7 Souls (3 page)

And that was the next stop
, Mary remembered now, her head throbbing as she stared across the Hudson River’s pale, gleaming surface at the haze-choked New Jersey buildings that stood far away, beneath the cold white sky. After dinner with Mom and Ellen, she was supposed to meet Scott at the Midtown library. He was going to be there anyway, he had explained, working on some kind of Advanced Placement research paper or whatever he had said—and Mary was welcome to join him and get a quick prep for the Shama test today.
That was the plan—dinner with Mom (groan) and then a cab ride to the library and one of Scott’s patented tutorials
.

But what happened next? What
really
happened?

Mary still couldn’t remember any of it. Fettuccine, red wine, Mom’s proud, watery eyes—and then, nothing.

Her thumb was already scrolling through the BlackBerry’s contact list, finding Scott’s cell number and dialing it. The phone gave another of its LO BATT chimes, and Mary clenched her teeth in frustration as she raised the handset to her aching head, straining to hear the low hum of Scott’s cell phone ringing.

“Hel—hello?”

Scott’s voice—thank God for small favors
. He sounded groggy; she was pretty sure she’d woken him up.

“Scott!” she began, pressing the phone closer to her ear. “Can you hear me?”

“Wh-what—?”

“It’s Mary,” she went on, more loudly. The connection wasn’t that great—Scott seemed to have dropped out. “You there, Scott? I need your help.”

“Mary—wait,
what?”
Scott sounded profoundly confused, like he was still half-asleep.
“You’re
Mary. What the—What day is it?”

“It’s
Friday,”
Mary said impatiently. This was not going well. Who would have guessed that the smartest kid in school would be such a basket case when he woke up? Some little nerd-wife was going to have to deal with that, sometime—if Scott ever got married, which was doubtful, since he always seemed more interested in equations than girls.
“Friday
, Scott, the day of the
physics test
—the big killer test. We were supposed to meet last night to power-cram, remember?”

“Physics test,” Scott repeated, as if she was speaking a foreign language. “The physics test—of
course
. But—but, holy shit, that’s—”

“It’s
today
, Scott. Come on—will you
wake up
, damn it? Snap
out
of it! This is
serious.”

“Serious,” Scott repeated. It took all of Mary’s self-control not to scream into the phone, to insist that he put his brain back in or perform whatever mysterious morning ritual turned him from this confused zombie into the super-genius she knew. “Right, I was—you were supposed to meet me—I forgot that we were—But—”

“Scott!”
Mary tried again. The phone was dying; there was no getting around that. Mary stared over the cabdriver’s shoulder at the West Side buildings. “Scott, I’m trying to remember last night—what
happened
last night, I mean. I’m blacking out on some of it and I can’t remember if I met you after dinner or—Hello?”

Nothing. Silence. The call was over; the BlackBerry’s glowing display told her the call was ended. LO BATT indeed. As she stared, the phone’s screen went dead.

*   *   *

T
HE TINY FIFTH-FLOOR LANDING
of the Shaynes’ apartment building was warm and dark, filled with the familiar smells of musty air and Pine-Sol cleanser and that faint garlic aroma that never seemed to go away, barely lit by the dim yellow light from what must have been a five-watt bulb within a cracked glass fixture on the brown-painted wall. The ancient elevator door was rolling shut behind Mary as she approached her family’s black front door, enormous borrowed tennis shoes squeaking on the cracked tiles.

What she hoped for, what would have been really ideal, was for Mom to be still asleep and Ellen to be right there, on the other side of the door, loudly moving around as she prepared to leave for school. Pressing her ear against the door, Mary strained to hear, hoping for the familiar sounds of Ellen’s quick footsteps creaking on the floorboards.

Nothing. No such luck. Silence.

Taking a deep breath, Mary raised her fist and pounded on the door.

The dizziness wasn’t quite as bad now, but it was still there. The cold metal of the door was soothing against her cheek. She pressed the doorbell, and heard its piercing buzzer rattling deep inside the apartment, and then the slow, dull padding of her mother’s slipper-covered feet coming closer.

“Just a minute,” Mom called out in her perpetually weak woe-is-me soprano. “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Mom,” Mary said. “Sorry—I don’t have my keys.”

Or my clothes. Or my bag. Or anything else
.

The door’s five latches thumped and clattered as Mom slowly threw them open. Mom did
everything
slowly—Mary and Ellen were used to that. “Just a minute, honey,” Mom called out.

Mary felt herself stiffening as the door swung open. She had watched all her friends get yelled at by their parents at one time or another. Even Joon, whose formal, austere mom and dad seemed to believe that she walked on water—Mary had seen Joon return from Sunday lunch-and-mani-pedi with her own mother and had noticed the dim pain in Joon’s eyes, the ordeal of getting called out by your parents when you were old enough to realize just how little their opinions really mattered but still young enough to feel it in your gut: that unavoidable shame and fear that made it seem like you were five years old again—the last remnant of childhood that you knew—you hoped—you’d finally grow out of, one day.

But for Mary, it was different. Mom
never
yelled at her. Since Dad died there’d never been a single time when Mary could remember her mother scolding her, even mildly. When the usual argument started, like at dinner last night, Mom made her favorite move: she just left. It was like all of Dawn Shayne’s parental instinct—even the occasional desire to play the role of a stern mother—had vanished on that winter day ten years ago when her husband was taken from her.

And honestly, Mary missed it. She hated to admit that—she
loved
to tell her friends about how great it was to have a truly “hands-off” single parent and watch their eyes widen with jealousy at the concept of being
left alone
the way Mary was. But it wasn’t really true.

Now, as Mary’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and her mother stood in front of her in a pale yellow nightgown, her unbrushed graying hair clouded around her head like a dandelion flower gone to seed, Mary knew she wasn’t going to get scolded. No “Where have you been?” No “What happened to you last night?” No nothing.

And, of course, no “Happy birthday”—but you got that last night, remember?
Mary told herself.
You got a whole plate of fettuccine from her. Don’t push your luck
.

“Hi, Mom.” Mary entered the warm apartment, shivering again as the door swung shut. The familiar Mom smells of cigarette smoke and aloe filled Mary’s nostrils. “Um—sorry; I didn’t have my keys.”

“That’s okay, angel,” Mom told her while she slowly twisted the five latches, not looking at her. Mom hadn’t seemed to notice Mary’s bizarre attire or her escaped-maniac wild hair and smeared makeup. “I was awake…. It’s almost time for my meds anyway.”

“Is Ellen still here?” Mary asked, following Mom down the apartment’s narrow corridor, past the kitchen and the hall closet and the study door, which was tightly closed as usual. Dad’s “study”—the apartment’s tiny fourth bedroom—hadn’t changed in a decade, and both Mary and Mom avoided going in there (although Ellen apparently found it a soothing place to read, which was all she ever liked to do). Even after ten years, the unmistakable aroma of Dad’s pipe smoke (Borkum Riff tobacco—Mary still remembered) had barely dissipated; probably nothing short of a fire could remove that distinctive smell from the walls and rugs and furniture in there. The slightest whiff forced a nostalgia trip that Mary was never in the mood for, and she usually found herself holding her breath as she passed the study door. The corridor could have used a paint job—like the rest of the apartment—but nothing like that had happened in a long time. They were living off Dad’s life insurance, which was a good thing, because Mom couldn’t work. The insurance kept them in groceries and necessities, but nobody was hiring any painters anytime soon. “Mom? Is Ellen—”

“I think so; she didn’t say goodbye yet, sweetie.” Mom was moving as quickly as she ever did, back toward her bedroom. She didn’t like to be away from her own bed for longer than absolutely necessary. “I’ve got to take my pills now.”

“Okay, Mom,” Mary said, noticing the line of bright yellow light beneath Ellen’s door that meant her sister was in there. “Thanks.”

And would it kill you to say happy birthday?

Apparently it would. The bedroom door swung shut, the noise echoing in Mary’s still-aching head, and she was alone in the hallway. She turned to Ellen’s door, pushed it open without knocking and propelled herself inside.

“M
Y
G
OD, GIRL
!” E
LLEN
stared at her in surprise, smiling with her eyes wide. “What the hell happened to
you
?”

“That,” Mary said, nodding weakly as she collapsed into Ellen’s desk chair, “is
definitely
the million-dollar question.”

“But what
happened?”
Ellen was covering her mouth, obviously trying not to laugh. This was Ellen Shayne every single morning before school: facedown on the bed, her feet resting on her pillow, her head at the foot of the bed, thrift-store book in her hands, pinky in her mouth and her secondhand laptop open next to her for intellectual blogging. The laptop had been slowly crumbling to pieces, but she managed to hold it together with gaffer’s tape and vintage David Bowie stickers. For some reason, Ellen had recently switched from listening to those unbearable old Kate Bush albums to David Bowie. Even her musical tastes leaned toward ancient history. “Nobody had any
idea
where you were! I had the usual suspects”—Ellen’s cute term for Mary’s friends
—“all
calling me,
all
evening. Amy
Twersky
called; Joon
Park
called….” Ellen ticked them off on her fingers.
It’s almost like they’re
her
friends
, Mary thought bemusedly. Ellen was so used to fielding Mary’s calls, she’d developed her own rapport with the popular seniors Mary hung out with (even though they absolutely weren’t Ellen’s type). “Even
Patrick
couldn’t find you.”

So I wasn’t with any of them
, Mary realized.
Who was I with?

“They each called twice, as usual. You should
see
yourself,” Ellen went on. “You look like—I don’t even know
what
you look like.”

“I know, I know. You wouldn’t believe it. I was—”

“Where
were
you?”

“At Crate and Barrel—I woke up in one of the damned
display beds
at Crate and Barrel. Listen, can you help me figure out—”

Ellen was laughing uncontrollably. “I’m sorry,” she told Mary, shaking her head. “I’m sorry; I don’t mean to laugh. But that’s—I mean, that’s pretty spectacular even for
you
. A
display bed?
Why are you
dressed
like that?”

“I borrowed this from some cleaning lady. Listen, Ellie-belle, this is
serious
—I can’t figure out what happened to me. I mean, I can’t remember any of—”

“‘Borrowed’ like you’ll return it, or Mary Shayne—borrowed?”

Mary shook her head impatiently—which was a mistake, given the lingering, painful fog inside her skull. “We had dinner with Mom at Eduardo’s; I remember that part. But after that”—she spread her hands helplessly—“who knows.”

“Poor Mary.” Ellen pouted, slapping her laptop shut. When Ellen did that, when she made a face like that, Mary could see the ghost outline of her sister’s attractiveness hidden behind her glasses and boring hair.
She’s not as pretty as I am
, Mary thought—she tended to dispense with false modesty inside the privacy of her own mind—
but she’s definitely got something, if she only let herself realize it
.

Mary really didn’t get it. The only crushes her sister ever had were on yellowing history books that she’d found in the dollar bin at the Strand bookstore. The only clothes she ever wore were solid-colored hoodies and cords from the Gap. It was a shame, too, because Ellie could have been pretty if she’d just been willing to try the tiniest bit. She actually looked a little like Mary, but with her dark hair always cut in a shapeless bob (Ellen called it practical), and her refusal to wear makeup (Ellen called it
naturale)
, it was hard to see the similarity.

It wasn’t the first time Mary had thought that, but she’d learned not to bring it up. Ellen didn’t react well to discussions of her appearance. She didn’t think it was important. She wanted to be judged as who she
was
, damn it, she kept telling Mary, not by what she looked like. The hidden rebuke was hard to miss, but Mary politely ignored it. Ellen wasn’t interested in boys or clothes or anything like that, and Mary had stopped trying to change her mind.

The only boy Ellen ever spent time with was Dylan something, a quiet intellectual type she’d met at—big shocker—a book fair near Columbia University. On those few occasions when Mary had seen Scruffy Dylan in the kitchen, he had been so painfully quiet that she’d thought he was an exchange student. Mary had repeatedly explained to Ellen that having a male best friend—even if Scruffy Dylan
was
, technically, an Ivy League freshman—was the absolute kiss of death if she wanted to land a guy, but Ellen didn’t care, since she wasn’t in the market for a boyfriend.

“Okay, let’s be systematic,” Ellen began wearily. “You remember Eduardo’s—”