Sam turned to Alice. “Why don’t you spend the night here by yourself if you don’t believe it, if you’re so brave?”
Sam was the only one in the group who ever challenged Alice outright when she was already mad, and even that was rare enough that it still caught her off guard.
“No problemo,” Alice said.
“When will you do it?” Sam said.
“I’ll do it tonight if you’re so worried about it.”
A spider traversed the floor before Alice, and she flicked it with her index finger, really sent it soaring.
Jimmy said to Sam, “Cool your jets, man. She doesn’t have to do it.” Then Jimmy looked at Alice. “You don’t have to do it.”
Alice ignored him and turned to Sally. “I’ll tell my mom I’m going to be at your house,” she said, “if anybody asks.”
Sally nodded. It was a safe bet and had worked before—Alice’s mother disliked Sally’s mother (all of their mothers disliked Sally’s mother) and would never seek her out to confirm the story.
“I’ll go home right now, tell my mom I’m going over to your place, pack my bag, and spend the night here,” Alice said.
“How will we know?” Sam said.
“Know what?”
“How will we know you spent a whole night—that you didn’t just go home later?”
Alice scowled at him. “Whoever doesn’t believe me can show up, any time of the night. I’m gonna lock the door to keep the raccoons out, but you can peek right in the window, see for yourselves, or give a knock. I’ll stay until dawn, so if you don’t believe me, come on down and pay me a visit.”
She sent a mean look around the circle. Sam was grinning. He was pleased with himself—he had gotten under her skin, and he knew it. Alice shoved her middle finger up into the air between them.
Then she screwed the cap back onto the bottle of Popov and rolled it over toward one of the mattresses at the side of the room. She would save the rest of the liquor for later that night, to put herself to sleep. The sound the plastic bottle made rolling gently across the hardwood floor was hollow and cool, like a conch to the ear.
Alice returned to The Gunner House an hour or two later. The others had all gone home for the night. In her backpack, she had a Buffalo Bills throw pillow, a sandwich, a flashlight, a Snickers bar, a disposable camera, a bottle of Coke, and the latest issue of Time magazine. She identified the least smelly mattress, which she would sleep on. She paged through the magazine, ate the sandwich, and swallowed Popov until she was nearly blind. Then she stumbled outside for a final pee.
Back inside, Alice locked the front door with the dead bolt. It provided the only access to the house—the back door was fully boarded over.
She lay down with the throw pillow at her cheek, her backpack on the ground next to her, and slept almost immediately.
Alice woke to soft yellow sunlight through the east window and sat up on the mattress. She rubbed her eyes. She was parched, and nauseous. She reached for the warm Coke and guzzled half the bottle. She stared around the room. That was nothing, she thought. I could do it for a week! That’s what she would report to her chickenshit friends later. She threw the empty bottle of Popov across the room so it plunked off the far wall, and this sound activated a terrible headache. She ate the Snickers bar. She stuffed the pillow into her backpack and went home, eager to report the experience to her friends.
It was a success—they were all very impressed. Alice was the hero and the center of attention, and nobody said another word about that ghost.
Several months later, when Alice had filled up her disposable camera, she dropped it off at the neighborhood Rite Aid where Lynn’s mom worked. The film was packed with summer adventures: long days at Woodlawn Beach, Lynn’s piano recital, backyard fires, Jimmy’s infected toe, a baby goat at the Erie County Fair, an impressive stash of empty liquor bottles at The Gunner House.
The next day, Alice paid for her developed photographs and took them home. She opened the pack in her room and leafed happily through the prints.
Two-thirds of the way through the pack, Alice reached a photo that immediately sent ice whooshing through her. She stared at the photo. It was of her, sleeping on the mattress at The Gunner House, backpack unzipped and on the ground next to her, Buffalo Bills throw pillow at her cheek, hands clasped at her chin, flash activated so that her white body shone.
Her chest tightened and went hot with the effort of not screaming. Her heart slammed out of her ears. She stared at the photo of her sleeping self and felt the urge to vomit, so she ran to the bathroom and was unable to empty herself, but she heaved and coughed until her throat roared with pain.
Sally’s words about ghosts from months earlier sprang fresh to Alice’s mind now. What if ghosts think they’re the real ones, and we’re the dead ones? Then she thought of something Lynn had said years ago, the first time they had played Blackout. Alice had never forgotten the moment when Lynn woke from her dream and said, It was like I was alive then, and I’m dead now. Alice’s chin was still bobbing just above the toilet bowl as she thought about the way her pale body looked in that photo—wan, corpselike—and she considered the possibility that she was not alive and not real. She considered the possibility that somehow all of her friends had already discovered this; she was the last to know and the butt of the joke. The dead girl who still thought she was alive.
Chapter 12
Jimmy was right about the driveway at the lake house—it was a steep and treacherous descent, and Mikey would have driven right past it had he not been advised to watch closely after crossing the train tracks. The house could not be seen from the road.
Once he had made his way back, Mikey could see that several vehicles were already parked and a clear path had been shoveled to the door.
The house was a massive and gorgeous timber A-frame. It looked magical and luminous, with tiny gold lights twinkling along the trim, smoke rising from the chimney, the frozen-over lake visible just beyond a large patio area that had already been cleared of snow. Mikey judged that the nearest houses were at least a quarter mile away in each direction—it was a sizable plot, and utterly enchanting.
He got out of his car as Alice was parking her Jeep next to him. He pulled a tray of croissants from his backseat—he had baked these that morning, for the group. For some reason, the croissants seemed stupid now. He decided to bring them in anyway, recalling Alice’s hunger and not knowing if there would be anything to snack on before dinner.
Alice got out of her car, looking perturbed, her phone at her ear.
“You said a lake cottage, Jimmy,” she said into the phone. “Not the freakin’ Taj Mahal.” She was quiet for a bit and rolled her eyes at Mikey. “If you say so,” she said into the phone. “Safe flight . . . Right . . . I’m just saying . . . Yes, of course he’s potty-trained, you dingus, but he’s a dog, Jimmy. He’s got fur, he’s a hundred years old, he has accidents . . . Okay . . .”
Alice hung up her phone and said, “He’s insisting we let Finn in even though this place is”—she lifted an arm and did a broad and grandiose gesture toward the house—“this kind of place.”
Chris opened the door of the backseat, and she gently helped a large old husky out into the snow. Finn had one blue eye and one black eye, both of them watery and low-lidded, and a mottled tongue, long and limp as a noodle. He was mostly gray with a few black and caramel patches. His fur looked a few sizes too large for his frame, and he seemed uncertain on his thin legs in the deep snow. Mikey ran a knuckle over Finn’s skull, and Finn leaned his head up at a sharper tilt. “Good old boy,” Mikey said. “Good old boy.”
“Not that old,” Alice said. “Give the guy a complex.”
Chris said, “My mom has a Chihuahua so old it has no teeth left, and she has to feed it through a squeezy tube, like Go-Gurt.”
Mikey laughed, and Chris did not.
; A distant train whistle sounded, howling mournfully over the snowy landscape.
Alice, Chris, Mikey, and Finn entered the home through a side door that opened directly to the kitchen, where they were greeted by several caterers who were scuttling between hot pans and cutting boards. It smelled magnificent—meat and rosemary and garlic and sweet balsamic.
One of the caterers introduced herself and pointed them toward the bar. “Jimmy said to help yourselves to everything,” she said.
Mikey thanked her and hung his coat. Alice shook snow out of her dark hair and looked around the room and said, “Good God!”
Alice was wearing men’s work boots, and she knelt now to unlace them. She took off her fleece vest and used it as a rag to remove snow and mud from Finn’s paws. Chris’s scarf was wrapped as elaborately as a turban, and she unfurled it, then unzipped and removed her stylish black coat and black boots. Under all that black leather, she wore an eggplant-colored sweater over skintight dark jeans.
They walked from the kitchen through the dining room, where a glass table was already elegantly set for seven, then out into the main room, which was massive and had floor-to-ceiling glass windows facing the lake. A gorgeous baby grand piano gleamed on the far side of the room, and several cream-colored leather couches surrounded a mahogany coffee table. Chris went to the piano and ran her finger over the keys, the whole way from bottom to top, then top to bottom, ending on a resonant bass note.
Alice went to the bar, grabbed a bottle of wine without reading its label, and used a corkscrew attached to her key chain to open it. She brought this and three glasses to the coffee table in the main room. Mikey set the croissants there as well.
Alice poured three generous glasses, then stared at the bottle. “French,” she said. She spun the glass with faux expertise, then lowered her face deep into the glass to sniff the wine. “It’s got a French stench,” she said.
She picked up a croissant and bit into the corner. She chewed rapidly, and buttery flakes adhered to her lips and chin.
She gazed at Mikey for a moment, then said, “Please take off your tie.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never seen you in a tie. It’s making me nervous.”
Mikey loosened and undid his tie. He draped it over the back of the couch.
Chris said, “Babe, I’m gonna go pick us out a bedroom, drop our bags off. Something on the lake side, maybe? Then I’m gonna hop in the shower. I could use a freshen-up.” She took her wine with her as she went to select a room.
Alice settled in next to Mikey on the couch and took a large swallow of wine. She said, “That service just about did me in. What a mess. Sally, old Sally. I just can’t believe it. I won’t. The Skyway. Somebody a few years older than us offed themselves there, too, didn’t they? Not long after we started high school. You remember that?”
Mikey nodded. “There have been plenty of others, too. They’ve been talking about installing netting for years.”
“Well, why the hell don’t they? How many people are gonna have to throw themselves off the damn thing before they do?”
Alice stared angrily out the window at the lake. She ate more of her croissant.
Mikey said, “How many suicides do you think you actually prevent with a thing like that?”
“I see your point,” Alice said. “Person who wants to stop living is gonna find a way.” She paused and shivered, gripping her own elbows. Then she said, “This’ll turn me into a sad sack, starting out the night this way. Tell me about your life, Mikey, would you? What’s new? You ever get that sourdough to turn out?”
Mikey was frankly shocked that Alice remembered this. He had mentioned his sourdough starter only once in an email several months earlier.
He said, “I did, actually. Trial and error, but I ended up with one perfect loaf.”
“What’d you do with it?” Alice said.
“Ate it.”
“How?”
“One slice at a time.”
“Ha-ha, funny, asshole. I mean with what? And with whom?”
“I had some leftover pork shoulder. Open-faced sandwiches with raspberry-cinnamon jam. All by my lonesome.”
“Sounds like a hell of a meal to eat all by your lonesome.”
“My cat was around.” Mikey sipped his wine. “So how long have you and Christine been together?”
“Six months,” Alice said. She leaned a little bit closer. “Six looooong months,” she whispered.
“Why’s that?”
“She’s a millennial, Mikey. Do you know any?”
“What are we?”
“We’re Gen Xers.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Millennials take themselves very seriously.”
“Oh?”
“She fancies herself an artiste,” Alice said this with a flip of her wrist. “They all do.”
“She’s not?”
“Pfft! You’re not on Instagram, Mikey. You wouldn’t understand.”
He laughed. “So why are you still together?”
Alice shrugged mildly. “We have some good fun. Dating a young hot person is good for my self-esteem. And I think she thinks I’m . . . novel.”
“You are novel,” Mikey said.
“Am I?” Alice sipped her wine.
Mikey nodded. “Charismatic. Disturbing.”
Chris was at the stairs behind them, and she called, “Babe, I put us in the master. Up the stairs, second door on your left.”
Alice gave an A-OK sign with her fingers, over her shoulder, without turning around.
Finn settled himself at Alice’s feet in a slow and careful maneuver that looked painful. Alice nuzzled him with her toes. She said to Finn, “I love you, old man.” She looked up to Mikey. “Did you ever talk to Sally over the years?”
Mikey shook his head. “We passed now and then on the street, in a store. She still . . . nothing ever changed.”
Alice took another large swallow of wine and leaned back into the couch. “You know, I never wanted to bring Sally up with you or the others, because it was so . . .” She paused, fidgeting, and reached down to touch Finn’s head again, an involuntary comfort measure she seemed to require. “I wanted to ask you a million times over the years if you ever saw her, how she seemed. But it never came up. I never stopped wondering, though, never stopped wanting to ask.”
“I wouldn’t have had any answers for you, anyhow.” Mikey hesitated, then said, “Do you think there’s a chance Lynn or Sam or Jimmy knows more than we do? Why she left us the first time?”
Alice cracked her neck. “Do you think Jimmy’s flight was really delayed or he’s avoiding us? Maybe it’s all his fault. Everything is Jimmy’s fault. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. In fact, he probably lured us all here to kill us and eat us up.”
Mikey laughed.
Alice said, “I’m just bitter because I’m jealous of the guy. I mean, look around.” Alice gestured dramatically toward their surroundings: the immaculately furnished room, the spectacular view of the frozen lake before them. “Rich bastard.”
Chapter 13
In the fourth grade, while Jimmy’s classmates were struggling through multiplication of fractions, he discovered he was able to complete in half a minute a worksheet that took everyone else the entire class period.
Jimmy’s teacher, Mrs. Perry, took notice and kept him after class to discuss this. She asked if he was being tutored at home—he was not—and what his parents did for a living. (His mother worked as a line cook at Mulberry’s, and his father drove trucks.) She then asked if Jimmy would be interested in moving ahead with new lessons once or twice a week, one-on-one with her, definitely in math and potentially other subjects, too, and if, down the line, he would consider joining the class that was a year or two ahead of his own. Jimmy said yes to the one-on-one lessons a
nd no to skipping a grade. He didn’t want to be separated from The Gunners in his class, and he definitely didn’t want the attention associated with moving ahead of his classmates in school. Jimmy already stood out more than he would’ve liked as the only Italian on a street full of Polish and Irish kids.
Jimmy’s parents were both first generation, and sometimes The Gunners liked to stand at the windows of Jimmy’s house and listen to his parents rant and gossip and sing in Italian. Then they would imitate them later in great lilting melodies, and although Jimmy knew this was not mean-spirited, the attention embarrassed him. It made him conscious of the difference between his parents and the other parents. Jimmy kept his thick black hair buzzed to an eighth of an inch against his scalp. He pronounced his very Italian last name in the most American way possible, and although his first name was Vincenzo, he introduced himself to everyone as Jimmy.
The Gunners received news of Jimmy’s math lessons surprisingly well. He kept it hidden as long as he could but eventually ran out of excuses for his after-school meetings with Mrs. Perry. He stared intently at his Adidas soccer shoes, a half size too small and very narrow in the toe, as he delivered the information to the others that he was . . . sort of smart . . . and Mrs. Perry was sort of trying to . . . advance him.
Sam was the first to respond. “Does this mean you’ll do our homework for us? Say yes, say yes.”
Lynn said, “Say yes, say yes!”
Alice chimed in, “How long does it take you to do one of them worksheets?”
“A minute or two,” Jimmy confessed. “Sometimes less.”
“Holy crow! That is really fast.”
Jimmy took on homework duty for The Gunners. He would stand over their shoulders in the evenings when they brought their assignments to The Gunner House, and dictate answers for them to enter in their own handwriting. On top of this, Jimmy created an elaborate cheating scheme for classroom tests by devising a numerical version of Morse code that allowed him to communicate with others in his classroom by rapping his pen against his desk to signify answers. It was a complicated code, though, and Sally was the only one who took the time to learn it.
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