7 Souls

by Barnabas Miller; Jordan Orlando

  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.”

  AS DYLAN 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.

  And then she stopped, so quickly that Dylan nearly ran into her. “Look,” she said, turning to face him. “Look, I told you before, you don’t have to do this; you don’t have to come.”

  “You’re right,” Dylan said agreeably. “You told me before.”

  “But—”

  “If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t have come.”

  Mary looked at him, trying to find any sarcasm or snark on his face that would betray his easy tone. But his eyes were clear. There was something profound about that, Mary thought. He made it sound so simple. How often could she say the same thing? How many times every week, every day, did she find herself somewhere she didn’t want to be, doing something she hated? It was like Dylan had casually revealed some secret code, some magic spell that made him immune to all that.

  “Don’t worry,” Dylan said, putting his hand awkwardly on her shoulder. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  That’s not true, Mary thought automatically. It’s never true—and it’s looking especially wrong today.

  “Come on.” The heat of Dylan’s hand on her shoulder made her nervous, somehow; she pulled away and continued down the wide corridor, heels sinking into the thick, expensive carpet with the green and gold threads.

  This day is all wrong, she told herself again. Everything’s all wrong; it’s like a waking dream, the kind where the whole world’s against you.

  Mary raised her fist, hesitated before knocking.

  How bad is this going to be?

  Dylan reached past her and knocked boldly on the door, three times.

  Silence. Nothing.

  It’s a trick, she thought wearily. He’s not going to—

  The locks snapped over loudly and the door swung open. Mary squinted in the sudden bright light. Patrick’s vestibule—how many times had she stood here, opening the door for room service, fishing in Patrick’s wallet for a tip?—was brilliantly lit as usual, the gleaming, ice-white walls reflecting the recessed quartz track lights and the tastefully shaded table lamps. Patrick stood with his hand on the gold doorknob, smirking at her. It was the same maddening smirk he’d worn the last time she’d been this close to him, when he’d dumped her.

  Patrick’s expression changed—slightly—as he looked past her at Dylan. Mary got some satisfaction from that. Not everything goes the way you want it to, she thought grimly. I’m not as helpless without you as you think, Trick.

  But she didn’t feel any better, because Patrick didn’t look startled, or jealous, or anything that would make her feel better. He was smirking knowingly and nodding, as if to say, You think I’m impressed? You think I care that you found another sucker to pick up where I left off, following you around and doing what you say?

  “Hi,” Dylan said casually. “I’m Dylan.”

  “Patrick Dawes.” Trick was stepping aside, making an exaggerated, sarcastic show of welcoming them. His tone implied that he couldn’t care less who Dylan was—that it wasn’t even worth his time to learn Dylan’s name. “Come on—let’s get this over with.”

  “Good idea,” Mary agreed. It came out wrong—she had wanted to sound snide and bored, like she didn’t care one way or the other, but, hearing her own voice, she realized she sounded like a scared little girl following orders.

  I won’t cry, Mary insisted to herself as she rushed past Trick into the suite’s big living room (with the gold and green couches and the vast picture-window view of the Fifth Avenue lights. She didn’t want Patrick to see her face. She didn’t want him to see what it was doing to her, being here again, looking around at the place she’d spent so many lazy afternoons and torrid nights and Sunday room-service brunches, realizing that it was all over, that she’d never see it again.

  She was trying to figure out a way to brush the tears from her face without Patrick seeing her do it, when she got the biggest shock of the day—or, as she realized much later, the biggest shock so far. What happened next was so insane, so unexpected and so loud that she ne
arly screamed.

  “Surprise!”

  They had appeared with incredible speed—from behind the couches, from the kitchenette and the bedroom, even from the closets—all her friends and dozens more people; what looked like the entire Chadwick senior class, all dressed up in their sickest party outfits, all grinning at her madly. At that moment somebody triggered a playlist somewhere and Panic! at the Disco started blasting at top volume from Patrick’s hidden Bose speakers while the entire crowd flocked toward her. Surprise—the word was still echoing in her ears like a thunderclap.

  “Happy birthday!”

  The scream was unanimous, deafening.

  A surprise party, Mary thought incredulously. You’ve got to be kidding—a fucking surprise party. There was no way to describe the feeling that flowed over her; it was like she’d already pounded four Jägermeister shots.

  “Punk’d!” Patrick yelled triumphantly, his eyes nearly mad with glee. “Oh, you are so punk’d!”

  “Look at her little tears!” Joon was right in front of her, playfully wiping at Mary’s face, sparkling from head to toe in a shiny zigzag headband, a crystal-covered Elie Saab minidress, and Christian Louboutin heels. “Oh, look at my tragic little Mary-fairy—”

  “You so bought it,” Patrick rasped in her ear, having grabbed her from behind and squeezed her with his powerful arms. He kissed her neck. “You thought I’d dumped you! You actually bought it—”

  Mary was crying—sobbing with relief and shock. Ruining the Shu Uemura mascara, she thought randomly. So what.

  “Aww,” Joon said, hugging her. “Look at her—look at our gullible little Mary….”

  “Someone needs a drink,” Amy observed, materializing on Mary’s other side and stroking her shoulder possessively. The crowd surrounded them, pressing in like paparazzi flanking a starlet.

  “Happy birthday!” Pete Schocken said, leaning in to hug her. He had changed into a nice shirt and pants—it was strange to see him out of the gym clothes he was always wearing. His face was transformed by his warm smile.