The next few weeks passed for Kara in a blur of work and baby-sitting her ghost. Barb made increasingly ridiculous demands every time Kara left for the office in the morning. “Bring home some Tab,” she said once, as if Kara had any idea if they still even made it. Another time she asked if she could get a cat to keep her company during the day. Absolutely not.
When she wasn’t working, Kara’s social life was pretty pathetic. She’d met people. Sure, she could say that. She’d met a building manager who didn’t like her, a pretend medium, a neighbor who sometimes didn’t remember if they’d met before, an elderly witch, and the former resident of her apartment who was possibly the only remotely normal person on that list but who was obviously not over her ex.
Kara had dutifully checked off the K items on the ghost to-do list, most of which were a resounding failure. With the help of Ruthie, the front office assistant, she’d hired the firm’s private investigator to look into Nan’s background, but she still didn’t know Barb’s last name or date of birth, and Barb refused to tell. Every night when she got off the train, she headed away from her building to check Miss Pythia’s shop, and every night it was closed. One day, the curtains were gone, and she was able to peek in the windows. Inside was an empty space. The next day, a “for rent” sign was posted to the door. When Kara saw Nan in the mail room a few days later, she asked if Miss Pythia had relocated, but Nan insisted she’d never heard of anyone by that name.
The one person who was easy to get a hold of was Nisha. Actually, Kara didn’t have to get a hold of her. Nisha texted night and day to check on Barb. She’d called Kara’s office the day after their walk in the park to ask if she should come over to help, but Kara had told Ruthie to say she was in a meeting and unavailable.
She kept seeing Nisha’s earrings brush against the delicate brown skin of her neck as the wind blew, Nisha’s plush lips smiling as they talked. She kept thinking about how close she had come to kissing those lips and how terrible an idea that was.
Nisha was fixated on Angie. She had been wearing Angie’s engagement ring that very day. She was still living in the past.
And Kara’s ideal plan for moving forward into the future didn’t involve starting a new long-term relationship. It involved hot, casual sex, something she was getting absolutely none of.
So there they were. Kara was avoiding Nisha, and Nisha was relentlessly trying to contact her.
On a Tuesday afternoon in late November, the first heavy snowfall of the season came, and by evening the streets of the Loop were full of plows. As Kara watched the maintenance crew from the building across the street shovel the sidewalk and scatter salt, she felt reluctant to leave the warmth of her office. She’d called her mom and sister to catch up, and she’d sent text messages to some friends in Wisconsin who asked if Chicago was amazing.
With no one left to talk to, Kara was scrolling through Instagram on her phone, wasting time, not ready to face another evening with Barb, when she saw Nisha’s latest post. It was a picture of her on the train, looking out the window while holding a cup of coffee. Her thick black hair was loose around her shoulders, and she was wearing a red scarf with a gray coat. The caption said Sunita had made her pose, and Kara wondered where they had gone together that had sparked the impromptu photo session. It was funny how most of Nisha’s photos were her alone. To someone who didn’t know Nisha, it seemed as if she led a solitary life, but she had Sunita and Madeline—and Nan and Oleg—a whole host of people who loved her and wanted to be around her.
Meanwhile, Kara was ignoring her texts.
She pulled up Nisha’s contact info and hit the call button.
On the third ring, Nisha answered. “I really think you should come over, so we can talk.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
At six forty, Kara ran down the stairs to the train station and through the tunnel. It was her first time riding the Red Line, which she took north to the Bryn Mawr stop. From there, she hiked a few blocks in the cold to a nondescript red brick low-rise that looked almost identical to the other buildings on the street.
Her hand was shaky as she buzzed unit 215, a mixture of anxiety over whatever was bothering Nisha and eagerness to see her.
When the front door hummed to signal it was unlocked, she let herself inside. The building had no lobby, just a small vestibule with mailboxes. She found the stairs and began climbing, uncertain which direction 215 would be, when a door to her left opened, and someone waved at her.
It was Madeline. Her blond hair was in a messy bun with pieces falling around her face. She was wearing a T-shirt, pajama pants, and gray slippers, and Kara realized Nisha hadn’t said if they were eating with her roommates or just the two of them. Kara wasn’t sure which would be more awkward.
“Welcome!” Madeline called as Kara made her way down the hall. “Do you remember me? We met that night at Perimeter.”
She sounded friendly, as if all the anger Sunita had leveled at Kara that horrible night at the club had been long forgotten.
“Of course, you’re Madeline, right?”
“Maddie, please. Come on in.”
She escorted Kara through a dark stained door and into a living room separated from a dining room by a half-wall with built-in china cabinets. It was obviously an older building but recently refurbished. The space was bright and warm and modern, even with its beautifully preserved original features. So this was Sunita and Maddie’s condo, where Nisha had been crashing since she moved out of Kara’s sticky, smelly apartment. Not a bad place to recover from heartbreak.
“Nisha’s changing her clothes. Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”
“A glass of water, please.”
Maddie left Kara alone on the gray corduroy sectional. When she came back, she was carrying a tall glass of chilled water with a lemon wedge. Kara hadn’t expected such formality and wasn’t sure what to make of it. She gave her thanks, and Maddie left her alone again.
Eventually Nisha emerged from a door farther down the hall. “Sorry it took me so long. I slipped and fell on my way home, and I was soaking wet.”
“Are you okay?”
“Maybe a bruise on my butt, no big deal.” She shuffled across the pristine wooden floors in a pair of fuzzy green socks and sat cross-legged next to Kara on the couch. “So what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“You sounded so upset when you called me earlier.”
Kara frowned. “When I called you earlier, you said to come over tonight, I said okay, and you asked me what time I’d be here, and then you hung up. How did you get that I was upset from a twenty-second phone call?”
“Before that. When you left me the voice mail saying you were having a tough day and needed someone to talk to.”
“Nish, I never did that.” But Nisha had been on her mind. Had she called and forgotten? She reached for her bag on the floor and took her phone from the inside pocket. She pulled up the call history.
“It wasn’t from that number. It was a 312 number I didn’t recognize. I assumed it was one of your office lines.”
“I think someone is pulling a prank on you. I was thinking about you all day, but didn’t call.”
“You were thinking about me?”
Kara couldn’t tell if Nisha sounded hopeful that she occupied Kara’s attention or annoyed that thinking about her was all Kara had done. She decided to put her guts on the line.
“I know I said I’d call the last time we saw each other, and I didn’t. I’m sorry about that.”
“I don’t understand. If you were avoiding me, why’d you agree to come over?”
“You made it sound like we had something important to talk about.” She’d thought Nisha might have an update from her half of the to-do list. But, in her heart, Kara knew that wasn’t why she’d rushed over. She’d come because she was glad Nisha wasn’t angry at her lack of communication. She was grateful Nisha had made the first overture. Or the tenth.
“Do we have something important to talk about?”
Nisha’s big brown eyes did that soul-searching thing, and Kara took a sip of water to avoid falling into them and never coming out again. Nisha wasn’t talking about Barb, that was clear. As much as Kara wanted to get lost in her, it was too much.
“I don’t need to bust in on your evening. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”
She rose to her feet and slung her bag over her shoulder. She moved to the front door, but as she reached for the knob, Nisha said, “Please don’t go.”
Kara turned to look at her and felt the same swelling in her chest she’d experienced at the park.
“I didn’t call because I didn’t know what to say,” she admitted.
“Because I’ve been texting so much, right? It was probably overkill. It’s just that when you helped me search for the ring and made me brunch—”
“I made you toast.”
“You invited me over for brunch, and you were good to me and Nan. And now that you’re stuck with Barb, I wanted to return the favor.”
Kara leaned her back against the door. “You were good to me when you took me out to that club. I was the one repaying the favor. Anyway, I shouldn’t have avoided you. I…I missed you.”
Her throat felt dry, and her heart was racing now. She hated the words she was saying and how vulnerable they made her feel, but she liked how they made Nisha’s eyes soften.
“When you said you wanted a hookup, I thought maybe you were the kind of person who can’t be trusted with anything more serious.” Nisha quickly added, “I mean friendship. How some people aren’t reliable. Not that everyone who has casual sex is unreliable. I’m not trying to make a moral judgment about monogamy. Man, I’m floundering here.”
“You were scared.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t been with anyone since Angie.”
There it was. The reminder that while for Kara there was a bubble of feelings growing between them, getting bigger each time they talked, Nisha wasn’t ready for it.
“You have to let her go.”
“It’s not that easy. I’m not saying she was so perfect I can never imagine anyone living up to her. But when we broke up, it wasn’t just us breaking up. It was splitting up furniture and bank accounts and friends. I lost nearly everybody but them.” She tipped her head toward the hallway, meaning Sunita and Maddie. “My life completely fell apart. I couldn’t face getting hurt like that again.” Nisha turned to lean against the wall beside Kara. “When I met you, and you were here in Chicago all alone, it was like the universe was giving me a sign that I should get to know you. Then Barb happened, and I was the only other person who knew about it, and I thought, well, you need me.”
So Nisha’s attentiveness had only been out of pity for Kara’s loneliness, nothing more. “I don’t need you. It was nice having you around, but I’m fine on my own. That was my whole goal in moving here, right? Now if I can get Barb to go away, I can finally have what I want.”
Nisha frowned at her. “Is that really what you want?”
There was the sound of a key fumbling in the lock a split second before the door pushed into Kara, and she fell a step forward. Nisha caught her. Then the door opened all the way, knocking into Kara’s back.
“Sorry.” Sunita stepped inside and twirled her key ring on her forefinger. She didn’t sound very sorry. “Are you all right?”
An ache where the doorknob had pounded into Kara’s back was growing stronger and hotter. She’d probably have a bruise.
Once again, Sunita looked at her with cold eyes. “I didn’t realize Nisha had invited you over.”
Did they require Nisha to get permission before having guests? Kara just returned the stare and waited for Sunita to say something else.
They were saved by Maddie, who came out of a bedroom door in the narrow hall. “Suni! I need your help in here!”
Sunita studied Kara one last time before hanging her coat on a hook and heading toward Maddie. Kara suspected the demand for help was a clumsy attempt on Maddie’s part to give Nisha and Kara time alone, and she appreciated it. Whatever social skills Sunita lacked, Maddie seemed to have in spades. Unless Sunita reserved her coldness especially for Kara.
“Does she hate me?”
Nisha shrugged noncommittally. “Do you want some ice for your back?”
“I’m fine.”
“Humor me.”
She trailed Nisha to the rear of the unit, where the galley kitchen looked onto a small eating area, far from the dining room by the front door. “Weird setup but nice place.”
“It’s typical of these kinds of buildings. Maddie and Suni own, so the finishes are a little nicer. They were the first to buy after the place was converted into condos. They got a really good deal, and now it’s worth twenty grand more than they paid for it.”
Nisha’s voice was tinged with uncharacteristic bitterness. She reached into the freezer drawer of the stainless steel refrigerator and pulled out a handful of ice cubes. She put them in a sandwich bag and wrapped the bag in a dish towel. Instead of handing the bundle to Kara, she pressed it gently to Kara’s back. Kara wasn’t really in that much pain, but she appreciated Nisha’s tenderness.
“I’m really sorry,” Nisha said after a moment. “I don’t think Suni meant to open the door into you like that.”
She had definitely meant to open the door like that.
“I was in the way.” Kara took the ice pack from her and sat gingerly in one of the barstools at the counter between the eating area and kitchen.
Nisha leaned on the opposite side of the counter facing her. “She’s actually an incredible person. She saved me when I was at my lowest.”
When she had broken up with Angie, she meant, but Kara couldn’t imagine someone as self-actualized as Nisha being such a mess that she needed rescuing. What had Angie seen in Nisha that had made her leave? Or maybe the better question was: What had Angie stopped seeing?
“I think I’m a little jealous of you,” Kara said.
“Of me?”
“You have such a handle on life. You talk about your feelings, you’re insightful. You’re…How do I say this nicely? You’re stuck in the past in a way that seems kind of unhealthy, but at the same time you’re also incredibly healthy, mentally.”
“I’m a walking contradiction.” Nisha came around the counter to sit on the stool beside her. “Actually, every day feels different, and I never know which kind of day it’s going to be until it’s halfway over. You caught me on a good day today. Suni and Maddie could tell you about my bad days. The truth is, I think I’ve been a little angry at you.”
“Why?”
“You’re ready to go out and meet people, and part of me is jealous of you. I think it makes me a little angry because…”
“Because what?”
“Because you being ready to move on makes it seem like you didn’t know what a good thing you had.”
Kara supposed she could understand that. All Nisha wanted was for Angie to love her again. Kara had had Hilary’s love, and she was looking for something from someone else instead of just appreciating it.
“I still love Hilary. I will always love Hilary, even if I end up in another relationship. Nothing could ever change that. I think that’s why I keep saying I don’t want another relationship right now.” Kara placed one hand atop the other against her chest. It was something she’d started doing after Hilary died. She liked to think that’s where Hilary was now, in Kara’s heart. “It took me a really long time to figure out how to keep going, not despite Hilary’s death but in honor of it. But you—you’re missing out on everything that’s in front of you. Angie walked out on you. You don’t owe her your loyalty anymore.”
“I know it’s stupid to still want her back,” Nisha said. “I would give anything for the chance to see her again, to talk to her, because I feel like if we had talked one more time or maybe gone to counseling, we could have worked through our problems, and she would have changed her mind about getting married and getting the house. Or, if she didn’t change her mind, maybe we could have at least ended on a decent note.”
Nisha wanted closure. That was a reasonable enough request, one Angie should have granted. In a long-term committed relationship, people owed it to each other to end it graciously. Kara was lucky that she and Hilary had gotten time to find closure with Hilary’s diagnosis.
“Hilary wanted to get married.” It wasn’t something Kara talked much about. Her sister Becca and a few friends knew, but her parents didn’t. She wasn’t sure why she was telling Nisha.
“Did you?”
“No.” Nisha looked at her in surprise, and Kara felt a little defensiveness kick in. “I know, as a lawyer, why it makes sense, but it seemed dumb to me, since so many marriages end in divorce. I didn’t see the point in putting that kind of pressure on us when we already had a great life together. Hilary always said she understood how I felt, but I could tell it was a disappointment to her. After she died, all I could think was how stupid I’d been. Why couldn’t I have worn a ring and signed a piece of paper if it would have made her happy? I could see the fallacy in my argument, you know?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, my point was that we already had a marriage, functionally, just not legally, so what was the point of actually filing the papers? But the inverse is also true. If what we had was basically a marriage anyway, then signing papers and wearing rings wouldn’t have changed anything, so I had nothing to be afraid of. When she died, I regretted it so much. I think I’ll probably regret it for the rest of my life.” Kara didn’t want to go too far down this road for fear she might open a door she’d have a hard time closing again. She looked at Nisha. “And then you showed up—”
“And I had the ring you’d said no to.”
“Yeah.”
“But you and Hilary had real love for each other. I just have an empty symbol.”
“If it’s so empty, take it off.”
“I don’t know…”
Kara reached for Nisha’s left hand, so they could look at the two matching rings. “If you want closure and you can’t get it from Angie, give it to yourself. Take these off, put them away, sell them, give them to someone else, whatever, but don’t wear them anymore.”
Nisha’s face scrunched in distress, and Kara thought she’d pushed too far. If she pressured Nisha into doing something she wasn’t ready to do, she’d only end up resenting Kara for it.
She was about to dial it back when, to her surprise, Nisha said, “You’re right,” and pulled the two rings off. “I don’t need these anymore.”
“Wooo!” Kara applauded and whistled, savoring how it made Nisha blush. Her hands came up to her cheeks, but she was smiling.
Sunita popped out of the bedroom. “What’s going on?”
Nisha held up her empty left hand. “I took off the rings!”
Sunita pursed her lips and was about to say something when Maddie yanked her back into the bedroom, and the door slammed shut.
“Will you take these?” Nisha pushed the rings toward Kara. “I don’t care what you do with them, just as long as I don’t have to see them again.”
“Are you sure?”
Nisha nodded, and Kara put the rings in her pants pocket. Not the safest place to transport them, but her work bag was in the living room. She’d put them in the inside pouch before taking the train home. After that, who knew? She’d probably hide them in a dresser drawer in case Nisha called the next day and said she’d made a mistake.
“I’m proud of you,” she told Nisha.
“I don’t think I’d have gotten here if we hadn’t met.”
Maddie came out of the bedroom then, apologetic. “I was trying so hard not to interrupt, but if I don’t start pressing the tofu now, we won’t be eating until bedtime. Can I come in for one second?”
“It’s fine, Maddie.” Nisha sounded long-suffering. “You’re not interrupting anything private.”
“I’m gonna go put these in my bag,” Kara said, tapping the pocket with the rings.
Her bag was in the living room. She put the rings in the inside zipper pouch, where there was no chance of them falling out or getting lost on her way home. Her phone buzzed, and she felt a little dread mixed with annoyance. It was probably Horowitz calling with another one of his after-hours ideas that could wait until morning. But when she looked at the phone screen, Kara saw she had already missed six calls from a 773 number she didn’t recognize. She accepted the incoming call.
“Finally! Do you know how many times I had to call you?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Barb.”
“How did you get a phone?”
“From Nan.”
“Nan’s in my apartment?”
“She was. Now she’s on her way to the hospital.”
“What? What happened?”
“She collapsed, so I took her phone and called 911. You’d better get to the hospital. And bring Nisha.”