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“You came!” she bellows.
Lenna glances at the cabbie’s ball cap, pulled low, and then back at her friend again. She lets her palms splay free.Please, please, please,she thinks, trying to push down a shudder of dread.Make this worth it.But also this:Please let her have forgiven me if she already knows…or have mercy on me once I tell her the truth.
She looks at Rhiannon. “I came.”
2
Lenna
May
Two years before
The lights in the dressing room line in the H&M store at the Beverly Center were an eerie shade of orange, even though it was nowhere near Halloween. Lenna stared down at her hands, which held a few questionable items she was pretty sure wouldn’t look good on her tall, gangly, straight-up-and-down body—in this strange light, her skin looked positively ghoulish. Every indication was saying she should leave this store; she wasn’t even sure she liked the clothes she was trying on. And yet, something was compelling her to stay. Just for a moment.
Lenna was a believer in signs. Her mother had been the same; the two of them even had a game where they opened up the newspaper in the morning, and whatever story they felt pulled to would set the tone for their day. These days, whenever Lenna felt that something might be an omen, good or bad, she saw it as maybe a messagefromher mother, from the other side. Lenna didn’t always give in to the vibes, but today, the anniversary of her mother’s death, she felt she should.
In the line in front of her, a mother stood with a little girl who looked to be about four—sporting pigtails, bright pink leggings, and a plastic backpack all her own, emblazoned with a pink girlish cartoon pig. The girl had been placid a moment before, but suddenly she pitched herself onto the floor and started screeching.
“Get up,” the mother hissed, yanking the girl’s arm.
But the girl made her body go slack. “Mommy just wants to try these on,” the mother begged, holding up several dresses. “Can you please just help Mommy out and come into the dressing room with me?” And then, under her breath:“Just this once?”
“I don’t want to!” The little girl kicked her legs. “I don’t like this store!”
Other people waiting in line shot the mother a dirty look. Lenna shifted the clothes in her arms. She felt bad for the mother and wanted to help, but she felt uncomfortable initiating conversations. Especially with people she didn’t know.
Then someone behind Lenna stepped from the line. “Hey there.” She dropped to her knees to where the little girl lay. “Want to see something cool?”
The woman had bountiful auburn curls that spilled down her back and was wearing, Lenna was almost sure, the very skirt-and-blouse combination on a mannequin in the shop’s front window. She held her phone out to the girl. “Wanna watch something with me while your mommy tries on clothes?”
The girl looked at her mother—who seemed at first startled, and then suspicious. “No, no,” the mother said. “It’s fine. She’s fine. We’re getting up right now, aren’t we, Cassidy?”
“We’ll sit right here on this rug,” the auburn-haired woman cooed. She had the kind of raspy voice Lenna envied. There was a girl from high school who had a voice like that—like she’d been out all night singing at the top of her lungs, or smoking too manycigarettes, something else subversive and brave and way beyond Lenna’s comfort level. “Take your time, Mommy. Seriously.”
The mother waffled, but then turned back to an open dressing room. Someone had just left; it was her turn. “Mommy is right here,” she told her daughter, pulling the curtain closed. “Right behind this curtain, Cass. Yell out if you need me.”
“Uh-huh,” the little girl said, smiling smugly. She stared at the screen. A mechanicalblooptinkled, and Cassidy gasped. “Ooh, a kitten!”
“Yep. There are kittens in this game,” the auburn-haired woman said excitedly.
“Kittens?” the mom called from inside the dressing room. There were clicks as she took clothes from a hanger. “What are you looking at, baby?”
Lenna watched the two of them on the ground. All of a sudden, the same sort of universe-force that had pushed her into H&M compelled her to bend down and speak to them.
“Can I see the kitten, too?” she asked shyly.
The auburn-haired woman looked up and smiled. “Sure.” She tilted the screen toward Lenna.
Pixelated kittens flew across the screen. “Wow,” Lenna said. “Thatisreally cool!”
“Iknow,” the little girl said.
Lenna chuckled. The little girl reminded Lenna of Farrin, a spunky four-year-old she’d nannied for the summer between high school and college. Lenna used to come home with a plethora of Farrin-isms to share with her mom. Silly things the girl said and did, how she seemed old and wise beyond her years.
Her mom, who’d been so healthy back then, showing no sign of what was to come.
Lenna turned to the auburn-haired woman. “Nice of you to give the mom a break.”
