Oona crossed the room and sat on the other side of Bear. Lemon got up from the spot where she had settled and came over to nudge her way in.
“You were just a kid,” Oona said. “A scared kid, so some of the details of what happened… I think it would be good for you to talk to Alex about this, set the record straight. But I can tell you one thing that I know. You are not a burden to Alex. He loves you so much.”
I turned my chin on Bear’s back to look at her.
“Somuch,” Oona said. “So much that it’s hard to believe there’s any room left for me. But I want so much to… to nose my way in, like this dog.” She grabbed Lemon’s muzzle and gave it a gentle wag.
“You don’t have to nose in.” I wiped at my face with my sleeve, feeling every bit the six-year-old. “Alex said he was sure about you. And you know he doesn’t make declarations.”
“Understatement,” she said.
“And he doesn’t lie, at least not very well. He usually can’t keep secrets, either.”
“I’m a bad influence,” she said, smiling.
“He needs prompting,” I said. “He hardly ever gets an idea on his own…” Which made me curious about something. I swiped at my nose again. “Whose idea was it for me to move in here?”
“I thought we could be friends,” Oona said. “I wanted to try, anyway. I didn’t realize how much it would cost me. In cereal.”
We grinned at each other.
“I borrowed your hair dryer, too,” I said.
“I know,” she said.
“How? I put it back!”
“You didn’t wrap the cord up right.”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. But I heard your ghost, when I was grabbing it. She was really going to town. How do yousleep?”
“Itoldyou,” Oona said. She reached over the dogs to brush my hair away from my face. “But she’s not my ghost, dollface. I’m pretty sure she’s yours, if you want her.”
43
Oona happily lent me her cell phone—fully charged? What a world!—to call Sicily. I scrounged for a tissue for my runny nose and the sticky note the kid had left me and dialed her number, apprehensive. But did anyone pick up for a number they didn’t know?
No one except maybe a girl hoping to hear from her missing mother.
I got Sis’s voicemail and was caught flat-footed to leave a message trying to warn her about Edith but without too many specifics that might send her straight into trouble, demanding answers. What came out was ramble: vague warnings of danger and not trusting anyone, even family, and I realized as I was still talking that I sounded tin-hat paranoid and also had implicated myself as well as her other mother. Was this a helpful call at all? If the kid wasn’t in therapy for her anxiety, this would send her.
“Call the tavern as soon as you can,” I said just as the system cut out.
Should I call back? How much babbling would she put up with? I’d just have to try her again once I’d learned more from Quin’s friend.
I hung up and reached under my pillow, giving it a long, lustful gaze. Had it been a month since I’d put my song fragments under there? How many nights since I’d had any sleep? My eyes stung,wanting to close, but I couldn’t curl up with the dogs right now, as much as I wanted to. The band was still waiting on me.
I grabbed a pair of Joey’s thick socks and changed into fresh clothes, another of Alex’s stolen oversized sweaters, a pair of leggings. Then I tucked the notes for my most promising song into my pocket, grabbed my sweet Peggy Lee by the neck, and went to return the phone to Oona, from whom I received a sworn promise to be down in five minutes to help Alex behind the bar. On my way out, I kiss-kissed for the dogs, reached into the jar of Wufers treats, threw one each before they charged at me, and took the hall at a dead run.
I swung open the door. At the bottom of the stairs, the door to the alley stood wide open.
If the alley door was brokenagain—
But it was just open. The air was freezing cold and thick with fumes.
Fumes.
I hustled down the rest of the stairs and stuck my head out into the alley. Sure enough: the white delivery truck with the canted front grille and the junk spare sat in the alley, running, no one at the wheel.
