“Mystic? That’s a made-up place.” Em laughed.
“We’re in Mystic now, Em,” I said.
“Wait. Mystic is not a made-up place?”
“Welcome to the Connecticut shore,” Sam said, gesturing out at the water.
“But it’s called Mystic,” Em argued.
“Well, actually, it’s an interesting little piece of land. We’re technically in Stonington, Connecticut,” Sam explained.
“Yeah, Stonington. That’s a place,” Em said.
“But it’s also Mystic,” Jackie said.
“How can it be two things?”
“It’s kind of like Washington, D.C.,” Sam said. “It’s not a state, you know. It’s kind of like . . . just a place.”
“I’m very confused,” Em admitted.
“That’s all right,” Sam said, winking at me. It was weird to have a stranger wink at me. Sort of nice; sort of unnerving. It was almost a personal gesture.
“Mystic,” Em said, testing the name out. “It’s like magic.”
“It’s derived from a Pequot term. Missi-tuk, a river with unsettled waters,” Jackie said. Then, when we all looked at her in wonder: “What? I know things.”
“This all seems fishy,” Em said. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
She turned on her heel and left us. Jackie put her arm around me and laughed. “Two drinks, Lottie.” I knew it. “I better go make sure she finds the bathroom. Oh, it was nice meeting you. I’m Jackie.”
Jackie and Sam shook hands, and I watched her pink dress swish away as she left to find Em.
“They seem interesting,” Sam said. “I like the blue.”
“It’s been almost every color. Blue is the best.”
“She looks like she’s having fun.”
“I’m supposed to be having fun,” I said, remembering Aunt Helen’s note suddenly, feeling the weight of it in my purse.
“Oh. Well—would you like to dance?”
“I didn’t mean . . . You don’t have to entertain me or anything.”
“Well, what if I just want to dance? Would you also want to dance?”
“Are people even dancing?”
We looked inside, moving closer to the open door to get a look at the small mob of people on the dance floor. I saw Abe doing some complicated moonwalk-type move and Amy doubled over and holding her stomach as she laughed at him.
The answer to my question was: yes, basically everyone was dancing. I watched my mother and father twirling around in circles so quickly it made me dizzy. I saw Em returning from the bathroom, holding Jackie’s hand and leading her through the crowd to get a spot near the DJ. The DJ?
“There’s a DJ? Since when is there a DJ?” I asked.
“That’s DJ Cloud. Very popular, I guess,” Sam said.
“You guess?”
“I googled him.”
“Are you from England? Or somewhere else? You have this accent . . .”
“Oh, no. Mystic born and raised,” he said.
“My aunt loved Mystic. She loved how it was a place within a place. Like a secret.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I can tell she meant a lot to you. I can tell this is probably the last place you want to be.”
“Dancing sounds nice. I think I’d like to dance. If you still want to.”
Sam took the soda can from me and held my hand. We walked back into the ballroom, and he put the empty glass of water and the can on a table as we passed. His hand was warm, almost feverish, but it felt nice in mine. We pushed our way past dancing bodies—I spotted Harry, my aunt’s lawyer, dancing with a man in a top hat and coattails—and found ourselves in the thick of it all. It was like prom, only bigger and louder and more frantically fun, like people’s lives depended on dancing.
“Like Hocus Pocus,” I whispered to myself.
“Hmm?” Sam asked.
“Nothing.”
That was a good reference; I’d have to tell Abe later.
Everybody seemed like they were having such a good time. Sam held my hand, and at first it was easy and fun, dancing with him. He was a better dancer than I expected; his movements seemed fluid and effortless. And he was cute, sort of serious and unexpected.
“You’re really good,” I shouted over the music, but even then he couldn’t hear me and cupped his free hand over his ear.
And then suddenly, like someone had hit the off switch, it stopped being fun. The laughter and music and talking that surrounded me turned dark and menacing, and I couldn’t understand why any of it mattered, why we bothered with anything, why we went through the motions of dancing and making friends and reading books and cleaning our rooms and all these things that wouldn’t matter in a hundred years anyway because everyone in this room would be dead, even the youngest ones, even the kids who seemed like they shouldn’t be here, like they should be home in bed sleeping instead of jumping around in small blurry groups. They would all be dead like Aunt Helen had died, because nobody lives forever except in books. Nobody lives forever except Alvin and Margo Hatter, and they weren’t even real.
You can’t think about things like that, my aunt would have said, but my aunt wasn’t here anymore, because no matter how good and how known and how loved you were, it wouldn’t matter in the end. None of us was eternal. None of us would beat it.
“Is something wrong?” Sam yelled, but I didn’t hear him, just read his lips. “You’re not dancing anymore.”
“It was nice to meet you,” I said, leaning closer to him, putting my mouth next to his ear. “But I think we have to leave soon.”
I left him on the dance floor, and the people moved closer to swallow him up, so that when I turned around, right before I left the room to go hide in the bathroom until we were all ready to leave, I couldn’t even see him.
She went back sometimes, without Alvin.
He would have killed her if he’d known. (Let him try. She was, after all, immortal.) She let herself in the back door with a key she wore on a long silver chain around her neck. She walked through the rooms silently, her heart aching, remembering when this house didn’t feel like such an empty, pathetic shell.
She did not let herself cry, because tears accomplished nothing except turning your eyes red and blurring your vision.
Would they ever be under this roof again, the four of them: Mom, Dad, Alvin, and herself?
Would this deserted and hollow house ever feel like a home once more?
She always remembered to lock up when she left, even though there was nothing valuable left to lose.
—from Alvin Hatter and the Return of the Overcoat Man
4
The ride home was quiet. Amy fell asleep with her cheek against the passenger side window, and Abe turned on the radio but left it so low I almost couldn’t hear it. I watched the sea disappear behind us and thought of Sam and how many people were at the party, how many people my aunt seemed to know that I had never even met. How even the people closest to us could be so much a mystery.