Once the actors were made up and the tables and brushes cleaned, Nisha found herself eager to leave the theater. Nobody had a makeup change at the act break, so she didn’t have to stay past curtain. It was Nisha’s fault they’d manifested Barb, since she was the one reading the instructions, and she felt badly Kara was now in this crazy situation. The least she could do was hurry back to help out. She texted Kara to ask if she should come back over, and Kara immediately sent back YES!!!! She dashed off a text to Suni and Maddie, so they wouldn’t wonder where she was and jumped on the train a second before the doors closed.
Back at Kara’s, Barb was engrossed in the TV, and it looked like the entire contents of Kara’s pantry had been emptied around the living room.
“Boy, I don’t feel too good,” Barb moaned from the couch, where she was sprawled with her feet up. “I feel like Babe Ruth without the home runs.”
“Get in here,” Kara hissed, gesturing for Nisha to join her in the kitchen. “I’m so glad you’re back. It has been a nightmare.”
“What happened?”
“First she ordered a pizza, and then she said she was still hungry. She drank all my Spotted Cows—which, by the way, I have to go back to Wisconsin to get more of—and she’s been completely obsessed with TV all day. She said we’re lucky to live in an age with so many channels.”
As annoyed as Kara obviously was, it sounded pretty innocuous for a ghost.
“She had me playing this yes or no question game,” Kara continued. “She wanted me to figure out why she was here, but she wouldn’t tell me directly. I think she was getting some kind of sick enjoyment out of the whole thing.”
“What did you find out?”
“She lived here with a girlfriend.”
“Barb’s a lesbian?” Nisha peeked around the kitchen door opening to look at Barb on the sofa. She’d unzipped her pants and was rubbing her belly. She belched loudly. “Not to be stereotypical about it, but…”
“She told me she used to play on a softball team.”
“Wait, did you? Because if anyone was going to be a softball lesbian, I can totally see it being you.”
“I’ll have you know our team was co-ed.”
Nisha laughed. “So you think that’s her unfinished business? Something having to do with her girlfriend?”
“Maybe. She acted weird when I mentioned Nan’s name. I’m pretty sure she was lying when she said she didn’t know her.”
“That’s easy enough to figure out. We can just ask Nan.”
Kara looked at her skeptically. “You say that like it’s so easy to get a cogent answer out of her.”
“You have to understand how to talk to her. I’ll ask her tomorrow what she knows about Barb.”
“Another thing I think we should figure out is how serious our mistake was. See if she’ll let us see how solid and permanent her new appearance is.”
“Why?”
“Because, frankly, if she can go away where I can’t see her and don’t have to talk to her, I’d be really glad. I never wanted a roommate, definitely not one so—”
Barb belched again, then moaned. Kara gestured in the direction of the living room, her point clearly made.
“Be nice. It’s not as if she chose this.”
“For all we know, she did.”
When Barb’s show was over, they asked her if they could experiment with her manifestation. At first, she protested, saying she wanted to watch something else, but she eventually gave in. They discovered she could pass through furniture and objects, and she could make herself invisible if she tried hard enough, but the effect was temporary. She also couldn’t leave the apartment. When she stretched her arm across the threshold to the front door, it vanished, and she cried out in pain.
Kara had acquired a permanent house guest.
They left Barb to go back to the TV and huddled in the bedroom to talk. Kara didn’t have any furniture there either, just a sad little air mattress on the floor and a plastic storage tub that was serving as a nightstand.
“This is so much worse than I realized.”
“Maybe not,” Kara said. “What if we just pushed her out the front door? Maybe she’d be gone for good.”
“Okay, one, we are not pushing her out the door to vanish into oblivion. That’s cruel. Besides, for all we know, she might just reappear in the apartment, especially if her business here isn’t finished. And, two, I didn’t mean Barb. I meant this bedroom. This whole apartment. It’s so sad.”
Kara folded her arms over her chest. “I told you, I ordered furniture. It’s on backorder.”
“Can we go to a thrift store and get you something in the meantime? A dresser at least?” Nisha pointed to the stack of folded underwear that were leaning against the wall.
“If I had a nicer apartment, Barb would probably want to stay longer. We need to concentrate on how to get rid of her as fast as possible.”
“No, we need to concentrate on helping her settle her unfinished business, so she can find peace in the afterlife.”
“Frankly, after today, I don’t care. I just want her gone.”
“She has a right to do this at her own pace.”
“No, she doesn’t.” Kara pulled a folded-up paper out of her back pocket and opened it. It was the instructions they’d received from Miss Pythia. “I called this number all afternoon and nobody answered. And when I walked out with you, I went over there, and her shop was closed.”
“Maybe it’s a sign this should wait until tomorrow. Today’s been pretty traumatic for all of us, Barb more than anyone. Maybe we should take tonight to process what’s happened.”
But Kara was already dialing Miss Pythia’s number. She put the phone on speaker, and in less than a full ring Miss Pythia answered. Kara looked annoyed that she’d picked up so quickly this time.
Fifteen minutes later, they were back in Miss Pythia’s shop. She’d left them in the eclectic front room this time, seated at a round table covered in a paisley tablecloth with fringe. The room was infused with sandalwood incense, and the lamps all had pink light bulbs.
“Oh, this is really bad,” Miss Pythia said after Kara explained how they’d confused mugworts—and paid twenty-five dollars for a consultation. “The instructions were very clear for this reason. You’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Nisha already felt awful about it. She didn’t need recriminations from the woman whose instructions weren’t clear at all. If anything, Miss Pythia should be apologizing to them.
“Well, it’s already happened, so now what do we do? I think Kara wants her to be invisible again, but I think Barb deserves a chance to stay like this until her unfinished business is resolved.”
“We were testing how visible she is,” Kara said, “and she could disappear for a little bit before she came back. Is there a way to make her permanently invisible again?”
“Kara, how is she supposed to settle her unfinished business if she can’t talk to you?” Nisha asked. “The whole point of what we did was to communicate with her.”
“Communicate with her, not listen to her burp all night. Can I ask you something else?” Kara said to Miss Pythia. “She mentioned that your first name is Rosalind, and—”
Miss Pythia held up a hand and said, “Personal conversation is an extra ten dollars. I can’t prostitute my private life for free.”
Kara made a face but reached for her wallet. She pulled out a twenty, which Miss Pythia swiped and pocketed. She didn’t offer any change.
“She said she knew you as Rosalind,” Kara said again. “Did you know someone named Barb who lived on Hoyne?”
“Yes.” Miss Pythia drummed her red fingernails on the table and looked off into the distance. “When you came before, I didn’t realize you lived there, that the spirit you were talking about was her. I feel foolish for not realizing it.”
“Is there anything you can tell us about her that might help us figure out what her unfinished business is?” Nisha asked.
“Barb was the life of the party.” She got up from the table and disappeared through the beaded curtain.
Nisha looked over at Kara, who said, “Is that it? That’s what twenty bucks gets me?”
When Miss Pythia didn’t return after a minute, they stood from the table and started to put their coats on. As they were about to walk out, Miss Pythia came back, and they scrambled to sit down. She hefted a photo album onto the table in front of them.
The photos were faded and fuzzy with low resolution and poor lighting, the kind of old photographs that were charming reminders of a time when not every second of every day was captured in perfect clarity. They were stuck behind a plastic film, which Miss Pythia tapped with her nail.
“There’s Barb,” she said, pointing to the person in the middle of a group shot. Even though the photograph was decades old, Barb looked identical to the person sitting in Kara’s living room. “That’s me, and that’s Nan Galt.” Miss Pythia and Nan had both greatly aged. In the photo, Miss Pythia was thinner, her hair a more natural shade of brown than the jet-black it was now, and her makeup was much more subtle. The women were standing, arms around each other, with a fourth person, all wearing matching red tank tops, shorts, and roller skates. “We had just performed in a talent show. It was a fundraiser for the AIDS charity Barb volunteered for. We did a roller-skating routine.”
The image of a young Nan roller-skating delighted Nisha, and it was both jarring and comforting to think of the eccentric Miss Pythia doing something as banal as performing in a talent show.
“Who’s the fourth?” Kara asked.
“She’s the reason I brought this out here. If anyone knows why Barb is still here, it’ll be her.”
“What’s her name?”
Miss Pythia opened her mouth to speak, but Kara jumped in. “Let me guess. Ten bucks to tell us, twenty to call her for us. You didn’t give me change before, so how about you give us her name and contact information, and we call it even?”
Nisha feared Miss Pythia would be angry at Kara’s directness, but instead the woman cackled.
“I knew I liked you!”
She disappeared once again and came back this time with a Post-It. “Her name is Sonia. I don’t have her phone number,” she said. “It’s been too many years since we’ve spoken, but this is where she used to live, and I’ll bet you she hasn’t moved.”
Kara took the Post-It and thanked her. “One question before we go. How long can Barb stay like this? Is there any consequence to her being around? Will the effects fade at some point?”
“Oh no, honey, she can stay forever.” Miss Pythia frowned. “But, be assured, it will not be pleasant. She will never age. She will never die again. She will be trapped in that apartment day after day, watching everyone around her get older and move on with their lives.” She shook her head. “No, it is not a good life, being the dead among the living.”
After leaving Miss Pythia’s, they walked north on Damen together in the light snowfall and glow of the streetlamp. They decided it was too late to drop in on Sonia without warning, so they were headed back to Kara’s.
“I’m really glad you came back tonight,” Kara said. “I don’t know how I would have handled all this madness without you.”
“I don’t think you’d be in this madness if it weren’t for me in the first place. I feel like this is all my fault.”
“I should have double-checked the instructions. I could have been the one reading them and made the same mistake.”
“What are you going to do with her tonight?”
“I guess I’ll give her a pillow and a blanket and let her sleep on the couch. Do ghosts even sleep?”
“Are you going to be okay?”
Kara arched an eyebrow. “Honestly? If I stop and think about it, no. Not at all. This is absurd, and it’s probably more than a little triggering. But if I just keep moving, I’ll be fine. For now. Do you want to talk to Sonia with me tomorrow?”
“You’re not sick of me yet?”
“Actually,” Kara said with a smile, “I feel like we’re just starting to get to know each other.”
Their eyes locked for a moment, until Nisha forced herself to look away. “I really better get home. I hope you have a fun slumber party.”
On the walk to the bus stop, the whirlwind of the day started to catch up to Nisha. As she waited for the bus, she realized how tired she was but how good that felt. For the first time in a long time, she had a goal to work toward. Kara and Barb both needed her, and she’d stand by them and help them however she could.
* * *
The address Miss Pythia had given them was for a rundown house on a side street off Damen in the Ukrainian Village, a neighborhood immediately south of Kara’s. It was a street that had been recently renovated and gentrified, and the old single-family houses had been replaced by tall brick three-flats with black iron balconies. Each flat probably cost three times what the original house had, even though they were smaller and the lot was now shared. Every building was square and austere, except Sonia’s house. Its paint was peeling, and several bolts holding up the metal awning over the front door were missing. Although the front yard was only about five feet deep, there were shrubs, but they were overgrown and ugly. The sidewalk leading up to the door was cracked and pitched upright in various angles. The whole place looked depressing, but Nisha had to give Sonia props for holding on to her house in a neighborhood that had been overrun by real estate developers and yuppies.
“Are you sure this is the right address?” Kara asked.
“That’s what it says.” Nisha had stuck the Post-It Miss Pythia had given them to her forefinger. “Number 918.”
She pressed the doorbell. The street was quiet enough that they could hear the bell ringing inside the house, a sure sign that no one was home. Maybe the house had been abandoned.
But a chain rattled, and there was the sound of the lock being flipped. The front door opened, and a tiny woman about Nan’s age stood shielded by the glass storm door. Her face was rugged and wrinkled, and she stood bent over at an angle. Even standing straight, she was probably only five feet tall.
“Que?”
Miss Pythia hadn’t warned them Sonia spoke Spanish. Nisha only knew a few words.
“Um, hola, um, me llamo, um, esta Nisha. Yo soy una amigo of Miss Pythia.” Nisha looked at Kara. “How do you say ‘miss’?”
“For crying out loud, just speak English,” Sonia said.
“Oh, um, hi.”
Kara elbowed in front of her. “Are you Sonia Rivera? We were sent here to ask you about a woman named Barb.”
“I don’t know any Barb.”
“Not now, but you used to. She died in 1986.”
The woman scratched her butt. “Talk to Rosie.”
“Who’s Rosie?” Nisha asked.
“We already did!” Kara called as Sonia started to close the door on them. “She’s the one who gave us your address. She said you’re the only one who can help us.”
The door opened again. Sonia didn’t look happy, but she flipped the small lock on the storm door and gestured for them to come inside.
“Who’s Rosie?” Nisha asked quietly as they stepped inside.
“I was just guessing it was Miss Pythia. Barb said her name was Rosalind.”
Based on the exterior of the house, Nisha didn’t have high hopes for the inside, but it smelled like vanilla. They stepped into a living room decorated with immaculately kept Victorian furniture.
“This is incredible,” Kara said.
That softened Sonia somewhat. “I dunno why she left. It’s nice here.”
“Who left?” Nisha asked.
Sonia glared at her. “Rosie.”
“Oh, right, of course.” Nisha said the words, but in truth she was having a hard time keeping up. Sonia’s unpleasant demeanor certainly didn’t help explain anything.
Sonia led them into the kitchen, where there was a flan sitting on the immaculate white marble countertop. It was no doubt the origin of the vanilla scent that filled the air and made the place seem so homey. Sonia looked at the flan and then at them, and Nisha could see the resignation pass over her face. She felt obligated to offer them a piece.
The caramel on top of the flan was still warm and gooey, and the custard underneath was creamy and rich. Kara ate hers down fast, and Sonia dished out a second serving without asking if she wanted it.
As they ate, Sonia told them she and Rosie—Miss Pythia—had been involved when they were younger. The way she talked made Miss Pythia seem far less exotic, and her affected speech and eccentric behavior seemed like an act to fulfill the expectations of paying customers. Like Miss Pythia, Sonia showed them an old photo album, and in her pictures they were two ordinary women in T-shirts and shaggy haircuts. In one image, they had their arms around each other like lovers, or at least very close friends, and in another, they were wearing Halloween costumes with two other people. Sonia pointed herself out. She was dressed as a witch in a black cape and black pointed hat with her face painted green.
“No one understood the irony. That was the fun of it.”
“What do you mean?” Nisha asked.
Sonia pointed to the photo. “There’s me as a witch, Rosie as a fortune teller, and our other friend Nan as a psychic. And nobody knew we were all exactly what we dressed up as. Except Barb.” She pointed to the fourth person in the photo, who was unidentifiable underneath a white sheet with two holes cut for the eyes. She closed the photo album and looked at them. “But Barb died a long time ago, so how do you know her?”
Nisha had no idea how to break it to someone that their long departed friend had returned. She looked at Kara as if to say, You take this one, but Kara appeared equally uncertain how to proceed.
Sonia pinched the bridge of her nose. “She’s a spirit, isn’t she?”
“Apparently, she’s been haunting the apartment I live in since her death, but now she’s visible,” Kara said. “You can touch her, talk to her, see her. We did a ritual to try to communicate with her, and it backfired. Massively.”
Sonia took their empty plates and spoons into the kitchen and set them in the sink. She ran the water for a moment. When she turned back to them, she said, “I knew something like this would happen.”
“You predicted she’d become a ghost and haunt my apartment?”
“Spirit, not ghost, and it’s interactive energy, not haunting.”
Kara mumbled her apologies.
Sonia put her hands on her hips. “If this is what it’s come to, I don’t know why Rosie sent you here.”
“She said you were the only one with enough information to help us figure out what Barb’s unfinished business is.”
“Did she?” Sonia said something in Spanish that didn’t sound very nice, probably in frustration at Miss Pythia for pawning them off on her. “Listen, girls, if you want to see pictures of Barb from back then, I can show you, but I can’t help you with whatever you’re trying to find out.”
“Who can?” Nisha asked.
Sonia looked at them like they were idiots. “You two—you’re a thing?”
“A thing?” Kara repeated.
“We’re not in a relationship, no,” Nisha said.
“But you’re in the family. Otherwise, Rosie wouldn’t have sent you here.”
“I’m queer, if that’s what you mean,” Kara said.
“Me, too, but what does that have to do with the spirit?”
Sonia picked the photo album up and moved toward the living room. Out of curiosity, Nisha rose from the table to follow. As Sonia set the album on the bottom shelf of her bookcase, Nisha peeked at the rest of the books. They ranged from leather-bound and dusty to newer paperbacks, but there was one commonality: they were all books about the occult.
“You really are a witch!”
“Nish, witches aren’t real,” Kara said from the doorway.
“Bruja,” Sonia said.
Nisha had no idea what that meant. “If you’re really a witch, does that mean Miss Pythia can really tell fortunes?”
Sonia snorted. “If you mean, can she feel the vibrations and does she understand auras and karma, yes. If you’re asking if that hooey she charges money for is real, then no. She majored in theater in college. That’s probably why your ritual got screwed up.”
“I think I messed it up,” Nisha said, feeling a strange need to defend Miss Pythia in her absence. “I didn’t realize we had Chinese mugwort, not Korean mugwort, and we accidentally put the thyme in after instead of before.”
Sonia looked at her like she was speaking gibberish. “Mugwort?”
“I’d never heard of it before either,” Kara said, “but somehow instead of being able to communicate with the ghost—the spirit—now she’s at my house in the flesh. Sitting on my couch and ordering pizza.”
“This is very serious.” Sonia sat on a perfectly upholstered settee. “It’s probably going to take all of us to get this settled. Assuming the others will even talk to me anymore.”
“You mean Nan and Rosalind?”
“Why wouldn’t they talk to you anymore?” Nisha asked.
“They blame me for what happened to Barb.”
“Why on earth would they do that?”
Sonia was facing in their direction, but her eyes were glazed over, like Nan’s when she was in touch with “the gift.”
“I killed Barb,” she said at last. “That’s why I can’t be the one to help you.”
“You couldn’t have killed Barb,” Kara argued. “She said she died of a heart attack.”
Sonia waved a hand. “This is too much for one afternoon. I want you to go now.”
To be on the verge of learning something and dismissed so suddenly was frustrating. It had felt like they were finally getting somewhere, but Sonia was slumped over, head in hands. Learning about Barb was a huge shock, and the only decent thing for them to do was to respect her wishes and leave.
They thanked her for her time and the flan and let themselves out.
* * *
After they left Sonia’s, Kara suggested they take a walk around the park, so they could talk about what they’d learned without Barb overhearing. She asked Nisha everything she knew about Nan, so they could piece together why Barb had pretended they didn’t know each other.
The truth was, as much as Nisha adored Nan, and as much time as they spent together, she didn’t know much about her. By the time she and Angie had moved into the building, Nan was already somewhat senile. They’d met in the laundry room one day when Nan couldn’t lift her basket, and Nisha had offered to carry it for her. After that, Nisha had made a point to check in on her from time to time.
Nan had lived alone, except for her cat Bernie, whose litterbox Angie had sometimes cleaned. Bernie had died in the year between Nisha’s and Kara’s residence, and Nan had decided she was too old to get another cat.
“Do you know anything about her family?” Kara asked.
“She doesn’t seem to have any family. Nobody ever comes to check on her. It’s really sad. She keeps in touch with friends, mostly through email, but sometimes they talk on the phone. She won’t get a smartphone, and she doesn’t text.”
“What about her past?”
“She tells stories about her glory days. Mostly scandals about people cheating on their partners and selling drugs before the neighborhood was this affluent, when it was a lot of Puerto Rican families and artists. I know she used to be fluent in Spanish, and one time she told me she’d had an affair with a lesbian head of a Puerto Rican gang.”
“Nan’s a lesbian?”
“Yeah, you didn’t know that?”
“No, and that has to be connected. What are the odds two lesbians lived next door to each other in the 1980s and didn’t know each other?”
Nisha shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe slim, but maybe also very good? I think the neighborhood was a magnet for queer people back then. Think about the photos Sonia showed us.”
“I’m wondering if she and Barb ever had a relationship.”
“Nan and Barb?” Nisha couldn’t picture it, but maybe that was because of the decades between them now. Would Nan of the 1980s had gone for someone as crass and butch as Barb? “Maybe.”
“I’m also wondering if the Puerto Rican gang leader Nan told you about was Sonia.”
Nisha’s jaw dropped. “Of course! But, wait, Sonia said she used to live with Miss Pythia, so if she and Nan were also involved—”
“And we still don’t know which of them was the girlfriend who lived with Barb.”
It sounded like a real-life soap opera, with couplings and re-couplings. To Nisha’s mind, it was a total mess. But maybe none of them had ever committed to monogamy, in which case changing partners was a different story. Maybe it wasn’t drama, just the thrill of different sexual and romantic encounters.
“Don’t you think it’s weird they’re all pretending they don’t know the full story?” Kara asked.
“They’re eighty years old. Maybe they just can’t remember.”
“We need to get Nan to talk if Barb won’t. She has to remember something useful.”
Nisha’s protective instincts came roaring out. “Okay, I need you to understand something about Nan. You can’t push her. She’s tough, but she won’t open up because you demand it. When she tells stories, it’s on her schedule, when she’s having a good day. Asking doesn’t always work the best, and if you push her too hard, you’ll drive her into more confusion.”
“I promise not to push Nan too hard. But if she really is in such bad shape, why doesn’t anyone take care of her? Isn’t it dangerous for her to live by herself?”
“She’s okay most of the time. She doesn’t use the oven anymore, and she only uses the stove to make tea. Oleg put handles in her shower, so she won’t slip. Mostly she just forgets to eat, like she did the other day.”
They found a bench and sat down. The sun was hiding behind a dull gray sky, and a cold wind whipped through the park. Nisha was wearing a cape instead of a proper coat, and she regretted how exposed her front was to the cold air. She pulled the excess material across her chest and let it cover her like a blanket.
“I agree with you it’s sad,” she continued. “I wish she had a better support system, and I feel terrible I don’t check on her as much since I moved out. Oleg makes sure she’s okay when he can. But maybe you could from time to time?”
“Of course. But maybe—I know you live on the other side of town now—but maybe you should come over more to see her?”
“Are you inviting me to hang out in your building?”
“I guess so.”
Another gust of wind blew a discarded plastic bag and a few crinkly brown leaves in their direction.
“Are you cold?” Kara asked. “Do you want to get some coffee?”
“I’m okay. My new philosophy is to try to find beauty and enjoyment in all weather.” She adjusted the cape so her arms were covered. “I just need to remember to dress right to do that.”
“Maybe we should make a list of what steps to take next.” Kara pulled out her phone and opened the notes app. “I can do some research tomorrow at work. I’ll try to find out Barb’s full name based on the year of her death. She told me she used to be an AIDS volunteer. Maybe one of the obituaries from 1986 will mention AIDS work, and from there we can get her last name. That would also help us pinpoint the exact date, which may help us figure out the unfinished business.” As she spoke, her thumbs hastily typed out a summary of what she was saying. Then she added a K after the note. “You should talk to Nan. See what you can find out about her relationship with Barb, and if she won’t tell you directly about their relationship, find out whatever you can about what was going on in the building in the 1980s, and see what else she’ll tell you about Sonia and Rosalind. Are we calling her that now? Or should we still say Miss Pythia?” She added N next to the new note. “One of my neighbors said Oleg is supposed to be back tomorrow, and I think it would be better for you to talk to him, since he still doesn’t like me.”
“What do you want me to ask him? He wasn’t in the US in 1986.”
“Anything about the building’s history or anything he might know that happened before you moved in.” Another N next to the line item in her notes. “I’m texting you a copy of this list so you have it.”
As she said it, Nisha heard her phone beeping with a new message. “Is this what you’re like at work?”
Kara locked her phone and looked up. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind.”
Kara slid her phone into the front pocket of her hoodie. “The piece that doesn’t make sense yet is your ring. What does it have to do with these three women?”
Nisha touched the fingers on her left hand protectively. Her own ring was on the ring finger with Angie’s next to it on the middle. She’d kept the rings in her pocket until she’d left the house, so Suni wouldn’t judge her for wearing them.
“I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
“Barb told me she can’t say directly, or maybe she won’t say it directly. I’ve been trying to brainstorm how to ask her more indirectly, but it’s not going well.” Kara reached for her hair and tightened her ponytail, a gesture Nisha recognized from their first meeting at the wine bar. It was a sign Kara was anxious about something, she realized. “Obfuscation and passivity only cause problems, so I’m going to be candid. Barb tried to tell me things that happened when you and Angie lived in the apartment.”
Nisha clenched her hands into fists and steeled herself to hear what Kara had learned.
“I told her I didn’t want to gossip,” Kara continued. “I have no intention of invading your privacy. As far as I’m concerned, it’s none of my business what went on between you and Angie.”
Nisha’s hands relaxed. “I appreciate that.”
“The only reason I’m bringing it up now is because Barb says she can’t tell me anything, but she keeps making hints. I think there’s a reason why she hid the ring, and I don’t think it was just to be a jerk.”
Nisha hated thinking about how much Barb must have witnessed when she and Angie lived in the apartment, and she definitely hadn’t expected to hear that Barb was trying to tell Kara about it. That would be awful.
She’d probably tell Kara the whole story of her breakup with Angie at some point if their friendship continued to evolve. But once she did, Kara would likely drop her the way her other friends had. Until then, she’d prefer Kara to remain in the dark and their friendship to remain unspoiled. It was a blessing Kara had arrived in Chicago on her own without friends, in need of Nisha, and Nisha wasn’t ready to lose that.
She looked at Kara’s face in the cool, diffuse light. Kara wore makeup but kept it natural-looking. A swipe of mascara to darken her pale eyelashes, no eyeshadow, and just a little concealer under her eyes that was a shade too yellow for her skin tone. Her cheeks and lips were naturally pink in the cold air, a contrast to her creamy complexion.
On a whim, Nisha tucked a loose strand of hair behind Kara’s ear. Kara’s mouth fell open, and she reached out to touch Nisha’s jawline, letting her hand slide to rest on the back of Nisha’s neck. They gazed at each other, Nisha’s pulse quickening, and the moment felt suspended in time.
Then Nisha shut her mouth and looked away. “I have another matinee. I should probably get going.”
Kara offered to walk her to the train, but things were quiet and awkward between them.
“I’ll call you,” Kara said.
After Nisha climbed the stairs to the platform and watched Kara walk in the direction of her building, she felt relieved.
On the train, she let her head rest against the window as she reflected on the dizzying moment in the park. She had felt something as they looked at each other, the air around them swirling with tension and possibilities. What was that about?