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18.

Tampered with.

Tampered.

With. Tampered with.

I sat on my bed with my head in my hands. What the hell did that mean? Tampered with? Someone—who? Tampered with her car. I tried the expression again. Tampered with. I said it out loud.

“Tampered with.”

Gretchen looked up from her book momentarily, and then dismissed me with a frown.

I couldn’t sit still. I was frantic, so I got up, took my key, and left.

The night air was damp and cool. I said a silent thank you for the darkness to whom or whatever might be listening. And then I started to walk without paying any attention to where I was going. There were street lights lighting all of the campus walkways, but there weren’t any other students around. Just empty walkways lit against the dark.

The night was still. No wind. No sense. I had no sense. It made no sense and I had no sense. Did someone want to hurt Eva or had it all been a horrible accident? Worse still, had it been an accident that my father had inadvertently caused? “Uuuh…” I groaned, looking up to the trees. A breeze moved through them, seeming to answer me, whisper something. I listened, trying to make out what they were saying. But it wasn’t clear to me. Beyond the trees were clouds that blanketed the sky, purple from the lights of the town.

“Why?” I cried out loud. “Why Eva?”

The trees were silent. The clouds seemed to absorb my question. Warm tears started again and I made no effort to stop them.

Earlier on the phone, Mom had been at a loss to deal with me.

“Mom, what does Dad mean, tampered with?” I had asked earlier when she came back on the line.

“Well, we’re not sure exactly, but it seems like someone might have actually loosened the lug nuts on her wheels.”

“Why? That’s impossible. It’s crazy,” I said, grappling with the news.

“Oh, honey, I know…”

“That’s insane. What reason could anyone possibly have to hurt Eva?”

A sigh. “Honey, I know it sounds crazy. Maybe Travis will be able to turn something else up. We’ll keep you posted.” 

17.

I came back from the dining hall the following day to find Marc perched on my bed. Gretchen sat at her desk writing, the dour expression she usually wore firmly fastened to her face. I sat down next to Marc.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Nice room,” he said, looking around.

“Yeah,” I said without enthusiasm.

“Want to go for a walk?” he asked.

“God, yes,” I said.

I noticed Gretchen smiling in a way that demonstrated her satisfaction with our departure. So did Marc. He shook his head and sighed, leading me to the door and opening it for me.

“So long, Gretchen,” he said.

“So long,” she said. She sounded a little like a cow, her voice doleful and flat, when she said that. He closed the door softly behind us.

“What’s with her?” Marc asked when we were out of earshot.

“Beats me,” I said. “She’s been that way since I arrived. She locked me out of the room the day after we moved in,” I said. “I was in the shower. Had to walk across campus in a towel to get the room key.”

That stopped him in his tracks. He turned to look at me in disbelief.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

He whistled. “You have had a seriously bad few weeks,” he said.

“Yeah. I know,” I said, trying not to feel too sorry for myself.

“Seen any more ghosts?” he asked, the weight of the question greater than he let his tone give away.

“No,” I said. “No more ghosts, unless you count my memory. My heart stops every time I remember it.”

“I bet,” he said, sounding as if he still wasn’t sure he believed I had actually seen a ghost.

We walked to Marc’s dormitory room in Stoke Hall. He closed the door behind us and took me in his arms, enveloping me in a warm, strong hug.

“Baby I’m sorry. I heard about the name on your door when you moved in,” he said, still holding me. His face was turned into my hair.

“Your mum called and told me. That was a fuck up.”

“Uh, huh,” I said, angry at the memory. He led me to his bed and sat down next to me.

“My roommate won’t be back until after dinner,” he took my hand. “I think I probably got luckier in that department than you did. Gretchen’s…” he searched for the right word, “unfriendly?” he asked. “No, miserable,” he finished, finding it.

“It wouldn’t take much to be luckier in the roommate department than I am,” I assented, leaning back on his bed, exhausted from the emotional strain of the past two days.

Taking this as an invitation, he laid down next to me, propping himself up on his right arm.

“So, what should we do now?” he asked, a smile on his face.

“Dunno. Have anything in mind when you came to see me?” I looked at his smile. He had beautiful teeth.

He laid back and stretched out. “Definitely not,” he said, still smiling.

“Good,” I said, not moving.

He leaned into me then, kissing me hard. “I’m glad you came.”

Tired and near tears I kissed him back. All of the pain of the past week was welling up, threatening to overcome me. I felt like a train wreck. Slipping my hand into his T-shirt and burying my nails in his side, I pulled him against me. The back of my throat was tight. Straining to hold back my tears, I tried to control my breathing, to avoid crying. I unbuttoned his blue jeans.

He was rock hard. Silent, hot tears started to roll down my cheeks. We sat up. He laid his finger against my cheek, wiping one of my tears away.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered.

I nodded. Looking at me as if he wanted my consent, he took his T-shirt off. I watched. His skin was darker than mine. He kissed me, pulling my black tank top up and over my head.

“Ummm,” he straightened to pull me against him. Chests together, he held my hips with his hands. He was hot, hard, slipping his hands into my pants, moving against me.

He could unfasten my bra with his right hand, a trick he’d been practicing for months. Now we both laughed at his dexterity with the hook.

Crying and laughing at once.

I yanked at his pants, trying to pull them off. He stopped me, taking me in his arms and holding me against him.

“Baby, are you okay? We don’t have to do this now,” he said, sounding concerned. His skin felt so good against mine. So warm.

“I’m fine,” I said, without looking up into his eyes.

“Sure?”

“Yes,” I said. “Now please take your pants off.”

He laughed, “Yes, ma’am.”

The first day of classes was uneventful. Astronomy and Probability and Statistics. Both were large lecture halls filled to the gills with other freshman. Bright lights and theater-like classrooms. One after another, we filed in and up a staircase to find seats in long curved rows. Little desks folded down between the seats. I knew no one and felt awkward. Seeing other students standing around talking outside of the classrooms, I resolved to make some new friends.

After class I walked across campus, still unsure of where I was going, looking for Randall Hall. Looking for home. The sun was hot, and there were birds singing, which I found annoyingly cheerful. But I had a reminder that I was not completely alone: I was still sore from making love to Marc the day before.

A silver lining in my cloudy sky.

After dinner I went back to my room to look at my new textbooks. I sat at my desk, skimming the first chapter of my astronomy book. It was already 8:00 pm and the sun had set. Gretchen was lying on her bed reading a romance novel. The room was dark: the only lights were the lamp on my desk and the little lamp next to Gretchen’s bed, which cast unflattering shadows across her face.

I felt a chill air blow across my neck. I looked up, but both windows and the door were closed.

“Do you feel a draft?” I asked.

“No,” she said, looking up from her book. Her expression suggested she thought I was crazy. I wondered what I had done to earn her disdain, or for that matter, what I had done to deserve her as a replacement roommate for Eva.

She got up, laying her book by her bed, and left, closing the door behind her. That was a relief. The room was quiet. I went back to my textbook.

Again, I felt a cool breeze on the back of my neck. I looked around. I had a strong feeling I was in company. But I was alone in the room. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling someone was there with me.

My cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Rowan?” Mom sounded concerned.

“Hi, Mom.” It was good to hear her voice.
“How’s it going up there?”

“More or less as expected. How are things there?” I replied.

“Has Gretchen been agreeable?”

“Something like that.” I said.

“Mmm. I was afraid of that,” Mom said, sounding worried. “Honey, Travis is here and he has some questions for you,” she said. “Do you feel up to talking to him now?”

“Sure.” I sat down on the floor, preparing for a long discussion. I sat on the floor, leaning against my bed and extending my legs in front of me. I tried to relax. There was a rustling on the line and I heard Travis clearing his throat.

“Hi, Rowan.” Travis’ Texas drawl was always a welcome sound.

“Hi, Travis. How’s it going?”

“Well it’s goin’ all right. I’m here with your Daddy and we’re just going over some things. Gotta second to talk?”

I watched as the branches outside my window blew and swept against the night sky, hitting the dorm room window. “About what time did Eva leave the house the day of the accident?” he asked.

“Around 9:10. Her usual time,” I answered.

“Okay. And did you hear or see anything unusual? Did the car sound okay? Any scraping sounds or anything?”

“No. I had an awful feeling in my stomach and asked her to let me drive her. But I didn’t hear any unusual sounds from the car.” I paused, recalling.

“No. I didn’t hear anything.”

“And what about Eva? Did she seem upset or distracted?”

“No,” I thought about her invitation to the movies. “In fact, she had a date that night and seemed to be in very good spirits.”

“Oh-kay,” he said breaking the word into two distinct syllables. It sounded like he was making notes. “I might have some more questions after I’ve seen the car, but that’ll be all for now. I’ll give you to your Daddy. You take care, now.” 

 Dad came on the line. “Rowan, some things have come up since Travis arrived. He contacted the police and they said they think the car was tampered with. We’re going to look at it again tomorrow. I’ll call you when we know more. I love you.”

He handed the phone to my mother without waiting for my response.  

16.

The day I moved into my dorm room in Randall Hall was hot and humid. Mom and I pulled the car up to a door that turned out to be an entry to the basement. I was on the second floor, so we were walking two sets of stairs. My mother groaned.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me?” she asked, only half joking.

I didn’t answer her question directly because I wasn’t sure of anything. Instead, I took out my dorm assignment sheet and read it, as if Eva and I hadn’t said the room number a thousand times over the summer.

“Randall 214.”

Randall 214. Randall was an all-girls dorm. We’d requested this on my father’s insistence. I would not be allowed to live in a co-ed dorm.

Mom and I made our way up the stairs and down the mint green and beige hall. I noticed the paint was dirty. Depressing. The floors were freshly polished black and white tiles. We found 214. There were two white sheets of paper hanging on the wall beside the door of the room. One said “Eva Verdano.” Below it, the other said “Rowan Thomson.”

Mom drew in her breath.

“I called them and asked them not to post Eva’s name.” She sounded apologetic.

“It’s okay, Mom. There are a lot of students coming. It probably just got overlooked in the shuffle.”

But my eyes and throat were burning.

We entered the room, where I was surprised to find my new roommate had already arrived and claimed the bed, bureau, and desk she preferred. Gretchen had blonde hair that was cut into a frizzy bob. She had a dour expression and didn’t shake my hand when I extended it to introduce myself. Retrieving my rejected hand, I looked around. Her bedspread was a green and blue plaid that matched her neatly arranged desk and bureau. Her pencils were already unpacked into a pencil cup and she had filled the closet of her choice with neat, preppy style clothes.

My mother looked dubious.

We left the room to bring in some more of my things from the car. On the way, we stopped to inspect the bathrooms. The walls were the same mint green and beige as the hallway, but the floors were tiled green and blue. There was a bank of sinks on one side of the bathroom that faced a bank of toilets. A wall separated the second half of the bathroom, where there was another bank of sinks and a row of showers opposite. Each shower had a plain white plastic curtain for privacy, and that was all.

“Still sure you don’t want to come home with me?” This time she wasn’t joking.

I took a deep breath. It was true, Gretchen was apparently inconsiderate. But I wasn’t turning back now.

“Thanks, Mom,” I smiled. “But, no. I’m going to do this. It’ll be okay,” I said, using Marc’s words.

After we finished unloading the car Mom suggested lunch. We left my bed stacked high with crates full of my paraphernalia. Gretchen’s sour expression when we left the room conveyed her disapproval of the mess.

“She’s going to be a real gem,” Mom said as we crossed the street, heading for a pizza place in Durham center.

I agreed, but didn’t answer. She was only a roommate after all. We didn’t have to be friends.

Later that afternoon, having made my bed and fussed profusely over arranging my room for me, Mom left me with money and a big hug. She was crying.

“Oh, Mom, don’t cry,” I said

“You’re my oldest. It’s going to be so strange at the house without you. Are you sure you’ll be okay? Are you sure you have enough money? And everything you need?”

“I’m sure,” I answered, starting to cry myself.

Seeing this, Mom gave me a squeeze and got into the car. I closed her door and stood there waving as she drove away. I turned and went up the stairs, thinking that I should be excited, or exhilarated, or at least nervous. I felt none of those things. I just felt sad. Randall 214 should have been our room, Eva’s and mine. But I didn’t even feel welcome as I walked into it. Instead of Eva’s beach scene bedspread, we had blue and green plaid.

I realized that Gretchen had already left for the dining hall, leaving me to find it for myself and eat alone. I heaved a great, heavy sigh. Upperclassmen would be arriving in a couple of days, and with them, Marc.

Things would be better then.

The next morning I took a bucket filled with shampoo, conditioner, soap, a razor, and my toothpaste and toothbrush to the bathrooms for a shower. I noticed that was how everyone conveyed toiletries to and from the shower farm and had fallen in with the rest. Pulling the curtain closed, I tried to relax. I found the lack of privacy difficult. I was used to going into our bathroom at home and shutting the door. The curtain did not cover the whole shower door, leaving me exposed on either end. I shifted the curtain back and forth as I moved around in the shower, looking for footholds to shave my legs and places to put my razor and shampoo.

After drying off and wrapping myself in the big comfy pink bath towel Mom had bought for me, I squished barefoot back toward room 214. I turned the doorknob, which didn’t move. I jiggled. Nope. The door was locked. I banged on the door. No answer. I banged again.

“Gretchen!”

No answer.

I fumed. She had seen me leave the room for the shower with my bucket and towel. Not exactly dressed to go out.

I considered our locked door, cursing Gretchen under my breath. And then another thought occurred to me. After dinner the night before, we had all been herded into a large community room in a neighboring dorm for freshman orientation. The speaker said that there was a Resident Assistant on the first floor of Randall Hall. The office was supposed to handle administration issues for Randall and the other dorms in “the quad,” which were nearby. Maybe they would have a key.

I left my bucket beside the door, promising myself that when I next saw the dour, sour Gretchen I would have at least a few choice words for her.

But the office on Randall one was closed. A note on the door said “For Housing Issues: Housing Office, 100 Main St. Have a nice day.”

My heart sunk. I would have to walk in my towel all the way across the center quad area to Main Street.

One more try: I went to a nearby phone and looked to see if there was a campus directory. Water running from my wet hair down my back, legs, and onto the floor, I squished toward the phone.

No. Nothing. Just a few things scribbled on the wall in black ink. They looked like names and dorm numbers, mostly. Shit.

Squaring my shoulders, I told myself this could not be the first time a student was locked out of their dorm room. It couldn’t be. True, it was the second day of freshman orientation, I thought as I walked barefoot out onto the sidewalk. True as well that I was in a towel and had water running in a stream from my hair down my back and legs. But at least one other person must’ve experienced this since the university had been founded.

At least one.

I lowered my head, hoping not to see anyone who would recognize me.

I wondered if any student had ever killed a roommate at UNH? As I plodded across campus miserably I fumed, mentally rehearsing a gleeful scene in which I bludgeoned Gretchen over the head with my ten-pound astronomy textbook.

There was one small consolation: upperclassmen weren’t here yet, and campus was quiet. There were a few people walking around, but they were surprisingly indifferent to my compromised state. That was a relief.

Maybe this did happen all the time.

No, probably not, I thought, my anger with Gretchen resurging.

I trudged across campus, found the office, and went in. My feet were slippery on the black and white tile floor, which was dirty. A young woman sat at a desk reading. She looked up, a grin spreading across her face at the sight of a wet girl with nothing but a bath towel on. She looked perky and efficient.

“Can I help you?”

Worse than looking perky and efficient, she sounded cheerful, too. Someone slovenly and dull would have been preferable. Someone like that might have been better able to understand how I was feeling. This girl did not look like she had ever been locked out of her room while wearing a towel.

It was hard to keep my sense of humor, but I tried.

“I hope so.”

“You look like you could use it.”

“Yeah.” My voice caustic, I said, “My lovely roommate, who I am anxious to thank, was thoughtful enough to lock me out of my room while I was showering this morning. The office in Randall, where I live, was closed. A note on the door said to come here.”

“Ah. Might I suggest bringing your key to the shower in future?”

“You might. Though one wouldn’t expect to need their room key in the shower, would they?” I smiled sweetly.

“If your roommate didn’t know where you were…?”

“She knew,” I fairly spat the words. The last thing I wanted to hear was the slightest suggestion of a defense for Gretchen.

“Room number?”

“214.”

“Here you are. We need it back within 24 hours. Hope your day improves.”

Highly unlikely.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the key gratefully.

15.

The next day, Jen came into the bookstore. It was my last shift of the summer, and the owner had gone for the day.

The Book Nook was a small store in the center of town that sold used and new books. It had a sort of musty smell to it. The carpets were beige Berber that were worn down and permanently gray. The store had been there for twenty years, started by the current owner’s father. Mr. Robinson Junior was a kindly man, portly, short, and single. He spent every morning at the bookstore and left me to tend it during summer afternoons. I had often wondered where he went and what he did during those afternoons. Bingo? Golf? Horse racing? He never said and I never worked up the pluck to ask.

It had all started my last year of junior high. I made a habit of browsing his store for cheap paperback books whenever I was in town with my parents for errands. He got used to seeing me there, and one day when I was in browsing he asked if I wanted a summer job. As a result, I had been his summer help through four years of high school. In the afternoons it was my responsibility to bring the books that were arranged on a table outside on the sidewalk into the store, cash the register out, lock the doors, and walk the deposit, if there was one, to the bank next door. I could read all I wanted, as long as I kept an eye on the front of the store.

I imagined I would have my job back the following summer, when I would be home from college, but Mr. Robinson Junior and I had not discussed that.

That afternoon was slow, and the shop was empty. I was sitting behind the counter reading a Riordan novel, trying to escape the previous night’s jolt. The image of Eva on the boat launch had been persistent in my mind, causing my heart to skip a beat every time I remembered it.

“Hey, Rowan,” Jen’s crisp voice startled me out of my book and into the present as she came through the door, ringing the little brass bell that hung there.

“Hey.” I put the book down. I didn’t feel happy so I didn’t smile. Definitely no need to keep up appearances with Jen.

“Ready for school?” She sounded sarcastic.

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I guess so. Mom seems to have it all under control. There’s a mountain of crap in my room. I have no clue how she expects to transport everything. No doubt she has a plan.”

Jen grinned. “I hear you. My mother’s already got everything but the kitchen sink in the van. We’re bringing my little brother to carry it all.”

Jen was going to Johnson and Wales, a small professional school in Rhode Island, where she planned to study the hospitality industry. It was a perfect course of study for her. With an excess of energy, a social temperament, and a matter-of-factness about her, I had no doubt she would be successful.

I, on the other hand, was without direction. I looked at the counter, feeling sorry for myself.

“Remember the time we all went up to Hampton in the Banana Boat?” she asked.

Her parents’ yellow VW van. The Banana Boat.

“Yeah,” I said, smiling. Jen and Keith, Eva and Rob, me and Marc, Ronnie and Mike. We went up to Hampton Beach one Friday night in early May, as a kind of birthday celebration for Jen, Eva, Ronnie and me. The beach was about an hour northeast of where we lived, a place frequented by people who lived in southern New Hampshire. The beaches there were nice, and there was plenty to do. Shopping, restaurants, arcades for the younger kids.

At dinner, Keith, Rob, Mike, and Marc sang Happy Birthday to us; we were all turning eighteen within a few days of each other. My birthday was thethird. Eva’s was theninth, Ronnie’s was thetwelfth, and Jen’s was thenineteenth. The matter of our shared birth month was a kind of joke because my sister Kori was born in early May as well, on theseventh, and Beth, Marc’s sister and our friend, was born thefifteenth. As a final irony, when Eva discovered this synchronicity, she revealed that her sister, Celeste, was also a May baby, born thefourteenth of the month. And so we called ourselves the seven sisters, all Taurus girls, like the Pleiades.

“Anybody want ice cream?” Eva asked after we’d eaten.

“We’re going for a walk. You guys go have ice cream. We’ll meet you in an hour,” Jen said, taking Keith’s hand. Keith raised his other hand in feigned helplessness and followed her off in the direction of the sand dunes.

Eva looked at the rest of us, a playful smile on her face. “Poor Keith,” she said mirthfully. “What’s it going to be? The beach or ice cream?” she asked, likely guessing our response. I looked at Marc, who didn’t answer or indicate a preference.

“The beach. I’m full,” I said, smiling. “An hour. What’s that? 10:00?” Rob looked at his watch.

“Yup. 10:00.”

“All rightee, then. See you in an hour!” I called over my shoulder as I pulled Marc in the direction Jen and Keith had gone, leaving the four of them to their decision. When we got to the beach, we took our shoes off to walk along the water, not worrying whether Eva, Ronnie, Mike, and Rob had gone to have ice cream or were off playing in the dunes.

An hour later, Marc and I made our way back to the meeting place, still shaking sand out of our hair and clothes. Jen and Keith arrived just after we got there, equally uncomfortable.

“The price you pay,” Jen said, as she shook sand out of her shoe.

But no Eva, no Ronnie. No Mike, no Rob.

We waited.

They didn’t come.

“Let’s walk and see if we can spot them,” Jen said. “Maybe they lost track of time.” We started to walk, looking for them. 11:00 came and we still hadn’t found any of our missing friends. We were starting to feel worried, so I approached a police officer.

“Excuse me, officer?” I asked. The officer was red-faced and portly. He had a nightstick hanging from his belt. He turned to look at me, chin lifted as he peered past his bulbous nose.

“Yes?”

“We’re looking for our friends. We’ve looked up and down the boardwalk and can’t find them. I’m a little worried that maybe something’s happened. I wondered if you could help us?”

“I’m not sure what you want me to do. How long have they been missing?” he asked, looking at my friends suspiciously.

“About an hour,” I answered.

“They’d have to be gone longer than that,” he laughed. “Maybe they’re off walking the beach.” I shook my head no. “I guess I could radio into the station and see if there’ve been any reports,” he said with a sigh. “What do they look like?”

I described Eva and Ronnie as best I could. Blonde, medium height and weight, wearing a pink skirt and shoes; dark hair and big brown eyes, wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt with a kitty face on it. And Marc described Rob, tall, dark hair and eyes, thin frame, glasses; and Mike, medium height and build, light brown hair, khaki pants.

We waited while the police officer radioed into the Hampton police station from his cruiser, which was parked nearby. He came back from his car, his nightstick swinging as he walked toward us.

“There are some kids that fit your descriptions at the station. Eva Verdano and Rob Johnston. Those your friends?” he asked.

“Yes!” I answered, relieved to have found them, but confounded at their whereabouts. “And Ronnie and Mike?” I asked.

“There are four kids there, but I only got two names.”

“Why are they at the police station, sir?” I asked.

“They prevented a robbery earlier,” he answered, his expression registering more respect than he’d shown previously.

Marc, Jen, Keith, and I exchanged looks of confusion.

“Prevented a robbery?” Marc asked.

“Yes. At an ice cream stand earlier, apparently. Don’t know the details, but you can pick them up at the station. I think they’ve finished giving their report.”

We thanked him and drove the Banana Boat to the police station. There we found Eva, Ronnie, Mike, and Rob drinking soda and having a good laugh in the waiting room.

Rob had chocolate ice cream all over his shirt and pants. Eva, Ronnie, and Mike still looked clean and intact.

“What have you guys been up to?” Jen demanded when we came in.

“Rob fell on top of some guy who was trying to rob the ice cream stand,” Eva said laughing.

“I didn’t fall on him,” Rob said. “He hit me.”

The story came out. Rob had just ordered a chocolate ice cream cone for Eva and a sundae for himself, and was turning to bring it to where she was sitting at a picnic table with Ronnie and Mike, when the would-be robber jumped the counter and took cash from the open register. The clerk was busy putting the money Rob had given him into the register and didn’t see the attack coming.

The thief secured the cash and jumped back over the counter, but Rob had turned to see what the commotion was about and stood in the attacker’s way. He plowed into Rob, knocking both ice creams into Rob’s shirt and Rob to the ground.

Rather than letting the attacker past him, Rob grabbed the attacker’s shoe as he stepped over Rob’s head, leaving the thief with one sneaker. The attacker kept going, and Rob jumped up, sneaker in hand, and chased him. There was a policeman in a nearby arcade who heard all the yelling, and came out in time to see Rob running up the street, still holding the sneaker, and the young man running from him, one foot bare. They caught the young man and asked Rob and his friends to come to the station to file a report.

Truly, Jen, Marc, Keith, and I felt like we’d missed something good. Months later, standing in the bookshop sharing the story, we were laughing.

“Crazy,” Jen said, shaking her head. “That was something.”

“Yeah, really it was,” I said. We sat together for a minute with our memory, not speaking, shaking our heads.

“I wanted to say goodbye,” she said. “I’m on break. Today’s my last day at the insurance office,” she said.

I realized that we hadn’t really spent any time together since the accident. “I’m sorry we haven’t seen each other much this summer,” I said, looking at the counter.

“I know. No excuses either, except that we’ve both been busy.”

I looked up from the counter. Her big green eyes were fixed on mine. She was right. We’d been caught up with school preparation, our summer jobs, our boyfriends. Jen worked a block away at Donnelly’s insurance company. It made it easy to jump back and forth between offices on breaks, but we hadn’t been doing that.

“I know it’s been a rough summer. You were closer to her than anybody. I still can’t believe this whole thing.”

She pulled a spare stool up to the counter.

“You have a roommate at UNH yet?” she asked.

“Apparently,” I said. “The school called this week to say they had assigned someone to our room,” I frowned, not sure what that would be like.

As if she were reading my mind she said, “It’ll be all right. Don’t worry.”

“You around tonight?” I asked, hoping she would grab an ice cream with me after work.

“No. Keith is taking me out. That’s why I came by, I’m leaving tomorrow.” She leaned over and hugged me. “Call me when you get to school,” she said.  

14.

That night after dinner I went back to the pier. I needed to get out of the house to clear my head. Mom was sitting in the living room when I left, sipping a glass of wine and knitting a scarf. Dad was in his workshop in the garage making a racket. I closed the front door and stepped out into the dusk light. The sun was setting in the west, brilliant shades of orange and pink. It would be beautiful over the lake. I walked briskly.

I sat and watched the sun set, taking in the colors as they changed and shifted. They reflected on the water with almost the brilliance they had in the sky. The soft sound of the water lapping against the boat launch was relaxing, dreamy.

I stayed, listening and watching until dark fell.

A million memories went flitting through my head, coming and going before I could grab onto any particular one and hold it. Eva at graduation, so happy and proud of her grade point average, her mother snapping pictures of everything and everybody. Her extended family, a gaggle of black-clad Italian uncles and aunts, had been in attendance, and there had been a big party at the Verdano house to celebrate their youngest daughter’s graduation that afternoon. My thoughts moved to after graduation; a shopping trip at the beginning of last summer came up, in which we had tried on and modeled dozens of bikinis for each other, at close to as many stores. She’d chosen a turquoise suit with yellow and white flowers that had little ties on each hip. Going back in time, Eva and Rob at the junior prom, both of them quiet and smiling. Her blue eye makeup and the zigzag hem of the dress she had chosen. And in our last year of high school, our morning drives with Beth every day, sharing bagels and drinking coffee in the cafeteria until the homeroom bell rang. Then, her happy triumph when she finally had the money to buy the secondhand car she had been saving for.

My mind settled on the car.

The Civic. The car she’d been killed in. The antenna was broken and we couldn’t listen to the radio, just cds. An old, two-door standard shift with over 120,000 miles on it. We called it her buggy. Her parents always let her drive their cars, but she wanted her own. And she wanted to pay for it herself. So she’d saved the money she made as a lifeguard during the summer and the money she earned during the school year tutoring math for students who were having trouble, and bought herself the Civic.

I let myself drift back to those many mornings she’d driven me to school. She’d leave her house early enough to pick me up. During the winter, the car was just warming up when she reached my house. We’d speed through the back roads of Chester and Manchester, no doubt too fast, talking, listening to music, the window down, even in the winter. The days had passed as quickly as those rides did.

I sighed, looking up at the stars. Millions of them in an endless sea. Extending forever into space. Was she there? Did she see me sitting here alone by this launch? Did she know I was thinking of her? I wished with everything in me that she would just walk up, say my name, plop down beside me, and tell me everything was going to be fine.

I sat there and waited for that to happen for a while, waited for her to make an appearance.

A great, yawning emptiness overcame me, my hips and lower belly ached. My heart contracted. I sat there letting tears fall for a while, until it started to feel cold and mosquitoes started to appear, attracted by my breath.

I rose to leave, giving up on the notion that she might appear.

But as I turned to go I froze, terrified and stunned to see Eva standing at the water’s edge, where the woods met the lake. I broke a cold sweat, panic seizing me as I backed toward the launch exit.

“Rowan.”

She was standing just at the edge of the water, her gaze fixed on me intensely. Her eyes penetrated me, seeing through me. She looked angry. Sad. Both. Otherworldly.

No. I was imagining this.

Backing away, my teeth chattering, the sight of my dead friend, the lake shining behind and through her, burned itself into my mind. I tried to keep moving backwards, tried to get away. But I couldn’t turn my back on her.

“Rowan. Don’t leave. Please.”

I shook my head, tried to clear my vision, my ringing ears, everything. “Rowan,” again. Was her voice in my head?

Though she stood still, she was not solid. She was gray from head to toe, a clear form but with a quality of transparency that made it obvious she wasn’t solid. My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t get my breath. Was this real?

She wore the GUARD T-shirt and cut-off denim shorts I had last seen her in, but all of her was the same colorless gray, her features and form distinguishable by variation in shade, or depth, perhaps. Or something else. Something more subtle. I stopped backing up, shifting my weight from one foot to the other and back again, watching her, trying to keep myself from falling down.

“Eva…?” my voice came out in a squeak.

“Rowan, my friend…” She held her arm out to me.

I did not think I saw her lips move to speak. My heart was in my throat, and there was a train in my head.

“Look what he did!” she whispered, her voice distressed, hollow.

“Who?” I asked.

Her brow furrowed in frustration as she continued to look at me, claiming my mind with her image. She shook her head sadly back and forth, her hair seeming to float around her with the movement. A gray haze seemed to be spreading across the boat launch, enveloping the ground, moving toward me

The hairs on my neck stood up, the cold night air seeming to wrap itself around me, fold me into it.

“It’s not over…” her gaze direct and unflinching, shaking her head sadly, her outstretched arms retreating to cross over her heart. Then heaving a great sigh, holding me in her eyes for one last moment, she disappeared, taking the gray haze with her, but leaving the chill air behind.

I stood there in a mix of terror and uncertainty, looking for her, scanning the water’s edge, the launch. Gone.

She was gone again.

I left the launch walking backwards, unable to turn my back on the spot I’d seen her in. I looked around me at the darkness, wondering if she could still see me, and why she had come. But there were no answers there.

When I reached the road, I turned and ran home.

The house was warmly lit when I arrived, glowing invitingly. Marc’s car was in the driveway. He was sitting with my parents at the kitchen table when I walked in, the cold night air still hanging on me.

My mother pulled the cotton scarf she was wearing around her shoulders up to cover her neck, shivering.

I felt very disconnected, as if I were floating in a dream. As if Eva were still with me, or I with her. Still trembling, I tugged a chair away from the table to sit down.

“Rowan, are you okay? What’s happening?” my mother was the first to speak, leaning toward me to put her hand on my arm. “You’re cold.”

“And you’re shaking,” she said.

“I’m okay. Just chilled. I’m fine,” I said, trying my voice, which came out in a squeak. I struggled to sound convincing. But my jaw was stiff and nobody was buying it. They exchanged looks, clearly not sure what to make of my entrance.

To disguise my shaking, I got up and went to the refrigerator for a soda.

Sitting down again as gingerly as I could, I popped it open and drank some. Determined not to share what I had seen with my parents, I cleared my throat and tried to smile, tried to shake off the apparition. But the curious feeling stayed.

“Just thinking of Eva, that’s all.”

They exchanged looks again, this time a little less worriedly. Billy came in, hair spiked and dyed white, black leather biker’s jacket on. He wore a leather bracelet with chrome studs sticking out every which way. He was in a punk phase.

“Oh, hey. What’s going on in here?” he asked, looking around the room. “Where’s Kori?”

“Kori’s at the movies,” Mom said. “In fact, I need to go pick her up in a few minutes.”

“Who’d she go with?” he asked, sounding a little hurt he hadn’t been invited.

“One of the girls from her soccer team. Rhonda, I think,” Mom said.

“Travis arrives tonight,” Dad said, looking at me. Apparently oblivious to his son’s attire. “He’ll start his investigation in the morning.”

Billy went to the refrigerator. “Travis is coming tonight?” he asked, surveying the refrigerator contents.

“Yes,” Dad answered, looking at him. “Tomorrow we’re going over to the impound yard to see Eva’s car. Want to come?”

Billy took a soda off the shelf, shut the refrigerator door, and finding no empty chairs at the table, stood. “Sure,” he said, looking at the floor, his ambivalence obvious. It would be painful to look at the car and imagine Eva in it. He himself had hitched many rides to school with her in that car.

Not a joyful errand.

“Jen called for you,” Mom said to me, the weight in her voice adding significance to the message. “She wants to see you before you leave for school.”

I nodded and looked at Marc. “Do you want to go for a ride? I could use a change of scenery and Billy needs a seat.” My parents exchanged a look that suggested they had expected me to stay for a talk.

“Nope. I’m fine. No interest in hanging around here with you guys,” said Billy, leaving the kitchen. “I’m going out. I’ll see you later,” he called over his shoulder.

There was a brief silence at the table. Dad looked at my mother.

“Where is he going?”

Mom shrugged.

“I’ll have her home at a reasonable hour, sir,” Marc said, lowering his voice to sound like a military officer. The joke lightened the mood at the table and my parents smiled.

“Okay,” Dad said, his blue eyes leveling on Marc’s meaningfully. “Be sure you do, young man.”

Why, I wondered, did my parents always need to know my whereabouts when my younger brother could cavalierly announce he was leaving with no further explanation? And get away with it? Unfair, I thought, annoyed. I was fuming when we left. Marc held the door for me on the way out and tried to take my hand as we walked toward the car but I didn’t want to hold hands.

“What was all of that? Why are you here?” I asked, taking out my aggravation with my parents on him.

“Because you start school in a week and I’m supposed to help convince you to wait a semester,” he took a breath. “Your parents are concerned that you’ll have trouble adjusting at the university.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, feeling exasperated at my mother’s interference.

“The housing office phoned today to say that they have assigned you another roommate who was waitl-isted for a double room,” he said. “I think your Mom is nervous.”

“Oh.”

My exasperation and annoyance evaporated, leaving me deflated.

“Rowan, I want you to be there with me, but I also want what’s best for you,” he said as he opened the door of his mother’s Audi and held it open for me.

Another roommate. I hadn’t even begun to think about that. Of course, if Eva wasn’t going to attend they would fill her dormitory space. My chest started to feel heavy again. Marc started the car. I felt hot tears coming again and my breath was harder as I tried to stifle them.

But they came. Hot and in a rush, they came.

Marc was silent. He drove toward our favorite parking spot, a place in the woods near his house, while I struggled to stop crying. I took a deep breath to clear my head and shake off my feelings, and with some effort the crying finally subsided. Marc rolled the little car onto the logging path we’d driven a half dozen times. Then he turned left into a clearing, tree branches snapping against the sides of the car as we lurched and bumped into position.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said, suddenly feeling that maybe my Mom was right.

“That’s what your parents are thinking.”

He cut the engine.

We sat in silence, the car dark, the clock on the dash reminding us that time was passing. Always passing.

The moonlight on the trees around us bathed the clearing we were parked in with a silvery light. Looking out, I felt surprised at how bright the night was.

We sat silently with our thoughts.

After a while, a deer appeared at the edge of the clearing. Sensing something or someone, it looked in our direction. We both watched it, neither of us speaking. Tentatively, it stepped into the open, and foraged around in the grass for a few moments before disappearing again into the trees.

Marc rolled his window down to let some cool air in, and leaned back in his seat to face me. We listened to the crickets for a few minutes.

“Rowan, summer’s over. I’m not going to give you any advice either way. This has been sudden, and I feel like you’re shutting down. You’re not the only one, you know. Poor Rob is a shadow of himself. I went to see him this week and he couldn’t even talk about Eva, the wake, or the funeral. Nothing.”

I hadn’t thought about Rob since the wake, when he’d moved as if in a trance toward Eva in the casket. What had he been thinking? About making love to Eva? About her smile? About their last conversation?

“You haven’t really been able to talk about how you’re feeling,” Marc said, clearly trying to steer the conversation somewhere.

I interrupted him: “I saw her tonight.”

Startled, he stared.

“Who?”

“Eva.”

“You saw her? Where?” He studied my face, obviously wondering if I was going crackers on him.

“At the lake. I was at the boat landing. She was there, and she spoke to me,” I started to shake again.

I tried to control it, clenching my jaw.

His mouth open, he stared at me. His expression demonstrating he didn’t believe me. But he didn’t say that.

Isn’t there some bit of folk wisdom that you never wake a sleep walker? That must’ve been his logic.

“I’m not losing my mind. It’s a ghost. Eva’s ghost. I’m sure I saw her tonight. She spoke to me,” I said, wanting to convince him that I hadn’t imagined it. That it was real. That I was not cuckoo or dreaming.

He looked doubtful.

As he considered what I had said I could see some concern start to creep into his expression through the darkness in the car. Of course he would wonder if I was all right. Seeing ghosts was unusual, to say the least. And seeing the ghost of a recently departed friend might have seemed wishful, the product of an overactive imagination, or perhaps of a mind that wasn’t coping well.

But I was not going crazy.

Over the years I had glimpsed things like this occasionally. Heard voices, had hunches, even seen at least one ghost. I hadn’t told him about the ghost, but he knew about the hunches, had seen enough that he had even come to trust them. Why was this so different, so unbelievable? Hundreds, thousands, millions of people had claimed to see ghosts. Why was I the only crazy one?

More silence as we sat looking out the front window.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, you saw Eva. What did she—it—say?”

“She said ‘Look what he did.’”

I paused here to let the weight of the words register. Not just for his benefit, but for my own, as well. I had been contemplating the phrase since she’d uttered it, trying to understand what she meant.

He looked at me helplessly.

“I can only guess she meant that someone is responsible for the accident. But that introduces the horrible question of ‘who?’ And I have no idea who it could be…” I broke off, feeling lost and tired.

Bad enough to be without Eva, facing my freshman year of college with the wrong roommate. Worse still to be wondering if I was alienating Marc. And what did her words, “Look what he did,” mean? The problem of my father working on her car was on my mind, but I didn’t say that.

“You’re thinking of your father.”

I was stunned. “You know about that?”

He nodded. “He told me tonight before you came in.”

“Oh,” I said, nonplussed.

“He also told me about Mr. Verdano’s suit against your family,” Marc said.

I looked up at him. His expression was serious, his eyes penetrating. Sometimes it was like he could look right into me. It made me nervous.

“Rowan, everything is going to be fine. I promise.”  

11.

The week passed, one long stretch of hazy days and nights that ran together. On his second night home from Florida, Marc took me out for dinner.

He was sympathetic sitting across the table from me. The restaurant was full and there was a din all around us that made it easy to talk without being overheard.

“She said things weren’t really all right. She was wearing the ring,” I paused, recalling the image from my dream.

I made a deep frown, struggling to control my voice. Recounting the dream from the week before, it was strange that no part of it had faded, as dreams so often do. But this had been more like a visit than a dream.

I was so sure she had been there with me.

He reached across the white tablecloth covered table, took my hand, and sighed. He’d known Eva, had a passing friendliness for and with her. But they weren’t close and he hadn’t lost any close friends to death. It was hard for him to understand what was happening to me. He really didn’t. He couldn’t.

I realized that I didn’t really want to talk to him about it because I didn’t have language to express the breadth and depth of my sadness and disbelief. He couldn’t understand being awash in an endless of ocean of grief with no paddle, no boat. Endless blue in every direction, whether it was sky or ocean there was no comfort in the landscape. Drowning. Marc always had at least two paddles and a compass. He always had North. Or at least he seemed like he did, and if he didn’t, he put on a good show.

“Rowan, I’m so sorry. I know this is horrible. Do you think the dream meant something?”

He gazed at me, waiting. The low, smooth sound of his voice had the effect of calming me. He was dressed in a shirt and tie and his dark hair was combed back from his face, cut short over his ears. He had come to pick me up after leaving his office, and taken me to the nicest little restaurant in the area, Chez Louis. Marc had a summer internship that paid for our dates and beer money for the school year. It was also decent experience. He was in his second year at UNH, majoring in mechanical engineering.

“I don’t know.” My eyes welled up again and I willfully stifled the tears that were threatening to ruin our dinner.

“It’s okay,” he took a handkerchief from his pocket. “Here.”

“Thank you,” I said, sniffling and dabbing at my eyes. “She seemed so real, so present.”

“You miss her,” he said gently.

I nodded. “Yes, but it’s more than that. It didn’t feel the same as other dreams feel, you know, disjointed…” I thought about her face, letting myself slip into a little reverie with the memory.

The candle at the table flickered.

Marc waited, leaning forward on his arms, watching me.

“Oh, forget it. Let’s drop it,” I said, feeling exposed and vulnerable. He was aware that I had a habit of responding to feelings before thinking things through. Impulsive. I didn’t want him to see me that way now. I wanted to be in control. I refolded my napkin for the seventieth time and smoothed it in my lap.

“Rowan, you’ve always had strong psychic impressions. You aren’t feeling guilty about not stopping her, are you?”

At that moment it seemed Marc was the one with the strong psychic impressions. I had been beating myself over the head since the night of the accident over that point. A failure.

“No. I tried. I couldn’t force her to let me drive. You know how Eva was. She was much too independent to let the likes of a bad gut feeling deter her from her plans.” I paused, thinking about that, how Eva was.

“I wish things had turned out differently,” I added, tears threatening again. “I wish she was here.” I meant that with all my heart. I ached to see her again. For a moment I humored myself, clearing my throat and looking around the room, as if she might appear. But I saw only strangers.

My eyes resettled on Marc who was still watching me intently. I wished we were alone and that I was leaning against him, his arms around me.

“I want to have dinner without breaking down to cry. Let’s talk about something else, okay?”

“Okay. How about we go park somewhere after dinner and fuck like a couple of rabbits? Would that be an appropriate distraction?” He leaned toward me, his eyes crinkling in a smile.

“More like an inappropriate distraction.” My cheeks flushed red and hot at the suggestion.

“Inappropriate, then. Whatever it takes.”  

10.

I am alone in our school library late one night. The walls are lined with books, and shadowed portraits of middle-aged men hang on columns between the shelves. The ceilings are vaulted. There is a large window high in the wall at the opposite end of the room, from which moonlight is streaming in.

The big room is eerily still and silent. I am sitting at the end of a long wooden table with hooded green lamps on it. They shine onto the table beneath them, forming circles of light. Aside from the moonlight, all else is dark.

I look down at a book, open to the first page, before me. I can’t make sense of it. Every time I begin to read a sentence, the words scramble and resettle on the page, frustrating me. I am absorbed with the effort of catching a sentence before it changes when a door at the other end of the room opens and closes. I look up, waiting for the person who has entered to emerge from the dark of the room. Eventually I can see a form. Eva coming toward me.

A rush of relief and happiness comes over me. I watch and wait as she glides silently along the table.

Her hair is loose, almost floating in the air, and she has a faint foggy glow hanging about her. At first I cannot make out her expression, but as she approaches I see that she seems serious; her gaze is dark, and rests very intensely on me.

“Eva, I’m so happy to see you. Where have you been?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she comes to a stop silently in front of me, looking down into my upturned face. She heaves a great sigh, her lips parting delicately, her eyes dark, shadowed. Her hair is feather light, seeming to glisten like gossamer around her face. She smiles sadly, her manner, the details of her face, just as they’d been in life. I notice she is wearing her shell ring on her right hand, which is resting at her side.

“What’s wrong? You look sad. Is everything okay?” I ask.

“No, not really okay.” she says. I wait for her to say more. But she is silent, smiling sadly and looking down into my face.

I shift my gaze to her ring. She lifts her hand and gestures to it, smiling sadly, and holds it out to me to look at. I smile and show her that I am wearing mine, too.

“Thank you for coming back,” I say.

Eva touches my cheek, her expression sad, shaking her head no. “I have to go now,” she says resolutely, turning and gliding away into the darkness silently.

Leaving again.

I try to scream “Don’t go!” But nothing will come out. I try again, frustrated, anguished. Again, nothing.

I look down at the book whose words won’t stay still. They scramble again.

Jerking awake and up off my pillow I look around, realize I’m home in bed. My mother’s grandfather clock is chiming downstairs in the living room. My heart is pounding in my chest, my pulse a roar in my ears.

Only a dream.

Eva is gone. It was only a dream.

9.

Dad was waiting for us when we got home. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a beer when we came in. He looked tired.

“How was it?” he asked, his expression somber, twirling the glass of beer in his hand.

“Horrible,” I said, thinking it couldn’t have been anything other than horrible, after all. The cold drizzle outside had worked its way into my bones. My eyes were burning, felt hollow. But perhaps worst of all, I still couldn’t believe she was gone. I couldn’t accept what I’d seen, and it made me angry. Angry at the impossibility and misery of it.

Mom laid her purse on the entryway credenza and entered the kitchen. She slipped into a chair next to my father and laid her hand over his arm. He hadn’t been able to leave work to attend the wake because of an afternoon meeting that could not be cancelled. I wondered, though, if his absence had more to do with his habitual boycott of all religious and social rituals and services. He never attended anything of that sort: Sunday church services, weddings, funerals, holiday church services. He always had something pressing happening at work whenever those events took place, leaving Mom to act as a kind of ambassador on his behalf. The only things he’d ever made appearances at were sports and musical events his children were participating in.

Kori and Billy sat down with them. Billy folded his arms on the table and laid his head on them, giving an exhausted sigh.

“Here,” Kori said, taking a photograph out of her purse and holding it out to me. “I took it at the beach in June. Thought you might like to have it,” she said sniffling.

I took the photo, my face puffy from crying. “Thanks,” I said, starting to cry again at the sight of Eva’s face there.

Kori pulled a little roll of tissues out of her pocket, handed me one, peeled one out for herself, and tucked them back into her pocket. I imagined she would be a good mother. She was always prepared with helpful little items. Extra Kleenex, bottles of water, snacks, blankets, whatever. One of those people who thought of things like that. I bent to hug Kori, said goodnight to everyone, and went down the hall to my bedroom.

Taking Kori’s picture to bed with me, I put my head on the pillow and propped the photo up next to me on my lamp. It was of Eva and me together earlier that summer at the beach. Blonde, standing with her left arm draped over me, a happy smile on her face, Eva looked so vital and permanent. So real.

I started to cry again, my mind reeling at her absence. Had she been real? Was any of this real? Rolling everything over again and again in my mind, I tried to breathe. An accident with the car, her wheel coming off, and a large delivery truck hitting her Civic. I couldn’t get my head around it. Perhaps because I hadn’t seen the car. Maybe because I’d had to take Mr. Verdano’s word for it. It didn’t seem possible. With school just two weeks away, this couldn’t have happened. I told myself it was all just a bad dream. That I would wake in the morning and Eva would come for breakfast.

Like always.

I held that in my mind, repeating it like a mantra. This is all just a bad dream. Eventually I fell asleep, the photo beside me.