“That might not be an insult, after all—”
“It’s an insult,” I say, cutting him off, and I hear him laugh. “Will you stay with me?”
“Of course I will,” he says, and I immediately feel better.
Rationally, I know this makes no sense. I mean, what’s he going to do? Climb out of the phone and walk in there with me?
But as I scramble out of my car, phone in hand, I understand for the first time why people have imaginary friends. The feeling that there’s something or someone—even invisible, a ghost, or in my case, a computer program—with you is comforting.
It is also why people have best friends.
Thankfully, Oliver is approaching the door at the same time I am. Like me, he’s still in his work polo and jeans.
“Hey,” I say, relieved to have another ally. Or at least someone I know.
“Don’t be nervous,” he whispers, close to my ear, as we walk in. It’s said in a teasing voice, but I guess I’m not hiding my emotions that well. “I put in a good word, remember?”
“Or so you say,” I tell him, and he feigns a look of hurt.
Oliver leads the way to a booth in the back left corner of the restaurant, my chest suddenly pounding like feet on asphalt. Without Lacey, it’s as if I’ve lost the ability to even be normal around people. I grip my phone tighter as I follow Oliver, like Will can send some kind of backup through it. Or maybe feel my anxiety, absorb it, if I just keep squeezing my screen.
“Hey, she came!” Longlocks says. “It’s Sheridan, you guys.”
It’s a pretty warmhearted reception from someone I have exchanged maybe four words with. “Hi,” I say, giving a global wave to everyone at the table. I smile brightly, still squeezing my phone, and try to look as little like an ice queen as possible.
A bunch of people say hi back, and I realize other voices are chiming in from the booth behind me. I turn and see more faces I recognize from work. Kennie; Helen, the woman who trained Thomas; a red-haired girl who looks about twenty, who I’ve seen a couple of times in the bakery; a man in his forties who stocks shelves early in the morning and is usually just leaving when I arrive.
“You’re sitting with us,” Longlocks says, bringing my attention back to the first booth. Oliver slides in at that one and pats the space beside him, so I slide in after him.
“I’m Chris,” Longlocks says. We’re almost exactly across the table from each other. “Or Christopher. I’ll answer to anything.”
Thomas, sitting beside him, shakes his head as if he’s trying not to laugh. “You’re shameless,” he tells Chris.
On Oliver’s left is Michael, a junior I recognize from school. We’ve never really spoken. Across from Michael, next to Thomas, is Jenn, who has not glanced up from her menu since I got there.
Chris goes around the booth, pointing at each person, starting with himself. “Chris,” he says, as though I might have forgotten in the last minute.
“Thomas,” previously-known-as-Dreadlocks says.
Jenn flips her menu around, pretending to be riveted by it, so Chris says, “That’s Jenn.”
“Michael,” Michael says.
“Oliver.” Oliver smirks when we reach him.
“And Cate!” Chris chirps, just as someone slides in beside me.
“Hi, everybody! Oh, hi, Sheridan!” Cate says, slightly out of breath. “I had to run home and let my dog out because my roommate is gone today.”
“Oh, okay,” I say, not sure if she’s speaking to me or the whole group. I set my phone down on my lap, consciously make an effort to settle the eff down. “How do you guys all know each other? Just work?”
“Just work,” Thomas says, confirming what I’ve long feared—that I am missing the chip that makes people transition from strangers to friends in a matter of seconds. The last time I managed that, I was four. “I knew Chris from math class. But that’s about it.”
“Chris and Thomas go to Millwood Catholic,” Oliver explains. Which is why I’ve never met them before.
“Bones! What are you getting today?” Thomas asks, waving the menu around.
“I’m still deciding,” Michael, who is apparently Bones, responds.
“He’s trying every single thing on the menu by the end of the summer,” Cate tells me, laughing.
“And it’s funny because he’s literally a skeleton,” Chris says for my benefit.
“I think she gets it!” Thomas says. “Anyway, he’s not literally a skeleton, because if he was, he’d be in, like, a morgue.”
I tense up at the word, suddenly wanting to cover my phone, to shield Will from their words.
“Are you a skeleton by the time you’re in the morgue? I think you just mean I’d be six feet under,” Michael supplies.
“Whatever. Wrong use of literal,” Thomas says.
“Thanks, Grammar Police,” Chris says. “Or Grandma Police.”
Everybody groans at that and I feel myself start to relax. Apart from Jenn, everyone seems pretty nice. And they are also jumping in so I’m not feeling pressured to contribute to the conversation just yet.
“You don’t get to correct my English unless you’re my mom. Or at least ten years older than me,” Chris argues.
Thomas drums on the table and starts chanting, “Cate, Cate, Cate, Cate, Cate.” And then Michael and Jenn join him.
“Fine,” Cate says, laughing. “That’s not how you use literal, Chris. Make me feel old, why don’t you? I’m technically just ten years older than you. You’re seventeen, right?”
Chris nods.
“Bones, have you tried the double chocolate mudslide cake?” Jenn speaks for the first time, pointing it out on her menu.
“Nooo,” Michael says. “Is that new? That has to be new.”
“They’re just going to keep adding stuff and you’re never going to get everything,” Thomas says.
“That’s exactly the point,” Michael says, grinning broadly.
Everyone quiets down a little as we look at the menu. When my phone vibrates on my lap and Oliver glances up, I realize how tightly sandwiched together we all are.
“Sorry,” he says, shifting so there’s a little more room between us.
I bring my phone above the table and read the text I’ve just received.
Not bad so far! Right?
It’s from Will.
I know right away it’s from him.
He’s hearing everything I am.
I never knew it was possible to text him.
Not bad, I text back.
Soon a waitress comes to take our order. Some people, like Chris and Cate, order meals for their dinner. Oliver gets a plate of fries and I get a vanilla milkshake.
There’s idle conversation as we wait for our food.
Thomas, Michael and Oliver start discussing some comic book. Cate and Jenn are both on their phones.
Chris leans across the table now and talks to me.
“Have I seen you at the ice rink before, Sheridan? Or just a look-alike?”
“It might have been me,” I say. “Or maybe one of my sisters.”
“You know how to ice-skate?” he asks.
“Um…” I start to give my usual answer, about all the years my sisters and I were forced to take skating lessons. Mia was pretty good at it, but when my parents realized that her true gift was academics (she was practically born reading at college level), they respected her request and let her focus on science camp and debate and other extracurriculars. Meanwhile, my mom turned her full attention to Sam and me. I wasn’t the worst in my age group by a long shot, but I had zero enthusiasm for it. My mother seemed to believe that if I would just attack it with positivity, she and my skating teachers might be able to release the diamond that was covered in all that rubble of lifeless dirt. Old videos have revealed that I of
ten looked like I’d dropped something on the ice and was just picking it up, as opposed to dazzling judges with my lines and making the audience weep with emotion. By the time I was twelve, Sam, at five, had already managed to surpass any talent I had, and so I gladly quit the sport while my mom focused on finding Sam the right teacher—and then, when she picked up ice dance, the right partner.
I have happily stayed off the ice ever since.
Instead of going into the whole I-did-but-I’m-not-very-good-and-I-haven’t-done-it-in-a-while spiel, I just say, “No, not really.”
“Oh, I love figure skating,” Cate says next to me. “Michelle Kwan? Oh my God.”
“What were you doing at the ice rink?” Thomas asks, and Chris shrugs.
“My cousin works there.”
“Riiiiight,” Jenn and Thomas say at the same time, then start laughing. It’s only as our food is delivered and I’m sliding the ketchup over to him that I realize that Oliver must know now that I’m a complete liar.
After all, that was how we had met. At a Tots Who Skate class at the ice rink when we were four. Just one year older than me, Mia was in the same group—but even then, it already felt like she was miles ahead of me. She stuck close to the teacher, easily hitting every move and spin, gliding across the rink while I tried to catch up. When I realized that I never could, I’d stopped trying, and noticed, for the first time, the only two other kids who couldn’t seem to keep up with the group. They stuck together like one moving unit, but they couldn’t go more than a few steps without one falling and dragging the other down. Oliver won’t know my history of skating and squashing my mom’s hopes and all that, but he still knows I can.
When I discreetly glance to my left side, he catches my eye and gives me a completely normal smile. Then he offers me a fry, which I accept. Maybe he was so focused on his conversation with Thomas and Michael that he didn’t hear.
I’m slurping on my milkshake, thinking that this hasn’t been so bad and I guess I blew it out of proportion in my head, when I hear someone say the words In Good Company.
My eyes shoot up, and I didn’t imagine it. Thomas and Chris are talking about it.
“I think it’s mostly some kind of, like, kinky stuff. For people who are into weird cybersex,” Chris is saying. “That’s what I heard.”
“Who said that?” Something about Cate’s tone makes everybody look at her.
“My brother,” Chris says carefully.
“That’s not true. I mean, maybe some people use it like that but I think most people don’t,” Cate says, an edge in her voice. “There are other…services for stuff like that. This is different.”
Although she’s right—although I know she’s right—she sounds less certain the more she says, and by the time she finishes speaking, her face is completely red. Cate is tiny and pixie-like, with blond hair and skin that looks perpetually flushed. Despite her bubbly personality, there’s something about her that makes her seem delicate, like she cries easily and is constantly thinking about ways not to embarrass herself.
“Oh yeah, I probably heard wrong,” Chris backtracks now, and there’s an awkward silence as everyone goes back to eating.
Cate has a Companion.
I squeeze my phone like Will can feel it. Like he can hear we are talking about him.
In a way, Cate suddenly feels like a kindred spirit, because I’m not the only person on the planet pathetic enough to spend hours talking to someone who’s not here.
I wonder if somebody she knows died, if that’s who she speaks to. Or maybe she just speaks to a random Companion.
I wonder why she uses In Good Company.
The part of me that isn’t busy being intrigued by this revelation is horrified for her that she was so obvious about it. Thank God I didn’t speak up, didn’t try to explain to them what Will’s mother told me about the misperceptions of In Good Company. Not that I would, but you know. Now everybody knows this about her.
And thinks she’s having kinky cybersex.
“Hey, so what are the odds James comes to one of these things before the end of the summer?” Chris is saying now. “I mean, he’s all about community. He’s made sure people have been meeting here every afternoon for, like, six years, so why doesn’t he ever show?”
“Kennie would know. This is her fifth summer here,” Oliver says, and then both he and Michael are turning around to talk to the other table.
“Can’t a girl eat in peace?” Kennie says with fake exasperation. They repeat their question and she’s saying something about it being weird because he’s the boss and it would ruin the “vibe.”
“Whatever! He’s just full of it,” the redhead at her booth says. The conversation keeps going, but I zone out until Jenn speaks.
“I need to head out,” she says, standing, and Chris and Thomas shuffle out of the booth so she can leave. “Bye, people!”
Under the chorus of goodbyes, I’m not certain mine is audible. As she leaves, it suddenly occurs to me who Jenn and Shelby remind me of: the girls from freshman year, the ones who made me feel so alone when Lacey was gone. There’s this cold vibe they exude, and even though they are one year younger than me, I can’t help feeling intimidated.
Cate turns to me now, seeming to have recovered from the conversation a few minutes ago.
“So are you from Erinville, Sheridan?” she asks me, back to her upbeat self. “What do your parents do?”
“Yeah, I’ve lived here my whole life,” I say. “My dad’s a dentist and my mom…” I trail off for a second and realize as Cate, Chris and Thomas watch me expectantly that maybe this town is bigger than I’ve ever given it credit for. They don’t know anything about me.
“Teaches,” I finish. It’s mostly true.
“Oh, my mom is a teacher!” Cate says. “Elementary. Her kids are insanely cute.”
Thankfully, before she can ask what grade my mom teaches, Chris asks, “Hey, does anybody call you Sherri for short?”
Oliver, who has turned back to us again, warns, “Don’t try it.”
He does not, to my relief, point out that I have answered only to Eden for the past ten years. I have never liked the name Sheridan. It just sounds…it sounds like a hotel or something. And even though it was my great-aunt’s name, my parents weren’t so attached to it either. They’ve been shortening it to Eden for about as long as I can remember.
“Oh! What would you do to me if I started calling you Sherri?” Chris laughs, intrigued.
I rummage through my brain for something witty to say, but my mind is too busy filling with clutter, like which of these people Lacey would like—probably not Cate—and whether anybody else here has a Companion and isn’t telling anyone and why I can’t simply bring myself to just say, That’s not what people call me.
“I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you,” I say.
It’s not particularly original, but people are ooohing even from the other booth, and Chris’s smile is elastic wide and I can’t help but grin back myself.
AFTER WORK THE next day, I run into Cate in the staff room.
“Hey, Sheridan,” she says, smiling at me. “How was your shift?”
“Good. Yours?” I ask.
“Excellent,” she says brightly. We are silent as we both pull stuff out of our lockers. When I turn to Cate, she’s on her phone.
Before I think better of it, I blurt, “Did you know him? Or her?”
She glances up at me, confused, and I point at her phone. “Your Companion.”
“Oh,” Cate says, her face flushing. “Yes.”
She doesn’t elaborate.
“Do you…like it?” I ask. It’s such a juvenile question, but I’m wondering if it’s normal to feel as comfortable with Will as I do, if other people forget they are speaking to ghosts.
She is thoughtful for a moment,
then she says, “Yes and no.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. There’s a slight hesitance on her part, a reluctance, but I see it on her face the moment she decides to tell me about it.
“It’s my brother,” she says, and her voice gets small. “I love talking to Jeremy. He lived in Nebraska, and we would always talk on the phone. So this—it’s like he’s still here, but sometimes…” Her voice trails off. “Sometimes I catch myself living like he’s alive, expecting him to turn up at Christmas and Thanksgiving, and it’s like I forget to miss him.”
She seems ashamed at her admission, and I feel guilty for making her talk about it, but she continues.
“So it’s good in small doses,” she says. “But it can make you forget.”
A woman I recognize from Meats walks in right then, and Cate quickly brushes away a tear. We leave the staff room together.
“I’m really sorry about your brother,” I say when we’re outside the store.
“Thank you,” she says, and gives me a smile several watts dimmer than her regular smile. Her sunny disposition makes her seem like someone who has never had anything bad happen to her.
Cate asks if I’m coming to Juno’s now. I tell her I can’t, that I’m busy, and it’s actually true.
We wave goodbye and walk in separate directions.
She doesn’t ask whether I have a Companion, so I don’t tell her.
In my car, I take a deep breath and pull out the piece of paper in the back pocket of my jeans. I enter the address into my phone.
“Are you sure about this?” Will, who has been on all day, asks.
“No,” I say.
“Maybe you shouldn’t do this, then.”
“I want to,” I say, though I’m not sure how true this is.
When Lacey had first scribbled it down on our list, I’d felt a tingle run down my spine.
Get a tattoo.
It was something she’d wanted to do for years. She had the picture she’d drawn saved on her phone, like she might need to produce it at any moment. Like there would be an emergency in which she’d be required to present the piece of art she most wanted on her body.
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