Page 42 of Alone With You in the Ether

She blinked.

“Charlotte,” she said, abruptly releasing him to set the clippers down on the sink. “You’ll have to call me Charlotte.”

He rose to his feet, turning to face her. “Sure,” he agreed, and leaned against the doorframe while she wandered into the hallway, aiming herself uncertainly towards the door. “Anything else?”

“No. Not really.” She half-laughed, coming to a stop. “Nothing that can’t wait, anyway.”

He nodded, glancing down at his watch; it was nearly six. “Want me to take you home?”

She shook her head. “It’s fine, I’ll take the train.”

“You sure?” It was only a block or so to the Red Line, but still.

“Yes.” She seemed fidgety, unsettled. Maybe she needed the solitude.

“Hope you didn’t learn anything,” he noted.

She cut her gaze away; when it returned, it was iron with certainty.

“Not a thing,” she assured him. “See you Saturday?”

“Yes.”

He did her the favor of not following her as she went, glancing instead at the lifeless curls that now spread across his bathroom floor and registering the vacancy of weight atop his head. He looked at himself in the mirror again, adjusting his hair as she had done.

Fascinating, really, to see what she saw. Bewildering that she could turn something in her mind into something real. Practical magic.

He wandered to the hall closet, noting the places she’d been.

Here. Here. There.

His mind retraced the shape of her touch, replicating its patterns and shapes; linking observations together. The speed of her hesitation. The force of her breath. He turned her over in his head, facts and details and observations, wrapping his mind around her the way his fingers had done.

Then he turned the vacuum on, permitting the sound to drown him out.

“You’re actually serious about this?”Marc asked, chuckling a little as he watched her throw a pair of heels into her weekend bag. “I mean, I know you said you were going to, but—”

“I’m packing, aren’t I?” she said. She swiped some hair from her forehead, wondering if she should bring the dress that always made her look good even if it meant her mother would berate her for wearing a funeral color to an anniversary party.

Madeline would be wearing red, probably. Red was Madeline’s color, and coincidentally or not, it was a celebratory one, too. The color red meant good fortune in what little of Chinese culture that Helen Regan (Yang in a past life) had retained, though Regan was fairly certain that element of tradition would have been cast out just as readily if it hadn’t looked so stunning on her eldest daughter. When the Regan girls were children, both had been outfitted ubiquitously in matching red dresses, which eventually became red costumes for dance competitions and then a scarlet lip on Madeline’s prom that became her signature well beyond college. The color, though, had never really belonged to Regan.

Minus the garnet earrings, but those didn’t count.

“So, this guy,” Marc said, interrupting her thoughts, and Regan glanced at him, already irritated. She detested having to read his mind.

“His name is Aldo.”

“Fine, sure.” Marc scraped a hand over the scruff on his cheeks. “What exactly are you doing, Regan?”

“I told you. Packing.” Maybe the purple wrap dress, she thought. Still somber for her mother’s taste, but Regan loved a jewel tone. Plus she’d never been to her mother’s taste before, and she certainly wasn’t going to manage it now.

“I meant what are you doing withhim, Regan. Am I not paying you enough attention?”

“You’re paying me plenty of attention.” On second thought, the purple dress was stuffy. The blue silk was more flattering. Though, if her goal was flattery, then the obvious choice was the black, so she was back where she’d started. “I wish you’d pay less attention, actually, seeing as I’m busy.”

“Regan,” Marc sighed, catching her arm as she moved to survey her closet. “Just tell me if this is some sort of… episode.”

She blinked with surprise, turning to look at him. “Excuse me?”

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