I hesitated. “Just some guy I work with. The hotel van driver.”
“Interesting.”
“What is?”
“Nothing. It’s funny what you can tell about someone’s thoughts when you pay attention. The way their voice changes. The way they avoid your eyes.”
“I’m not avoiding your eyes.” I was. “He’s just a boy. It’s complicated. I don’t want to talk about it.”
I shouldn’t have mentioned him. I’m not even sure why I did. If Grandpa knew what I did... His mind and spirit were far more rational and modern than Grandma’s had been, but he’d still be disappointed. And—worse—he’d question my ability to make good decisions for myself. What if Daniel had been a bad person? Ted Bundy was charming, after all. What if I’d ended up dead in a ditch or stuffed into someone’s refrigerator? It’s not as if I hadn’t thought those things myself. But if Grandpa thought them, he would make me quit the hotel job. Talking him into the idea of me working the graveyard shift in the city wasn’t easy—Aunt Mona had to get involved, reminding him that I grew up in that neighborhood and that the walk from the hotel to the pedestrian bridge to the ferry terminal was only two blocks on a busy, well-lit, well-patrolled street. But he’d finally caved because he trusted my judgment. He had faith that I’d be mindful of my surroundings, that I’d be cautious—that I wouldn’t be lured into a proverbial ice cream truck by a stranger with a fruity rainbow pop.
I was supposed to be smarter than that.
What neither of us took into account was the rush of excitement that came with my newfound freedom. Or my rabid curiosity. Or Daniel’s infectious smile.
“Well, I’m sure Mona will get an earful about this Daniel boy. Lord knows you could never talk to your grandmother about these things when she was alive,” Grandpa said, wistful.
“Too late now,” I said bluntly. “She’s gone.”
“None of us are ever really gone, sweetheart.”
I’d heard that from him a hundred times. My grandmother had been religious. However, Grandpa veered toward angel sightings and UFOs and people communicating with their long-lost Aunt Margie from Topeka. Too much talk radio was probably to blame. He used to listen in his room after midnight while Grandma was sleeping. Sometimes he’d let me stay up with him, reading mystery books and scrolling through my phone while he built model ships at his work desk.
That was the first time I realized how satisfying rebellion could be, even quiet ones.
“Birdie?” Grandpa said. “Did you hear me?”
“Sorry,” I said, mentally wiping away my stray thoughts. “What were you saying?”
“Did you want to walk down to the supermarket with me?”
“Think I’ll just crash, if that’s okay.”
“First days are tough. Tomorrow will be better.” He touched the flower above my ear, a touch as soft as the wind, and the faraway look in his eye told me that he was thinking of my mother. His daughter. The person who kept us apart and brought us together.
“Look at you, being independent. You’re growing up so fast. Too fast, maybe. But you’re handling all of this just fine,” he said. “Your mother would be so proud of you.”
I hoped so.
When Grandpa left to go shopping, I gathered the remains of breakfast and headed up the creaky wooden staircase. The only full bathroom in the house sat at the top of the stairs; my bedroom was next to it. When Grandma died, Grandpa moved his stuff out of the master bedroom and into the spare room, across the landing from mine. That’s where all his books and model ships were, and where he slept. And now that no one was on the other side of my bedroom wall, I finally felt as if I had some privacy.
Gray morning light suffused my room, softening the harsh lines of my canopy bed and brightening the wild colors of the paintings lining my walls. Aunt Mona was an artist—a really good one, who had her work sold in Seattle galleries—and she’d painted me a dozen whimsical portraits over the years. Sherlock Holmes. Hercule Poirot. Nick and Nora Charles. Columbo. And Nancy Drew.
She even painted one of my mother. That portrait hung alongside a couple of old photographs near my bedroom vanity set, next to a framed poster of Billie Holiday circa 1946, with her iconic white flower in her hair. That’s where I got the idea to wear flowers myself. And now I unpinned the stargazer lily from my hair and set it next to a vase filled with a dozen more before tossing my socks in a laundry hatch that led downstairs to the laundry room—one of the perks of an old home. Then I grabbed the laptop from my desk, where it teetered atop my vintage Smith Corona typewriter, and stretched out on my bed.
Daniel Aoki. I pressed enter in the search field and began scrolling. Not much to see. Nothing in images, just some random guys with the same name. A few social media accounts popped up, and one of them may have been his—profile pic was a poster of Houdini and a brief bio: “Stop asking if I’m okay”—but it was private. I’d have to send a request to the account holder to see it, and no way was I doing that. The only other thing I found was his name listed at a Seattle comic shop for winning some kind of gaming event, but that was three years ago.
Who are you, Daniel Aoki?
And who was I that rainy afternoon in the diner, throwing myself at him like I didn’t have a care in the world?
My gaze lit on a wall of bookshelves crammed with mystery novels, their jagged spines like crooked teeth. Most of them were dime-store paperbacks, but I had two complete sets of the entire Nancy Drew series—the original volumes, which used to belong to my mom, with unedited text, in which Nancy was flippant and daring, and the revised 1960s editions with yellow spines, in which Nancy became coolheaded and a little too perfect.
The original ones were the best.
I used to keep my grittier crime novels hidden in the back of my walk-in closet, because good girls weren’t supposed to be reading about serial killers and sex and crime. When Grandma passed, I had a small breakdown over those hidden books, because it felt like I’d been keeping secrets from her. Being rebellious, just like my mom had been—at least, that’s what I’d imagined she’d think if she ever found them.
Grief causes irrational thoughts.
