I asked him.

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “Not really. My grandmother’s throwing a Christmas party, as usual. She invited me. But I hate Christmas parties.”

  “They’re the worst,” I agreed.

  “And my sister’s going to be there, so I’m definitely not going to go.”

  I was quiet for a minute, like I was digesting all of this.

  “So . . . you have a sister.” I arched an eyebrow at him. “You told me that you were an only child, remember?”

  He gave an embarrassed laugh. “Wishful thinking. I haven’t seen her in forever.”

  “Maybe you should go,” I said lightly, but of course I knew he wouldn’t. Dave would have to bring him there to watch the party invisibly.

  He shook his head. “No way. My sister used to be cool, and we hung out all the time, but now all she does is act like I’m a big disappointment to her, because I’m a realist, and I like having money, and I’m planning to take over the business when I’m old enough. And my sister says that’s materialistic and she says I’m like my grandfather, and she doesn’t really want to have anything to do with that world.”

  “Hey, there is nothing wrong with having money,” I said. “That’s what makes the world go round, I always say.”

  He grinned. “You’re a girl after my own heart, Tori.”

  I know, Ethan, I thought. I know.

  “But family’s important,” I said. “It’s, like, the most important thing. Believe me, I wish I could spend time with my family again.”

  “You mean, besides your dad?”

  “My dad?” I stared at him for a few seconds before I understood he meant Victoria’s dad. Who didn’t exist. “Oh. Right. Well, my dad’s a piece of work.”

  “So, what I’m hearing is, you don’t have plans for Christmas, and I don’t have plans for Christmas,” he pointed out. “Do you want to not have plans for Christmas together?”

  I leaned over to kiss him. “Why don’t we play it by ear?”

  “I can never pin you down, can I?” he laughed. The lights dimmed. “What’s this movie supposed to be about, anyway?”

  I took a deep breath. It was like I was actually bringing Ethan to meet my dad. It felt weird for me to see the movie this way, without my Hoodie, not invisible, sitting next to someone I knew, waiting to see what he thought of something that was so important to me.

  “It’s about family,” I said to answer his question. “It’s about how, even when we know it’s a mistake or that things are going to end badly, we still choose to fight for the people we love.”

  “So it’s kind of a girl movie, right?” Ethan said. “I get points for taking you to a girl movie.”

  “I think it’s more than a chick flick,” I said. “It’s a statement about love and life and death and human nature and grief and . . .”

  I was talking too much. I shut up. We sat through a couple of previews, and then the movie began to play. The screen faded from black to the opening image: the mayor’s daughter, wearing a long red dress, staring at her own reflection in the well. Then the picture changed, shifting to show all the different futures that Evangeline saw when she looked into the water.

  Evangeline, by the way, is my middle name.

  I glanced over at Ethan, taking in the way that the screen glowed on his face and reflected back in his eyes. It was so unreal: Ethan, watching my dad’s movie. My dad’s name was up there on the screen, and his company, GCP—Gideon Chase Productions. I shivered.

  Ethan put his arm around me.

  “See? When she looks in the well, she can see all her possible futures,” I whispered close to his ear. “And if you look closely, pay attention, there’s a flash where you can see the actual end of the movie. When her father saves her. There, did you see?”

  “You just, like, told me the end of the film.” He laughed. “Spoiler alert.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. We watched for a few more minutes. “But it’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? That her dad’s going to save her? I mean, it’s predictable. Not in a bad way, though. It’s like it’s meant to be. It’s all moving toward this inevitable outcome.”

  “You want to know what’s inevitable?” He kissed me. I let him, for a minute. But then I pulled back. “You have to watch this part. Where the monster gets her. The look on her father’s face when they tell him, it kills me every time.”

  Ethan was looking at me s
trangely. “How many times have you seen this movie?”

  “Shh!” An old lady a few rows in front of us turned around and gave us both a disapproving glare.

  “Six. No, seven. Seven and a half?” I whispered.

  He leaned in again. “So you can stand to miss some.”

  “No.” I put my hand on his chest and pushed him back. “You need to see this.”

  “Why?” He looked annoyed more than anything else. He’d seriously thought we were only here to suck face in the back row. Boys. Unbelievable.

  “Because it’s important!” I burst out. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. He was supposed to love my dad’s movie. We were supposed to be able to talk about it later. And then we’d actually be talking about my dad. We were supposed to connect about something real. Something that was mine, and not Victoria’s.

  “You already told me the ending,” he pointed out.

  “But it isn’t about the ending—”

  “Shh!” insisted the lady.

  “It’s fine. I’m leaving.” I stood up and pushed my way in front of people’s feet down the row. Ethan cursed and followed me out.

  “What is wrong with you?” he said as soon as we were out in the hall.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I shot back, fighting tears. And suddenly I couldn’t stop thinking about Ro. Ro and her stupid boyfriend meeting her stupid auntie in that stupid little house with their stupid future. All I was ever going to have with Ethan was the present. Tonight. And he wouldn’t even watch my dad’s movie. He didn’t care about it. And I couldn’t tell him why it mattered, because I couldn’t tell him who I was.

  “Tori, stop.” He grabbed my hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand what’s going on exactly, but we can go back in there if you want. I’ll watch the movie. I’ll be good.”

  I dashed the furious tears off my face with the back of my hand. “No. You’re right. It’s a girl movie. And you’re not a girl.”

  I grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him. He was surprised, but kissed me back. Within minutes we’d sneaked into the empty theater next to the one we’d started out in and were full-on making out. I let our hands roam where they may and tried to make everything else go away but Ethan—his lips on mine, his heartbeat thudding under my hand when I laid it against his chest, his clean, sophisticated smell, his soft hair, the way his hand felt on the bare skin on the back of my arm. I tried to lose myself in Ethan while my dad’s movie played in the theater next to us and Evangeline and her father played out their tragic story. I kissed Ethan, but I couldn’t have him. Not for real. Not for good.

  Ethan pulled away. “Whoa. Okay . . . whoa. What the—”

  I was crying again. Silent tears were streaming down my face.

  Ethan shook his head, stunned. This was the part where I turned into the crazy girl, obviously. “Victoria . . .”

  Holly. Holly Holly Holly. I cried even harder.

  “Is it that time?” he asked slowly.

  “That time?” I sniffled.

  “Of the m—”

  I smacked him and bolted out of there.

  “Tori. Wait. Tori!” he called after me when I was halfway up the escalator to the main floor. He ran up the stationary stairs in the middle and tried to keep pace with me. “Come on! What did I do?”

  “So, what, if I’m emotional, I can’t have a good reason?” I yelled.

  He threw up his hands. “So tell me the reason! Tell me!”

  But I couldn’t. So I just got off the escalator and headed for the door. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

  Ethan trailed after me. Angry now.

  “You never tell me anything!” he said when we got out to the street. “You don’t let me take your picture, you don’t call me, you don’t bring me back to wherever it is you live. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know who you are. I’m not complaining, and I’m not asking to meet your dad, Tori, or get his blessing or anything, but I just want to point out that you’re the one who’s holding back here. You’re the one who doesn’t tell me things.”

  “Says the guy who told me that his parents were happily married, but they just traveled a lot,” I scoffed. “You didn’t tell me about your dad!”

  His jaw tightened. “I did tell you about my dad.”

  I shouldn’t have brought up his dad. I knew it the minute the words left my mouth. “Ethan.” I reached for him. My hand brushed his cheek. And suddenly, I saw it. After all that time I’d spent sifting through his memories, trying to crack the dad thing—what his father’s death had meant to him—it was there, with no transducer and no lavender mist and no REM state, that I could finally see.

  In the memory, he was standing in front of a coffin. It was covered with flowers, and the sweet, overpowering smell of them almost sickened him. His eyes were bleary. He put his hand on the shining wood.

  “Dad,” he whispered. “Come back.”

  My throat felt tight with tears, but I couldn’t tell if they were his tears or mine. I couldn’t tell if this was a memory or part of a dream he was having because of me. The pain of it was indescribable, almost unbearable. His chest felt like it was being cracked open. Some part of him was howling.

  A hand with purple polish on the fingernails came down next to Ethan’s on the casket. He looked up to see Jack’s tear-streaked face.

  “Hey, buddy,” she said hoarsely.

  “Where’s Mom?” he asked, but he knew his mother was at the other end of the room, hidden by an ever-shifting group of people and busy doing whatever it was they wanted her to do. “I want Mom.”

  “I know,” said Jack. “You’ve got me, too, though, you know? You’ve always got me.”

  He nodded.

  “You. Children. Get away from there,” came a voice, and they both turned to see their grandfather in a black suit frowning at them so deeply it was almost a scowl.

  “Come,” he said. “It won’t do for you to hover over the dead.”

  The dead, thought Ethan. That’s what my dad is now.

  The dead.

  “I’m so sorry about your dad, Ethan,” I whispered.

  Ethan stepped back, breaking our connection. His blue eyes were so cold now he reminded me of Ethan Senior. Like he wasn’t looking at me anymore. Like he was seeing Jack when he’d said, “Leave me alone, you freak.” He gave me a sarcastic smile. “Like I said, I’m not complaining. You’re a beautiful girl, Victoria, and I enjoy the time we spend together, and it doesn’t have to be more than that. I’m fine with how it is. It’s not heavy, like you said. It’s not serious.”

  “No. It’s serious,” I argued. “I . . .”

  He checked his watch. Like he actually had somewhere to be that wasn’t with me. “I should go. It’s been fun, but—wait, it really hasn’t been that fun. It could have been more fun, if you know what I mean.”

  Now he was over the line. I sighed. “Look, don’t be—”

  “You’ve always been this mystery, and at first that was hot. But I’m getting bored. And you’re a little, I don’t know. Hot and cold.”

  I closed my eyes. There wasn’t anything I could do now. Nothing I could say to fix it. I couldn’t tell him the truth. And I couldn’t lie.

  But it didn’t matter, because when I opened my eyes again, Ethan was gone.

  TWENTY-THREE

  CHRISTMAS EVE. MY HANDS STARTED shaking every time I considered all of the ways that the night could go wrong. The first and most obvious way: Ethan could recognize me. All this time I’d tried to act like that wasn’t a possibility, but it had been a danger I’d posed to Ethan’s future the moment I stepped into the New York Athletic Club and showed him my face. Still, like I’d told Stephanie when she’d asked about it, the costume was pretty extreme. And I was planning on shining a lot of lights in his eyes.

  “You’ve got some puffiness,” remarked Leigh, the hair and makeup lady, as she painted an extra layer of concealer under my eyes. “Have you been getting enough sle
ep?”

  I was getting no sleep, but that didn’t matter, because I didn’t need sleep. I reset every morning. But I had been doing that crying-into-my-pillow thing for the past two nights. Because it was really over now with Ethan. But it was the right thing, I’d decided. Inevitable. Victoria and Ethan had always been running on borrowed time.

  Marie, who was in charge of costumes for the entire project, bustled into my dressing room with two huge garment bags draped over her arm. “Great job with the hair this year,” she said when she saw me. “It’s always a work of art, isn’t it?”

  It was. Leigh had curled my hair and braided the top of it into an elaborate crown, letting the rest fall around my shoulders. Then she’d sprayed my hair with something that made it look white and glittery under the lights. She stuck in tiny sprigs of leaves and holly here and there, like I was a sparkly wood nymph that had wandered out of a snowstorm. For my makeup, she’d covered my face and every exposed part of my body with an opalescent foundation that made me as pale as a marble statue come to life. She’d painted my eyebrows and lids with a layer of shimmering silver, and left my eyelashes bare. As a last step, she’d dusted a final coat of shimmery powder on my cheekbones and lined my lips with a soft, natural pink.

  I looked like a totally different person, like a little girl and simultaneously like an ancient primitive force—ageless and ethereal.

  “You’ve outdone yourself,” I said.

  Leigh smiled. “I could never outdo myself, darling.”

  Marie hung the garment bags on separate hooks on the wall, and then unzipped one of them and drew out my dress. It was gorgeous—at least I’d always thought so—made of overlapping layers of a semitransparent fabric that looked silver in some lights and so white in others that it almost hurt your eyes to look at it. I took the hanger from Marie carefully and went into the adjoining bathroom to put the dress on.

  “Careful of your face,” Leigh called through the door as I slid the dress over my head. “You don’t want to smear.”