Chapter 6
November
Five Months Until The Wedding
Thank god for long legs and quick reflexes, I think as I chase Trip through the hotel lobby.
After muttering something about needing to use the restroom, I excused myself and trailed the outline of his gray suit moving through the palm fronds.
I’m at a clear disadvantage, given that physical obstacles are in play for me, but all those runs with Carter through Central Park must have amounted to something.
He leaves the main atrium and walks at a fast clip down a hallway.
I turn the corner just in time to see him walk through a door on the right.
“Please don’t be locked. Please don’t be locked.” I grab the handle and to my luck, it turns. The space within appears to be some kind of coat check—a dark walk-in closet with a musty smell. Mostly unused, apparently.
Trip stands there, occupying the majority of the cramped space. It’s still baffling to me that someone who is invisible to others can appear so real, so solid, to me. He runs his hands through his hair, strands breaking free of the gelled style and falling forward over his forehead.
I catch my breath. “Are you okay?”
He looks at me and his eyes widen as though he’s just noticing I’m here. “I think so. I—that’s only happened once before. And not like that.”
“What’s only happened once?”
“The lights.” He points to the ceiling and the flickering bulb lighting the space. “Electricity. It seems like there are times I’m able to influence them. Or, against my will, really. I think it’s when I get riled up, upset…”
“Emotional.”
“Yeah.”
I think back to the conversation at the table. The cavalier way the women were discussing Trip’s condition, his family’s plans to end life support, the relationship with his grandfather. A knot twists in my stomach.
“Trip, I—”
“You don’t need to be here.” He raises his eyes from the floor to mine. “Unless, of course, you’re agreeing to help me.”
“Trip, I’m a bit like a fish out of water right now. Two months ago, I didn’t know anything about you. Then I thought I’d hallucinated you. And then I find out you do exist, but not in physical form.”
“I do—”
“You know what I mean.” I take a deep breath.
“And you give me crumbs about the Coldwell curse, about how Carter’s wedding supposedly has something to do with it, but…
it’s a lot to wrap my head around.” I press my palms to the top of my head.
“I might be willing to help you, but I’m going to need some answers first. Oh, and I need to be clued in to things like the possibility of you blowing up the grid if I piss you off. ”
He sighs. “It’s a long story.”
“So you keep saying. I have time.” I take a seat on the floor of the closet and pat the ground in invitation.
“The floor? Seriously?”
“What? It’s not like you’ll actually be touching it.”
“Cruel woman.” He unbuttons his suit jacket and sits down across from me, resting his forearms on his knees. “Happy?” He says it out of the side of his mouth, lips pulling into a sarcastic slant and revealing a white canine among a flawless set of teeth.
My mind jumps to visuals of teeth on necks, lips, sucking. My cheeks flush and I swallow to keep my composure. “Why am I the only one who can see you? Did I touch something in the library that triggered it?”
“Ah, that’s why you’re on about the letter opener.” He taps his foot on the rug. “But no, I don’t think this has anything to do with touching something. Otherwise, every Coldwell, every cleaner who’s spent time in that library would be the same. My guess is this has something to do with you.”
Something to do with me. It’s hard to process. I’ve never been particularly drawn to the occult in the way Babcia is. Never had a premonition or sense that my intuition is advanced in any way.
I clear my throat. “Why don’t you explain what you mentioned before? That Carter getting married will end this…ghost phase of yours?”
“Well, you’ve heard of the curse.” He rests his palm face up on his knee.
“And you believe in it.”
“Do you?”
I fidget with the chain around my neck. “I mean, it’s certainly been well documented. I wouldn’t call it conclusive evidence—”
“Jesus, I forgot you were a lawyer.”
“But still. It’s pretty unbelievable, right?”
“Absolutely ludicrous. At least I always thought so. Carter was more willing to go along with it. He never questioned things the way I did. Never made waves. Except then my grandfather and I both…” He swallows.
“Our accidents happened six months apart.” He rubs his brow. “And then it didn’t seem so crazy.”
We both pause. I think about what Trip has told me—about his body being at the hospital, still clinging to life out there. If this is all true and the version of him in front of me is really in some sort of limbo, some sort of manifestation of his spirit…well, he must be terrified.
I clear my throat. “Carter—when he told me about the curse—he mentioned your grandfather was doing research.”
Trip laughs into his hands, then lifts his head, hair disheveled.
“I hated him for it. He spent all his time in that damn library, searching for answers. The man had an empire, a family. He was so wrapped up in his own mortality. The absurdity of his obsession, at least, was one thing Carter and I agreed on.”
My mind flashes to my conversation with Carter at the coffee shop. My grandfather spent half his life trying to figure this thing out. Hiring psychics and spending more money than was wise chasing a solution.
Trip drags a thumb over his bottom lip. “You should have seen our grandfather the night of his ninetieth birthday party. He was really on one. The man was sharp as a tack—no bouts of lunacy, except when it came to this. He thought he had found a way to end the curse. To prevent the worst from happening to the rest of us.”
I think about the women seated around the tea table a few rooms away, the conversation about the fight between Trip and John. Why had Carter never mentioned it to me? Either he didn’t know or didn’t think it was a big deal. He wouldn’t keep this kind of family drama to himself.
“His ninetieth birthday was the night of your blowup. Is that what you were fighting about?”
He stares into the distance, just over my shoulder. “Indirectly.”
“What was it? The way to break the curse?”
He looks right into my eyes. “Something I wasn’t willing to do.”
“Which was…?” My voice is a whisper.
“Work with me, and I’ll tell you.”
“Not so fast.” I squint.
Okay, so he won’t be so easy to crack. That’s okay—if my time in the courtroom taught me anything, it’s to keep him talking. Wait for something to slip out.
I clear my throat. “So, you said no.”
“I walked out. I was convinced this was some new crap he was pulling to keep me under his thumb. To do what he wanted and not question it. He wasn’t beyond manipulation by any means, but an invented solution to the curse that impacted only my life was a bit far.
” Trip rubs the back of his neck. “I moved away. I’d been considering it, but the argument was the last straw. We didn’t speak again before he died.”
“Trip…I’m so sorry.”
He waves his hand and doesn’t say anything, his eyes glued to the floor.
Though I know it won’t make a difference, I can’t help myself. I reach for his hand where it rests on his knee. The sensation is like touching an electric current. I close my palm around his. There’s a warm vibration, almost like the air is trembling.
Trip’s eyes meet mine, and they’re the tiniest bit wet. “Now it seems stupid to have refused. If I could’ve saved him from…what happened. If I could go back—”
Unsure of the protocol for comforting an astral projection, I hold my wrist steady against the trembling energy, moving my thumb in what I hope is a soothing motion.
“You didn’t know. You couldn’t have, or you would have acted differently.”
“Would I, though? That’s the part I can’t decide every time I replay the scenario in my mind. Maybe Carter had the right idea to some extent. Family first and all that.”
I sigh. “Family’s complicated. I get it. I love my grandmother more than anything, and yet she’s as stubborn as they come. A real pain.” I chuckle softly, then swallow. “I think he cared for you, Trip. He came to you with this information, he trusted you and confided in you. That speaks volumes.”
“Maybe…”
“And screw those women and anyone else who gossips about your relationship, who projects ideas of how you should’ve acted or what you should’ve done. I have a few thoughts about how they should act.”
The buzzing in my hand grows firmer, and the yellow light bulb overhead begins to flicker.
“Shit, Elz.” He smiles, though his eyes are still wet. It strikes me he’s been living like this, unable to talk to anyone, for over six months. It must be so incredibly lonely.
“So, this plan. With Carter’s wedding. You think if you break the curse, you might”—I clear my throat—“wake up?”
“I guess.” Trip rubs his thumb on the toe of his dress shoe.
“I don’t really have much choice but to try, do I?
I spent the first few months trying to reconcile the fact that I woke up one day no longer connected to my body, that I can move through walls.
That I might still have a chance at life but no idea how to increase my odds of surviving.
You heard them out there. Five months. That’s all I have.
I can either do something or watch them pull the plug on my body, with my soul, or whatever this is”—he waves at himself—“not far behind.”
I nod in silence. A beat passes without either of us saying anything.
When the energy has calmed, I remove my hand from his and test the waters. “So, you weren’t willing to do what your grandfather asked you to break the curse, but what does Carter’s wedding have to do with it?”
“Grandfather was operating on information he got from a fortune teller who thought she had found the solution.”
“Which was?”
He sighs and presses his fingertips into his eye sockets. “I didn’t get all the details, but I’m trying to learn more. Basically, the little I do know…” He arches an eyebrow and glances at me. “How do I know you won’t share this information?”
“I’m sorry, but who am I going to tell? Hey there, I’ve been speaking to a disembodied spirit and there’s this curse that a fortune teller told him how to break?”
“Carter, for one.”
“We never really talk about the curse.” In fact, Trip and I have probably spent more time on it than Carter and I ever have over the course of our friendship.
His gaze fixes on me, like he’s evaluating the truth of this. “Fine. Like I said, the information’s incomplete, but I’m fairly certain it has to do with Carter’s wedding.”
“Based on the word of a fortune teller?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Based on the word of a fortune teller.” He meets my gaze, and his voice is deadpan. “I’ve been trying to locate her to get the exact details, but you know, it’s kind of hard for me to talk to anyone. Except you, of course.”
“What’s her name?”
Trip shakes his head, more locks falling into his face. “Oh no you don’t. I’m not sending you off on some side mission of your own. Either you’re working with me on this, or you’ll have to dig up that information for yourself.”
“Well, you have the information. Do it yourself, then.”
He gives me a pointed look. “I could really use a body.”
“Is that all I am to you?” The corner of my mouth tugs upward. Am I flirting?
“Frankly, yes.”
Talk about ice water to my ego.
“Though the fact that you’re also smart and willing to talk to me doesn’t hurt.”
I meet his eyes and search for something there—a sign, a reason to help this stranger. To commit to the belief that he is a real spirit somehow only I see. To help him and therefore send my best friend off to London in a few months.
I lower my gaze to the floor. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
Standing, I brush the backs of my legs to rid them of any dust bunnies gathered on the closet floor. Trip stays seated, not looking at me. An invisible tug stops me from leaving the closet right away.
This man is a stranger to you, and also quite possibly a hallucination. You are not compelled to help him.
I take one last look at him, then turn toward the door. My hand grips the worn brass knob.
“What if you change your mind?” His voice is a low rumble down my spine.
I glance back over my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Trip, but I don’t think I will.”
“Eh, you might.” His face is obscured in my line of sight, but there’s a smile behind his voice.
“And why is that?” I turn the knob and throw the closet door open.
The faint sounds of guests chatting float their way into the room.
“Because you love Carter.”
“And?” I’m suddenly desperate to leave. To forget this ever happened.
“And if we don’t break the curse, it will come for him next.”