“It went well,” I replied. “Intelligent questions this time around.”
Translation—the discussion was entirely professional and focused on archeology. No questions about my personal life, my ‘hotness factor’ or my odd clothing choices.
“Good.” Tennyson rubbed a hand against the portion of his left thigh attached to the prosthetic. “So . . . I had a vision about Chiara earlier.”
Tennyson dropped the comment casually, as if it weren’t a verbal bomb designed to get my full attention.
I barely avoided flinching at the sound ofhername. Tennyson smiled, far too knowing. I was definitely transparent in more than one way.
I had distanced myself emotionally from Chiara. Not a difficult task, as she had kicked me out. My phantom heart clenched in my chest.
I had seen her only a handful of times over the past year. Each time, our interaction had been the same—strained and polite until one of us broke and then it was verbal fireworks.
I was determined to put both D’Angelo women—Sofia and Chiara—behind me.
And, generally, I had been successful.
Well, most of the time.
Usually.
Fine. Maybe I winced every now and again when I heard Chiara’s name. I couldn’t claim indifference toward her. I looked forward to the day when I would see Chiara and feel . . . nothing.
Goals.
But as part of me obviously cared, I asked, “What did you see? In your vision?”
Tennyson’s eyes went unfocused as he replayed the scene mentally. “Chiara hunched over a tablet screen. I got the sense that it was her boyfriend’s tablet, not hers. She was busily tapping through things. For some reason, there was a Mickey Mouse doll sitting next to her. It was weird.”
Tennyson shook his head before continuing.
“But as a vision, it was fairly typical Chiara behavior.” Tennyson’s voice was so very dry. “You know her last boyfriend dumped her because she was looking through his email?”
Yes. Chiara would do that. Curiosity and secrets were absolute kryptonite for her. She struggled to keep out of others’ personal business.
It was her greatest strength and biggest weakness.
Chiara loved being involved. If she encountered a complete stranger with a problem, she would make phone calls and google solutions. She had spent weeks chasing answers to my ghostly state before pointing out, rightly so, that maybe I needed to step back from it for a while. She nearly single-handedly kept Nonna sane and healthy, and she was constantly helping her mother and brothers. Sheneededto be needed.
The problem? Chiara didn’t know when to stop. The line between altruistic helpfulness and intrusive prying was vague at best for her.
“I wonder at what point we insist she get help for her issues. Maybe we should stage an intervention.” Tennyson stretched out his good leg. The resulting something—air waves? ripples in space?—caused the scar to flutter. “But back to you. What are you going to do about the sudden media attention? Don’t think I haven’t seen all those online comments.”
Tennyson’s grin could best be described as salacious.
If I had a body, I would have blushed. Media outlets had been harassing me for months to do an in-person interview. I had done several phone interviews but obviously nothing face-to-face.
And then that dratted photo had surfaced.
The occasional polite interview request had turned into a torrent of emails, phone calls, posts and tweets.
What was I going to do? I gave the only possible answer: “Nothing.”
Tennyson snorted. “I’m not entirely sure ‘nothing’ is an effective strategy. All it’s going to take is one member of the paparazzi snapping a photo that shows your translucent state, and we’ll have a much larger problem on our hands.”
“If I do nothing to feed the frenzy, it will die a natural death. It’s the only solution. I am still a ghost.” I swept a hand down my chest.
Tennyson grunted and dropped the topic. He moved on to talking about another upcoming podcast, massaging his leg as he spoke. I only half listened.
