Chapter 37
Hannah
It pains me that this is where Ginny ended up.
Especially since we both worked so hard to leave Bonita Vista.
I wanted better for her, but I wasn’t in my right mind when my parents chose Fairview, and by the time I got my wits together, they’d already put down a deposit.
They insisted that since Ginny was their kid—they were still paying for her health insurance, for God’s sake—they got to make the decision.
If Dr. X were here, I’d tell her that this cemetery is yet another reason I can’t let Ginny go. There’s no way I can accept a reality in which my precious sister gets stuck here, in this forgotten suburban plot. Better to keep her with me, in whatever form I can.
Obviously, if I actually told Dr. X that I keep Ginny with me, the good doc would probably have me committed. So it was hard to protest when she assigned me the “therapy homework” of driving to Bonita Vista and visiting Ginny’s grave. She swore it would be cathartic.
Ginny’s grave marker still looks fresh and new, no mildew yet.
She’s been put in a far corner of the cemetery, so at least she has some privacy, no one treading over her grave to get to someone else.
There’s a limp bunch of sunflowers lying in front of the stone.
My mom is good about bringing flowers, I’ll give her that.
I think she comes every week. It’s a nice enough gesture that I’m trying to repress the thought that Ginny never liked sunflowers—she was a ranunculus girl.
“The practical woman’s peony,” she called them.
“It’s true,” says Ginny, walking up behind her grave. “They look just like peonies at half the price. It’s what I would’ve chosen for my wedding.”
Her face glows with freckled beauty. “You would’ve made a perfect bride,” I say.
She sighs. “I wish I’d known I only had twenty-six years to fool around with guys. I would’ve hooked up so much more. Like you.”
“Slut-shaming even now,” I tsk. “You know feminism still applies when you’re dead?” What I really want to say is that I’d give her my wedding, my life and my years, if I could. But some things are too maudlin even for Ginny’s spirit.
“So,” she says. “You feeling the catharsis yet?”
I fold myself down on the grass in front of her grave and look around.
There’s a bird singing in one of the trees, a sweet, trilling high note I couldn’t reach if I tried.
It’s comforting to know there’s another creature here, and even in this suburban wasteland, there’s a music to the way the tree branches shift in the breeze.
A truck rumbles slowly down a distant road. It’s not the worst mix of melodies.
And yet there’s the relentless shining sun. I squint at it.
“I know what you’re about to say,” Ginny prompts. “And you need to get over it. It’s a weird hang-up.”
“It’s just disrespectful. Does it need to be sunny every day? California can’t give us a few months of storms in your honor?”
Ginny plops down on the grass facing me, with her legs crossed. “People literally move here for the eternal sunshine.”
I eye the grass at her feet. “I could dig you up and move you. We could go anywhere.”
She snorts. “You would go to one place only, and that’s prison.”
“Leonardo da Vinci used to dig up graves to study anatomy. Very respectable doctors in Scotland used to steal bodies to practice surgery.”
“Gross.”
“Remember when we learned Mary Shelley had sex with Percy for the first time on her mother’s grave?”
“I think you’re going to have to resign yourself to the fact that people used to get away with much more punk rock things in cemeteries.”
We gaze at each other. Her face is a mirror of my own, just a touch younger. Forever young.
“It’s getting harder to tell when you’re joking,” she admits.
I keep my poker face on just to keep her guessing. “Are you done being mad at me for shaving my head?”
“Depends.” She taps her gravestone, right where it says Virginia Elizabeth Cortland. “Are you going to take this catharsis thing seriously?”
I draw my knees up. “What exactly am I supposed to do?”
She squints. “I think you’re supposed to acknowledge that I’m dead and therefore not really sitting in front of you.”
“Easy. I know that.”
“And then I think you’re supposed to stop talking to me. Especially all day, every day. I think you’re supposed to stop wondering what I’d say when something funny happens or when you’re trying to make a decision. And definitely stop asking me for advice about what you’re supposed to do.”
“But—”
“You’re supposed to stop imagining me when you’re furious or happy just because I’m the person you want to share it with.
You’re supposed to clean out my bedroom, give some of the stuff to Mom and Dad and Rip and Ken, and donate the rest. Stop wearing my clothes.
Stop writing songs about me. And I’m picking up strong hints from Dr. X that she wants you to consider rehab. ”
“Jesus. I don’t need rehab.”
“You drink a lot more than you used to.”
“Here’s the thing.” I lie back on the grass and fold my hands behind my head.
“If I do any of that, I’m officially alone.
And I don’t mean temporarily.” I glance at Ginny.
“I mean fundamentally, existentially alone.” I can feel the icy pull of the aloneness even now.
The sensation is what I imagine it would feel like to get expelled into space: a cold emptiness so eternal it’s obliterating.
“Human beings aren’t meant to live like that. ”
“You aren’t alone. You have Mom and Dad and Ripper and Kenny and Bowie.”
I root up a dandelion and twist it in my fingers. “Not at the moment.”
“Yeah, you know, for a girl who’s scared of being alone, you’re awfully good at alienating people.” Off my look, Ginny holds up her hands. “Fine, I understand the human brain isn’t always logical. What about Theo?”
I close my eyes and picture him, his broad shoulders hunched over the recording equipment in the studio, full lips pursed in concentration. A hand running distractedly through his hair. “Theo is temporary.”
“I think you could keep him,” she counters.
“How?” I shift my focus to the birdsong. There’s a strange, distant clicking sound, too, vaguely familiar.
“I mean really keep him. In a way that matters.”
“He’s a Suit, Gin. I’m his stepping stone to a promotion.”
The strange clicking sound continues.
“You know better than that,” she says softly.
The bird stops singing but the clicking sound grows louder. I crack an eye.
“I’m not blaming you for not experiencing catharsis yet,” Ginny says.
“If it was the other way around and you died and left me, I’d become a belligerent drunk too.
I’d probably shave my whole head, not just half, and spiral and quit the band and try to set my life on fire. That’s how much I love you.”
“I don’t—”
Click-click-click.
It hits me where I’ve heard that noise before. I launch to my knees and spin, heart pounding.
There he is—the photographer is crouched behind a tree, camera to his face, the lens glinting in the sun. He sees me spot him and jerks back.
“What the fuck, man?” I scramble to my feet. I have mud on the knees of my jeans but I ignore it. “What are you doing?”
“He drove all the way to Bonita Vista?” Ginny asks. “That’s like two hours from LA.”
I start walking toward him, and the photographer scurries back. “Who are you talking to?” he yells. “Do you have an invisible friend?”
“Screw you!” I start to run. “Give me that camera!”
The photographer leaps over the short wrought-iron fence, remarkably agile, and bolts down the road. I keep running, following him until my lungs give out and I have to stop in the middle of the road. The paparazzo races around the corner and disappears from view.
“Goodness,” Ginny says, appearing beside me. “That guy’s an Olympic athlete. Freaking Usain Bolt of paparazzi. Don’t beat yourself up—I don’t think you stood a chance.”
I bend in half, still trying to catch my breath, my hair hanging in a stringy curtain around me, and surprise myself by starting to cry.