7 Souls (9 page)

“What do you mean?” Mary was afraid she’d slurred, but she was pretty sure she’d gotten the words out all right. Dylan had changed into a charcoal-gray suit, which he wore with another white oxford—ironed this time—and no tie. It wasn’t a bad look for him, she conceded. His hair, on the other hand, was awful; he’d clearly taken the Scruffy Dylan remarks to heart and had tried to tame it with gel, or just with water. At least she could see his face clearly now. High cheekbones and a strong nose and jaw. He had shaved; that made a difference too. “What do you mean, ‘You don’t need me to tell you that’?”

“I mean,” Dylan said, leaning forward, toying with his glass of scotch, “that you’re fully aware of how pretty you are.”

“Oh, hardly,” Mary muttered, shaking her head.

Dylan’s eyes widened.

“What? What’s wrong?” Mary was afraid she’d slurred her words. Why was she so nervous?
He
was the one who was supposed to be nervous.

“You can’t be serious,” Dylan objected. “Half the people in this restaurant are looking at you like you’re either famous or you’re about to be. I bet it took you two minutes to get ready for this date.”

“Not exactly.” She recalled the two hours she’d spent with Joon and Amy, meticulously creating tonight’s Mary Shayne from the ground up. “Don’t let your eyes fool you.”

“On the subject of beauty, I trust my eyes.”

Mary had nothing to say to that. Dylan had stumped her, that fast—she hadn’t even seen it coming. It was like he’d anticipated the whole game of complimenting a girl’s looks and decided to skip it, to just get past it.
I’m supposed to object
, she thought.
To argue the point; to get him to compliment me some more
.

Or was it that she
needed
him to compliment her?

“If you spent more than two minutes,” Dylan went on, “then I wonder about your priorities or your sanity. I mean, wouldn’t you rather move on to more interesting topics? I’ll bet you get tired of everything being about how you look.”

Leaning forward, she moved her lips to the enormous martini glass, trying to take the first precarious sip without spilling the drink or making an audible slurping noise. The vodka was smooth and fiery; the lime peel was barely there, like a gossamer wisp of citrus against a sky of pure, clean alcohol. On top of all the wine she’d drunk at Amy’s, it hit her like a hammer.

“Well—well, yes and no.”

But I’m lying
.

“Yes.” She changed her answer. “Yes, I’m tired of it.
Really
tired of it.”

Her head wasn’t exactly spinning, but she noticed that she was speaking carefully, making sure not to slur her words.
It’s been the same thing all day
, she thought resignedly.
It’s that same mystery hangover from last night—it never went away. It just laid low. But now it’s back
.

“Is the drink all right?” Dylan seemed concerned. “Do you want something else?”

“No, the drink is—the drink’s fine,” Mary said quickly.

What’s the matter with me? I’ve done this before
.

This wasn’t even close to being Mary’s first date, or her first martini, or her first conversation. But, somehow, sitting at Aquagrill facing Dylan Summer, the boy who, before today, she’d never spoken one word to, it was like the first time for all those things. She wasn’t sure why—and the tipsiness wasn’t helping—but she felt like she had lost whatever conversational skills she’d ever had to begin with.

He’s not a kid
, Mary realized.
That’s what’s different
.

Which was ridiculous, because he
was
a kid; he couldn’t be more than a year older than she was, if that. Nevertheless, he seemed … older. He’d found a way out. He wasn’t
trapped
in his life, like she was. It wasn’t just that he’d already had his high school graduation and had turned himself into one of the intense intellectuals she saw on the rare occasions when she walked north of 100th Street up in Morningside Heights.
He got out
, she thought.
He found a way out of the trap
.

Mary wasn’t sure what she meant by that.

“You’re right,” she said suddenly, pointing at Dylan (and
just
missing knocking over her drink, which would have been very bad). “You’re, like,
exactly
right. It’s
not interesting
.”

“‘The true mystery of the world,’” Dylan said, “‘is the visible, not the invisible.’”

“What?”

“Nothing; it’s Oscar Wilde.” Dylan looked embarrassed. “Sorry. I told myself I wouldn’t start pulling out quotations. That I wouldn’t ask what’s going on between you and Ellen. But I guess I just did. Sorry.”

“No, that’s okay,” Mary said, taking another sip of her martini—the level had gone down enough that her panicked fear of spilling vodka and vermouth all over herself was abating. “It’s nothing. Mom’s got this thing—you heard us talking on the roof, right?—she’s got this thing about our dad. He died, like, ten years ago, and she never really got over it. She always brings up the day he died, which I guess was traumatic or something.”

“Well, that’s understandable, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but”—Mary took another sip of her martini—“she wants
me
to talk about it, and, you know, I’d love to oblige her, but I just don’t remember it.”

“Sometimes people block out difficult memories so they can’t—”

Mary shook her head firmly. “I don’t remember it. I was seven years old and it’s just a total blank. I don’t have a good memory
anyway
, you know, but Mom just won’t accept that. She thinks I’m doing it on purpose. And Ellen takes her side. Always reminds me that she was
six
and hasn’t forgotten.” Mary finished, swallowing the fiery vodka and shaking her head. “That’s it. End of family drama.”

She was seeing the house in the field again, just like that—the restaurant and Dylan and the big martini glass and the avocado-colored tablecloth and the piped-in piano jazz were gone. Her feet were freezing in the deep snow and the house was facing her like a black wedge, its eaves sharp like a knife’s edge against the deep indigo sky. A forest was nearby, bare winter trees whose branches clutched at the sky like skeletal hands. The wind howled and screamed and the snow fell and the hole was open now, the deep, collapsing hole in the snow, like a drain, like a doorway to the underworld, from which that unearthly moan wafted toward her through the wind, and the black hands reached out toward her, fingers groping like skeletal tree branches stripped bare by the frost.

And then it changed. For the first time all day, the vision (or whatever it was) changed and Mary felt the cold air engulf her like arctic ice as she cowered in the snow, surrounded by nothing but moonlight and barren winter, heart nearly stopping in terror because she wasn’t alone. A giant figure, limned by moonlight, loomed over her, leaning down like a toppling granite statue—reaching for her.

Mary tried to pull away, tried to run, but she couldn’t move. The huge man-shaped silhouette drew closer, its arm reaching forward, and she realized that its extended hand was holding something toward her—a thin rectangle that glowed in the moonlight. A piece of paper—a note. There was writing on the note, which Mary couldn’t read in the dark, but it was like all the forces of the universe converged on that single page.

“Mary?” Dylan was looking at her, frowning in concern. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to—I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Just like that, it was gone.

Something wrong with my brain
, she’d told the Chadwick nurse.

(Nothing
happened—
you met some people and killed some brain cells
.)

“What? No—you didn’t offend me at all. I’m sorry you had to see—” Just then her BlackBerry rang, its warbled chime muffled by her purse. “Just a second,” she told Dylan, raising a finger. She reached into her bag and extracted the phone, looking at its display.

DAWES, PATRICK

“Oh, give me a break.” Mary sighed heavily. The number was Trick’s cell phone; no way to tell where he was or what he was doing.

Don’t answer it
, Mary thought.
Don’t even think about it
.

But she had to—that was the thing. She had to because she was on a date; he was interrupting her date and she just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tell Trick that she was out with a college boy, and so sorry, Trick, whatever you want, it will have to wait.

“I’m sorry,” Mary told Dylan. “Do you mind? This will just take a second.”

Dylan was sipping his scotch. He seemed totally unconcerned. He raised his eyebrows, swallowed. “No, that’s fine. Go right ahead.”

The BlackBerry was making another of its incredibly loud rumbling chimes as she hit the Talk button and lifted it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Come get your stuff.”

Whatever semblance of a good mood Mary had been in collapsed like a house of cards.
You’ve got to be kidding
, she thought.
Trick, you asshole, you
know
you’re interrupting my date, don’t you?

And behind that, another, infinitely sadder thought:
It’s over. It’s really over
.

“Patrick, this really isn’t a good time,” Mary said quietly. Dylan didn’t seem to be listening; he’d taken another sip of scotch and was leaning back in his chair, gazing serenely across the restaurant. “I’m actually in the middle of someth—”

“Come get your stuff,” Patrick repeated. “Right now, or I’m throwing it in the street.”

“Are you serious?” Mary couldn’t believe her ears. The half-drunk martini was swimming inside of her, and for a moment she was afraid she was about to vomit it back up. “Right now?”

“Right
now,” Patrick confirmed.

And hung up.

Well, how about that
, Mary thought dully.
A perfect end to a perfect day
.

So what do I do?

But she knew the answer to that. She had to go up there. She knew Trick well enough to know he wasn’t kidding. If he said he’d throw her stuff in the street, he meant it.

“Dylan,” Mary said, “listen. This is really awful. But I’ve—I’ve got to go.”

“What?” Dylan looked surprised, and maybe irritated—but only for a moment. Then he just looked concerned. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh—” Mary waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah. Everything’s
fine
. It’s—it’s my ex. He’s, like, throwing a little emo tantrum, I guess. I have to go get my stuff. He wants me to do it now.”

“Get your stuff—I don’t understand. You
live
with this guy?”

“No, I just”—she stammered awkwardly—“I’ve left a lot of stuff at his—his hotel suite. He lives in a hotel suite.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” Dylan remarked. He was folding his napkin and gesturing for a waiter. “Look, let me come with you.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Mary said.

And it could be a really bad idea
.

But then, she realized, it could be a
good
idea, too.

She was gazing across the table at Dylan, at his suit and manner and freshly shaved face, imagining how he’d look to Patrick’s jealous eyes.
Maybe I’ve got that wrong; maybe it’s a really good idea
.

“I’m really sorry,” Mary said. “Like, I’m
really
sorry, Dylan. If I’d known he was going to—”

Dylan shook his head. “You’re sorry; I get it. Finish your drink and let’s get out of here. We’ll get dinner somewhere else.”

“With all my stuff,” Mary added, smiling and reaching for her glass.

“Sure.” Dylan smiled. “We can find a place that’s BYOL—bring your own laundry.”

“Well—come on,” Mary said, slurring. “Let’s get this over with.”

A
S
D
YLAN STOOD PATIENTLY
beside her in the hotel elevator, Mary noticed that he didn’t seem to mind what was going on. He didn’t seem to have much of an opinion about it at all beyond mild bemusement.

When they’d arrived in front of the Peninsula on Fifth Avenue, he’d insisted on paying for the cab. Ordinarily, she would have taken things like that for granted—of
course
the boy pays for the cab—but for some reason it seemed different when Dylan did it, like he was going out of his way to do something nice rather than just performing his accepted role. She had thanked him, making lingering eye contact to emphasize that she meant it, but he’d just smiled that absent smile and shaken his head, wordlessly dismissing his own chivalry as the cab sped away.

A few moments later, as Mary led them beneath the billowing flags and between the entryway’s massive, over-carved columns, guided by three months’ worth of habit, Dylan continued to be unmoved by his surroundings, sparing the gilded, ornate lobby a curious glance, and not commenting. It was so different from Patrick’s behavior—from the way
all
the boys that she knew acted—that she was disoriented and didn’t know how to react. Dylan wasn’t behaving in a disaffected way. He wasn’t “behaving” any way at all. Right now, standing next to her in the elevator, hands in his trouser pockets, his hair resuming its natural crazy shape after his misguided attempts to comb it, he seemed so calm and centered that he was actually calming
her
down. She caught herself glancing at his profile, his strong nose and chin, wondering how he could be so serene.

It really was new to her.

The elevator chimed and the gold door slid open. Mary led Dylan onto the bloodred carpeting of the seventeenth-floor corridor, her throat and chest tightening again.
This is the last time I’ll be here
, she thought.
The last time ever—I’ll walk out with garbage bags full of clothes, with the concierges watching me like I’m a homeless wastrel being ejected from the premises, and then I’ll never come back
.

“This way,” she told Dylan, pointing down the dim corridor at Patrick’s suite. She took a deep, shaky breath—
Let’s get this over with
—and strode purposefully forward, toward whatever ugly confrontation awaited.