“I didn’t even think you liked him. Markos, I mean.”
She sighed deeper into my arms. Her hair was wet and flattened, half her makeup had run down her face and was now being rubbed onto me, and her dress had gone shapeless and bedraggled. But she was the most beautiful I’d ever seen her when she raised her head just enough to whisper in my ear.
“Not as much as I like you.”
Her soapy skin so close to mine. Her arms holding me and holding me up. She shook slightly, maybe a shiver. She wasn’t stone and marble; she wasn’t perfect and remote. She was here, in front of me. Choosing me.
“I love you,” I said.
She looked at me, eyes bright. She wasn’t surprised, I noted with relief. “I love you, too.”
We swayed back and forth. Dancing. In the dark and wet, the two of us together.
It’s my favorite memory of Ari out of a thousand memories. It’s the one I keep on hand, the talisman. That was the girl I loved.
Everyone kept telling me how much I loved Win. Aunt Jess, Diana. Even myself: there was the note I found under my pillow. Sometimes I thought I would start feeling it. As if one day I’d wake up and be sad again. As if grief was a virus and my vaccine was only temporary.
The note. At least I’d thought to write the note.
I woke up Friday morning—the first Friday in June, just after school let out—with my wrist pounding, partially the old side effect and partially because I’d slept with my arm under my pillow, a piece of paper clutched in my hand. I read the note again and again. It had been torn out of a bound journal and had a ragged edge. I recognized the handwriting—mine—and if I focused very hard I could remember writing the words. But it was a strange type of memory, more like watching a movie than recalling something from the inside. I could remember moving my pen across the page, but I couldn’t remember what I was thinking as I was doing it.
You had a boyfriend. Win Tillman. You loved him. For over a year. He died. It’s too hard. If this spell works, you won’t remember him.
Win. Win Tillman. Win, Win, Win . . .
I could not put a face to the name.
I remembered, in that same movie-watching way, going to the hekamist’s house behind the school and paying for a spell from the money I’d found in my closet. I could see myself doing it. I looked so sad. But again, the memory wasn’t something I’d experienced. The only thing that felt true and real was the moment when she’d told me about her daughter, and I’d thought of my mom. That exchange bloomed into three dimensions.
I couldn’t remember anyone named Win. As far as I could recall, I’d never had a boyfriend at all. I’d made out with my pas de deux partner at the Summer Institute last year, but that was perfunctory, nothing serious.
I must’ve been so sad. I remembered wanting to cry and feeling like I might break in two. But I didn’t remember why.
I wasn’t sad anymore. Just confused.
So I called Diana. She answered right away, her voice strangely low and serious. “How are you doing?”
“Um. Fine.”
“You want me to come over?”
“No, that’s okay.”
“Funeral’s tomorrow.”
“Oh? Oh yeah. Of course.”
“Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“I . . . uh . . .”
Diana didn’t seem to mind that I couldn’t find any words. “Every day I wake up and I still can’t believe he’s gone. I just . . . I can’t believe it. I mean, we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. In fact, let’s not. I’m sorry I brought it up. But I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring it. Because I’m thinking about it. God. I can’t even . . . I can’t believe it.”
I looked at the note and then out the window, flexing my wrist absently. I obviously hadn’t told Diana about the spell. Should I? The note didn’t say. The way my head felt—full of starts and stops, black holes and fuzzy edges—I couldn’t seem to make a decision. Diana and I did everything together, told each other everything. Didn’t we?
Outside, the sun was bright and the grass green. A beautiful day. I had ballet class in half an hour, and I wanted to go. At least in class, I wouldn’t have to talk.
I could tell Diana what I’d done later.
“Neither can I,” I said.
“Kay’s been calling nonstop. Wants to bake you casseroles.”
“Nice of her.”
“Yeah. If I want to come over, she’ll probably have to drive.” Diana’s car had been breaking down a lot, which meant begging a ride from Kay.
“Maybe don’t come over.”
“God, Ari. I don’t know what to do.”
“Yeah. Me neither.”
“You don’t have to do anything. I mean you can do what you want.”
“I want to go to class,” I said.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “You should take it easy for a while. Not push yourself.”