Her suspicions were strengthened a moment later when Stasietugged a powder-blue wool sweater out of one bag and held it up to her chest. It was crocheted to look like a heap of snowflakes had joined hands to make a shirt. Pearl drops decorated the round collar. “What do you think?”
“It’s got holes in it,” Ellory pointed out. “It can’t be very warm.”
“It’s meant to bestylish,” Stasie said, rolling her eyes. “Luxury sweaters are wasted on the poor.”
“A sweater can be stylishandpractical—”
“Are you going to be in here all day?”
As always, Ellory had already failed the Stasie O’Connor test required to earn basic human respect. Stasie unpacked her clothes with the put-upon attitude of a wine mom who had found her prosecco bottle empty when she needed it most. If Ellory stayed, the rest of her night would be filled with eye rolls and passive-aggressive grunts from Stasie’s side of the room.
“I could finish this up in the library,” Ellory said, saving and closing her document, “ifyou answer a question for me.”
Stasie paused in the middle of folding an oversize scarf. “You couldn’t afford it even if I told you.”
“It’s about your family, not your clothes.” Ellory took a moment to grab her temper with both hands and force it to a standstill. “Do you know an Arthur O’Connor?”
“My dad or my grandfather?”
“Um, your grandfather.”
“We call himArtie. Well,Icall himPop-Pop, but…” Stasie frowned. “Why?”
“I’m working on an article for the paper, and, as he’s a former dean of the university, I thought he might be able to help me. Do you have his number?”
“I’m not giving you Pop-Pop’s phone number. He’d have my head.”
Ellory resisted the urge to record the conversation, if only because she would have to notify Stasie that she was doing so and Stasie would definitely stop talking if she did. “So, you two aren’t close?”
“If I asked for your mom’s personal phone number, would you give it to me?”
Ellory swiftly changed tactics. “Your family’s prestigious. I want to make sure I’m talking to all the right people.”
There was a brief silence, during which Ellory could tell that Stasie was turning those words over for any sign of ridicule. She kept her expression open and her smile as genuine as possible, waiting Stasie out. This was a girl who had introduced herself as a member of the house of O’Conor, who had the O’Conor crest as one of her wall decorations, who took her family very seriously. Too seriously, if you asked Ellory, but that had never been her problem before now.
It seemed like ages before Stasie’s face softened. “I mean, I guess I could get you in touch with my parents while I see if Pop-Pop even wants to talk to you.”
Her eyes were bright with pleasure, as if the key to the intricate lock of her personality had been flattery all along. Ellory supposed she should have figured that out sooner.
“That would be amazing,” she simpered. “You’re the best, Stasie.”
“I know.” Stasie went back to folding her clothes. Then she glared in Ellory’s direction. “Now get out.”
Interlude
From the moment a child is born, they begin to forget.
Life is a series of memories formed and lost, experiences repressed and replaced. Parents catalog first words and first steps, bronzing childhoods to keep in stasis. Friends remember jokes that last longer than the friendships. Trauma enters the bloodstream and pumps beneath the skin, creating muscle memory from a moment the conscious mind has long forgotten.
Even when reduced to ash, the embers of memory still burn bright. A scent can unfurl a forgotten dream. A slant of sunlight can spark a repeated conversation. The sound of laughter can draw out a riddle without a punch line.
Perhaps that is all déjà vu is in the end: a spark of memory, adding color to the portrait of the world. A kind of natural magic that begs the practitioner to think, to feel, to be—again and again and again. We exist in a world that demands too much of some and too little of others, but in this we are all made equal. We live to forget. We forget to live. We capture special moments in our palmsand cling to them until they slip through our fingers, a daily sensation so normalized that we don’t even notice the loss.
But without those ephemeral experiences that make up the fabric of a soul, who do we become?
24
Omicron Chi Lambda partied like they had invented it. Liam helped Ellory out of the passenger seat, and her sneakers immediately flattened an abandoned water bottle that shot brown droplets of liquor into the gutter. She had worn a mesh corset top, black with pale pink floral embroidery, and a pair of high-waisted black jeans. Her shoulders and belly button were freezing, but Tai had assured her that the inside of the frat house would be like a furnace.
