“Sorry Sara. Nothing at all.”
“Thanks anyway, Danny. Let me know if anyone calls.”
“You know it.”
She hung up the phone, turned off the bedroom light and stepped back out into the living room. Pete, Derek and Steve were sprawled on the floor amid a litter of pizza boxes and beer cans. Mickey sat with his back against the couch, a little apart from them. They were getting along, as far as she could tell, though she knew that the band members were curious about Mickey’s motives. Getting into her was one thing—and her business. Getting in the band was another.
She had some misgivings about his motives herself. He’d arrived at The Gold Rush that night a week ago with the poster scheme, promising that an artist friend of his could do the sketch, they could get them printed up cheaply, and he’d distribute them when he did his regular midnight postering runs for one of the clubs. After that one clumsy overture in the diner, he never mentioned joining the band again. He never played for her, not even when she left her own guitar lying around the living room of Ardeth’s apartment. She never invited him to, for fear her artistic judgment would end up ruining the tentative friendship she could feel developing between them.
“There’s only one inning left,” Tom was saying, watching the television. “The Jays are gonna make it.”
“In your dreams,” Derek retorted cynically. “They’re gonna choke. They always choke. It’s the unwritten rule of Canadian Sports—to join the union, you have to choke.”
Baseball, Sara thought in disgust, wending her way through the outstretched legs and beer cans to retrieve her empty glass and head for the kitchen. She was pouring herself another glass of wine when there was a sudden ragged cheer from the living room. She looked up as Mickey came in. “The Jays scored?”
“Yeah.” He leaned against the wall, watching her.
“You’re not into baseball, are you?”
“Not much,” he confessed.
“Neither am I. But . . .”
“But the band is.”
“The guys are. And it’s noise. I need noise here.”
“So that’s why they’re always here.” Sara laughed and sat down at the kitchen table.
“It’s not the only reason. But, well, I spent a few bad nights here when I first moved in, just after Ardeth disappeared. I don’t know, maybe I think if I keep a bunch of drunk, pizza-eating Jays fans around the place long enough, she’ll get so outraged she’ll come back and throw us all out.”
“Nothing from the posters yet?”
“No.”
“It’s only been two days. Give it time.”
“I hope so. I hope she calls. I hope she’s not angry I’m staying here.” She contemplated the bottom of her wineglass for a moment, as he settled into the chair across from her. “I haven’t unpacked. I just put all my stuff in a heap on her floor, just like I always did.”
“So you can pack up and go when she comes back?” Mickey asked. “You think she’d throw you out?”
“She never did before. She wanted to sometimes, but she never did. Of course, she never gave me a key either. I had to get the one I have now from Carla. But now . . .”
“She’s changed.” She nodded.
“Ardeth and I . . . we weren’t exactly friends.”
“Ever?”
“I don’t think so. But we had a good time together sometimes and usually we could be civil the rest of the time.”
“I have an older brother. He’s an engineer. At a family gathering he punches my shoulder and asks me when I’m going to get a real job. We probably say about twenty-five words to each other all day and five of them are ‘How was the trip down?’” Mickey told her and she laughed.
“We usually managed more than that. Not much more, mind you. She,” she paused, “I always thought I was supposed to live up to her somehow. The typical kid stuff, you know ‘Mother always liked you better.’”
“Did she?”
“I don’t think so, not really. Ardeth said once that she thought Mom liked me better, so who can tell. It got worse when our parents died. Ardeth started to act as if she were my mother. Sometimes it was like we spoke different languages—so that even if we meant the same things, it all came out sounding like a reason to fight.” She tilted her chair back, looked up at the ceiling, then back down at the glass twisting in her fingers. “One time, when we were just kids, I was in a school play. It was some Greek myth or something. We had these white sheets we had to wear as Greek gowns. Ardeth loved that shit, mythology, history, anything old and dead—she loved it. So she found a book that had designs of Greek jewelry and she made me this necklace. She made it from papier mâché and painted it up in gold and blue and red. I suppose it was probably pretty sad—Ardeth’s strong point is her mind, not her hands. But I felt like the Queen of Olympus in that thing. Because it was the first thing she ever really gave me—the me that was just learning to sing, that was just starting to really be me. I wore it every time we did that play. I kept it for years. Because it meant that, at least once.” Her voice broke and she stared harder at her hands, blurry behind her tears, “she must have liked me.”
“Sara . . .”
“Jesus, I’m sorry.” She tossed her head back, blinked up into the light as if the electrical heat could dry her tears. “I thought I was over this. I sound like a fuckin’ Disney film.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to say ‘fuck’ in a Disney film,” Mickey pointed out and Sara laughed, harder than the joke warranted, and let the laughter explain her tears and flushed cheeks when the band put their heads into the kitchen to announce that, due solely to their moral support, the Jays had staved off the dreaded Canadian choke syndrome for another game.
“Well, now that we’ve one again consumed your food and watched your TV, we’d better be going. See you at the Rush tomorrow night,” Tom said. “We’re heading downtown, Mickey. You want a ride?”
In the sudden silence, Sara felt Mickey’s eyes on her, waiting for a sign of what she wanted. What do I want? If she asked, they’d all stay, let her sleep with them in a heap of covers and pillows on the living-room floor, like they’d crashed on so many floors before. If she asked, Mickey alone might stay, might drive Ardeth’s ever-present memory out of the cold bed in the next room.
She said nothing.
“Sure,” Mickey answered after a moment. The chair scraped on the floor as he stood up. In the empty kitchen, she wiped her eyes and listened to the rustle of leather jackets being pulled on, the ritual banter of the band as they prepared to leave. She waited until she had heard them open the apartment door, until it was too late to call them back with any dignity, before she got up and went out to the small entrance hallway.
They were already on the way down the hall, pausing to wave and mouth goodbye in an exaggerated concern for silence, mocking her insistence on not ruining Ardeth’s reputation with her neighbours. It was almost funny—she who had hosted lease-breaking parties that summoned squad cars insisting on silence.
Mickey hung somewhere between the apartment door and the exit and when she appeared, he drifted back to her doorway. “You’ll be OK alone?”
She looked at the closing door at the end of the hallway. “I’ll be fine. Thanks.”
“If you change your mind, I can bike back up here.”
“To sleep on my couch?” The question came out sharp and jagged, studded with memories of Tyler, and false comfort promised by other arms.
“Whatever. Whatever.” He met her gaze squarely, while she considered the angles, considered what it was he really offered. And what he wanted in return.
“If I need someone,” she said at last, “I’ll call.” He smiled then leaned over to kiss the corner of her mouth lightly.
“To keep the ghosts away. See you tomorrow.” He was gone before she could speak, vanishing down the hall in pursuit of his ride home.
Sara stood for a moment in the hallway, then turned back to the empty apartment. Without the television, without the laughter, the silence had a chill that made her shiver. To keep the ghosts away . . . but who’s haunting who, Ardy? she thought in sudden pain. She closed the door, pressed her forehead against the cold metal surface. Are you the ghost haunting this place—or am I?
Sara dreamed. She dreamed of a soft voice whispering in her ear, asking her to open the door. In the dream, it was perfectly reasonable that it was the balcony door she rose to open, to admit a sliver of night that drifted into one shadowed corner of the bedroom.
She woke with a start, breath caught in her throat, heart racing. She lay in the darkness, wondering what had wakened her, suddenly sensitive to the faintest sound. Her breathing seemed to echo in the darkness. She had almost drifted back to sleep again before she realized that it was not an echo.
Terror raised a sudden heat beneath her skin, propelled by the triple-time pounding of her heart. The ancient dilemma of childhood returned—was it better to face the thing looking over your bed, or hide beneath the sheets and hope your own blindness would conceal you?
At last she sat up and said, with as much bravado as she could muster, “Who the fuck are you?”
The dark shadow in the rattan chair in the corner stirred slightly. “It is better that you do not know. But I mean you no harm.” The voice was low but clear, with the tantalizing rhythms of a foreign accent.
“What do you want?” Her vision was improving. The shadow had resolved itself into a recognizably human form, though the face was still no more than the suggestion of features.
“I have news of your sister.”
“Ardeth? You’ve seen her? Where is she?”
“She is dead.”
“I don’t believe you,” Sara said fiercely.
“Your sister is dead,” the man repeated.
“How do you know that?”
“I know.”
“When did she . . . ?” She let the question end, the hopes she’d held beginning to unravel within her and dissolve into the darkness in the corner.
“A while ago.” His voice was steady but she doubted him suddenly. Mickey had seen Ardeth only three weeks ago. She was still alive.
“She’s not dead. Someone saw her.” There was a moment of silence.
“That may be. But she is still dead to you. She must be dead to you. And you must stop seeking her.”
“Why?”
“You endanger her.”
“How?”
“The world must believe her dead. She is in great danger otherwise. Your questions, your posters, may have already alerted her enemies.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let her go, Sara.”
“No. She wants to be dead, that’s fine. But she can tell me that herself.”
“You may be watched.”
“They can’t watch all the time, whoever ‘they’ are. I want to see her. I won’t believe you, I won’t believe anyone until I see her.” There was another long silence and she heard the rustle of cloth as he shifted position.
“I will do what I can,” the man said, after a moment.
“These enemies of hers—are they after you too?”
“With any luck, it is still only I they seek.”
“Who are you?” she dared at last.
He rose from the chair and stepped forward. In the faint gleam of light slanting through the blinds, Sara could see that his clothes were shabby and ill-fitting. But there was something aristocratic in the narrow lines of the face beneath the disheveled smoky hair and something compelling in the pale eyes. She was suddenly aware that she was still sitting among the tumbled sheets, wearing only her briefs and her tattered, threadbare Sex Pistols T-shirt.
“It is still safer that you do not know,” he said softly.
“What have you got to do with my sister?”
“She is my blood,” he replied cryptically and for a crazy moment she wondered if he were some long-lost relative, some forgotten second cousin twice-removed. “I will see what can be done. I will contact you. Tell no one of this.” He reached out and slid back the balcony door. “Good-night, Miss Alexander. Sleep well.”
“After this? I’ll probably have nightmares now,” she said caustically. He turned back to her for a moment, and she saw the faint gleam of his smile.
“I do not think so . . . Sara. Not tonight.” There was an edge of wry amusement in his voice, then he bowed slightly and the blinds swung shut behind him.
By the time she had scrambled to the door to lock it again, the balcony was empty.