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24.

Mom called to tell me that Travis had recorded his findings before returning to Texas.  After examining the car in the impound yard, he concluded that someone had loosened the lug nuts on the wheel of Eva’s car.  The assumption Travis made was that my father had not tightened them down properly when he’d replaced her brakes, since we didn’t know of anyone else who had done work on her car during the summer.

My father was devastated.

Mom said that he had taken to coming home very late from work and had been spending a lot of time in his workshop.

“Tell him I love him, okay?” I said.

“Okay.”

We were silent for a few minutes.  There wasn’t anything I could say that could make things better for Dad.  I didn’t really understand how he could possibly have made a mistake that had resulted in the horror and pain of Eva’s death.  Whenever I tried to understand or put meaning on the idea that Eva might have died as a result of an error on the part of my father, my brain short-circuited.  And I was overcome by the senselessness of it.  All there was to feel was helpless resignation over something I couldn’t understand much less change.  Impossible, after all of those years of working on our family’s cars.  It just couldn’t be.

Nothing to do.  Poor Dad.

“Mom, I have a question.”

“Sure, honey,” she said, sounding solicitous.

“Do you remember me leaving my shell ring in Eva’s casket at the wake?”

“Yes, why?” she asked, a little note of concern creeping into her voice.

“Umm, just trying to remember, that’s all,” I said, looking down at the ring on my finger.

“Yes, Eva was wearing hers and you placed your own next to her in the casket when we kneeled down next to her body.  I’m surprised you don’t remember, honey,” she said.

“I do now, Mom.  Thanks.”

A wave of relief had washed over me with Mom’s confirmation that I had in fact left the ring in Eva’s casket.  It was the proof I needed.  The evidence I wasn’t crazy or alone.  Not really.  But as I made my way down the big, impersonal hall of our dormitory hall toward my room I did feel alone.  Really alone.  And I wanted to make the feeling go away.

I thought about Jen.  I wanted to tell her Travis’ findings, about the horrible party.  How bad I felt.  About Eva’s appearances.  I needed to talk to a friend.

I went to our room but Gretchen was there.  Downstairs on the first floor of Randall Hall there was a bank of old payphones, mercifully situated inside of little booths with doors.  I could have a private conversation there.

“Hello?”  It was so good to hear her sharp, clear voice on the other end of the line.

“Jen.  It’s me.”

“Hey sweetie-pie.  How’s it going up there?” she asked.

“Like hell.”

“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice dropping to a worried tone.

“Oh, what isn’t going on?” I asked, my voice cracking.  I fought the tears back.      “I nearly got gang raped at a party the other night.  Marc had to come and drag my pathetic ass out of there.  And Travis has concluded that my father is probably to blame for Eva’s accident, because he’s the only person we know of that did any work on her car in the weeks and months leading up to the accident.”

There was an audible, sharp intake of breath, before Jen answered.  “Okay, try not to cry.”

I nodded, my chest heaving up and down.  I covered the receiver.

“Let’s have one thing at a time.  The party.  What happened?” she asked.

“Oh, it was a fraternity party.  Just about every girl on the second floor of the dormitory went to this thing.  It was at the Zeta house.  Somebody put something in a beer that I drank, and I wound up upstairs in one of the bedrooms.  I couldn’t open my eyes, talk, anything.  I couldn’t move.  I fell asleep, or passed out or something.  I came to because I heard Marc yelling and I thought he was yelling at me.  I couldn’t open my eyes, couldn’t talk.  He wound up carrying me out of there and across campus,” I paused there, mortified at both the memory and the story.

“It was horrible.  I can’t believe I was so stupid.  I knew something was up when they gave me the beer.  It all just seemed so …” I searched for a word, “premeditated,” I said.

“Wow.” Jen said, whistling.

“I’m glad you’re okay, little one.  I’m glad he got you out of there in time.  Thank him for me, will you?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said, wiping at my eyes with my sleeve.

“Okay, but you’re okay.  That’s what’s important.  They didn’t get to you, right?”

“No,” I said, thinking it was no thanks to me.

“That’s what’s important.  It’s over, you’re okay.”  She was matter-of-fact, which helped calm me down.  I stopped crying.

“Not to rush you here, but the next thing, then, Travis.  What’s happening there?” she asked.

I told her what Travis had concluded.

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was kidding, Jen.  It doesn’t seem possible.  Dad’s always so careful, so thorough.  And one of our neighbors was here that day.  He came by to borrow one of Dad’s tools when he saw him in the driveway working on her car.  Apparently, he stayed and talked while Dad worked.  He, Mr. O’Brien, is saying he’s prepared to testify that he saw Dad tighten the lug nuts down, which is a help.  But no one else touched the car that we know of.  It’s all so unbelievable,” my voice trailed off.

“No kidding.  It is bizarre.  How’s your Dad taking it?”

“Bad.  He’s really distant.  Mom says he’s not around much and he’s lost weight.”  I sighed, the weight of my sadness lying on my chest and overpowering me.  How was I going to get through this? I wondered.

“And there’s something else.” I paused, wondering if I should tell her about the ghost.  Bad enough Marc thought I was losing my mind.  I wasn’t sure I wanted them to talk and agree to have me hospitalized.  I felt sure my parents would force me to withdraw from school and see a shrink if I told them about Eva’s ghostly visits.  I considered.

Celeste first.  I’d tell her about that.

“Okay,” she said.

“I saw Celeste.  She didn’t know anything about the suit her father filed against us.”

“Wow,” she was incredulous.  “How can that be?  Celeste is so on the ball. How could she not know?”

“I have absolutely no idea.  It’s so weird.  It was weird to have to tell her.  I’m not even sure she believed me.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I said. “And Mom said they’ve scheduled a deposition for November, and I’m going to have to be present for it. The case won’t settle out of court until that’s done, I guess.”

“Oh, the joy,” she said, sounding anything but joyful.  “Where will that be?  In court?”

“No, the lawyer’s office.”

“Oh,” she said.

There was silence for a few moments.

“There’s something else I need to tell you.  It’s heavy and it’s bizarre.  Are you sitting?”

“There’s more?”

“Yeah.  Are you sitting?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been seeing a ghost.”

Silence on the line.  Then I heard her breathe in sharply.  “I’ve been seeing Eva’s ghost,” I said, and waited for her to answer me.

“A ghost,” she finally said, her voice thick with sarcasm and disbelief.

“Yes, a ghost.”

“What kind of ghost?” she asked.

“A gray one,” I answered, unable to resist returning a little of her sarcasm.

“Don’t be wise.”

“Eva’s ghost,” I said.

“Like Eva’s spirit?  Before or after the party?  Does it talk to you?”

“Some.  She gave me back the shell ring I left in the casket at the wake.  Before the party. I saw her before the party. This is not an after-affect of the drugs.” I said, guessing where she was going with the question.

“She gave you something? What?” she asked.

“The ring she bought for me at the beach last summer.  There were two friendship rings.  I left mine in her casket at the wake.  The ghost gave it to me the other night,” I said, trying to sound as deliberate and lucid as I could.  I had to admit, though, that I did sound like I was losing my mind.  Even to myself.

“You weren’t taking anything?” she asked.  “What do you think they gave you at the party?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Jen.  Whatever it was I didn’t taste it.  And no.  I wasn’t taking anything the night I saw her.  I was alone that night.  And the first time she appeared was before the party, anyway.” I finished, aggravated.

She didn’t answer me.

“I know this sounds completely unseated.  But she’s appeared twice.  Once at the boat landing near my house before I left for school and once in my dorm room during the night.”  I paused to consider my argument for another moment.  “You know about the ghost Sue and I saw, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well?  I can produce the ring and a witness that I left it in Eva’s casket the night of the wake.”

“Okay, Rowan.  Let me see if I understand this.  You’ve seen the ghost of Eva Verdano twice.  She left you a physical object, a ring.  Have I got that right?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Does anyone else know about this?”

“Marc.”

She didn’t speak for a little while.  Presumably she was thinking.  Finally, she said, “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt because if you’re crazy then I probably am too, and besides you’ve been psychic before.  But this is insane and I’ve gotta tell you I don’t like the sound of it.”

“I know.”

“Did the ghost say anything to you?” she asked.

“Yes.  She said ‘Look what he did,’ but I don’t know who ‘he’ is,” I answered as matter-of-factly as I could.

She whistled.  “Jesus H. Christ,” she said, pausing for a moment.  Then, “What do you think she meant?”

“I don’t know.  I hope I’ll find out.”

“Yeah,” Jen said, sounding far off as she thought that over.

“Maybe I’ll call Celeste and see what’s going on.  We haven’t talked since everyone left for school.  I could just say I’m calling to see how she’s doing,” Jen said.  That sounded about right.  Jen was definitely about action.  Fixing things.  Doing things.  Not one to sit still and contemplate or overly analyze anything.

“I said I’d be in touch when I saw her at the funeral.  Maybe she’s talked to her Dad,” she said.

“If you turn anything up, call me?” I asked, the feeling of being very alone creeping back over me.

“You bet.  Say hi to your parents for me and keep your chin up. I’m coming home next weekend.  Are you going to be there?”

“If Marc’s going back.  Otherwise I haven’t got a ride.”

“Stay out of the fraternity houses, will you?  I’ll call you.”

25.

The following Friday Celeste paid me a visit.

“I’m taking you out to lunch,” she said, walking into my room without waiting to be invited.  “We need to talk.”

As usual, she looked beautiful.  She wore blue jeans and a soft black leather jacket.  The first chill of fall was in the air.  I took my own coat, a secondhand brown suede number that had been miraculously preserved from the 70s, complete with lapels.         We went out.

“Eva used to say you were psychic,” she began when we’d left the dormitory.

“Yeah?” I asked, not sure where she was going with this.

“Yeah,” she sounded out of breath.  We were walking toward Main Street.  I wondered where she was taking me.   “How about Nick’s Pizza?” she asked.

“Sure.  Anything beats the dining hall,” I said. We walked for a few minutes in silence before she said anything else.

“Rowan, have you seen anything strange lately?  Like … ” she paused, “oh, I don’t know, anything strange?”

She sounded nervous.  I looked at her and noticed that she looked nervous, too.  She was fidgeting with the buttons of her coat, which was buttoned.  “Strange?  Like strange how?” I asked, thankful to be on the offensive for a change.

“Like weird strange.  Unbelievable.  Cuckoo.  Like over-the-top.” We were walking in time, our strides matching.  There weren’t a lot of people on the sidewalk, which made it easy to talk and walk together.  She looked at me for a moment.  “Like ghosts,” she said, seeming to nearly choke the last word out.

So that was it.  She’d seen Eva.  I smiled, despite myself.

“Like ghosts,” I said, pausing dramatically.  “You’re seeing ghosts, Celeste?” I asked, trying to sound solicitous.   I couldn’t resist a little levity at my friend’s expense.  Unkind, perhaps.

“Yeah.  I think so.   I think I might have seen Eva’s ghost.  Or something.  Maybe not.  Maybe I imagined it.” She was looking at the ground as she walked, clearly not sure she should have told me.  We had fallen out of stride.

“If you’re asking if I’ve seen Eva’s ghost I will have to tell you that I have,” I said, knowing it would be a relief to her to know she wasn’t alone in her unlikely and decidedly unusual perception.  It wasn’t the first psychic experience I’d ever had, and I had the ring.  Something solid to prove I had actually seen Eva.  Eva’s older sister was very level-headed, unassuming, and known to be very critical at times.  This would be difficult for her.

She sighed loudly.  It was almost a groan.

“Thank God,” she said.  “I thought I was coming completely unhinged,” she said, giving me a grateful smile.

“Well, you’re not the only one who has seen the ghost, but I can’t speak for your mental state,” I said with a smile.  She looked sideways at me and I realized she hadn’t understood I was teasing her.

“Joke, Celeste.  A joke!”  I said, trying to lighten the mood. While it may have been half-baked, humor was my way of trying to reconnect with her.  The lawsuit had driven a hard cold divider between us, at a time when we really needed to be friends.  Now it seemed our shared experience of the ghost might help us overcome that.

“How many times have you seen her?” I asked, noticing we’d fallen back into step.

“Twice.  Once on the night of the funeral.  She appeared next to my bed during the night.  I thought I had imagined it.  But then I saw her again last night.  She was standing beside my bed again.”  She broke off, staring ahead, her mouth open in a way that suggested shock.  “It was so disturbing.  She seemed so sad, so angry, so haunted.”

Angry?  That word surprised me.  Haunted I could square with.  More normal, if such a word could be used under the circumstances.  But, haunted?

“Yes, well it was a ghost after all,” I said this in order to offer a response in the absence of anything helpful to say.  I was trying to absorb what she’d said.  Trying to decide if Eva had been angry when I’d seen her.  I didn’t think so.  Walking with Celeste, I could sense something else was bothering her, but I didn’t know what it was.  She looked pale and tired.  I wondered if she was okay.  She didn’t seem okay.

“I imagine if we’ve both seen her she must have something to say.  The ghost said everything wasn’t all right, which, to me, is the big clue.  But I don’t remember thinking she seemed angry … ”  I broke off, wanting to avoid bringing up the accident.  Our fathers were locked in a legal battle over the question of blame and the last thing I wanted to do was to introduce the same struggle between Celeste and me.

“Yes,” she murmured.  “She seemed angry.”  Her voice was distant.  It didn’t seem like a good time to mention the ring Eva’s ghost had left with me.  It seemed safe to assume that Celeste hadn’t received any gifts.  I wasn’t sure whether it would be upsetting to Celeste to hear her sister had left me the ring, or a relief.  Rather than talk about how I had experienced Eva, I felt safer trying to learn more about how she had seemed to Celeste.

“So she appeared by your bed here.  And the time before that?”

She nodded. “At home.  I had gone into her room one night,” she said, looking at me apologetically.  As if she shouldn’t have been in Eva’s room.  “I thought I’d heard her voice calling me.  Strange, huh?  So I went and sat in her room.  It was very eerie.  All of her things there, untouched, as if she was coming home again.  She’d started a pile of things to bring to school.  Clothes, mostly.”

“Anyway, that was when I saw her.  In her room.  I thought I was going crazy,”  she finished awkwardly as she opened the heavy wooden door to Nick’s Pizza.

The name suggested a pizzeria with formica booths, but this place was nothing of the sort.  It was a restaurant, where you could sit in a real seat at a real table made of real wood.  There were pitchers of beer and a hostess.  Though it was not expensive, it was way more than I could afford on my meager allowance.

We waited for the hostess to come back to the front of the restaurant and seat us.              When the hostess left us at our table, Celeste continued. “Have you seen these sorts of things before?  I never thought they were real.” Her expression was incredulous, and her voice carried a slightly conspiratorial tone.  As if we were telling secrets.  She paused, her eyebrows furrowing as she contemplated the possibility.

After all, perhaps ghosts weren’t real.

Then she asked, “What did she look like to you?  What did she say?  Do?”  Celeste suddenly seemed very unhappy.  There was something else.  Something she wasn’t telling me.  Something that was bothering her. “Was she angry?  Did she seem angry to you?” she demanded.

I decided to answer her first question.  “Yes, I once saw a ghost.  It was about a year ago, I was in a car with my girlfriend Sue. We were on our way to a party one Friday night.  It was fall.  We were in her mother’s Subaru and we were driving through Auburn.”  Auburn was a tiny little farm town with one public building and no streetlights that I knew of.  Being a small town in southern New Hampshire, it was fully of hilly, windy, tree-lined streets.

“We came down a hill and around a bend and we both saw a man standing on the edge of the road with his dog.  He was tall and thin, and his dog was a German shepherd.  They both stood right at the edge of the road; so close, in fact, that we had to swerve to miss them.  That was strange, of course. But what was even stranger was that both of them, the man and his dog, were gray.  Completely gray.  And almost transparent.  Though we could make their images out very clearly,” I paused, remembering the surreal image.

Continuing, I recounted the story with a chill in my spine.  “Sue said ‘Did you see that?’ and of course I had, so I said ‘yes’.  We drove in silence for what had to be less than another thirty seconds before the same vision appeared by the road again, but this time he was on the left.  Because the ghosts appeared on the other side of the street, we were not in danger of hitting them.  But as we were rounding the bend to the right, the headlights swung directly onto them, and I saw the eyes of the man clearly.  He was staring right at us, as if he could see into the car past our headlights. You can imagine headlights would have bothered the eyes of a person walking in the dark, but he was unaffected.  I remember his gaze was very penetrating and frightening.”  I paused, my heart leaping a little at the memory and looking at Celeste to see how she was responding to the story.  She was listening carefully, her eyes slightly narrowed and riveted on me.

Deciding she wanted me to continue, I said, “It completely freaked both of us out.  Sue said ‘I’m not getting out of this car.  We’re going home right now!  And we’re not going back the way we came!’”

I smiled at the memory of Sue.  In retrospect, her reaction was funny.  Coming back to the table, I looked at Celeste.  She was still staring at me, absorbed.  I realized that this discussion would represent a significant shift in her thinking, particularly because Celeste was a science student.

“Anyway, Sue knew another way home so we took a different road through Auburn.  We didn’t see the ghost again.  That’s the only other ghost I’ve seen.  Besides Eva,” I finished.

Celeste sat there looking distracted.  Her forehead was creased.  “So I didn’t imagine it,” she said.             She nodded to herself and then sat there quietly, a shadow passing behind her eyes.  She seemed to be thinking or remembering something as she looked at me.  Her expression was a million miles away.

Then she suddenly seemed to go cold.

“Well, I think this is different from your experience on the road.  Eva was my sister, not a random man with a dog,” she said, her voice rising.  “She was so altered, so full of torment, so scary.  Eva!  Scary,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.  “Rowan, my sister is dead.  How can it be?  How can this be?”  She put her face in her hands.

“I realize this is much more personal than my experience of a man beside the road,” I said, “But you did ask if I’d seen any other ghosts.”  I didn’t know how to talk to her about the emotional aspect of seeing Eva’s angry ghost.  There was nothing comforting to say, nothing that could remove the image she undoubtedly held, as I did, of the apparition.  It must be so much more intense for a sister than for a friend, I realized.

I tried to imagine Kori appearing as a ghost.  I couldn’t.

I felt sorry for Celeste.

The waitress came and greeted us, smiling at Celeste.  Celeste returned the smile, ordering a pitcher of beer and a cheese pizza.  We were both under age and the waitress didn’t card her.  I sat watching Celeste and wondering how she was getting away with ordering the beer.  She seemed nervous.  She was fiddling with her silverware, setting it down, picking it up, arranging it on either side of her.

“How did you do that?”  I asked, absolutely incredulous.

“Oh, she’s a friend,” Celeste said, her tone dismissive.

“Really?  She didn’t say hello,” I said.

“Right, well if she’s going to serve a minor it’s probably best not to make it too obvious, wouldn’t you think?” she asked, looking at me like I was stupid.  I was a freshman, which was a close second to being stupid.  I obviously didn’t know how things worked around here yet.

“Okay.  Well, about Eva and how she appeared,” I said. Celeste was now twirling the salt and pepper shakers as I spoke, “She appeared near my house one night and she seemed upset.  She seemed to want to say something,” I broke off, deliberately not mentioning the ghost’s words: “Look what he did!”

“The second time — I’ve seen her twice, too — was in my dorm room.  One night I woke up and she was standing by my bed.  Both times she was in the clothes I last saw her in.  Dressed to go to work at the lake.  Shorts and her lifeguard tank top,” I said, pausing at the memory.

“Did she say or do anything?” Celeste asked.

“No,” I lied.  I didn’t want to tell her about the ring because my own image of comfort seemed unfair held up against the torment Celeste was experiencing over Eva’s appearance to her.

“Something is wrong, Rowan.  I thought she was going to hurt me.  I was so freaked out,” Celeste said, teardrops and fear glistening in her eyes.  “Can a ghost do that?  Hurt a person?” she asked.

I pondered.  “I would imagine so, yes.  They can shock a person, scare a person.  Make physical things happen?  I’ve read stories like that,” I said.  “But I don’t think Eva would ever hurt you, Celeste.  You are her sister.  She loves you.”

I looked at her, into her eyes, which were as big as saucers.

“I’m sorry to ask an indelicate question, Celeste, but is something else bothering you?  What was it about the ghost that scared you?  Just her appearance?  Something she said?”

“No.  She didn’t say anything,” she answered faintly. She seemed distracted, her voice’s resolution and intention faded, somehow.  I wondered if she was telling me the truth.  “She made the room very cold,” she added, almost whispering, the afterthought a revelation in itself.

“Yes, I felt the cold both times I saw her,” I said, remembering.  “Celeste, why would she be scary?” I repeated, feeling sure now that Eva was appearing for some reason other than an attachment to the life she’d lost.  “Just because she was a ghost or was it something about her appearance?”

“I don’t know,” Celeste said, avoiding my eyes.

She was lying.

I wondered what Celeste wouldn’t tell me.  What was she hiding?

Then Celeste came alive for a moment, realizing she wanted to share something.  She met my eyes.  “But she did say something. She said ‘It’s not over.’”

That struck a cord.

“Yes!  She said that same thing to me!” I said, just remembering her words from her appearance at boat launch.  “But what’s not over?”

Celeste continued to avoid my eyes.  “I can’t imagine,” she said.  But something in her tone made me think that she could imagine very well what it meant.  If she was trying to hide something, it was odd that she had come looking for me, odd that she had chosen to share so much about her experience of the apparition.  I wondered if Celeste had anyone else to talk to, confide this strange story in.  One other person, perhaps.

Her sister, Venus.

“Have you had a chance to talk to your Dad?” I asked.

Again, she avoided my eyes.  “No, I haven’t.  I called, but he wasn’t around.”

Our beer came.

“I saw Venus at a party the other night,” I said, lifting my voice to sound perky.

Celeste looked surprised.  “At a party?  Where?”

“At the Zeta house,” I said, drinking some of my beer.  The taste reminded me of the party and my distaste for beer.

“Oh?  Well, sometimes she goes to those.  Did you talk to her?”

“No.  She didn’t see me.  I tried to follow her, but she disappeared and I didn’t see her after that,” I said, hoping she might be able to shed some light on the mystery of Venus’ disappearance behind the locked door.  But she didn’t answer or comment.

“It was some party,” I offered.

But the party didn’t capture her interest.  She changed the subject back to the ghost.  “So do you think we’ll be seeing the ghost again?” she asked.

“Seems possible.  She seems to have something to say, doesn’t she?” I asked, watching her for a reaction.

Our pizza came.

“I don’t know, does she?” she answered.  Her tone was almost defensive.  Interesting, I thought, sighing.   I didn’t want to speculate about something so emotional, so improbable, so bizarre, over lunch at Nick’s Pizza with Celeste.  For now it was clear she wasn’t going to tell me whatever she was withholding and that, I felt, was the key.

“Maybe.  I guess time will tell.”

26.

After Celeste left me I went back to my room to do some homework.  I looked scornfully at my Probability and Statistics book, opting instead to work on a writing assignment.  But I couldn’t concentrate.  I kept thinking about lunch, and Celeste’s experience with Eva’s ghost.

I couldn’t square with the image of Eva threatening Celeste.  It was so hard to imagine her connected with anything violent.  Perhaps Celeste’s fear was unfounded.  What did Eva want?  Why was she appearing?

I sat at my desk not doing my homework.  Two hours passed that way, and I was still sitting there not doing my homework when Marc came by.

“Hi,” he said, coming in and standing behind me.

My head was in my hands, the paper in front of me still blank.

“How long have you been here?” he asked, sounding a little concerned.

“Oh, I don’t know.  A while,” I answered, looking up at him.  My eyes felt tired, my head was hurting.  He put his hands on my shoulders, which I realized were hunched up around my ears.

“C’mon.  Come with me.  You need a change of scenery.  It’s Friday night.  Let’s go into Portsmouth and have a walk or something,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, grateful for being saved from myself.  Grateful for being saved from the Zeta brothers.  Just plain grateful he was there.

We took the bus to Portsmouth, sitting quietly together in our seats.  The bus was nearly empty, so we had a good size section of it to ourselves.  We sat sideways, me leaning on his chest, and his arm around me.  He seemed to know something was up, because he didn’t say anything.

“I saw Celeste today,” I said.

“Oh, yeah? How is she?” he asked, his voice full of its usual smooth warmth.

“Well, I’d say she’s upset,” I said quietly.  “She’s seen Eva’s ghost, too.”

That got his attention.

“Really?”

“Really.”

He considered.  “Well, I guess we know you’re not completely crazy, then.”

I could hear a smile in his voice, and I wondered if he was entirely sure of that.  I gave a little laugh.  “You think?”

He didn’t answer.

I held up my hand to show him the ring.  “Remember this?”

He looked at it, but the significance didn’t register.

“This is the shell ring that Eva bought me last summer.  It’s the same ring I left in her casket at the wake,” I stopped and turned to look at him.  I wanted to see if he was catching on.

He was.  His expression registered his confusion immediately.

“So?”

“So, the ghost left this with me the other night,” I said, settling back against his chest, fully aware that this was going to be very hard for him to believe.  He didn’t answer me, but I could feel his heart was beating faster.

“When she appeared next to my bed, she held this out to me.  I guess she wanted me to have it.”  I paused, spinning the ring on my finger.  Feeling something beyond happiness at having it.  More than satisfaction.  Something like hope and comfort woven together into the most beautiful ribbon.  It represented so much.  Proof of spirit surviving the death of the body, yes.  But more, even.  Proof Eva was aware of so much.  Proof she’d been aware of my grief and my gesture in choosing to leave it in her casket with her.  Proof she valued our friendship, even when she passed over to some other kind of place.  Proof she could contact me.  Proof that it was worth considering and valuing things I’d been afraid to think about, much less talk about.  Proof my grief wasn’t just about me, but that it meant something to my friend as well.

“So I get a present.  Celeste, on the other hand, is visited by a vision of Eva that she says was scary and made her feel threatened.  As if Eva might hurt her.”

“You know I don’t think you’re crazy.  But this is so hard to believe.  If there really is such a thing as ghosts, why haven’t I ever seen one?” he asked. “And, for that matter, why haven’t so many other people?”

“Don’t know,” I replied thoughtfully.  “Having seen at least one in a completely separate, impersonal, unrelated circumstance, this doesn’t seem so unbelievable to me.  One thing does start to be obvious to me, though.  Eva seems to need something, wouldn’t you say?”  I asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said.  I could feel his apprehension.

Maybe he thought I was imagining or making up putting the ring in Eva’s casket.  Adding this ghost business together with having to come and save me from the fraternity brothers over at the Zeta house, I could understand that it was beginning to seem like I wasn’t fully in command of myself.  But my mother had seen me leave it, and I had been in company when I’d seen the ghost by the road.  I could trust myself.

Turning, I looked up into his face.

His expression was distant, disconnected.  He was somewhere else.  “Marc, I know this seems crazy.  I know the scene at the party the other night was out of control.  I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have gone.  It was a mistake.”  He didn’t answer, which made me feel like I needed to defend myself.  “I went along with my dorm mates.  I thought it would be okay.”

Still quiet.

Thinking?

“Please, stay with me here, Marc.  I need you.”

“I’m trying, Rowan.  But you have to admit that things have been way out of hand since school started.  And I feel like you’re out of control,” he said, sounding very grown up and not a little critical.

Easy for him to say, I thought caustically.  I had lost my best friend, my father was being sued, I’d nearly been raped, and I was seeing a ghost.

And what, exactly, did he have to deal with?

His coursework.

And me.  His potentially crazy girlfriend.  Realizing it wasn’t fair to blame him for what was happening, I tried in vain to put my anger aside.  The bus pulled into Portsmouth Center.  We got off and started to walk, holding hands, toward the waterfront.  We walked up Bow Street toward Prescott Park, passing storefronts and restaurants, glimpsing the water behind the buildings.  I wasn’t feeling romantic.  I was angry with him for doubting me.  It was hard not to yank my hand away from his and glare at him.

But I didn’t.

I realized while we were walking that my anger had the effect of arousing me.  The rhythm of my own walking, my awareness of my own warm center, was getting the best of me, and I had chills running up and down my spine.  By the time we found a bench in the park, I was squirming in my jeans.   I really just wanted to be close to him, kiss him, breathe in the scent of his skin.  I wanted to sit on his lap, feel him inside of me.  I wanted to forget everything else for a while and just touch him, hear his voice.  I didn’t care that I was mad at him anymore.

Instead I sat down beside him, and we stayed there quietly for a few minutes.  He seemed like he was a million miles away, lost in his thoughts.

“Things will calm down,” I said in an effort to be reassuring.  It sounded more like a sales pitch when I said it, though.  Probably delivered as much for my own benefit as his, and decidedly not convincing.

I waited for him to look at me.

He didn’t.

Instead, he played with my hands, tracing the lines on my palms with his index finger, not speaking.  He was thinking something, and I was afraid of what he might say next.  So I decided to cut any serious talk, any intention of introducing limits or distance, off at the pass.

I raised his hand to my mouth and kissed his fingers, opening his hand with my lips.  Starting at the base of his middle finger, I ran my tongue along its full length, reaching the tip of his finger before sucking on it.

I closed my eyes, and did it again.  When I looked up at him, he was smiling and his eyes were glazing over.

It was getting dark and we were alone in the park. There was the sound of water lapping up against a boat moored nearby.  I looked around.  There wasn’t much privacy, just a few trees.  Not enough.

I kissed him, swinging my leg over his lap and coming to rest on his legs, facing him.  He was warming up, smiling, returning my kisses.

“I think,” I said, “If we walk over by the theater there’s a private landing.”

“And?” he asked.

“And maybe a good place to lean,” I said, kissing him gently, little butterfly kisses.

“Lean?” he asked, his smile spreading.

“Yeah,” I said.  “Lean,” reaching down between his legs to stroke him through his pants.

He was laughing now.  “Great! Which way do we go?” he asked.

We got up and walked along the waterfront until we came to the private landing I’d been thinking of.  A wide set of stairs led down from the street to a wooden dock where several boats were moored.  Happily, there wasn’t anyone around.  I led him to a spot the streetlights couldn’t see, against a wall that shored up the sidewalk, facing the pier and the water.  The wall was a vertical stack of wood beams, made damp by the night air.  We leaned into them, the smell of the wet beams mingled with the ocean air all around us, kissing.  From where we stood, we also faced the windows of two banks of apartment buildings that overlooked the harbor.   Their lights shone out against the night.

I didn’t care.

The water lapped against resident boats docked at the pier, a kind of sensual meeting of fluid against their firm bodies.  Rhythmic.  Sail masts were swaying and bobbing in the breeze, their metal fittings tinkling in the air.

23.

The next morning, I went to class.  I tried to concentrate.

Probability and Statistics lecture was like listening to Greek, I couldn’t understand a word the professor was saying.  Every few minutes my mind turned back to the vision of Eva’s ghost and my heart skipped a beat.

Sitting in the class with all the other freshman was all I could manage.  Concentrating was out of the question.  I doodled, looking at the shell ring on my finger, surprised every time I saw it there.  I was sure I hadn’t imagined leaving it in Eva’s casket.  All the same I would double-check with Mom the next time I spoke with her.  Meanwhile, Miss Kepler’s lecture droned on.

Toward the end of class I decided to see if I could get extra help.  Since the beginning of the semester I had come twice a week to this class and copied all of her examples into my notebook.  But studying the text and my notes didn’t seem to help me.  I couldn’t make sense of it.   I was doing the homework, but none of it had been correct.  Too distracted to concentrate, I was having trouble grappling with the course material, which was increasingly over my head as the semester wore on.

Since I wasn’t well acquainted with failure, I was tortured by the problem and my seeming inability to tackle it myself.  I’d always been an honors student, often achieving those grades in honors classes.  So, after another hour of failing to absorb much, I decided it was time to approach the professor.

I made my way down to the floor of the lecture hall, where she was addressing a line of other students who, presumably, had similar troubles.  Miss Kepler looked like she was in her forties.  She was overweight and had a mass of frizzy hair on her head.  She wore big, thick glasses and did not look friendly.

I waited nervously until my turn came.

“Hello, Miss Kepler,” I began.  She didn’t answer, just looked at me and waited. So I continued, “I’m having some trouble with this class and I wondered if I might be able to get some extra help?”

“Have you been attending the labs?” she asked.  The labs were once-weekly classes where an advanced student went over problems that were pertinent to the week’s lectures.  Every lecture section had several labs, so each lab was assigned thirty students or less.  This was presumably in place so that students could ask questions.  But the teaching assistant that was assigned to our lab was from Japan.  His English was so bad that I couldn’t understand anything he said.

“I have.  But our TA speaks Japanese, and I haven’t been able to understand him,” I answered.  “Could I change my lab assignment?”

She looked at me for a moment, before answering, “Learn Japanese.”

With that, I was dismissed.

I walked home, my shell ring on my finger, holding my Probability and Statistics books against my chest.  It required my full attention to keep walking without falling down.  My balance was off, threatened, increasingly compromised.  The inner reality in which my dead best friend had hijacked my life tore a hole in the outer, unfamiliar new world of the university, where Eva had been replaced by a cowish troll of a girl as my roommate, and I was failing in my studies.  Nothing fit.  Increasingly I felt alienated, as if my life wasn’t real.  As if this life was someone else’s story.  Or a movie with a fragmented plot line.  Either way, I did not know how to navigate the terrain and I was scared.

Late in the week I returned to our room to find some of the girls who lived on our floor standing at our door talking about the fraternity party they were going to on Friday night.  The same party the signs all over the place advertised.

“Rowan, why don’t you come?” one of them asked.

I considered.

“Why don’t I?” I answered.

Maybe a night out would be good for me.  I needed to make new friends.  I was depressed about my Probability and Statistics class.  And I hadn’t seen Marc all week.  We hadn’t left things on a good note after our ride back to the university.  A frost settled on the relationship after our conversation about my father, and I felt really bad about it.  In fact I missed him.

I reasoned that maybe a night out with my floor mates would cheer me up.  I might meet some new people, develop a social life at the university that extended beyond Marc.

Friday night a group of nearly twenty girls from our dormitory made their way together to the Zeta house.  When we arrived, it was quiet outside.  There were lights on, but we couldn’t see or hear anything happening inside.

We wondered if we were in the right place.  We all stopped at the entrance to the stairs, gathering there together at the bottom, apprehensive.  Belinda went up the stairs and knocked.

We waited.

When the door swung open, red light splashed onto the walkway.  A young man wearing a baseball hat stood there with a cup in his hand and we could hear music coming from somewhere in the house.

“Come on in.  Party’s downstairs,” he said, indicating a door to his left.  We all filed in. It was a little like lambs going to a slaughter, I thought as we passed him and turned left, one by one, down the stairs.  I had the familiar feeling in my stomach that something was about to go horribly wrong.

The party was in the basement.  There was a concrete floor and the walls were paneled in a dark 70s style fake wood.  We walked in, one by one, gathering in a circle at the foot of the stairs.  It was apparent we were all uncomfortable and I wondered if any one of us had ever been inside one of these fraternity houses.  I doubted it.

The farthest wall opposite had a bar that was flanked by three beer advertisement posters, all sporting women in bathing suits or low-cut costumes.   There was a door to another room on the right end of the basement.   The floor was painted red and there were round poles holding up the ceiling every ten feet, or so.

One of the fraternity brothers came over and introduced himself.  His name was Steve, his hair was red, and he was here to offer us some beer.  Would we all like some?

I declined, in part because I don’t like the taste of beer.  But there was also the feeling of discomfort my stomach was giving me, warning me.  I didn’t feel safe.  Everyone else said they would love to have one.  And so it began.  The room filled with other students, a mix of boys and girls, obviously a lot of fraternity brothers.  Many of them wore baseball caps, all of them seemed to be drinking.  Steve singled me out and came over to where I stood, still uncomfortable, contemplating how I might make a graceful exit.  This wasn’t my scene and my stomach was persistently warning me.

“Sure you don’t want something to drink?” he asked, giving me what must have been his most winning smile.

“I don’t think so,” I said.   He looked at me disapprovingly.

“Oh, hell, sure.  Why not?” I said, changing my mind.  Standing here like a lump on a log and refusing to join in wasn’t going to make me any new friends, and if I was stuck here with my dorm mates I could make the best of it.  Lemonade out of lemons and all of that.  I walked toward the bar with him.

“Can I have a beer, Gus?” he asked the boy behind the bar.  They seemed to be taking turns pouring from the keg.  Someone else had been behind the bar five minutes earlier.  He handed one up, smiling.  It was full, and spilled all over the already wet, sticky bar.  I tried to take it without spilling, but that proved to be impossible.  I leaned down to sip the top off so that I could pick it up.

“Thanks,” I said.

“So, you live over in Randall?” he asked, still smiling winningly.

“Mmm hmm,” I said, looking around nervously.  The room was dark, everyone was drinking, relaxing, laughing.  The room was loud, the throb of music pulsing in the air.  What wasn’t to like?  I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I told myself I just had to relax.  I’d have fun if I could just relax.  I repeated it to myself several times, expecting to believe it.  Taking a deep breath and putting on a smile, I looked at Steve.  “You’re a fraternity brother here, then?” I asked.

“Yes.  I’ve been here for a couple of years.  It’s a great house,” he said.

That sounded like a sales pitch.

“I’m sure.  Seems nice,” I said, wondering what made a fraternity house nice, compared to other ones.  He regarded me quizzically.

“You’re a pretty girl,” he said.

I smiled, a little flattered, but not sure what to make of him.  I looked around, avoiding his eyes.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone I knew — Venus, Eva and Celeste’s older sister.  She came down the stairs with a handbag and went straight to the other end of the room, and through the door.   She hadn’t seen me.

“What’s over there?” I asked, pointing to the door.

“Bathrooms.”

“Speaking of which,” I said, smiling.  “Would you excuse me?”  I took my beer and went toward the door Venus had disappeared into.  I passed through the door jam and found a little hall, a bathroom with the light on, and another door.  I tried the closed door, but it was locked.  So I pushed the bathroom door open and looked around.  No one in there.  Where had Venus gone?  I paused to see if I could hear anything behind the locked door, but the music and laughter next door drowned out everything else.  I came back out of the little hall and Steve was just there, waiting for me.

“Oh, hi,” I said, surprised to find he had followed me.

“Hi, again.  I thought you might like to meet some of my friends,” he said.  There were two other young men with him, both tall.  One was a handsome blonde.

“This is Chris,” Steve said, introducing me to him. I nodded and shook his hand.

“And this is Stew,” Steve said, indicating the other young man, who was dark-haired and had olive skin.  I smiled at him, and then at all three, and tried to step back from them, but the wall was behind me.

Trapped there with them, I listened to them talking casually about their classes as they stood in what seemed to be a circle that kept tightening around me.  A third young man stepped up with a beer in his hand.  It was Gus.  The same Gus who had poured me my first beer.  He held out the beer he had in his hand to me.

“Oh, I’m not finished with this,” I said.   But Steve smiled, and took the cup I was holding from my hand.

“It must be warm by now.”  He took a gulp.  “Yup, warm.”

My stomach turned.

I felt surrounded.  Supplied with another beer, I stood listening to their conversation.  I didn’t have anything to contribute to what they were saying, so I drank my beer and looked around for a means of escape.  Gus had joined the tight little group, creating a small, closed circle.  All of them were at least six inches taller than I was, and they were talking over my head about a class two of them shared.  Across the room I saw Marc’s roommate, John, come in.  He looked over, nodded.  He’d clearly seen me.  As I considered excusing myself I remembered Venus.  I still hadn’t seen her come out of the hallway she had disappeared into.  Where was she?

I wasn’t able to spot her so, giving up for the moment, I shifted my attention to looking for my floor mates, but somehow they all seemed to have disappeared as well.  The room seemed to be full of dancing people.  Resigned, I stood among the towering fraternity brothers drinking my beer and smiled politely whenever one looked at me.

The room seemed to throb with the pulse of the music.  Some period of time had passed since I’d been cornered, and I began to wonder how long they could keep up a conversation about the same class.  I started to feel woozy.  I put the beer down, half drunk, on a table that was next to where we were standing.  The table was already piled high with empty cups.  The music started to sound distant, as if it was in another room, and I was having trouble standing.

I looked at Steve, who was watching me.  “I don’t feel very good,” I said.  “I think I need to go outside,” I said, reaching for the table, trying to steady myself.  I felt like I was starting to sweat and I was light-headed.

“It’s so hot in here.”

“Sure, I’ll walk you out,” Steve said.  He held my arm very firmly, leading me toward the door.  I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go.  I looked up at him then, something faint dawning on me.  I started to feel scared.

“I’m okay.  I’m just going out for a minute.  I don’t want to take you away from your party,” I said, but speaking was an effort, my words were slurring.

“I’d feel better knowing you’re all right,” he said.

But it seemed like the stairs went on forever, one set after another.  Had we passed the front door?   I looked up.  No end in sight.

Feeling nauseous and tired, I said, “Just let me sit for a minute.” I stopped, trying to sit on the stairs.

The wall felt good; it was solid and cold.

“It’s just a little farther, Rowan.  Come with me,” he said, leading me out of the staircase and into a room.  But we weren’t outside.  We were in a bedroom.

“No,” I said, confused and scared.  “Please, Steve, I …” The room started to go black.

“You need to lie down,” he said, turning down the lights.  I fell onto something.  A bed?  There was someone else in the room, another fraternity brother, maybe.  But I couldn’t see clearly.  I closed my eyes.  Just for a minute, to let the wooziness pass.

The next thing I knew, I could hear yelling.  It was Marc’s voice.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Was he yelling at me?  I tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn’t open.  I tried to move, but I felt like my arms weighed a ton.  I couldn’t lift them, much less sit up.

“Rowan!” Marc’s hands were on my shoulders, and he was shaking me.  “Rowan!  Baby, answer me!”

I tried, but I couldn’t speak.  Something garbled came out.

I felt him tugging on my skirt, and then he was lifting me.  “We’re leaving, Rowan.  I’m taking you out of here,” he said, sounding angry.

“Marc,” I managed, as he heaved me onto his shoulder.  I thought of my skirt, had it ridden up?  He carried me out of the room, and I felt like I might throw up hanging there over his shoulder.  I groaned as Marc took the stairs, my head feeling like it was going to explode with every step.

He kept going, down down down the stairs, until we were outside, and he laid me down on the cool, damp lawn outside the house.

“Rowan?” His voice was gentler now.  “Rowan, baby.  Are you okay?”  He was touching my face.

I managed to open my eyes.  It felt like each lid was weighted with lead.  “Marc,” I said.  “I feel awful.  I don’t know what happened.” I wanted to explain, but I was still slurring, I sounded drunk.  “I barely drank anything, less than two beers.” I said, trying to tell him.  But I sounded like I’d had twelve beers, not two.

“I know,” he said.  “Let’s get you home.”

I realized that John was standing behind him.  Marc lifted me and wrapped his arm around my waist to support me for the walk home.  “Thanks, John.  I doubt I’ll be home tonight.”

John nodded. “Hope you’re feeling better in the morning, Rowan.”  And he turned to walk back toward their dorm.

I didn’t have the energy to thank him, to speak, or to make any response.  Marc stayed with me that night, bringing me water, walking with me once to the bathroom to throw up, helping me back to my room. Finally we both fell asleep, curled up against each other on my bed, his face in my hair.

The next morning I couldn’t move from my bed.  I laid there with a compress on my head, as miserable as I’d ever felt.  Marc held my hand in his and told me what had happened the night before.

“John called me.  He said you were there at the Zeta party, and that you’d just left to go upstairs,” he paused and took a deep breath.

“He said you looked like you were sick, and that you were with some guy when he saw you leave.  He followed you, and saw the guy lead you upstairs.  He thought something might be wrong, so he called me.”

Here he stopped and stood, pacing back and forth in the room.

“He told me to come, that he thought something was wrong and that you might be in trouble,” The expression in his eyes and voice made me think for a moment that he was going to cry.

But he didn’t.  His expression shifted into anger as he recounted the story.

“I ran over. The guy at the door said the party was over.  I told him I was looking for my girlfriend and he tried to put me off, so I pushed past him,” he said, his voice steely now.

“John said he’d seen you go upstairs, so we went up, looking in every room until we found you,” he stopped there and leaned down, his head in his hands.

“You were on the bed.  I could see they’d drugged you.  You weren’t moving.  Someone had pulled your skirt up, and they were passing a joint around.  Everyone jumped back and away from you when I came in.”

“They hadn’t done anything to hurt you that I could see,” he said, looking at me.  “But I have to believe they were going to rape you,” he finished, fixing his eyes on mine.

I started to cry, looking away.  I felt embarrassed, humiliated.

“Stupid,” I said.  “I shouldn’t have taken the second beer,” I added, thinking I was to blame for what had happened.

“Please, Rowan.  You’ve got to be more careful.  If John hadn’t seen you … ” his voice trailed off for a moment.  “This has happened before.  I’ve heard of girls being gang raped that way,” he said, his voice quiet.

“Promise me you won’t go to any more of those parties alone.”

“I wasn’t alone,” I said. “I was with a bunch of girls from our floor.”

He looked over at Gretchen who had come home during the night and was in bed with her head beneath her covers.

“Same thing,” he said.

21.

When I arrived home, things were calm. Dad, Mom, and Travis were together at the kitchen table when I came in dragging my bags. Each of them had a drink in front of them and there was a bowl of guacamole surrounded by corn chips in the center of the table.

Travis’ culinary specialty. There was nothing special in his recipe, but his guacamole was the best I’d ever had. He had a knack.

“Home for the weekend!” Travis boomed when I plopped my bags down next to the table and reached for a chip.

“Yup. Miss me?” I asked, taking the last empty chair.

“Oh, we’ve been talking about you all week. Your ears must’ve been burning,” Travis said, winking.

My parents’ mood was not so light. My father looked somber, my mother looked uncomfortable.

“So, did you find anything this week?” I asked Travis, but looked at my father.

He paused before saying, “I think so,” and then he looked at my father.

My mother interrupted.

“We had a call from the insurance company, and it seems they’re planning to settle this out of court if they can.”

“Mmm. Would that be the best thing? Would Mr. Verdano get money from the insurance company?” I asked, munching on guacamole and chips.

“Yes. Quite a bit,” my Dad answered. “Our homeowners policy, which is what he is after, is for $500,000. It’s likely he’ll get a good chunk of that.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“Now, don’t bring him into this,” said Travis, his tone mildly rebuking.

Travis was a conservative guy, a staunch Christian, and not one to appreciate colorful language in young females.

“Right, sorry,” I said, looking at my parents. My Mom dropped her head to hide an involuntary smile.

“I don’t understand all of this,” I said. “Mr. Verdano is rich. He makes tons of money. He knows Eva was my best friend and that we loved her. Why would he do this?” I directed the question at my father.

He sighed, raising his hands up in a gesture that said “how would I know?” before answering. “Mr. Verdano and I don’t know each other. Despite the fact that Eva spent so much time here, I’ve never had a conversation with the man,” my father said. “And in truth I can’t for the life of me understand why he’s suing us… It’s true I did work on Eva’s car but I’m equally sure I didn’t leave the lug nuts loose on her wheels when I worked on her brakes. Your uncle saw me tighten them and he’s prepared to testify to that,” he finished, his expression intense.

Travis grunted. “That’ll only get us so far. But it’s important that you know in your own mind that this isn’t your doing,” he said. “I think I have a friend that can look at the treads on those screws to tell us how worn they were. It might help us understand why they came loose. And I’ve got my suspicions about a guy who’s so quick to cast blame in any direction so shortly after losing his baby in an accident,” he added, darkly. “Seems to me he should be busy grieving and supporting his wife and girls.”

No one responded. Travis’s words were a lot to consider. I could imagine why Mr. Verdano would look for a place to cast blame, given what he’d done to Eva. But I didn’t think he knew Eva had told anyone about his abuse, so presumably he was safer now than he’d been before she died. Why chase my father for a policy that was so little compared with Mr. Verdano’s personal fortune and holdings? It didn’t make sense to me.

“So, what are your plans for tonight?” Dad asked, changing the subject. “Going to hang out with us old folks? Your brother and sister both have plans to go out.”

“Oh, me, too. Marc’s coming back to get me. I think we’re just going out for a burger,” I said.

“So, this young man,” said Travis, “is your boyfriend?”

“Yes. He’s a good guy,” I said, not sure what Travis thought about boyfriends. My last heart to heart with Travis had taken place during a visit to their house two years earlier, before I’d had any boyfriends. The topic had never come up.

He gave a great sigh, raising one eyebrow and peering at my parents as if they could next expect to pick me up at the local police station.

“Well you just make sure that young man minds his p’s and q’s, young lady,” he said, apparently feeling he was within his rights in helping my parents shape my moral vista. A formidable task, that.

“I will. Don’t worry,” I said, meeting his eyes and trying to sound respectful and serious. I was sure my eyes were twinkling with mirth.

I got up, then.

“Good guacamole,” I said, smiling at Travis. Taking another chip, I loaded it up with one last bite of Travis’ guacamole and lifted my bags. “I’m going to go take a shower,” I said saluting them, and went down the hall to my room.

Marc picked me up a couple of hours later and we went out for a hamburger at a local restaurant. He brought me home afterward, and we sat parked in the driveway for a while, kissing.

“We’d better watch out,” I smiled, leaning back against the seat. “Travis’ll be out here with a flashlight and a shotgun faster than you can say ‘Good evening, sir!’”

He laughed. “All right, then. Should we go for a walk? I’m not through here, yet,” he said, slipping his hands into my blue jeans.

“I think we’d better. You’re taking your life in your hands,” I said, laughing.

We walked toward the end of the street holding hands. When we got there, we walked around the chain that had been strung between two posts to keep unwanted cars off the boat launch. The crickets were loud and it was dark, hard to see the ground under our feet. The pavement hadn’t been kept up, and there were big bumps, potholes, and splits in it. We stepped carefully.

“You were down here when you saw the ghost?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, remembering the apparition again with a jolt.

“Maybe we’ll see something tonight,” he said.

“Maybe,” I said. I wondered if Eva would appear again. His hand tightened on mine. I tripped on a bump in the pavement and recovered myself.

Finally, we emerged onto the landing and went over to the pier. We sat down together, looking out over the lake. He slipped his hand under my shirt and stroked my back for a moment before he pulled me against him.

“It would be nice to have a boat someday,” he said. “We could just sail anywhere we wanted to go. Tropical islands, Europe, whatever…” he said, leaning to kiss me. “Would you come with me, Rowan?” he asked, bringing my hand to his lips and kissing it.

I felt afraid. Dangerous ground, the future. “Yes, I’d come with you, Marc. Of course I’d come with you,” I said, wondering what the words meant.

22.

Marc came back on Sunday afternoon to take me back to the university. I was sitting on our front steps when he arrived. “Ready to go?” he asked when he came to the door. I nodded, but I didn’t feel ready for anything. Mom kissed me goodbye and Marc picked up my bags for me. “We’ll see you later, Mrs. Thomson,” he said, leading me to his car. We drove out of town before Marc spoke.

“How’s your Dad doing?”

“He’s holding up okay, I think” I said. “No thanks to Mr. Verdano.”

“What’s happening with that?” he asked.

“They’re trying to settle out of court for the homeowner’s policy,” I said. “Mr. Verdano stands to be awarded quite a bit of money.”

“Hmm. Has Travis turned anything up?”

“Seems like someone might have loosened the lug nuts on her wheels,” I answered.

“Or your father might not have tightened them down?”

“That would be hard to believe,” I said, my tone defensive.

“Why? People make mistakes,” he said, a note of apology in his voice.

“Not those kinds of mistakes!” I answered, angry now.

“Why not? If it was a mistake, it was a mistake,” he said carefully. “It happens.”

We drove in silence for a while.

“Listen, I wasn’t accusing your Dad of anything,” Marc finally said. “It just seems to me that if he made a mistake, he made a mistake, and that’s all.”

“Okay, well, let’s not jump to the conclusion that this is my Dad’s fault, okay? We still don’t know what happened. Dad’s always done work on our cars. He’s never made a mistake like that. I find it hard to believe he would be careless with Eva’s car.” I glared at him, silently condemning him for faithlessness.

“Okay, Rowan. I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just trying to put things in perspective, that’s all.”

I didn’t answer. We drove the rest of the distance to school in silence. When we arrived at the university, Marc walked me to my room, carrying my bags. “I’ll see you later,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, looking at the floor.

We didn’t kiss goodbye.

That night the room was quiet. I got my homework together by the light of my desk lamp, listened to some music, and went to bed with a book. I hadn’t seen Gretchen since Marc dropped me off, and the halls of the dorm were strangely vacant.

I finally settled into my bed, trying to relax with some deep breaths, images of Eva’s ghost flittering in my mind’s eye. Eva smiling. Eva driving. Eva dancing. Eva playing lifeguard. Finally, I fell into a fitful sleep before Gretchen came home.

Sometime during the night, something woke me. I felt cold, and pulled my blanket up over me.

Still cold. Had I left the window open? I opened my eyes.

Eva was there.

She was standing beside my bed looking down at me.

I gasped, jerking back and away from her, toward the wall beside my bed. She lifted her finger to her lips, motioning me to be quiet.

I looked across the room to Gretchen’s bed, but she wasn’t in it. She must’ve stayed out. Pushing back farther against the wall, I looked up at her, fear rising in my chest. Nowhere to go. She was beside the bed.

She seemed tall, compelling in her gray, monochrome visage. Her expression sad, resting on my face.

The ghost stood there, looking at me for a few moments. Her eyes were dark, fathomless. I pulled my blanket and bedspread against me, against the chill that emanated from her. It was strange. Here she was, in our room.

But not as my roommate. She was here as a visitor.

She bent toward me, offering me something. I tore my eyes from her face and saw that she had a shell ring in her hand, and she was holding it out to me. She waited, arm extended, for me to take it.

It seemed like an eternity passed as I looked at her hand.

Finally, I reached out and took it. I was surprised to find it was solid. She smiled sadly then, saying in a whisper “Rowan, don’t forget …” and with that, she disappeared, leaving me holding the shell ring she had given me that past summer. The same ring I had left in her casket at her wake.

19.

Undergarments. We were obsessed with undergarments for the prom our junior year. Three of us: Jen, Eva, and I. Ronnie wasn’t obsessed because she had decided she wasn’t going to the prom. She hadn’t met Mike, yet, there wasn’t anyone she was interested in going with. And it was too weird to talk to Beth about undergarments since I was taking her brother.

Which left Jen, Eva and me to figure it out on our own.

Jen and I chose white dresses. Eva’s was a pearlescent pink. Mine had a sleeveless lace bodice, and was as racy as I dared to be, which was pretty racy. Jen’s was full length, and off the shoulders, more traditional. And Eva’s had lacy short sleeves and a zigzag hemline. Weeks of discussion and at least three trips to the mall yielded undergarments that suited each of us. The idea was to find something that worked with our dresses and appealed to our dates. Jen and I found strapless bras and revealing bikini underwear. Eva wore a pink teddy.

And prom night came.

My sister fussed over me. She presented me with white gloves she had purchased for me to wear. They were beautiful. And a pretty faux pearl necklace. It was much nicer than what I’d planned to wear.

And Mr. Verdano rented us a limo. It picked each of us up in turn and transported us in grand style to our prom.

We had our pictures taken by the photographer there. The four of us. So, in total, there were five photographs. One of Marc and me. One of Jen and Keith. One of Eva and Rob. One of Beth and her date, John. And one of Jen, Eva, Beth, and me.

We had dinner together and then the dancing started. The band’s singer was a tall, thin, Rod Stewart look-alike who ran though the crowd several times, embarrassing dancing prom-goers. Singing to the girls and dragging boys up onto the stage, he made sport of everyone and kept us thoroughly entertained. At around 10:30 we decided to go to the beach for a couple of hours. We had the limo until 1:00 in the morning and we wanted to make the most of it.

We all had to remove our shoes and stockings to walk the beach, and having done that, went our separate ways, making for different parts of the beach.

Marc led me toward a bank of sand dunes. He laid his coat down on the sand and we sat down on it.

“Nice dress,” he said, smiling at the revealing bodice.

“Thanks,” I answered. “You didn’t look so bad yourself tonight,” I said, meaning it. He wore a traditional black tuxedo with a red tie and cummerbund. Together with his beautiful smile it almost hurt to look at him, he was so handsome.

He kissed me then, but he was apprehensive. Expectations were high on prom night. We’d been dating for a couple of months at that point, and I was still very much a virgin. I didn’t know if Marc had been with anyone. I was too shy to ask.

“Rowan…” he stopped kissing me, pulling away a little. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to…”

“To what?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat.

“To, umm, make love,” he said awkwardly.

I felt my cheeks burning. I hadn’t expected this conversation, and I didn’t think I had planned to make love. I had daydreamed of fooling around in our beautiful clothes, and since it was hard to imagine what I knew nothing of, my daydreams had stopped short of anything more serious than an exposed lacy bikini. But being told I couldn’t have him made me feel like maybe I did, and now I wanted to hear what he had to say.

“Okay, I agree,” I said slowly, trying to sound as if I was in command of myself. “Do you mind if I ask why? What you’re thinking?”

He sighed, looking down at the ground. His cheeks were red. He licked his lips and swallowed. “I just don’t want you to feel like I took advantage. You know, of the prom and everything… I’m glad you asked me to be your date…”

I was the junior, and this was the junior prom. I had invited him to be my date. And of course it was common for prom dates to end in sex. That was what this was about.

He continued, “And I’m going away to college next year…”

Ah. So that was it.

I stopped him, “Marc, it’s okay. I understand. Let’s just enjoy the rest of the night. We’re going home soon. We have a little time here on the beach…that’s all. Okay?”

He didn’t seem relieved. When he looked at me he smiled nervously, but his eyes still held a question. Instead of asking it, he said, “Okay.”

I was embarrassed by the discussion. I knew my face was probably red, and I didn’t want him to see how I felt. When he kissed me, my lips were quivering.

The following Monday, Eva drove me home from school. “So, how was it?” she asked excitedly.

“How was what?” I asked, teasing her.

“You know!” she answered, her voice rising in a laugh.

“Oh, fine. Nothing happened because he didn’t want me to feel he’d taken advantage of me,” I said.

She gave me a surprised look.

“He actually said that,” I said, feeling ambivalent about the whole thing.

“Wow,” she said.

“Surprised?” I asked.

“Well, sort of,” she said, looking over at me again. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, not sure that was true.

“Well, I have something amazing to tell you,” she said, lowering her voice almost to a whisper.

“We’re alone, you don’t have to whisper,” I chided her, smiling.

She looked in the rear view mirror as if she was verifying that.

“You’ll never believe what happened to me,” she said. I really couldn’t imagine where she was going with that statement, but she sounded so happy and sweet that whatever she had to share had to be irresistible.

“Okay. I won’t believe it. Are you going to tell me?” I said, feeling so much love for her at that moment my heart could pop. She was so adorable there smiling happily. Her face had gone red. It stood out against her frosted pink lipstick in a way that made me want to hug her.

She shifted gears and took a deep breath.

“I gave Rob a blow job.”

If she had slapped me in the face I couldn’t have been more surprised.

“You… went down on him?” I asked, my stomach doing a flip. Somehow I’d expected her to say something else. Like Rob had given her his class ring. Or Rob had told her he loved her. Or her father had bought her a new sports car. Or she was going to France. Or we’d landed a rocket on Mars. Anything, really, would have been less surprising.

“Yes.” Now she was scarlet, but she was smiling.

“Well it must have been fun,” I said, catching her smile despite myself. “You have a mile-wide grin on your face.”

“Yeah,” she said, biting her lip. “Well, that’s not the part you won’t believe,” she said.

“Well, there’s something I have to tell you,” she said, her smile almost a laugh.

“Okay. I’m all ears.”

And I was.

“I had an orgasm,” she said, as if she’d won a million dollars.

“You…?” I asked, blinking.

“It was my first time doing that and I had an orgasm! Isn’t that amazing?”

“You had an orgasm going down on Rob?” I asked, unable to believe what I was hearing.

“Yes. It was the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said.

Somehow, I couldn’t help thinking it must’ve been the most amazing thing that had ever happened to Rob.

But what did I know?

20.

The next day Celeste came by my dorm room. She looked around, seeming to notice how different it would have been if Eva had moved in.

“I just wanted to come and see how you’re doing,” she said. “We haven’t talked since the wake…” Her long hair was pulled back in a pony tail. She wore no makeup, and I noticed how attractive her brows were, full and dark, shaped into a beautiful arch. Her slim, curvy figure was accentuated by a form-fitting black T-shirt and blue jeans. I’d always noticed she was a beautiful girl, but today without makeup on, she seemed raw and yet just as beautiful.

“Yeah, it’s been a while,” I agreed, wondering what she was thinking. Her manner was so casual. How could she act as if her father wasn’t suing mine?

“Did you know your father is suing my Dad?” I blurted out, completely unseated by the whole thing.

“What?” her voice registered genuine surprise.

“Your father. He’s filed a lawsuit against my Dad,” I said, surprised to be delivering this news. Surprised to see that she was stunned.

She sat on a chair and put her head in her hands. I looked at the three earrings she wore in her ears. All small gold hoops. I had never noticed that, before. I had the same thing: three small hoops in each ear. But mine were silver.

“No, I didn’t,” she said, obviously upset. And then, looking up at me, “No. I didn’t know.” Her eyes narrowed. “For what?”

“For wrongful death,” I said, narrowing my eyes back at her. “He thinks my Dad is responsible for Eva’s crash.” I stopped there, not wanting to talk about the wheel and the oil change. Not wanting to show her my anger.

“How so?”

“Beats me. I guess he thinks that because my Dad did work on her car he’s to blame for this mess.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

We both sat silently for a few minutes. Celeste looked at the floor uncomfortably, her eyebrows knitting together as she picked at her manicured nails, thinking. She raised her head to look at me and I could see tears in her eyes. “I wish there was something I could say. My father …” Her voice trailed off and she stood up, taking a deep breath and brushing the moistness from her eyes. “He doesn’t tell us much …”

Seeming to arrive somewhere else in her thinking, she said suddenly, “This is probably some bizarre misunderstanding.”

I wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince, me or herself. “Maybe,” I said, not meaning it.

“He’s probably just upset. It’ll blow over.” But her eyes were dark.

“Listen, I came by to invite you to a party to get your mind off things,” she said, changing the subject. “I don’t suppose now you’d even want to go with me,” she added, “But you know, I’m sure there’s been a mistake. Or something,” she paused again, “and if my Dad has brought some sort of complaint or something, I don’t have anything to do with it. They didn’t even tell me about it.” She stopped short there, seeming to dismiss the news as unrelated to her or unimportant.

“I’m not really in the partying mood lately,” I said, looking at her darkly, thinking that her response to the news her father was bringing a suit against mine was even stranger than the suit itself was.

“Sure, I understand,” she said. “Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful. Dad’s out of town on business so I can’t call him this week,” she said lamely.

It sounded like an excuse along the lines of “the dog ate my homework.” Bizarre. And it was interesting that she didn’t mention her mother. Why not call her mother? Surely she would know something. “Listen, Celeste, I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s all pretty strange. Thanks for coming by. It’s good to see you. Please say ‘hi’ to Venus for me,” I said, indicating I didn’t want to talk anymore. The conversation was ominous in its absolute lack of sense.

“Okay. I’m sorry about this, Rowan. I’m sure there’s been some misunderstanding,” she said again, defensiveness just creeping into her voice.

“Sure,” I said, wondering what she meant when she said the lawsuit didn’t have anything to do with her. How could it not?

“I’ll see you later, okay?” she said, reaching into her pocket. She had a piece of paper folded up. She handed it to me as she passed, saying “This is the flyer for the party I mentioned.”

“Yup. Thanks again for coming by,” I said, taking the paper. When she’d gone I looked at it. A flyer advertising a fraternity party.

That afternoon, I noticed that signs appeared all over the dormitory for the same fraternity house party Celeste’s flyer advertised. It was taking place the following Friday night. In the showers and hallways I could hear my floor mates talking excitedly about it. A party at the Zeta house. They were all making plans to go.

The girl who lived next door, Belinda, popped her head into our room.

“Hey! Girls! Going to the party next weekend?” she asked, obviously excited. “First one of the year!” she added.

Gretchen looked up from her book. “Not sure. Are you going?”

“Of course! Want to come with me and Judy?” Judy was Belinda’s roommate.

“Sure,” Gretchen said.

Belinda looked at me. I was sitting at my desk doing homework. The last thing I wanted to do was attend a party with my bitchy roommate.

“No thanks, Belinda. Thanks for offering,” I added.

“Sure thing. Well, we’re going to dinner. Why don’t you join us for that, then?” she asked, her tone making it clear she thought I was a stick in the mud.

“Sounds good,” I said, getting up. Gretchen got up, too. I sighed, annoyed and exasperated. I considered begging off sharing dinner with them, but thought better of it. If I let Gretchen scare me off of every invitation I received from a floor mate I’d never make any friends.

We walked in a herd to the dining hall. A regular gaggle of squawking chickens. It was weird. It was the first time since arriving at school I’d been in so much company. But in another way it felt good to be part of something social, protected by virtue of my association with the crowd.

I started to feel a little better. Even with Gretchen present. I felt better.

After dinner, Marc came by my room. When he arrived, I was alone in our room, sitting at my desk and trying to make sense of a chapter in my Probability and Statistics course book.

I jumped when I heard his knock on our open door.

“A little nervous about something?” he asked, his voice amused and light.

He perched on the desk next to me. “Ah, Probability and Statistics,” he said, looking at the cover. “My favorite.”

“I hate it already. I suppose that dooms me to fail,” I said.

“Well, it won’t help.” He looked around the room, “Where’s Gretchen? Out on her broom?”

I laughed. “I think if she had a broom this place’d be a lot cleaner.”

Smiling, he looked into my eyes. “Listen,” he said, folding his arms over his chest, “I’m headed back home this weekend. I’ve got some errands to run. Do you want a ride home, by any chance?”

I hadn’t planned to go home my first weekend at school, but Travis would be at the house with my parents, which meant it would be more lively than usual. And there was nothing to do here this weekend if Marc was going home.

“Sure. Thanks for asking.”

Just then another boy came to the door and knocked.

“Hey, John,” Marc said, turning around to face a blond boy wearing glasses. The young man stepped into the room gingerly, a stack of books under his arm.

“John, this is Rowan, my girlfriend,” he said, putting his hand on the small of my back and gently pushing me toward his friend. “Rowan, John. My roommate,” he stepped back to let us shake hands.

“Hi, John,” I said, taking him in. Good handshake, tall, good features, an even, kind-looking face. He seemed to be doing the same thing: taking me in, appraising me. He smiled.

“Hi, Rowan. Good to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,” he said with a smile. He looked at Marc. “Ready?”

“Yup,” and then, looking at me, Marc said “We’re going over to the chemistry lab. I’ll come and get you tomorrow after classes, then. Be ready to leave by 4:00, okay?”

“Okay.”

He paused at the door, his hand on the door frame, and then stepped back into the room, crossing to where I was sitting. Leaning down, he gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“I love you,” he whispered, and was gone. 

Last night in Harvard Square was cold.  Traffic was heavy but we saw a man riding a tandem with his daughter, who was about 7 or 8, on Broadway.  We turned into the parking garage, where the university provided alumni parking for us.

There was a crowd in the museum entryway.  Eclectic.  Ages ranged from seeming still-students to retirees.  Our badges awaited us at a table.  Name and degree awarded, with year.  Presumably so we might identify other classmates, perhaps bump into old friends.  We were all there to see an exhibit of 16th century woodcuts that, together, bespoke a way of communicating visual knowledge before there was an inexpensive way of disseminating printed media, or photography, or even, for that matter, an accurate idea of how wide north america is.

We waited for our docent.  Some time passed.  We drank wine and ate cheese.  We tired of waiting and began, mostly in pairs, to make our way up the stairs to 3, where the exhibit awaited us.

The sackler is a modern, pretty museum, welcoming in its relative humility.  The door on 3 opened directly into an exhibit hall where we saw first a Durer.  Nemesis, a woodcut from 1501.  A lifelike figure carrying a harness and goblet, adorned in glorious, life-like wings and sporting seriously taught, muscular legs.  And, we read, feet that were slightly larger than the established “realistic” ratio.  The figure seemed to embody all that retribution and hope could promise when taken together.  REALLY brilliant, but haunting somehow.

It kept on.  The seige at Dresden.  6 blocks taken together in a sprawling visual of the battle’s events.  Globes and astrological prints of astonishing craftsmanship and beauty.  Medieval maps and “scientific” drawings of animals (especially the rhinoceros), the human anatomy, and sealife.   Macabre in their life-like-ness.  Sun dials and geometry.  Palpably dimensional.  The art was stunning, if for nothing other than the astonishing detail the artists were able to achieve in woodcuts make into prints.  But there was more in it then the obvious precision and skill… the passion and curiosity was really evident in many of the pieces.  Durer’s, especially, I thought (but I’m partial to him).

A group of us gathered before a painted map of Amsterdam.  Neptune presiding, the city’s channels were gloriously hued blue, the buildings neatly arranged, the ships anchored docilely in the harbor.  Idylllic.   We marveled at the green neat hills that stretched out beyond city limits.  Was there so much available, farm-ready, livestock-ready land?  No.  But the rest is fairly accurate, the docent told us.

Across the hall there was a globe.  North America shrunken to a fat crayon’s width.  Really, it’s amazing.  They didn’t know that North America is wider than South America?  Not at all.  But look, here’s Cuba.

And next to the map of Amsterdam the structure of the Universe, Earth at center, was on display.  Surrounded by water, fire and air.  Then the planets and firmament.  And the first commercially successful atlas.  All of this on loan, gathered here for our curious, greedy little minds to take in.  What is not to love about Harvard?

One last to share:  the teaching room.  Adjacent to the exhibit there is a gallery where the teaching staff designs study halls for students.  There we were allowed to gaze upon pairs and small sets of pieces that had been gathered for comparison.  Old silvery 19th century photos, paintings, landscapes, prints, incredible etchings.  subtle, stark, textured, revealing.  Cultured women ooed at awkward nudes.  Sophisticated men gazed approvingly at sketches and photos. Neither cultured or sophisticated myself, I tried to identify patterns, imagining what students might be looking for.  Wishing I was still a student, i turned back to the exhibit, feeling guilty.

Slowly, reluctantly, I made my way toward the door.  The event was supposed to have ended 20 minutes ago, but the docent had kindly allowed us to remain, to talk, to discuss what we each found most surprising, most appealing in the exhibit.  But it was getting late.

I think what I will remember most vividly is the smallness of the United States on their globes.  Shaped like a finger.

Perspective and exposure are everything.