We ate our greasy food and drank our coffee and shot the shit for the better part of an hour, the knot in my chest loosening up just the slightest bit as Hall & Oates crooned from the speakers overhead. Holiday was right, probably. Her father taught criminology at Harvard; she had a bloodhound’s nose for a mystery, and loved one more than anyone else I knew. She’d been the one to push us forward on the Vineyard, not to mention the one who’d ultimately cracked the whole thing wide open, and if she said there was nothing here to see, I knew it wasn’t because she wasn’t interested. It was because there was nothing here to see.
So why couldn’t I shake the feeling that something wasn’t right?
It was almost midnight by the time I walked her back to her dorm, the night air damp on the back of my neck as a rat darted furtively under a car across the street. “You realize you don’t have to do this,” Holiday told me as we sidestepped a mountain range of black garbage bags oozing slime all over the curb. “I’m fine to get back on my own.”
I waved her off. “You and I both know my mom would cut my nuts off if she found out I let you walk home by yourself this late,” I reminded her. It was factually correct, maybe, but it was also the truth that I didn’t want to say goodnight to her just yet. We’d spent all summer breathing each other’s air, eating butter and jam bagels from Forge and playing Scrabble on her parents’ back patio; I forgot sometimes, when I didn’t see her for a while, how much better things were when I did.
“So here’s a question,” Holiday said as we rounded the corner, the marquee of the Colonial winking cheerfully down the block. “Are you around the Friday before Thanksgiving? I’m in ashowcase here, a musical theater thing down in the cabaret in my building. I’m singing a song fromBridges of Madison County.”
“Isn’t that a movie?” I asked.
“It’s a musical too,” she explained. “It only ran for a few months on Broadway; the music is beautiful but not terribly commercial, and in the current theater climate— Anyway.” She shook her head. “I’m the only first year they picked, so.”
“Seriously?” I raised my eyebrows. “That’s awesome, Holiday.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Holiday said with a shrug. “But if you’re around, you should come. Assuming of course that you can take some time away from your jam-packed schedule of goldfish eating.”
I winced. “You heard about that too, huh?”
“I may have.”
“Well,” I said, rubbing at my neck as we slowed to a stop at the entrance to her building. “I’m busy, but I’m not that busy. I’ll definitely be there.”
“Okay,” she said with a smile. “It’s a date.”
I said my goodnights, then looked both ways before crossing the street in the direction of the T stop. I’d almost reached the entrance when she called out. “Hey, Michael!” she hollered, her voice loud in the late-night quiet. “Murder or not: I’m glad you texted.”
I grinned at her in the green glow of the traffic light, then turned and headed down into the dark mouth of the tunnel. Murder or not, I was glad I had too.
7
Thursday, 10/31/24–Friday, 11/1/24
Greer invited me over to the suite to pregame Bri’s memorial service.
“Towhat,now?” I asked, laughing a little nervously. We were walking across campus, the sun setting above the science buildings; I’d picked her up from her last class of the day. It was Halloween, though neither of us was feeling particularly festive. The air smelled like woodsmoke and leaves.
“You heard me.” She shrugged, lips twisting. For the first time since Bri died, there was a little spark of mischief in her expression. “We decided it’s what she would have liked.”
Itwasundeniably on-brand, as far as tributes went; still: “You sure you want me there?” I asked. “I get if you guys want to have, like, girl time.”
Greer nodded. “You showed up for me in a big way this week, Linden. For the whole suite, really, but especially for me.” She reached over and took my hand, lacing our fingers together. “Like it or not, you’re in it now. You’re one of us.”
“Richard Gere pregame for life,” I joked.
“Exactly.”
We followed the winding path back toward Hemlock, passing a group of girls made up like the Kardashians and a cluster of grad students dressed as DNA. The Grim Reaper scuttled silently up behind us, scythe held like a flag in the air, and I shuddered before I could quell the impulse. I’d been expecting to feel less rattled after my conversation with Holiday—if she said I was reaching, then I was reaching, end of story—but instead, I’d spent the whole day turning that note over in my head, reading it again and again until the paper had gone soft and damp in my hands. I couldn’t shake the notion that something wasn’t right, that there was something about Bri’s death that I wasn’t seeing clearly.
I was obsessing, that was all. I needed to let it go.
The service was scheduled for noon on Friday. I went over to the suite around eleven and found the five of them clustered on the couch in the common room, passing a bottle of Fireball back and forth. “We started without you,” Margot informed me, holding her shot glass up in a salute.
I nodded seriously. “I see that.”
I watched as Dagny poured a shot of cinnamon whiskey into a coffee mug, then handed it over to me before raising the bottle. “To Bri,” she said, waving it with a little flourish. “We miss you, you wild bird.”
“You bright light,” Greer added.
