Caspian says, “Mother Nature is just letting out some energy. It’s like a low-grade earthquake. You know those are good, right? Because they settle the ground enough to hold off the big ones.”
“Where are those chocolates?” she asks. “I need a distraction.”
“I’ll find the chocolates,” says Sam. “I think I put them on the side table. Yes, here they are. Jason, could you please pass this box over to Li Zhang?”
Jason “passes” by way of lobbing it in my direction. He actually has good aim. The box hits my ear before falling in my lap. I give it to Li Zhang.
Sam feels his way across the living room to arrive back at the window. “Lady Stanwyck won’t let anything happen to us. We’re safe here.”
“How do you know?” Li Zhang asks.
“Not the tag-team ghost story again,” Jason whines.
Sam and I love to tell this story. I say, “Lady Stanwyck is what the original residents of this building called the woman it was named for. She lived in the penthouse, where KK lives now.”
“She protects the building,” says Sam.
I’m about to tell Li Zhang how generations of residents have sworn that Lady Stanwyck’s ghost has protected the building from fires, tornadoes, and hurricanes, but KK has other ideas. KK says, “She farts in her sleep. I’m telling you, it’s true. I sleep in her old room.”
Sam ignores her. “Lady Stanwyck’s name was Ethel Mae Stanwyck. Her lover would never marry her because he already had a wife.”
I say, “Mr. Philanderer owned a construction company. He built this building and named it for Ethel Mae Stanwyck. She was a silent-screen actress when the movie industry was just starting out in New York City, before it moved to California. She always played British high-society ladies.”
Sam says, “Although, apparently in real life she had a thick Brooklyn accent. Grew up in Sheepshead Bay.”
“That part’s true,” says KK. “She haunts the hallways crooning”—and here KK uses an old-time Brooklyn accent—“ ‘Who died and made YOU boss, wisenheimer?’ ”
“Help!” cries out a voice from the kitchen.
“Johan!” says Sam. “I forgot he was in the kitchen. Someone needs to rescue him.”
“You do that, Sam the Man,” says Parker. And I feel Parker’s hand give mine a squeeze. This thing we share. It’s either psychic or psychotic, or both. It leaves me breathless.
“Please can we be quiet?” Li Zhang asks. “Until this is over.”
“Our voices don’t calm you?” Parker asks.
“No. And as much as the thunder noise stresses me, I also like focusing my attention on it. Makes me feel like I am conquering it, rather than the other way around.”
“So we will be quiet, then,” comes Caspian’s voice.
As quiet settles, I understand why she prefers it. The rhythm of the hard-falling rain is almost hypnotic, with none of the usual city noise, like honking horns and yelling people, coming up from below. The power outage and the tenacity of the rain seem to have cleared the street—and the air. Such quiet is a stranger to me—exactly the guest I didn’t know we needed. I feel like I can finally think. Assess.
Our quiet is broken by Jason’s grating voice. “Why are Sam and Johan so quiet in the kitchen?”
Just then the lamps come back on.
KK is now seated on the sofa, next to Freddie, her mouth attached to his, and Caspian is in a place on her body where few socks have reached, I’d wager.
ten
SAM
I am jealous of my eyes.
I am jealous of the way they know how to adjust without me having to tell them to adjust.
I am jealous that the moment after it turns dark, they know how to make the darkness easier to navigate.
I am making my way back to the kitchen to find Johan. I am following the sound of his voice. I am taking step after careful step, and as I do, the darkness seems to second-guess itself. It retreats from completeness and lets a grayness in. I feel a little better, a little more in control.
I am not afraid of the dark. I am afraid of knocking things over in the dark, of hurting myself in the dark, of getting lost in the dark, of being attacked in the dark.
“Hello?” Johan calls out.
“I’ll be there in a second,” I call back. “Stand away from the door.”
I swing it inward. I don’t hit him.
“Sam?”
The clock on the oven has gone out. The refrigerator is just another piece of furniture. I remember I left the knives out, but don’t remember where.
“I see you,” I say. He is the dark patch at the counter. He is the object of my attention even when I can’t make out where his clothes end and his skin begins. “I’m here. I’m sorry. You were drowned out in all the hysterics.”
There’s a pause as still as the darkness. Then he says, “I have a confession to make.”
I come closer. “Yes?”
“I may have stayed in here to avoid the hysterics.”
“Oh.”
“And I may have called for help because I knew you’d be the one to respond.”
He is now close enough to be more than an outline. It’s like a fairy tale, and we’re the shadows who are turning back into boys.
“Of course I’d be the one to respond,” I say. “I’m always the one who responds.”
I’m surprised by how bitter I sound, especially in front of him.
“That does seem to be the dynamic,” he says. “From what I’ve observed.”
He’s moved his leg out so it’s touching the side of my leg. I am trying not to notice this. Instead, I am noticing that he’s known me for all of two hours and he already thinks he knows everything about me, and Ilsa, and our lives.
I am
