Chapter 33 dapjeongneo
dapjeongneo
After I left the garden that evening, I found Juliette sitting on the front porch of my cottage.
She jumped to her feet when I let myself in through the gate, feeling more than a little exposed.
Did she notice that my lips were red, or that my hair was a little too wild?
If she did, she didn’t say anything—or maybe she was too caught up in her own self to notice at the moment.
“Is everything all right?” I asked, coming up to the veranda.
“Fine,” she said, her voice tight. “I just—I needed to hide to finish making the final list of guests somewhere Oliver wasn’t.”
“Ah. He’s still on you?”
“I appreciate his help,” she said with a sigh, “but he really needs to get back to his own job. I hate having a shadow.”
“Have you told him that?”
She scrunched her nose. “No.”
“Ah.” I let myself into the cottage, and she followed. As I went to get her a soda from the refrigerator, I heard her gasp and turned around just as she picked up the Magic 8 Ball on the kitchen table. I froze. “I used to have one of these when I
was little!” she said happily. “I haven’t played with one in, like, decades. Do you still use it?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted hesitantly.
She frowned, hefting it. “It’s heavier than I remember.”
“It’s, um—it’s special,” I said, bringing over two sodas. I took a deep breath, steadying myself with conviction. “Don’t freak out, but my best friend’s ashes are inside.”
Harriett never told me herself what she ended up deciding to do with her remains, and I figured she hadn’t decided on anything, but a few months after her death, a UPS guy dropped off a package at my apartment.
It had the Magic 8 Ball inside, and my roommate had been in the kitchen when I unboxed it.
“What’s that for?” he’d asked as I opened the box and pulled out the toy. With it was Harrie’s last note she would ever write me.
It read,
I’m here when you need me.
Since then, I’d asked the Magic 8 Ball questions I’d only ever ask Harrie, and I liked to think that somewhere inside, her ashes pulled the correct answer out, but I knew it was silly.
It was the exact kind of silly thing that Harrie believed in, something magical and slightly off-kilter.
Things like kissing her hand to the roof of the car when going through a yellow light, and never stepping on sidewalk cracks, and making a wish when she lost an eyelash—
Things that weren’t real, but she wanted to believe in them anyway.
And through her, I guess I believed, too.
“When I’m lost, I ask her what to do. I like to think that the die is her communicating from wherever she is now,” I admitted.
I didn’t know why I was telling Juliette so much.
It wasn’t like it mattered—she didn’t know Harriett, she’d never know Harriett.
But still, it felt important. Like maybe I had been wrong to keep my memories alone, to myself, walled off in a garden like Eula did.
Maybe, instead, if I told another person, anyone, then maybe a little more of Harrie would be here tomorrow.
And then more, and then more—
Like a vine inching its way across a wall.
Juliette’s eyes widened, and then she looked down at the 8 Ball in her hands again thoughtfully.
I half expected her to quickly put it down—people were strange about remains sometimes—but she simply brought it up to her mouth and whispered to it, “Do you think Sophie should go out to kara-oke with me tonight?”
And she shook it.
The die tumbled and tumbled. Her face brightened as the answer landed on YES, DEFINITELY.
“Even your best friend agrees,” she announced, finally putting the 8 Ball down, “so you have to now. Besides, after today? I need a drink. And so do you.”
“But—”
“No buts! Your best friend said so,” she added, jabbing a finger at the 8 Ball.
Well, I guess I couldn’t argue with that.