Page 79 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
I leaned closer. I didn’t mean to ask so many questions, but they kept coming, as if I had no control over my own voice. “Are they dangerous? Or nice?”
“Neither,” said Helene. “They’re not interested in us. They onlyhang around certain places because they have unfinished business there.”
Shelly said, “The theaters where you dance must becrawlingwith them.”
Helene nodded sagely. “That’s true. Lots of unresolved grudges in the dance business.”
I was still going. “Have you seen any here? On the island?”
“Geez, Boose.” Karma snorted. “Chill out. Let someone else have a turn interrogating the new girl. Besides”—she twirled her champagne flute—“since when did you become so interested in the spirit world?”
I looked down. Felt my face heat up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“It’s okay,” said Helene.
When I looked back up, she was watching me. The edges of her mouth turned up in a soft smile, but behind her eyes was something else. An unspoken recognition. A confirmation of what I’d known all along.
I waited for him, for the familiar sensation that Henry’s ashes were right there, right below the rock where I sat. But before he could arrive, Karma’s voice pulled me away.
“So, Eliot,” she said, “tell us about the dating scene in New York.”
Oh God.
“Yes, yes,” said my mother, clapping excitedly. “You haven’t said athingabout boys since you got here.”
I could feel Manuel breathing next to me. “That’s because there’s nothing to tell.”
“Nothing?” Mom pretended to pout, but I saw her eyes dart hopefully to the boy next to me.
“Nope.”
“No boyfriend? Nobody special? Never?”
I tried to grin. “Ouch, Mom.”
Not only had I not dated a single person since leaving Chicago, I hadn’t even tried. Hadn’t downloaded any dating apps. Hadn’t drunkenly made out with someone at a bar. And I only thought about sex—like, the physical act of sex, which I’d never actually experienced—approximately once every three months.
Things weren’t looking good for me in the romance department.
“You know what’s funny?” said Caleb through a mouthful of fish. “I always thought you and Manny would end up together.”
Manuel and I stiffened at exactly the same moment.
“So did I!” Clarence raised his glass so quickly a bit of champagne sloshed over the side.
“I mean,” said Karma, raising one eyebrow suggestively, “you twodidalways disappear into the woods for hours at a time.”
Everyone laughed.
Including Manuel and me. We forced our laughter so hard we almost choked.
The group went back to general chatter. An uncomfortable silence settled over my best friend and me. I looked out at the water, pretending to care about the slight ripples along its surface.
After a moment, I felt something on my cheek. I jumped. Looked over. Manuel had reached up and plucked a flake of crisp gold from the corner of my mouth. He held it out to me on the tip of his finger like a stray eyelash.
“Make a wish,” he said.
—
