Ren drove the truck to New York three days ago, so I get to drive it north.  Which is perfectly excellent by me, seeing as how I like driving Deus better than I like driving Darkside anyway.  Deus is a lovely double blue F-350 crew cab pickup, complete with fat fenders covering dual rear wheels, and he’s a diesel so he’s not particularly bothered by having to drag a forty-foot trailer.  The trailer doesn’t match and it’s borderline garish, all red over black with a huge Crane-Packard logo on the side.  Inside are our show car, about fifty boxes of press kits, and the disassembled components of our stage setup, which is nicknamed, “The Device.”

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The wrought iron gate looked like it dated to medieval times, but it swung open smoothly, without even a hint of a creak.  When it was wide enough to admit an F-350, Lexi Crane put her big blue-on-blue dually pickup into gear and idled onto the grounds of the sprawling Packard estate.  The speaker-box behind her squawked, trying to give her directions to the house.  She figured she’d find it herself.  April was pleasant on Staten Island, and the carefully groomed woods on either side of the road smelled wonderful; the knowledge of the bouquet of diesel the truck was no doubt leaving behind it only improved things.  Not that Lexi wanted to stink up the flowers, of course.  She just liked the smell of diesel.

The house made Lexi think of a Victorian Star Destroyer, but bigger.  She couldn’t imagine Ren growing up here, though for the most part he had.  He was on the porch, talking to his mother, and he still didn’t belong.  They didn’t even look particularly alike.  Ren and his mother shared the same piercing green eyes and sandy blond hair, but her face was sharp (probably in part through surgery) and elegantly avian where Ren had a great deal more nerdy Brit in his jaw and nose thanks to his father’s side of the family.

His back was to the driveway, and Becka flicked her chin at the truck as it pulled up, as if he hadn’t heard it.  The gesture dripped disapproval, as always.  Lexi resisted the urge to lay on the horn. She’d have been justified in doing so; Becka had sent a car for Ren, knowing that he had to be back by six and promising he would be in the city by five-thirty.  Ren had given Lexi a look that said he knew full well how long it took to get from Staten Island to downtown, and if he wasn’t back by 5:17 she should come looking for him.  They had a reception to attend, and technically they were hosting it.  It was very much like Becka to attempt to quietly sabotage things this way.  There’d be an excuse of course, and something that sounded like an apology.

Ren rushed down the steps and joined Lexi in the truck.  As he slid in he reached out and touched her hand on the gearshift, and the gesture carried more love and affection than any kiss could have.  The touch seemed to replenish some invisible, indispensable element that the house and his mother had sucked out of him.  Lexi could practically hear Becka’s angry twitch.

Resisting the urge to slam the dually into first and plow through the exotic flowers lining the drive (and oh, the image of Becka being sprayed with dirt and petal shreds kicked up by the dual rear wheels was a fetching one indeed), she swung around the circular driveway and headed back for the gate.  “What happened to the driver who was supposed to get you back by five-thirty?” she asked.

“Conveniently sent home early,” Ren said tightly, adjusting his glasses.  “Glad you got dressed already.”  Lexi looked out of place in the truck’s workmanlike interior; she wore green satin and had her hair up.  Her earrings were tiny MG badges, her pumps in the footwell so she could drive.  She’d dressed up in exchange for his accepting Becka’s invite.  “Pretty,” he said of her dress.

“It matches your eyes.  It’s Molly’s fault.”

“What time do we have to be at the Rainbow Room?” Ren asked.

“Six.”

“Shit.”  It was five-forty and they still had the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and most of Lower Manhattan to cross.  The social gathering that inevitably followed a press conference was a necessary evil, as was the brief welcome speech he’d have to make.  Rushing in the door after most of the guests had arrived was not the way he wanted to do this.  Lexi understood without having to ask, and she was already surfing the big Ford fearlessly through traffic in fourth gear.  “Why didn’t you drive Darkside?” he asked, wishing for the confident push of his hot-rodded Mercury’s five hundred horsepower under the hood instead of the big diesel pickup’s more relaxed pace.

“One, because I hate him; he’s your car and he doesn’t like me.  Two, because there’s more room to change in here.”  Lexi hooked a thumb at the pickup’s back seat, where Ren’s tuxedo was hanging.  “Three, the truck scares taxis.”

“You’re too cool,” he said, unbuckling his seatbelt.  “And I was right, there was no point in going to see her.”

Lexi rolled her eyes.  “Yes, there was.  She’s your mother.”

“I hate it when you say that,” he muttered half-seriously.  He flopped into the back seat.

“I can’t pretend to like anyone who thinks they’re as important as she does, Ren, but she’s still your mother and you’ll miss her when she’s gone.”

“And the seas will boil and the moon will be as blood, right.  She threatened to disinherit me if I married you, you know,” he said, pulling his shirt over his head.  There was no need to be shy; the truck’s windows were darkly tinted.  “That’s what was so important it couldn’t wait.  I think she forgot that she already did it when we first started going out.  I really thought she meant it that time, too.”

“Marry me?  You haven’t even asked yet.”

“I know.  Did I need to?”

Lexi shrugged with a look of content pleasure.  “Not really.  When?”

“Whenever.”

She swerved to cut through a gap in traffic, and he slipped off of the seat with a yelp.  “Sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay.  I’m glad you came.  I couldn’t have taken much more of it.”  Ren lay down to get his pants on.  “From the radio it sounds reaction to the launch was good.”

Lexi nodded, her eyes on the road.  “One of the hits of the ’96 New York Auto Show, I believe the official line goes.  Not bad for the new kid on the block.”

“The new kid can kick a Corvette’s ass,” he amended.  “Dammit!” he said, suddenly annoyed again.  “Why did she have to drag me away from that?  I can’t believe I rushed away right after my own press conference.”

“That’s what wicked mothers do,” Lexi said matter-of-factly.  “But I’ve said too much.  Let’s don’t talk about Becka any more today.  And the buzz is very good.  Everyone liked your presentation, and my trick with the cat.  Ron says that all twenty-four cars are sold and he expects more deposits.  We’re popular.”

Ren was stunned.  “The daydream is alive,” he said.

She grinned, watching him fuss with his tie in the mirror.  “I’m bored of rubbing noses with Important People, Ren,” Lexi said.  “And I hate wearing heels.”  They were getting close, weaving up the East Side Highway and using the F-350′s bulk to muscle smaller cars (and trucks) out of the way.

Ren was dressed, but he stayed in the back seat.  He gave the back of her neck a stroke.  Lexi purred, felt a thrill race up across the top of her scalp, split and dive straight into each nipple.  From there it kept going, down across her belly, curling through her lower abdomen and fetching up in the inner thighs.  The sensation was there and gone in half a second.  She never got used to it, the way he could touch her and set off that chain reaction, and never wanted to.

She trilled in pleasure, a sound that couldn’t possibly contain half of what it needed to convey, but Ren understood.  Lexi said, “I’m burned out on socializing.  For the month.”

“Hang with me for a couple more hours?”

“Absolutely.  Get me a bowl of green grapes and I’ll be fine, I’ll meet and greet all evening.  Can we have a quickie in the broom closet?”

“Later, honey, we’ll talk business later,” Ren said, channeling Sam Spade.  She grinned at him.  They pulled up to the curb behind a gleaming red Bentley, just as a valet parker whisked the car away.  The two men who’d gotten out of it were on their way in, both dressed for the black tie affair.  “That’s Dobie Cassarell,” Ren said.  “I want to catch up with him.”

“Go ahead, I’ll meet you.”  Lexi shifted into neutral and stood on the foot-activated parking brake.  She heard Ren’s door open and close as a parker in a red jacket came to her window.

“Help you?” he asked.

“We’re parking for the Rainbow Room.”

“This truck won’t fit in the garage.” 

She rolled her eyes and opened the door so she could put her shoes on.  “That’s a quandary, isn’t it?”

“Dobie!” Ren called.  They held the elevator for him.

“Warren,” Dobie said warmly.  “A pleasure.”  They shook hands, and Ren nodded to Victor, Dobie’s bodyguard.  Both men were taller than Ren’s five-eleven; Dobie by two inches, Victor by at least five.  Both wore their tuxedos with practiced ease; Ren seemed out of place in spite of his left-of-center pinstripes.  Dobie was the scion of an old-money family from overseas, and his strong resemblance to Cary Grant was getting more pronounced as he entered his late thirties.  Victor was ex-military and it showed in his strong, silent bearing and chiseled jaw.  His eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, and there was an earpiece almost hidden beneath his black hair, which was thinning at the temples. 

The rapid ascent to the 65th floor began.  “Congratulations.  Looks like you’re off to a promising start,” Dobie said.

“Thanks.  And thanks for coming.  I know it’s a long flight from Ile du Soleil.”

“More than worthwhile.  Glad to see the fruits of your labor firsthand.”  Dobie was a shareholder, but had contributed largely on the basis of his acquaintance with Ren and a general interest in cars.  He hadn’t actually seen a Crane-Packard before today, Ren knew.   “I spoke to your sales associate too late, though; I’m told I’ll have to wait for the next batch.  A pity.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Ren said.  Dobie could probably purchase several of the $45,000 cars with what was in his wallet and have change.  “In the meantime, I have something I need you to hold for me.”

He raised a brow, intrigued.  “Do tell?”

“Just a briefcase.  Lexi’s birthday present.”

“And you want me to hold it?”

“It’s a month away yet, and she’s a good searcher.  I figure if it’s off in another country, she probably won’t find it and spoil my surprise.  And we’ll have to come there to get it anyhow.  Can you do that for me?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thanks so much,” Ren said, adjusting his glasses absently.  “I’ll have it sent to your hotel when we check out of ours.”

“No need.  Victor can go and pick it up.”

“Thanks,” he said again.  The elevator opened, and they stepped into the art deco opulence of the Rainbow Room.  There were already quite a few people arrived.  Ren checked his watch; not too late.  “First things first,” he said, nodding toward the bar.  Dobie chuckled and walked with him.  Victor faded into the crowd.  On the way there, Ren saw several automotive magazine editors, David Letterman, and two race drivers he knew.  He got sucked into a couple of conversations along the way, and finally met Dobie at the bar.

“Can you fill a tumbler with vanilla ice cream, lemon juice, a splash of cranberry juice, an even smaller splash of vodka and all of the strawberries from the fruit basket behind you, and then grind it all up in the blender?” he asked the bartender, ticking the ingredients off on his fingers and pantomiming the blending.  “It’s extremely important.”

“I don’t believe we have any ice cream.”

“I called beforehand to make sure you’d have some,” Ren said patiently.

“Let me check–oh, here it is.  Right away, sir.”

Dobie was impressed.  “You’re a man with strange tastes.”

“On the contrary.  I know exactly what I like.”  The blender whirred.  The bartender passed the smoothie to Ren just as Lexi arrived.  She was still wearing her glasses; usually she only wore them to drive but she also had a habit of hiding behind them when she felt overwhelmed.  Ren offered the drink to her; she traded it for the valet parking ticket with a little cackle of satisfaction and walked past them, on her way into the main room.  Ren heard someone call her name, and smiled as he asked the bartender for a glass of Sprite.

“I take it back,” Dobie said.  “Your little Audrey Hepburn lookalike has you very well-trained.”

Ren laughed.  “She doesn’t look that much like Audrey.”

“I’m not the only man to disagree with you.  Is that your brother over there?”

“Indeed it is.  Danny,” Ren said loudly enough for his younger brother to hear, and nodded so he’d join them.

Danny Packard arrived grinning, and raised a martini to Ren.  “Congratulations,” he said.  “Nobody thought you’d be able to make it happen.”  The backward compliment was Danny’s way of expressing approval.  He was here against their mother’s wishes, Ren knew, and the conflict of loyalties–going against Becka to show his support for Ren, even though it was also tacitly showing approval of Lexi–was probably mentally taxing enough to make any sort of civility from Danny a miracle.  Unlike Ren, Danny was the spitting image of his mother, equal parts American royalty and kid next door in his attitude.

Ren leaned toward Dobie, pretending to speak confidentially.  “Nobody ever believes me when I say I’m going to do something.” 

“I believed in you.”  Danny sounded offended.

“‘Course you did.”  Hors d’ouvres were being passed; Ren saw fancy little sandwiches with olives on top, but no servers were close enough to grab one.  “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a great car.  When can I buy one?”

“Danny, you don’t even know how to drive.”

“So?  Klaus can drive me in it.  Or you can teach me, you’ve been doing all of that racing.”

“In my experience,” Dobie said, “if a man hasn’t learned to drive by the time he’s twenty-five, he’s not going to learn.”  Danny flushed, and Dobie held up a hand to still the younger man’s temper.  “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.  The most important men shouldn’t be bothered with driving.”

“Precisely my reason for not being important,” Ren said, needling his little brother.  He couldn’t help himself.  He glanced to his right and saw Lexi at the doorway to the ballroom, chatting with someone from AutoWeek.  She met his eye for an instant, then looked back to the journalist she was talking to, plucked the fat olive from the top of her sandwich and tossed it underhand.  The fruit tumbled quickly through the air, covering the thirty feet that separated them; Ren leaned backward and caught it in his mouth.  Some of the guests who noticed laughed. 

Danny recovered first.  “I’m throwing a party at the house tomorrow evening.  It would be great to see you there,” he said to Ren.  “Both of you.”  Dobie’s family had been friends to the Packards since they were children; Dobie was eight years older than Warren, and the familes had been close when he was a child.

“Mom won’t allow Lexi in the house.  You know that.”

“I’ll see if she’ll make an exception tomorrow,” Danny said unconvincingly.

“Sorry.  We’re headed to Vermont tomorrow.  We’re going to hibernate at a little B&B and shake all of this socializing off.”

“What about the show car, and the display?  Didn’t you and Lexi drive it in?” Dobie asked.

“That we did.  And we’ll drive it back out again, too, Smokey and the Bandit style.  Driving a forty-foot gooseneck through Vermont should be amusing as hell.”  Danny and Dobie looked lost.  “Big trailer, big truck,” he explained.  “Anyway, we’ll be unavailable tomorrow, and the next day.  And possibly the next.”

“I see you got her to dress up,” Danny said.  “I was sure she’d be wearing her combat boots.”

Ren replied without looking at Danny.  “What she wears is her decision,” he said.

“Do you ever regret saying that?”

He shook his head slightly, willing Lexi to throw him another olive.  She obliged.  He caught this one in his hand and offered it to Danny, who pulled a face and turned to the bartender to get his martini replenished.  “Okay,” Ren told Dobie, clapping him on the shoulder, “I’m off to circulate.  Got to act like a host, after all.”

Dobie let him go and maintained his position by the bar.  He didn’t have any significant networking to do here, and would probably do well to make sure Danny didn’t feel ignored or cast aside.

“I don’t understand,” Danny said, attacking his second martini.  “I don’t get him, what she’s done to him.  He didn’t need her to do any of this, and he acts like she’s…” he waved a hand inarticulately. 

Ren had moved into the far room, while Lexi had circled back toward the door, butterflying from group to group.  Dobie watched her while Danny ranted, and didn’t reply.

“Look at her,” Danny said, as if Dobie wasn’t already.  “Look at her.  The help looks better than she does.  She looks like she pulled that dress out of a dumpster.”

“I think you’re overstating the case somewhat,” Dobie said.  He didn’t go so far as to say that he was buying into his mother’s hatred of Lexi, but the thought was there.  “I agree that her dress doesn’t suit her.  I’ve even spent enough time around models” –Dobie didn’t say dating; best to be a gentleman, even when talking to someone as coarse as Danny Packard– “to be able to say that it’s too tight across the hips and is emphasizing her shoulders and upper arms too much.  She’s got an athletic build, and–”

“She’s dumpy,” Danny interjected.

“As I said, athletic.”

“She looks like a maid.  An ugly maid.  I figured Ren was just slumming when he picked her up, just an easy lay, you know?  And then he got all gaga over her.”

Dobie favored the younger man with a tight, patient smile.  “Your point is taken, Danny, though I honestly don’t think this is an appropriate time or place to be making it in any case.  Can we move on to another subject?”

Danny was properly chagrined.  “Sorry, sir.”

Dobie nodded, and kept watching Lexi, who had a small ring of auto writers around her now.  Though her dress didn’t suit her as well as it could have, she stood out by virtue of being supremely comfortable in her own skin.  Take away her oval-framed glasses and the shocking white streak bleached in her dark brown hair and she was actually rather plain-looking–a pretty sort of plain, perhaps, with happy brown eyes and animated features, but not a model or actress by any stretch.  She wore almost no makeup, which didn’t help in Dobie’s eyes.  But Lexi had a carefree, almost immodest glow that transcended mere appearance, and Dobie wasn’t the only one to have noticed, judging by her audience.  He had wanted to discuss the matter further with Danny and see if the younger Packard noticed as well.  The two of them usually ended up talking about women at gatherings like this.  It was clear that Lexi wasn’t a woman to Danny, though.

“I could go for her friend, at least,” Danny said, interrupting Dobie’s reverie.

“Who’s that?” 

“Her friend.  Molly.  Molly Snow, that’s her name.”  Danny indicated a woman who had just joined Lexi’s circle.  About four inches shorter than Lexi’s five-eight, the newcomer had dusky Italian features, with wavy brown hair surrounding a heart-shaped face.  Dobie noticed absently that Molly’s royal blue and black dress was professionally fitted, where Lexi’s hadn’t been.  “And look at that rack.”

Dobie gave Danny a look acknowledging the crudity but at the same time agreeing with him.  They were back on comfortable ground; Danny was generally a simple creature and Dobie liked him best this way.  The deeper workings of Danny’s mind were too much like his mother’s, and though she was a fine woman, the Western world probably didn’t need a twenty-five year old male version of Becka Packard.  And there wasn’t any denying Lexi’s friend’s endowment, either.

“Something about those corn-fed Midwestern girls always gets me going,” Danny said.  “I took a shot at her, but she played it off like she wasn’t interested.  I just let it go.  I wasn’t going to have her stringing me along, I just wanted her to feel included, you know?”

Dobie nodded.  “I know,” he said.  He didn’t miss being in his twenties.

“Mr. Cassarell?” a voice at his shoulder asked.  Dobie turned.  “I’m Ian Warnock, CFO of Crane-Packard.  Ian was five-nine, with piercing hazel eyes that didn’t match his black brows and what remained of his hair, which wasn’t much.  Ian was obviously Ren’s age, too young to be fully bald on top.  Ian seemed to be aware of this, and his eyes flicked to Dobie’s full, slightly graying mane before he began speaking.  “I just wanted to introduce myself to all of the shareholders, while we had you all in one place.”

“Yes, Ian, it’s good to meet you.  You’re an old school chum of Ren’s, do I have that correct?”

“That’s right, we went to college together, and then started at Ford around the same time.  When he up and quit and said he was starting his own company, he offered me the job.  After all, you might as well have a money man who looks like a money man, right?”  Ian laughed self-deprecatingly.

“You’ve done a fantastic job, Mr. Warnock.  I know that pulling together funding to start a car company from scratch, even a small one, is no minor task.  You ought to be proud of yourself.”

“Wouldn’t have managed it without all of you,” he said, shaking Dobie’s hand again.  “Let me know if I can get you anything, while you’re here or while you’re in New York.  Are you in the States for long?”

“Just for the weekend,” Dobie said.

“Well, if you have time in your schedule for it, we’re going to do a tour of the assembly facility in Detroit on Thursday, for the shareholders and the first customers.  We’ll fly everyone out there in the morning and be back by dinnertime.”

Dobie raised an eyebrow.  “Let me see if I can make space in my schedule for that.  It sounds interesting.”

In the main room, Ren saw Albert Branda from Motor Trend and Glen Grant from Late Apex, and greeted them both.

“Great intro, Ren,” Al said.  “One of the most fun I’ve ever seen.  Did Lexi train her cat to do that jump?”

“Took two months,” Ren said.  “Malice is a smart cat.”

“Is it true all of the cars are already sold?”

“That’s what Ron says, but you’ll have to ask him to be sure.”

“Why no pre-orders?” Glen asked.  It was customary to take deposits on cars to be produced during the coming months.  Crane-Packard had refused to do this.

Ren smiled.  “I didn’t feel right about selling cars I hadn’t built yet.”

“Wouldn’t the extra capital help to get you off the ground, though?”

He shrugged.  “It’s not about money,” he said.

“What are you looking at, for production?”

“Depends on demand.  I think we’ve got capacity for up to five hundred cars this year, if we break out the whips and drums.  I’m going to play it by ear.  Here’s a hilarious thing–UPS directed all of our supplies to our house, instead of the factory.  Someone crossed the wrong ‘t’ somewhere and now we’ve got fifty crates of car parts in our basement instead of on the production line.  My biography will be entitled, If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another.” 

He knew Lexi was at his right elbow without turning.  She hadn’t met Al or Glen, so he introduced her.  Someone who wasn’t Lexi cleared her throat, and he looked to see Molly with her.  “You forgot one,” she said.

Ren looked at Lexi, put on a goofy Chinese accent and quoted Big Trouble in Little China.  “Who are these people, eh?  Friends of yours?  Now this really pisses me off to no end!”  He turned back to the journalists and spoke in his normal voice.  “And this is Molly Snow.”

There was a shift in the conversation; with the two women present, the shop talk ceased instantly.  “Who do you write for, Molly?” Al asked, shaking her hand. 

“I freelance,” she said.  “But not automotive.  I’m not actually here working, I’m just a friend of Lexi’s.”

“And you got all dolled up just to come out and have dinner with a bunch of car writers.  Aren’t you disappointed?” he said with a grin.

“Not a bit,” she said.  “There are worse ways to spend the evening than getting hit on by guys twice my age.  And it’s an open bar,” she added, indicating her glass of wine.  Al smiled uncertainly, not sure if he was being insulted or not.  Glen smiled.

“I was telling these guys about all of the mechanicals being shipped to Arcadia,” Ren said to Lexi.  She nodded.  “Oh, is it time?”  Lexi nodded again.  “What is that stuff?” he asked, touching the rim of her almost-gone smoothie.

He was quoting from the movie again, and she gave the next line back to him, doing her best to mimic the character Egg Shen.  “It is black blood of earth,” she said.

“You mean oil?”

“No, I mean black blood of earth,” Lexi said, then added, “You’re stalling,” breaking their game. 

Ren scanned the room quickly.  It was full enough.  “This is the last time I agree to be master of ceremonies,” he said.  “Next time, you can be the figurehead, and I’ll be the one everyone thinks is crazy, okay?”  He moved purposefully toward the middle of the room, and the conversation waned around him.

My toes clench tighter.  I’m not sure there’s any way for this to end without ugliness, probably the metal-bending kind.  I’ve been wrong before, but this looks bad and it’s all happening too quickly to process.

The big truck lays on the horn.  The limo is alongside Ren and going way too fast for the turn when he realizes his mistake, and swerves into Darkside.  I see Ren’s brakelights flash, but there’s no hope; the big Lincoln crowds him right off the road and into the guardrail.  They both go through it and vanish into darkness.

That’s all I have a chance to see and I don’t really have time to consider it, because my trailer is still coming around, crossing the centerline.  I hear the truck’s horn again and try to gather Deus up, but it’s no good, it’s too late.  I see the truck go past in a blur of yellow lights and feel the impact a heartbeat later as it plows into the jack-knifing trailer and tears it open like a sardine can, smacks it back the other direction.  The impact is monstrous, like a tornado striking inches from me.  The impact wants to spin my truck around as well, to tear it off the ground and throw it into the woods if it can.  I’m already steering Deus into the mess and getting off the brakes so I can have a hope of navigating this turn and not following the limo and Darkside off the edge, and somehow I do it, trailing sparks and smoke.  There’s a ditch involved in there somewhere, too, and saplings that whip mercilessly against the truck’s sides, against the floor from beneath.  I can’t see anything, the lights are bouncing too much and I am too, I’m just steering by feel, trying to go where I remember the road was, and soon I’m bouncing on pavement instead of dirt.  What’s left of the trailer pogos up down and sideways.

I get the truck stopped with the help of the guardrail’s remains and some shrubbery, and throw the door open.  I hear angry water flowing somewhere–a river, nearby, off in the woods.  Our trailer is torn apart, both left-side wheels gone and the whole thing yawning open like a shattered mouth.  The show car’s a writeoff, it’ll never be rebuilt in time for the magazine shoots, goddammit, and pieces of our display are scattered all over the road and before I can give that any significant thought and in that moment before the adrenaline hits me I

DIE.

It feels exactly like fingers thrust through fragile linen and yanked downward look.  All of the texture goes out of the world in that moment.  The colors, the smells, the tastes, the sensations, I feel every one of them go, the moment he dies–not with a whoosh but with a bone-deep, drawn-out scrrrape–he’s dead, he’s really dead, there’s not the merest widge of hope that Ren survived that crash, I don’t even need to see, it’s not simple panic or paranoia, just cold hard reality:  he’s dead.  D E A D.  Gone forever.  They say it takes time for that realization to sink in, but I know it immediately, I must, that’s why I’m suddenly on my knees on asphalt and judging by the pain in my throat I’m making some kind of noise but I can’t hear that, either.

Everything gets kind of funny after that.  Something passes, a day, a minute, a week, I’m not sure which.  It’s like flipping from picture to picture on a View-Master; some unseen cosmic thumb presses down on a lever–swish-click–and I flip from one happy frozen scene to the next, with no annoying transitions in between.  Is there any connection between them?  It doesn’t really matter does it?

Well, does it?

Swish-click.  I’m sprawled on the floor in a police station, back against the wall knees together feet apart hands in hair, and I’m staring at the speckly pattern on the floor and I can’t stop thinking:  this day was not supposed to end like this.

I suppose I’m waiting to die.  Ren is gone; there’s no sense in my remaining in this world any longer.  I stare at the speckles on the floor and wait patiently for my heart to stop.

But it doesn’t.  It goes right on beating, the stupid thing, and there’s a nice clean-shaven police officer trying to ask me questions about what happened.  Apparently the truck driver died too, leaving a bunch of wrecked cars and only myself to tell the story.  I raise my eyes as far as his shoes and stare at them. 

Swish-click. I’m at home, and everything is in black and white.  Someone is there–it’s Molly.  She’s talking to me, but I’m not hearing her exactly, and I don’t care to, even though she’s my friend, a member of my most secret committee.  I look up into her face, which is almost perfectly heart-shaped and yet in the right light she looks like an Italian Betty Boop, if such a thing is possible.  Someone else is there, too, a gray, blurry face just beyond my field of vision.  There’s a small spongy ball in my hand.  It feels kind of like a muffin.  It is a muffin.  Judging by the crumbs on the floor and the lack of taste in my mouth I’ve been shredding it, not eating it.

Swish-click.  I’m in bed.  I like it in bed. I can close my eyes when I’m in bed.

Swish-click. I’m outside again.  I can almost feel something–warmth, on my head.  The sun.  Is it a nice day?  I look up, and see black suits all around.  There’s a flash of green grass, of red flowers, and then I see Molly again, looking less like Betty Boop today.  Beyond her is Cygnet, another member of my secret committee.  Cygnet always looks like that kid in Terminator 2, even when her hair is done up and she’s wearing a black dress and makeup, which is strange because Cygnet is the queen of the tomboys, assuming that I’m not, and I didn’t think she even owned a black dress.  Wonder of wonders, she’s wearing hose and heels, too.  Beyond Cygnet is Ian, who’s more Ren’s friend than mine, and then beyond him after a distance is the hearse and when I see that the colors all go away again.

Swish-click.  I’m in a courtroom.  People are talking.  I can sort of hear them; every time Ren’s name is spoken my ears seem to perk up.  I’m very, very hungry.  Ian is here again, talking to a man with a white beard.  Danny Packard is here, and he’s glaring at me and grinning like a monkey.  Danny always grins like a monkey.  He’s Ren’s younger brother, with the same bright green eyes (which look gray right now) and angular build but with a more simian face.  Apparently lots of women find that toothy jaw and strong brow thing attractive; I think he looks like a monkey wearing a human suit.  They’re talking about money.  Everyone is arguing about money.  It goes on and on, and I wish I wasn’t here.  Then there are microphones and cameras like glass eyes and people behind them yelling about Ren’s money, about our money, and I can’t get away from them.  The world’s doing that shuddery, too-alive thing, all the edges blurry and electrified  and Ren’s not here to make it better and I can’t tell which way to go.  Someone’s pushing me forward, into the microphones, and I feel as though I’ll be impaled on them if I keep going, but they won’t let me stop.  Voices keep yelling and yelling, yelling my name, yelling at me to look over here, over there, yelling Ren’s name, and then I start screaming.  I can’t go forward any more, don’t even know exactly when it was I stopped walking and started sitting on the hard hard ground because it doesn’t matter, I’m sure as hell not walking NOW, and I can’t stop screaming once I get started either.  Not even when it starts to hurt.  Someone picks me up by the elbows, and I smell acetone for just an instant.  Don’t stop screaming, though.

Swish-click.  Bed again.  Bed is nice.  There’s a cat on the bed with me.  I kick the covers off.  They remind me of Ren, and I don’t want to think about him.  Unfortunately I don’t want to not think about him either.  It’s easier to sleep.  So I do.

Swish-click. I’m underwater, in the bathtub.  It’s nice down here, quiet and warm, fetal.  Bubble bath above my head and warm below, warm all around, only my knees in the open air.  A hand grabs my hair and suddenly I’m up in the cold and loud again, Ian’s yelling my name and wanting to know what I was thinking, goddammit.

Swish-click. Wasn’t Molly here?  I thought she was.  No Lexi she left yesterday.  Hm, that’s funny.  I could swear my sister Alison was here, too, but she died when I was eleven.  I’m sure she was here, though.  I should ask Ren what he thinks of that.  Oh my God I can’t, he’s dead too. I hear someone start to cry, and realize that it’s me. 

Swish.  I wake up and wonder if I’ve lost my mind.  That doesn’t mean much though, I’ve wondered that before.  I am wrapped in a cloud that would be pink if I could still see colors, which I can’t.  It feels pink though, if that makes sense.  I like the cloud.  It blocks out the confusing things, and I can concentrate on being in bed, which I also like.  Very pleasant.  Ian is here again, and he smiles and pats my hand.

Click.  I find myself flying…

Inside outside upside down and backwards then sinking somewhat sideways into bed and up again.  It’s too warm for blankets, and I kick them off.

Am I awake?

Yes, I am, I’m awake and alone.  The room spins around my head once, twice; nothing wants to stay in focus.  I feel more awake than I have been in a while.  For a few minutes, I think that maybe I’ve been having a horribly unpleasant dream, but then I realize that the bedcovers are on the floor and Ren is still dead.  That’s disappointing.  I could go back to sleep, but something doesn’t want me to just right now, so I squint to focus and see what it is. 

It’s a woman.  No, it’s three women.  More specifically, it’s two women and a vague bipedal smear which I somehow know is a woman.  They aren’t in color, nothing is, but it seems like they should be blue, so I assume that they are.  They’re the kind of blue that comes right before dawn, right before you can see anything and yet I can see them in the dark.  They’re glowing, that’s why.  Glowing?  That makes no sense, but then to be honest, nothing makes much sense, not since we left the auto show.  The Great Big View-Master of Life takes over without my even asking it to: Swish-click: slide straight from the Jacob Javits Center in New York City to the woods in Vermont.  Swish-click: shattered taillights going under my tires, a limo and Darkside going over a cliff, the concussive WHAM as a semi truck clips my trailer and the world falling out from under me a moment later.  Swish-click: courtrooms.  Swish-click: arguments. Swish-click: microphones in my face.  Swish-click: running.  Swish-click: falling upstairs, falling downstairs, someone lifting me by the elbows.  Swish-click:  concrete stairs and swish-click me in the bed all alone alone swish-click swish-click swish-click swish-click okay okay okay DON’T GO THERE LEXI. Don’t think about him.  Don’t, don’t, don’t.

I’ll stop, I’ll stop, that’s not a good place to be.  I’ve already been there a lot.  Ren is there, but not in a good way.  I want to stay here.  At least for now.  My wrist itches.  I touch it and feel a scar that lots of people assume is from a suicide attempt.  My friends know otherwise–it was a mountain bike incident.

So then.  Where’s here?  I’m not immediately sure.  What’s here?  Three women, glowing.  Cat on the foot of the bed.  On my feet.  Warm.  My cat.  Yes, her name is Malice.  Pretty black cat, or she would be black if anything had any color.  Inventory note:  everything is gray.  Bed.  Toes under cat.

The room is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.  I try to think about it but my thoughts tumble into goo at the bottom of my brain (which would be pink if anything had colors, the goo I mean, not my brain) and stay there, and the feeling isn’t entirely unpleasant.  My brain is moving far too slowly.  I can tell it’s not working right, but something in the not-rightness of it makes it hard to care one way or the other.  Everything collapses into goo, if I think about it too long.  Is this room mine…?  Yes, but something isn’t right.  I’m alone, that’s what’s wrong.  And I’m alone why?  Swish-click, swish-click…oh, look, I’m back there again.  Don’t like that.

The silence is important.  The cool blue shimmering woman-shapes move, and I want to move with them.  I feel like they want me to follow also.  Well, fine, then I will.  Malice jumps off the bed, annoyed, as I move my feet.  My body falls into unfamiliar warmish air and down onto the floor, where I end up with dust in my mouth, hair and nose.

My hair is too long.

I push the floor away from me.  It dances obediently down, rolling out from under me at a strange angle, writhing, forcing its way under my feet.  I am vertical.  Haven’t been vertical in a while.  How long?  That question is lost in more pink-feeling goo, which isn’t such a bad thing on second thought.  The ceiling is closer than it needs to be.  I am farther up than I have been in a while, yes.

So…is there a door?  There is, and it’s closer than I expect it to be.  I have no depth perception.  The door is distant, then it looms huge, too close.  It’s partway open.  I concentrate and dodge through it as the floor tilts under me again.  Walking is like standing on a surfboard.

I make it through the narrow, wavery space, just barely brushing the edges.  The hall is silent, too.  I recognize this hall.  I’m in my house, which makes sense considering that I just came out of my room.  Am I alone here?  Other than the two glowing women and the smear who is also a woman, that is.  They’re ahead of me, and they disappear around an empty gray wood corner.  They’re not touching the floor.

That’s because they’re dead.  I’m pretty sure I knew that already, on some level.  They’re dead the same way Ren is dead.

Does that mean I’m dead?

I don’t think that it does.

The ghosts want me to go downstairs, but there’s nothing down there except the kitchen and a whole lot of rooms, none of which have Ren in them.  I don’t want to go downstairs.  I turn around and go back into my room.

A hotel conference room, complete with rows of tables and pitchers of water, was an inauspicious ending to what should have been a success story.  Ian Warnock couldn’t help thinking that it just wasn’t fair.  Eight months ago, he’d been chief financial officer of a hot new car company, and now he was here, taking a day off of groveling to get his old job at Ford Motor Company back to preside over one last Crane-Packard shareholder’s meeting.  He checked his watch; fifteen minutes until they arrived.  Ian had wanted to keep it light-hearted to the last, and organized a small reception prior to the meeting, but in the end he hadn’t been able to bring himself to attend.

There were no pictures of the Crane-Packard in the room.  Just the hotel’s baroque décor and drapery.  Ian hadn’t been able to bring himself to drag out any of the framed publicity photos of the car, either.  He’d gotten over his grief at losing a good friend, but it was still a heavy-hearted business.

Ian sighed, and poured himself a glass of water.  “This sucks,” he told the empty room.

Behind him, the door moaned softly open.  “Hello?” 

Recognizing the voice, Ian stood and turned.  He straightened his blazer, though there was no need for formality.  “Ajax,” he said.  “You’re early.”  Ian, Ajax and Ren had been roommates in college.

“I know.  Didn’t feel much like having drinks with the Wall Street boys, you know?”

“I know.  Shit, sit down, this is going to start feeling like a second wake if we keep this up.”

Albert “Ajax” Jaxon was an unlikely shareholder.  A socialist and sometime political activist, he had scraped together the funds to help Ren get his company started by calling in favors and borrowing heavily from his family.  Ajax didn’t care to contribute to any corporate machine, but was willing to slip his principles just this once to help out a friend.  He made an amusing picture among the other money men, as his clothing tended toward Birkenstocks and flannel, and he spoke with a cheerful ignorance of the ins and outs of the stock market.  At one meeting he had actually brought homemade blueberry muffins to pass around.

They sat in silence for a few moments, then Ian said, “I never asked.  Did she contact you, too?”

Ajax nodded, knowing Ian was talking about Becka Packard.  “She offered me four times what I put into it, in fact.”  Ren’s mother had attempted to buy the company out, making offers that were, in polite speech, more than generous for shares of the suddenly leaderless company.  Ian had managed to get the board to resist selling through sheer force of will, and had invoked the specter of Ren’s friendship and what he would have wanted so many times the words barely had meaning any more.  “To be honest, she sent a man to ask me.  I don’t think the old lady was interested in coming down to Nashville.”

Ian chuckled.  “Thanks for holding fast.  I know you have a lot more at stake than most of these guys.” 

“It’s only money.  Why would Ren’s mom want to buy the company anyway?  Just to shut it down?”

“I doubt it.  Becka knew a good thing when she saw it.  I’m sure she would have hired the best and the brightest, and turned Crane-Packard into quite a boutique company in no time.”

“So why go to all the trouble to stop her?”

“You’d understand this, Ajax–it was a matter of principle.”  Ajax raised an eyebrow.  “It’s what he wanted.  Ren said to me, back in March, ‘If something ever happens to me, promise you’ll keep an eye on Lexi and on the company, because my family will go after both of them.’” 

“He said that?”

Ian nodded.  “I don’t know what had him so morbid, but those were his exact words.  I understood why they’d go after Lexi.  The car company, though…Ren didn’t want it to be another Packard family success story, unless it was exactly what he wanted it to be.  He wanted it to earn its success, on his own terms.”

“That’s pretty much all he ever wanted.”

“Right.  So, assume Becka takes control of the company and sets about building Crane-Packards.  What’s the first thing she’s going to do?”

“Make baby-sealskin leather a standard feature?”

Ian and Ajax laughed together, and the conversation’s somber tone broke up for a moment.  Becka’s self-serving pragmatism (a polite way of saying “disregard for other living things”)was the stuff of legend; even Ren had commonly responded to being called a son of a bitch by saying, “Yes, your point?”  The off-color comment was one he would have made.

The laughter took a moment to wind down.  “Seriously, though.  She’d have fired Lexi.”

“No doubt.”

“And then,” Ian continued, “you’d have Crane-Packards being built without either of the creators on board.  No soul, as he put it.”

“Yeah, I can understand that’s the last thing Ren would have wanted to see.”

“So, here I am.  Shutting down a perfectly viable car company, just to keep that bitch from getting her hands on it.”

“What about Lexi?” Ajax asked.

“Oh, they did their best to strip the estate from her.  I think we’ve still got most of it.”  He shrugged ruefully.  “I’m an accountant, not a lawyer, so I couldn’t tell you all of the legal ins and outs of what’s been going on, but we’ve got counsel and it sounds like she’s out of the woods, as far as the Packards are concerned.” 

“I’ve seen the news.  How’s she doing?”

Ian pursed his lips, considering.  Thus far Lexi had contributed almost catatonic grief, spurious suicide attempts and a nervous breakdown (in front of a brace of television cameras no less) to the proceedings.  He didn’t mind being left more or less alone in the eye of the storm.  He also didn’t feel like telling Ajax that speaking of minds, Lexi seemed to have lost hers.  She moped about her half-restored old house in Arcadia, Michigan (located in the uppermost reaches of the Lower Peninsula and thus convenient to absolutely bupkiss unless you were a big fan of trees), and on the rare occasions that she did speak, it was in indecipherable movie quotes.  The always-cheerful, always-active Lexi Crane that he had known seemed to have died along with Ren.  And to be honest, that suited Ian just fine.  Power of attorney over a fourteen million-dollar estate made up for a lot of hardship.

Of course, the money was there to provide for Lexi for the rest of her life, which could be a long one if she didn’t manage to off herself first.  Ian couldn’t remember exactly how old she was–five or six years younger than Ren anyway, and he and Ren were the same age, thirty–so that money had a long way to go.  But as long as he remained calm and understanding Lexi seemed willing to let him take care of things and stay out of the way.  Some custom-designed anti-depressants he’d gotten ahold of through the shrink who was taking care of Lexi didn’t hurt, either.

“She’s here,” Ian said finally, realizing that Ajax could see for himself how she was doing.  “She came down for the meeting.  It’s the first time she’s been away from the house since the funeral, in fact.”

“I’m amazed there aren’t any news helicopters.”

“Hopefully they’re too busy talking about the election, now.  We did our best to keep it quiet.”  He hadn’t expected her to come at all, to be honest.  She’d been acting like a walking mannequin and nothing had done much for her moroseness so far.  Upon getting into the car, Lexi had remarked that it was almost Halloween, then proceeded to recite and sing most of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” during the five-hour drive from Arcadia to Detroit.  It was cute, until she looked him dead in the eye and shrieked, “I am the clown with the tearaway face!” at him, and for some reason it made his blood run cold.  He’d never seen the movie, but now the image of Lexi peeling grease-painted skin away from her skull was stuck in his head and wouldn’t go away.  The burst of fire and emotion that had leapt into her voice at that moment was startling, but at least it predicated an apparent return to normalcy. 

“Where is she?” Ajax asked.

“At the reception.”

“I didn’t see her there.”

Ian drained his glass of water.  When they had reached Detroit, she’d been close to her old self and he had dropped her off at the reception before heading up to make sure the meeting room was set up.  “Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.  I was just there.  She’s not there; it’s just all of the suits.”

“Shit.”  He was on his feet.

“Maybe she went down to Hart Plaza.  They’ve got the culture festival going on down there.  She might have gone to get something to eat; they’re only serving cocktail favors at the reception.”   

“Shit!” Ian said again. “Can you wait here for me, in case I’m not back by the time everyone arrives?”

“Do you want help looking for her?”

“No, I’ll feel better knowing there’s someone here.  I’ll be right back.”  He was out the door. 
Hart Plaza was just a short run up the block.  He was in no shape to be running, but hustled anyway.  By the time he got there he had a stitch in his side, and his heart sank.  On a normal fall weekend, Hart Plaza was a mostly-empty expanse of concrete and fountains, thanks in part to the chilly wind blowing off of the Detroit River.  It wouldn’t have been hard to find Lexi there.  Today, the place was abustle with people of every color and culture, moving from booth to booth to sample exotic and not-so-exotic dishes for a minimal fee.  Smells collided in the cool, damp October air.  Shouts from children in the crowd and from the dozens of vendors’ booths echoed on the high concrete walls and rolled along the ceiling in the underground section of the plaza.  Ian felt like a marble in a loud, humid pipe.  He pushed through the crowd, looking for Lexi.  Realizing that they were just a short run from the Detroit River, Ian’s gut went cold.  Dr. Zheng had said Lexi was past her suicidal urges, but you never knew.  Maybe Ajax was right, and she’d just wanted something to eat.  That would have been a blessing in disguise.  Getting Lexi to feed herself was just another of the wonderful challenges his friend Warren had died and left him with.

Dammit Lexi, Ian thought bitterly.  You were perfectly capable of taking care of yourself when he was alive, and probably before you met, too.  Get over it!

Lexi wasn’t anywhere near the underground booths.  She had drifted upstairs and outside, drawn by the sound of the cars passing on Jefferson Avenue.  The cloudy mid-October certainly looked chilly, but she couldn’t really feel it.  It was a little over fifty degrees and she walked with her coat open, drifting through Hart Plaza like a sleepwalker.  The cars were all she wanted to see today. Food smelled good, but she didn’t feel like eating anything.  Ian had been nice, but she didn’t want Ian around, not today.  He reminded her of Ren. Everything did, really.  The air seemed to tremble with the memory of him, and it was too much.  She wanted to be back in the house, in bed.  Asleep.

When Ren had died, all of the texture had gone out of the world.  Even after they said he was in the ground, everything remained shades of gray, every surface dull and featureless, every meal as tasteless as dust.  Nothing had any relief.

There were snatches of life, at times.  She could remember the brilliant turquoise stripes on their Packard Caribbean, the feel of new Converse All-Stars, the smell of mustard.  And there were flashes.  Her room would jump into color for a few seconds, as if it had forgotten, and she’d be able to see the green of Malice’s eyes, and then–pop–it would go again, back to grayscale.  Lexi had banged her head against the wall, the floor, trying to jar the color back, like you’d whack a TV with a failing picture tube into submission.  That had mixed results.  Mostly it upset Ian.  Now she was outside, and she could see that it was fall, but none of the colors or the temperature or the smells touched her.  It was like looking at a movie.

She took a tremulous breath, and focused on the narrow patch of Jefferson she could see between the bandshell and bus stop.  A minivan went by–a Ford Aerostar.  And after that a decrepit Pontiac Bonneville, then a GMC tow truck hauling a Dodge Neon.  Cars.  A faint smile touched her lips.  She wanted to watch the cars.  That would be nice.  They still existed, without color or smell or taste.  They were real.

She was only incidentally aware of walking that way, but soon she was at the road, right where Jefferson and Woodward Avenue met.  Woodward dead-ended into Jefferson, four lanes of traffic coming straight at her and four going away, and Lexi sat on the sidewalk where she could see both streets and watch the cars turn and file past in front of her.  The giant bronze fist that was a memorial to Joe Louis pointed north over her head.  Wonderful.  She watched the cars file by, new and old, domestic and imported, all of them in motion, none of them boring to her.  The curb was cold under her butt.  The cold felt nice.  So did the air; Detroit had a industrial smell, almost like clean-cut metal, that she had always liked.  She realized that she really could smell it, and it was wonderful.

And for a few minutes, she didn’t think about Warren Packard, or the crash that had taken him from her.  A knot deep in her belly loosened, just a fraction.  She had wished that Ian would have let her drive herself from Arcadia, but he had insisted on making the five-hour trip to pick her up and bring her down to Detroit in his stupid Explorer.  It would have been a nice drive, with the trees up north already changed and the colors just starting to change as she got farther south.  She could have driven the Caribbean, in fact.  Or the Edsel, whose name was Frank.

Lexi and Ren had named all two hundred and fourteen of the cars they’d collected.  She’d gotten him started doing it, and the habit stuck.  It was an easy way to remember them, as well as a welcome addition to the weird shorthand they had spoken to one another in. Lexi had liked having a secret language.  She missed it, of course.

She watched the cars shuffle past instead.  Ian hadn’t let her drive because of the pills.  Dr. Zheng–who wasn’t Lexi’s regular doctor, but they wouldn’t call Josie for some reason, or maybe Ian had said she was too busy, she couldn’t remember–had prescribed some pills for her, which were supposed to make her feel better.  All they really did was bring a big pink cloud down around everything and made it hard to think, but that was better in a way.  It was close to time for the lunch pill, and things were a little bit clearer right now.  That was why she was thinking so much about Ren, and why it was easier to look at the cars and let them keep her from thinking.  If only the pink cloud didn’t make it hard to drive, she’d have been perfectly happy.  Well, maybe she could drive with it.  She was a good driver.

Lexi let the thought break up and admired a severely rusted mid-Seventies Oldsmobile that wheezed past.  Good car to restore.  There weren’t a lot of Ninety-Eight sedans around these days, really.  A moment after it was gone, she had forgotten it, but that was okay, too.

Without warning, someone sat on the curb next to her.  “Hello, Ms. Crane,” a voice as rich and mellow as good eggnog purred.

She angled her head casually, and saw that she was talking to a short, wide black man with rhinestones embedded in the frames of his shaded glasses. It was a gray day and he had no need for the shades, but there you were.  He wore a sweater with so many colors woven through the fabric that it looked like a hallucination, and something about the weave suggested that it was brutally expensive.  If nothing else it was mesmerizing; she hadn’t been noticing colors for months, but the sweater seemed to dance and shimmer.  Lexi wondered if maybe the rhinestones on his glasses were really diamonds.  They would have matched the fat rings on his thick fingers, in that case.

He was smiling at her.  She smiled back at him, a little lazily.  “Hi,” she said.  Did she know him?  She didn’t think so. She had a good memory for faces, even if the names escaped her.  She could call him Doug, she supposed.  She and Ren usually referred to men whose names they didn’t know as Doug.  Unknown women were named Emily until further information was provided.  It was Ren’s quirk, but had melted into Lexi over time.

“What are you doing out here, my dear?  Waiting for a bus to come and take you away?”

She liked his voice, and instantly wanted him to keep talking.  “Um, I considered it,” she said.  “But then I don’t know where I want to go exactly. So I was just car-watching, and thinking about fish.”

“Is that a sport?  Like bird-watching?”

Lexi nodded.  “Only less dorky.  And, um, more rewarding, too.”  Looking at the man, with all of his sparkly jewelry, it was hard to concentrate on what he was saying.  Maybe it was the smell of his shoulder length, jheri-curled hair.  Looking back at the traffic helped a little.  There went a first-year Taurus SHO, and right behind it a Dodge Omni GLHS.  Weird.  She frowned.

“What is it?” the man (Doug?) asked.

“Hm?”

“What do you see?”

She didn’t look at him.  “Fast cars pretending to be slow ones.  Two of them.  They could race.”  She pointed to the SHO and the GLHS and glanced at her companion.  He didn’t seem to know what she meant.  He wasn’t a car person.  Oh, well.  “Both factory tuner cars,” she said, then fell silent again.  He probably didn’t know what tuner cars were either.  Ren would’ve.  He would have seen the two cars as soon as she did, and…Lexi watched a brightly green Geo Metro speed past (“Three cylinders of pavement-ripping power!” Ren had sarcastically shouted once), and let the thought dissolve.  The Geo seemed to turn gray as it moved away.

“You look like you need a friend,” the man said.

“I have a few.  They’re just hiding.”  Or in the ground, a voice in her mind said suddenly.  The knot in her belly tightened anew.

He smiled, flashing teeth with gold in them.  “Would you like another?”

“Hm?  Another what?”

“A new friend, of course.  Or a fast car pretending to be a slow one, if you’d like.”

Lexi bobbed her head a little, glancing at him and then back at traffic. A green and yellow Mayflower moving van was lumbering through the intersection, making a right onto Woodward, and she watched it go.  It was a Peterbilt straight truck, and that was unusual too.  She didn’t tell the man this time.  But she figured he could be her friend, even if he wasn’t a car person.  “I’d like that,” she said.

“Well, I’m Curve.”  He held out his hand.  “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Alex,” he said as they shook.

“You can call me Lexi,” she said.  Some question bubbled in her brain, about how he had known her name, but the pink cloud was still strong enough to swallow it.  All she noticed was that he was standing up as if to leave, and he was going to take his lovely voice with him.  “Don’t go.  Please, talk to me some more.  We can watch cars together.”

He was standing.  He was barely five-one even in expensive, tall-heeled wingtips.  At five-seven, she would have towered over him if she weren’t sitting with her feet in the gutter.  He patted his pockets, then swore passionately.  “God-dammit!  I knew I forgot something.  I forgot your gift.”

She rolled easily with the nonsensical idea that someone she’d just met would have brought her a present.  “What gift?”

“I always bring a gift when I’m meetin’ someone young enough to be my grandchild.  But I forgot yours.  Let’s go and get one.  My car’s right this way.”

That sounded more or less okay to Lexi.  “You’re not old enough to be my grandfather.”

“How would you know?” Curve said.

That was true; she’d never had one, come to think of it.  Her parents had both been only children, and both sets of grandparents had passed before she was born.  She liked Curve.  He made sense, in a funny, rhinestones and jheri-curl juice way.  Lexi followed him down the sidewalk toward the five shimmering glass skyscrapers that made up the Renaissance Center.

“Do you like this building?” Curve asked.  “I remember before they put the damn thing up.  Never have gotten used to it.”

The round towers of the Ren Cen were an inseparable part of the Detroit skyline to Lexi’s eyes.  And it was called Ren, for goodness sake, how could you not like it?  Oh, Christ that knot hurt! “How old are you?” she asked him.

“I don’t know.  Here,” he helped her up the steep concrete steps leading to a raised taxi drive which went around the clustered skyscrapers.  The walls that surrounded them funneled the air into a frigid blast.  Curve used his free hand to shield his face from the wind; Lexi closed her eyes and let it tousle her hair violently.  “That’s my car, down there,” Curve said, indicating a new Bentley Turbo R at the curb.  The car’s slick paint shone even in the cloudy light, and she realized that it was red.

“I had you pegged as a Lincoln person,” Lexi said.

“Traded it in for this,” Curve replied quickly, making her laugh.  “Want to drive?”

“I’m kind of medicated,” she said, even though she really, really wanted to.

“It ain’t far.  I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

She didn’t argue with that.  Curve handed her the keys.

The big British sedan was as buttery smooth a drive as the last one she’d driven, its mailed-fist, velvet-glove power much more fun than Ian’s Explorer could have hoped to be.  Curve reclined in the seat, his short, stocky form completely at ease.  Lexi traced her fingers lightly across the leather steering wheel and dash as she drove, enjoying the way the car felt.  He directed her to drive north, and they headed a few blocks up from the Ren Cen, into a crumbling industrial district that was quickly being turned into upscale condominiums.

The new-looking awning over the door they stopped in front of said “El-Cue” and gave no hints as to what would be found within.  Beautiful leaded-glass windows made wares in the window shimmer as if viewed through a kaleidoscope.

Lexi was still smiling from the drive.  She hadn’t driven in months, and her fingers and toes tingled with pleasure.  Curve held the door open for her.  El-Cue seemed to be a store of Franklin Mint-style gifts, mostly.  The shop was dominated by glass display cases filled with crystal and porcelain miniatures.  Curve went right to the counter.  The clerk seemed to know him, and they had a brief, quiet conversation that Lexi didn’t catch.  Curve gave the man some money, and when he turned around he was holding a small, oblong box not much bigger than a hardcover book.  “Now you’ve got your gift, Lexi,” he said, handing it to her.

She took it.  “Should I open it now?”

Curve shook his head.  “Better get back, before we upset the chaperone too much.”

Lexi wasn’t sure what he meant for a moment.  Oh!  Ian.  She stuffed the box into her pocket.  “Oops, you’re right, I didn’t tell Ian I was leaving.”

“Irresponsible girl,” Curve said, but he was smiling.  “Now let’s get back and see if they saved my parking spot,” he said. 

Curve’s parking spot was still there.  “Look at that,” Lexi said.  “Parking…” The pink cloud suddenly swooped down, and she forgot what she was going to say.  She struggled for a moment to regain her train of thought.  Detroit, hotel, parking…cars…yes!  Train of thought regained.  “Parking doesn’t last long down here,” she said.  “‘Specially on special days.”

“Then someone’s smiling upon us today,” Curve said.

Lexi guided the car easily into the space.  Parallel parking was fun.  “All done,” she said.  Curve was already getting out of the car.  Lexi frowned, not wanting him to go yet.  She wanted to hear his voice some more.  “You’re leaving already?  Come with me.  Come and meet Ian.”

“No, I’ve got to run along.  Your chaperone’s looking for you.  But we’ll be in touch.”

“Who’s we?” she asked.

“Langdon Quimby and I.”

Lexi laughed, and Curve smiled in response.  “That can’t possibly be a real name.”

“Oh, but it is.  When we meet again, I’ll tell you more.”  He started off down the sidewalk, whistling.  “Booth 138 has some great fried catfish, by the way,” Curve said over his shoulder as he started down the sidewalk.  “You ought to have a taste.”

It was hard to tell if Curve was really there, or if the pink cloud had made him up.  Lexi had the feeling that he was real, but she wasn’t completely certain.  Lexi waved goodbye, smiling and thinking about catfish.

In a blur of motion, the Bentley’s door was jerked open, and a valet parker with a stud earring and a blond crewcut grabbed her arm.  “Can I help you?” he snarled in a way that suggested he meant something entirely different.

Startled, Lexi recoiled from the hand and the voice.  “I was just parking my friend’s car,” she said.  With her free hand she took the key out of the ignition and held it out to the valet.  “See?”

The valet turned and spoke over his shoulder to a man wearing an expensive-looking trenchcoat over an even more expensive-looking suit.  It was Dobie Cassarell, with Victor in tow.  “Is this your car, sir?”  Dobie nodded.  “Is she a friend of yours?”

Dobie frowned, still trying to puzzle out    Lexi’s sudden appearance.  For some reason, the valet took this as his cue to snatch the keys from Lexi’s hand and drag her out of the car, against her protests that she was still belted into it.  He jerked roughly at her while she struggled with the latch, and they compromised when Lexi came out of the car with the unlatched seatbelt wrapped around her arm and neck.

Dobie’s surprise broke, and he shouted,  “Hey!  Hey!  There’s no need for that!”  Victor stepped forward, inserting himself between Lexi and the valet, shouldering the younger man aside through sheer force of bulk.

“Would you like me to call the police, Mr. Cassarell?” the valet asked, looking up at the bodyguard who had shouldered him aside.

“No, thank you,” he replied without taking his eyes from Lexi.  His were pale blue; hers were brown, and a little unfocused at the moment.

She squirmed out of the seatbelt on her own, and got to her feet three seconds before her center of gravity made it off of the ground.  Dobie Cassarell caught her as she started to fall over backward. “Thank you,” she said.  “I haven’t had lunch yet.”

“You should take better care of yourself.”

“Funny,” she said, “that’s what the other guy said.”

Dobie frowned.  “What other guy?”

“The one who said that your car was his.  Didn’t you see him?”

Dobie and the valet shared a look.  “We didn’t see anyone but you stealing the car, crackhead,” the valet snapped.  Dobie favored him with a look of disdain.  Victor was already moving to tip the young man and dismiss him.

Lexi had to think about that a moment.  While she was thinking, she saw Ian pounding up the sidewalk toward them, coat flapping.  “Ian!” she called and waved.  She made a mental note to apologize for worrying him–because she had, she could tell by the look on his face–and promptly forgot it.

Ian’s relief lasted just as long as it took for the situation to be explained, then changed to irritation.  He took a moment to compose himself, pinching the bridge of his nose as he did so.

“You always remind me of Molly when you do that,” Lexi said.

“Molly?  Oh, yes, your friend.”  Ian remembered suddenly that Molly had left messages asking him to tell her if Lexi was coming down to Detroit for the meeting, in which case she’d fly out to do lunch with her.  He had told her Lexi wasn’t coming, partly because he didn’t feel like dealing with Molly.  She asked too many questions about what was going on, and he didn’t have time for her.  “Why on earth did you steal Mr. Cassarell’s car?”

“Curve told me the car was his,” Lexi said.  She had sat down on the curb because she was still dizzy.

“Who’s Curve?”

“He must be her imaginary friend,” the valet interjected, “’cause she was the only person in that car.”

“He’s not imaginary,” Lexi insisted.  “He’s just very short.”

“Why are you still here?” Victor snapped at the valet, who immediately started walking toward the door.

“Get that kid fired,” Dobie said quietly, still looking down at Lexi.

“On it,” Victor said, and was gone.

“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Cassarell,” Ian said.

Dobie was smiling, though.  “It’s no problem.”  He took Lexi’s hand as if to kiss it, and helped her to her feet.  “Did you enjoy the car?”

“We’ve got to go,” Ian said before Lexi could answer.

“Yes, we do,” Lexi agreed.  “I want catfish.  There’s a good place to get some back at the food festival.”

“No, Lexi, we’ve got a meeting.”

“Go ahead and have your meeting.  It’s all about numbers, and I don’t care about numbers.  I’m getting catfish, it’s much more important.”  She spun on her heel, went around two hundred and fifty degrees instead of the intended one-eighty, and walked away, correcting her course as she went with her arms held out at her sides.

He couldn’t leave her alone in the city like that.  “Wait, Lexi, I’ll come with you.”  He turned back to Dobie.  “Sorry again.  Thanks for making the long trip.  Why don’t you go on in, and we’ll be there in a few minutes?”

Dobie nodded.  “I’ve talked with Becka Packard, you know.”

“Everyone has,” Ian said.  “You’re friends with the family, too.  I hope your decision not to sell your stock to her didn’t cause any friction?”

He waved a hand.  “Just business.”

“Well, thanks for sticking with us.  It’s been a hell of a year.”

“It certainly has.”  Dobie was looking over Ian’s shoulder at Lexi, who had walked a few car lengths up the sidewalk, then sat down on the curb when she saw that no one was following her.  “So, be honest with me. What do you think?” he asked in a low voice.

“Think?”

“About Becka’s suspicion.”

Becka Packard had more than once floated the notion that Lexi had run Ren off the road, killing him for the inheritance.  There were no witnesses, after all, and the skidmark evidence was inconclusive.  “It’s absurd,” Ian replied without considering.  “Her pain’s not an act.  You don’t see her enjoying her inheritance much, do you?  And besides, Lexi doesn’t have it in her to kill one person–let alone five.  It was an accident, for God’s sake.”

“I’m sorry, I was just asking,” Dobie said.  “No malice intended.  To be honest, I haven’t seen Lexi at all.  Not that I’d ever seen her more than once or twice, or from a distance, but without Warren she’s vanished from the radar entirely.  She even missed Goodwood.”

“I didn’t realize they were such fixtures,” Ian said.  He wasn’t sure what Goodwood was, some car event no doubt, but he didn’t ask.  “She can’t drive, you know,” he murmured.

Dobie glanced at his Bentley, then looked at Ian.  “I beg your pardon?”

Shit.  Ian cursed himself for talking too much.  Dobie reminded him too much of a friendly, higher-ranking executive, and he his easygoing manner was disarming.  Small talk always came back and bit you in the ass with those guys.  It was too late to laugh it off, though.  “Not well, anyway.  She’s taking medication.  For depression.  It makes it hard for her to drive, and I’m glad she didn’t wreck your car.  Have you heard about the sale, Mr. Cassarell?”  Dobie’s raised eyebrow said that he hadn’t.  “The collection.  Their cars.”  Ian knew that Dobie was a car collector; if he knew about the liquidation of Lexi and Ren’s two hundred plus car collection, he’d spread the word.  It would be easier than a loud, public auction.  Ian had been looking for ways to advertise the sale by word of mouth.  Ian glanced down the sidewalk at Lexi again.  “She’s selling the whole thing off.  All of them.”  Actually, Lexi had no idea that Ian was planning to sell the cars off.  He had no plans to tell her if she didn’t ask.  The stock buyout had eaten up a lot of the estate, and upkeep and insurance on the collection was siphoning off a lot of what remained.  She was barely aware of the world around her anyway.

Dobie was clearly interested.  “Are you serious?  There are some impressive vehicles in that collection.”

“I wouldn’t know, to be honest.  All I know is that it depresses her.  Can’t you imagine?  They hand-picked those cars together.”

Dobie nodded.  “And restored half of them, too.  I suppose I can imagine.”

They were both looking at Lexi now.  She was reclining on the cold sidewalk as if it were a beach, and looking up at the Renaissance Center.  “I’ve been looking for a consultant,” Ian said.  “I don’t know much about cars.”

“After working in the industry for all this time?”

“Yeah, but I’m an accounting guy.  One of the ‘bean counters’ you car guys love to hate.  Warren was the car guy.”

Dobie took out a cigar.  “Do you mind?” he asked Ian, who shook his head no.  Dobie lit up, then said, “I know someone you might call, if you need a reliable appraiser.  Have you approached any of the major auction houses?  I’m sure they’ll all want to host the Packard collection.”

“Crane-Packard,” Ian corrected.  “No, I haven’t.  Lexi’s had enough circuses for one year.  We’d rather keep it quiet, have it at the house if possible.  As quickly as possible, so Lexi can start getting better.”

Another nod.  “I understand.  Why don’t you give me a call Monday, and I’ll have a name for you.  Of course, you’ll give me an early look at the collection, and a chance to offer early bids.”  It wasn’t a question.  “Take Lexi to get her lunch.  I’ll see you in the meeting.” 

He said a quick farewell to Dobie, then walked quickly up the sidewalk to catch up to Lexi.  She stood up as he approached, and brushed dust off of her legs.  He was in a good mood, having partially dealt with yet another of the estate’s problems, but he didn’t let Lexi know that.  “Jesus Christ, you could have handled that better,” he told her.

“Maybe Jesus could have, but he never met Becka Packard.  I bet he’d have converted if he did, just so he wouldn’t have to be in the same religion as that walking, talking, American Express Gold-toting Funyun.  And I’m considerably more bitter than Jesus Christ was.  So leave me alone.”

“That was Dobie Cassarell, not Becka Packard, Lexi!  One of your primary shareholders, I might add?”

She made a mouth with her hand and yapped it in Ian’s face.  “Bla, bla, bla, you bore me and I’m hungry.  At least he let me drive his car.  Now come with me to get food.  I’m getting sad again.”

“I can tell.  You want your pill?”

“I suppose,” she said, shrugging her outburst away.

Ian and his wife Sara live in a condo, which is just pleasant and normal enough to make me feel out of place.  I have nothing against Ian and Sara, of course, but it’s just so…ordinary.  I close my eyes and smell the potpourri/pasta smell, and instantly picture the place:  pale walls, high ceiling, skylight, track lights, nobbly carpet, big screen TV, leather section couch, glass-on-wood coffee table, tasteful silk flowers.  I open my eyes and see that I only got one thing wrong; the coffee table is glass-on-metal.  It’s better than being outside at least.  The air has a less vibratory quality, and it doesn’t matter that the colors are gone from everything.

Sara greets me with walking-on-eggshells gentleness, as if she’s afraid that saying the wrong thing will make me fly apart.  She doesn’t quite understand me, never has.  Maybe that’s as it should be.  Ian and Sara are pretty ordinary too.  Big-hearted, to be sure, but they’ve always tended to play straightman to the vaudeville act that Ren and I are.  Or were.  Swish-click, swish-click.  I shake my head to make the thoughts go away, and I sit on the couch in front of Ian’s giant TV.  I don’t remember him having it before but it’s a good addition to the living room.  TV is a good thing.  I should connect mine, now that I’m thinking about it.  TV sounds like an acceptable alternative to sleeping, and not much does these days.

Did we go somewhere today?  We did, didn’t we?  There were numbers, and pitchers of water…a meeting.   Wonder what it was about?  I can’t remember at all.  I do remember that I had catfish.  And Ian yelled at me, like he often does lately.

Oh, but it’s mean-spirited to be thinking such thoughts about Ian and his wife after they’ve been so nice to me.  I settle down in front of the television and peel off my coat and boots.  Being yelled at doesn’t bother me all that much. In the past it has, I’ve never been a big fan of being yelled at, but now I don’t feel anything, not for real. I can feel my hands and feet doing the things I ask them to, and I can see the world moving around me but it doesn’t touch me for real, and I don’t touch it either.

Ian brings me a plate of homemade pasta primavera, a glass of juice, and my evening pill.  Pink cloud time.

I take the juice and medication and say to Ian, “Crimson Permanent Assurance, hi-ho.”  He doesn’t get it, which isn’t a surprise.  I doubt he’s seen Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life.

I pick at the pasta, and eat most of the noodles and none of the vegetables.  Meanwhile, my thoughts melt into a comfortable hum.  After a few minutes I’ve got Monty Python running through my head and I feel about as sentient as the pasta, and that’s just fine.  Just fine indeed.  I don’t have to think about Ren when I’m a great big spaghetto.

Ian and Sara eat in the dining room and talk.  They sound cheerful, which is a good thing.  Ian spends so much time taking care of me; not to mention working full time, and Sara has to be annoyed about that but never complains.  Never never ever.  Some time, somehow, I’ve got to repay that kindness.

I channel-surf until I stumble across some Disney animation featuring their ubiquitous talking animals.  I recognize it immediately as The Aristocats, and settle in happily to watch.  A cheerful tomcat named J. Thomas O’Malley is in the process of cozying up to a recently kidnapped mother cat named Duchess, who isn’t in the mood for flirtation.  “Oh, no more please,” Duchess says.  “I am really in a great deal of trouble.”

O’Malley puffs himself up.  “Trouble?  Helping beautiful damsels in distress is my specialty!  Now, what’s the hangup, your ladyship?”

“Well, it is most important that I get back to Paris.  So, if you would just be so kind and show me the way…”

I know O’Malley’s lines so I say them with him.  “Show you the way?  Perish the thought!  We shall fly to Paris on a magic carpet!  Side by side, with the stars as our guide…just we two…”  It’s easy to remember the movie stuff.  It seems to float on top of the pink goo that tries to trap everything else.

The shape of the room has changed.  The twelve-foot ceiling is lower, and my pink cloud seems to have obscured the wall behind the television and the arty landscape photo that hangs on it.  Duchess and O’Malley are actually in the room with me, no longer encumbered by the walls of a fifty-two inch Mitsubishi television.  How cool!  I’m sitting in the middle of the scene.

I start to notice that whatever Ian has given me has gotten me incredibly stoned, but then I see that my sister Alison is sitting on the couch with me.

Alison has showed up once or twice since Ren died.  I hate to be uncharitable, because it’s nice to see Alison and all, but if dead people are going to visit it would be nice to see Ren, too.

Alison is wearing a white angora sweater, which has been the source of much Crane household controversy twice:  first when Alison insisted on having the thing even though we couldn’t even afford an exterminator to clean up our roach-infested house, and then again when I ruined it by spilling redpop all over myself and Alison at a scary movie.

“Nightwing,” Alison says.  “The movie was called Nightwing.”

“That’s right.  With the bats.”  Okay, it wasn’t a scary movie, it was a stupid movie, but sufficiently scary to terrify…

“An eight-year old,” Alison reminds me when I stumble.  Normally I can remember things like that.  Luckily, the pink fog is there to take away the very desire to care to know why I can’t remember anything.  I look at Alison’s sweater instead.  It’s no longer stained, but that makes sense anyhow, because she’s sitting here full-grown when both of us know full well that she was fifteen when she killed herself and the angora sweater got ruined three years before that.  She looks good, taller than me and prettier too.

“So, you got out of the house for a while, at least,” Alison says, looking around the condo.

“For a while.”  My mouth feels like it’s connected with a loose cable but I do my best to tell Alison about the day’s activities.

“Boy, you sound enthusiastic.  Didn’t you want to get out?”

I shrug.  I did, but…or did I?  Can’t remember.  “Most days I’d rather just sleep.”

“Perchance to dream?” Alison says, grinning.  She’s much happier than when she was alive.  Around us, the Disney cats introduce themselves to a pair of giggling, sunbonnet-wearing geese with English accents.

“Lexi,” Ian calls, “could you turn the TV down a little?  It’s awfully loud.”

I look at Alison, who nods in agreement.  “Uncle Waldo!  I do believe you’ve been drinking,” I call back with a hint of an English accent.  Doing the movie voices is easier than talking with my own words.  I pick up the remote and spend some time looking for the volume button.  It takes so long that I almost forget what I’m looking for, but Alison reminds me.  The raucous laughter of inebriated talking geese diminishes somewhat.

“So what do you think Curve wanted?” Alison asks.

I have to think for a moment before I can pull up a mental picture of the man I met this afternoon.  “Dunno.  Didn’t think about it.”

“Maybe you ought to.”

“It’s hard to think about things.  Everything’s all mediciney, and I like it that way.”  I’d much rather concentrate on the antics of the animals on-screen, but if I ignore Alison she’ll leave, and I don’t want that either.  “Maybe.”

She’s speculating anwyay.  “I’d say it was money, but it’s awfully weird to try to ingratiate yourself to a rich widow by tricking her into stealing someone else’s car.  So what did he give you?”

“Huh?”

“The present, dingbat.  What is it?”

Oh!  I’ve forgotten it entirely.  I lean over Alison to retrieve my coat, knock two pillows off the couch getting it, and fish out the package Curve gave me.  It’s a gift-wrapped box inside a plain paper bag.  Alison motions me eagerly to open it.  I wonder why she’s so excited.

It ‘s a model racing car, silver, and about four inches long.  Alison isn’t particularly impressed.  “Oh, boy, a toy car.”

“No, Alison, it’s a replica, not a toy.”

“There’s a difference?  You’re still going to play with it.  So he knows you like toy cars as much as real ones, I see.”

“But it’s a BTCC car!  It’s Frank Biela’s Audi, don’t you see?” I show Alison the name on the one-forty-third scale window.  “I didn’t have this one–we were looking for it…”  Ren would’ve been happy.  The thought rips through the clouds around my emotions like a bolt of lightning, and is gone just as fast.  Alison squeezes my shoulder as best she can, which isn’t very well since she isn’t corporeal.  It helps anyway.  “We…we have almost all of the 1/43 scale touring cars,” I say.  “The whole set.  This is one of three we were missing.  No, four.  No, three.  I don’t remember.”

Alison is still unimpressed, but she attempts a look of interest anyway, like she always did when I was five and doing exactly the same stuff at school that her teacher made her do.  Then she changes the subject.  “Do we know this guy whose car you took?  Dobie?”

“Well, you don’t,” I say.  She sticks her tongue out.  Alison’s pretty good-natured about being dead, as if all the nastiness in her bled out into the tub on that horrid day when she was fifteen and I was eleven.  “His family’s all cozy with the Packards,” I add.

“No, no, we know him from somewhere else.  A car thing.”

“He owns a racing team, but he’s not a good enough driver to race himself.”  The Aristocats’ adventures capture my attention for a few minutes, swirling around the room as they are.

Alison tugs yet again at the edges of the television’s spell.  “Well, that explains why he was so nice to you once he figured out who you were.  That, plus that rich-widow thing.”

She keeps referring to me as a rich widow.  Ren and I were only engaged, though.  I know it didn’t matter, we might as well have been married from the day we met, but it kind of bothers me to hear it all the time.  “Quit calling me that, please.”  I think about the way Dobie acted though.  I don’t want to, but I can do it for Alison.  “I guess you’re right.  He was nice.”

“He married?”

“No.  He’s older than me, too, so people…um…”  What was I going to say?  Oh, yes, “people say things.”  No, maybe that wasn’t it.  Damn.

“How old is he?”  Alison shifts, turning so she’s almost facing me.

“Look it up.  He was in GQ last spring.  Or was it Esquire?  It was GQ.  I know he’s pushing 40, but he hasn’t knocked it over yet.”

Alison raises a coquettish eyebrow.  “Hmmm.  I always did like older men…”

“He lives in Ile du Soleil.  You’d have to visit him there.”

“The tropics!  Even better!”  That makes me laugh.  “Oh, good,” Alison says.  “I miss your laugh.  You should do it more often.”

I know I’m being childish but I slouch in the seat anyway.  “Not much reason to laugh, these days.”

“Well, the longer you let that sadness eat you up, the less you’ll have to be happy about,” Alison says.

It’s too much; Alison is making me think too much.  It hurts.  IT HURTS.  “All right, pesky pets!” I scream along with the movie.  “You’re going to travel first class!”  A big fat bubble of scratching, heaving emotion wells violently in my throat, seeking release as a glass-shattering shriek of anguish.  I bite down on it, squeeze my tearing eyes shut.  It doesn’t help.  I see Ren, smiling and waving as he slips into Darkside in front of the hotel…and then next…and then next…and then next limousine sliding out of control and into the side of Darks, pushing both of them tumbling into the woods…

I have to say something or I’ll explode.  It has to come out.  I shout, “In your own private compartment!  All the way to Timbuktu!  And this time you’ll never come back!”  Somewhere behind me a chair crashes to the floor as Ian jumps to his feet, followed by a gasp from Sara.  “You’re going to Timbuktu if it’s the LAST THING I DO!”  My voice cracks, and I can hear it as if I’m outside myself.  It’s a harsh and drilling contralto, and I like the sound of it. 

I pound on the remote with my hand until the television snaps into darkness.  Then I throw it at the TV, followed by a pillow.  The Aristocats continues in my head, playing from some vault in my memory.  It’s almost over, actually.  The evil butler is shortly vanquished by talking animals.

Ian’s out there somewhere, in the fog that surrounded everything, somewhere beyond my eyes, which I haven’t opened.  I hear his voice going around my head in spirals.  Sometimes it echoes around my head two or three times before the words make it into my ear. 

“We need a man around the house,” I say.  On some level I’m aware that I’ve buried my head in the pillows on the couch, and that Sara and Ian are digging me out, leading me to bed.  So terribly nice to me, they are.  I make a note find a nice present for them, the next time I go out.

Swish-click.  For once I’m dimly aware that time has passed, but I’m still not sure how I got back and home and in bed again and things still don’t touch me.  My bed.  I like my bed.  I kick the covers off and lie awake for several hours.  I know it’s several hours because the light walks slowly across the ceiling.  It gets dark, but I still don’t fall asleep.  My bed isn’t right any more.  It’s too big.  After a while I crawl into the closet, among the clothes, and I sleep there.

Swish-click. One of the ghosts gets me out of bed again.  She’s standing in the doorway, and she turns and glides away as if I’m supposed to follow her.  I don’t follow her, but I can’t sleep any more, either.  I spend another night in the closet, and in the morning I discover that there’s a false wall at the back of it.  There’s a hidden ladder that leads into the attic.  Pretty cool.  Ren and I never explored this house much when we bought it.  Maybe that’s what the ghost wants me to do.  It must have been her house, after all.  I spend the whole afternoon squirreling boxes of our things into the attic, and consider drawing a treasure map.  I don’t open any of them; too many memories inside.

Swish-click:  Bathtub again.  Cygnet’s here and she’s just thrown something into the tub; a cheerful yellow rubber ducky, it is.  It appears to be brand-new, and it squeaks magnificently.  “Quit losing weight,” she says.  “If you start making me look fat, one of us is going to have to die.”  I smile, but the color fades out of the ducky as I’m looking at it.

Somewhere off in the distance I hear the sounds of voices raised in anger, and one of them sounds familiar.  “Is Molly here?” I ask Cygnet.

She nods.  “She is, and is she peeesed.  I wouldn’t go down there, if I were you.”

With my two bestest friends in the house though, I’d be an idiot for sitting soaking in the bath, so I get up.  Cygnet doesn’t care; we had gym together for two years, and I’ve seen her burn scars.  “What’s going on?”

“She’s giving Ian hell.  He didn’t tell either of us that you were coming down to Detroit.  I would’ve been at work that day, but Molly asked him to tell her when the meeting was, so she could get a flight out, and he lied and told her you weren’t going to be there.”

Oh, dear.  Molly has put figurative heads on pikes for far less.  “Well, he deserves it then.  It would’ve been nice to see you guys.”

“We shouldn’t intervene,” Cygnet says, “but let’s eavesdrop.  God!  Look at all those ribs.  You make me sick.”

“It’s not a good diet,” I tell her.  I wrap up in a towel and we sneak to the top of the steps.  It sounds like they’re in the living room, which is underneath my room, but the sound carries better through the foyer.  We can’t really hear Ian, but Molly’s voice carries when she’s irritated.

“Take me through your thought process here, Ian.  I want to know exactly how it went.  You lied to us because you didn’t want to bother us, or because you thought it would be good for Lex not to see any of her friends?  How is this helping her, exactly?”

Ian’s response sounds like a mumble. 

“What doctor?  I’ve talked to Josie–she hasn’t seen Lex since July…Josephine Hu, Ian, Lexi’s physician.  I know you’ve met her.  So what doctor is giving you this wonderful advice on how to help her?”

I look at Cygnet, who’s barely containing her laughter.  I have a question, somewhere, but forget what it is.

“Okay, so which is it?  Either the mysterious unnamed doctor thought she shouldn’t see us, or Lex decided at the last minute to go and you didn’t tell anyone.  I’m sure I couldn’t have gotten a flight on such short notice, but that was my decision to make, Ian, not yours.  There are plenty of flights between Boston and Detroit and I suspect I could have found one.  And Cygnet lives fifteen minutes away!  You couldn’t have called her?”  Molly’s voice raises suddenly.  “Shut up!  I don’t care what she said, don’t interrupt me.”

“Trying to speak out of turn,” Cygnet says quietly.  “Classic male error.”

“Why do they always try to argue?” I say.  It’s true, too.  There is no arguing with Molly when she’s like this, the best thing to do is shut up and take it; fighting back just makes her angrier and prolongs the thing.  Ian’s doing just what Molly’s ex-husband used to do, interjecting just enough attempts at self-defense to keep her wheel spinning.  “This could go on for hours.”

“Should’ve brought popcorn.”

I don’t feel like listening to arguing though.  I never did like listening to Molly and Rich fight, either.  I creep back upstairs so I can put clothes on. 

Cygnet follows and sits on my bed while I look for something to wear.  “So,” she says, “OJ and Tupac Shakur knocked you off the front pages of the tabloids, you know.  You’re going to have to do something drastic if you want that coveted spot back.”

“What did Tupac Shakur do?”

“He died, sweetie.  Not that you should do that, of course, if you commit suicide, I promise you I will get to hell so I can kick the living shit out of you.  But anyway, yeah, someone friggin’ shot him.”

That’s incredibly sad, but the fact that the world has been spinning without me is…something.  It doesn’t feel as horrible as I suppose it should, but it doesn’t feel good either, it’s somewhere in between.  “Did anybody else famous go and get themselves dead while I’ve been napping?”

“Um, let me think.  Ella Fitzgerald and Erma Bombeck pop to mind.”

“Ella Fitzgerald?”

Cygnet nods.  “It would be so much nicer if the shitty artists died once in a while.  You missed two big plane crashes, too.”

“Tell me something cheerful, creepo.”

She rolls her eyes.  “Clinton beat Dole, and there was much rejoicing.  They cloned a sheep, they’re making an electric car, Lollapalooza kicked ass, and you missed the summer Olympics in Atlanta.  And you guys promised to get me tickets.”

And just like that, I’m crying.  We were all going to go to Atlanta, that’s right.  Ren promised Cygnet he’d take us.

“Aw, fuck, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said–hey, hey, it’s okay.”  Cygnet pulls me into a little hug and I sort of fall into her lap, wishing the waterworks would stop.  “I was just joking, Lexi, it’s all right.”

It’s not all right, though.  It’s never going to be all right again, and we both kind of know that I think.

“Besides, someone set off a big bomb there.  With our luck they’d have blamed us.”

“What about the electric car?”

“Huh?”

“You said they’re making an electric car. Who’s building it?”

“Oh, GM.  I saw a picture of it–it looks like a suppository.  You’d never get me in one.”  Cygnet drives a rusty old Isuzu Trooper.  When I close my eyes I can picture it, midnight blue with flowers of iron oxide blossoming around the fenders and the leading edge of the hood.  She has two bumper stickers on it.  One says, “Don’t Mess With Texas;” the other, “Visualize Whirled Peas.”

“I feel like Rip Van Winkle,” I say, pushing myself up out of her lap and wiping tears with the towel.  “The world just went running along without me.”

“It does that,” she agrees.  “And you look like Rip Van Winkle, too.  When was the last time you shaved your legs?”

Swish-click. I’m in the kitchen.  The leaves have fallen; I missed a big chunk of fall.  It’s not that I don’t remember the time passing any more, it’s just that I’m outside of it, none of it touches me even though I’m there, and before you know it a week has gone by. If things of significance happen, they’re far beyond the pale and off in the pink, and as meaningful to me as popcorn noises.  I felt better when I was in Detroit. Watching the cars was nice. 

Ian says I don’t have to take the pills any more.  Right after he says that, I pour myself a glass of funny-tasting orange juice.  These facts are clearly related, but the fuzzy pink cloud makes it easy to not care.  In fact, the more juice I drink, the fuzzier things get.  I like that.

Today I have a numb sort of vague sense that something important is going on, something more important than anything else recently. There are people in our (no wait just my, Ren’s dead, altho’ I don’t see why that means it can’t be his house too) big old house, going in and out.  I suggested to Ian that I would make bread for them, and he liked the idea.  In fact, they ate it all, so I’m making more.  Ian is bustling back and forth too, one minute on the phone, the next out in the living room, the next completely gone.  He keeps disappearing and he doesn’t hear me when I ask him where he’s going.  I just go on making bread; I like doing that.  Last night I remember waking up hearing my father Bert talking out in the hall, but when I got up to go and see if he was really there, he was gone by the time I got there.  His would have been a nice ghost to see, and I woke up sort of sad.  He and Ren have been on my mind on and off and it’s chewing away at the edges of my pink cloud without success.  It’s not quite a distraction.  I drink more juice to make it go away.

In the middle of all this, someone from Late Apex magazine is hovering around me, asking questions for an interview.  I don’t mind that.  Late Apex is a decent magazine.  A little heavy on snottiness sometimes maybe, but a decent magazine, and the reporter is younger than the crusty old boys that I met from Late Apex about an eon ago, all of whom treated me like Ren’s hood ornament or something.  I can talk to this younger guy, whose name is Glen Grant, once the bread gets made and the cats get fed, or maybe while I’m taking care of those things.  I can multitask, even with pink goo slowing me down.  As if there’s not enough going on, Terminator 2 and Beetlejuice are on at the same time, on different channels.  So if something important is happening, it’s going to happen without me, because my hands are full.

Glen has blond hair, a hairline that hasn’t receded quite as far as Ian’s and a fashionable little goatee that’s more red than blond.  Actually, maybe his hair is sort of strawberry blond.  I can’t tell exactly (no colors) but it must be.  You never think of guys as having strawberry blond hair, but some of them must.  He keeps up with me well, considering that he’s a couple of inches shorter and has to follow me from kitchen to TV room every two or three minutes.  On top of that there’s always a cat hassling him because Teague and Amy-Ann like to demand attention from any guests who are demanding attention from me.  I keep forgetting what I was talking to Glen about.  He’s patient with me.  He stops and scratches Amy-Ann behind the ears whenever he gets the chance, and that makes my tortie purr (which sounds like a pleasantly filthy innuendo, but isn’t).  He’s wearing a white polo shirt and black jeans, and they are already liberally cat-furred.

Right now Glen wants to know something about the house.  He must have asked, anyway, because I’m talking about it,.  “It’s kind of a wreck right now,” I say.  “If I had known there was so much space I could have gotten more furniture,” I say.  No, that wasn’t what I meant to say.  “It’s not as clean as it could be.”  That’s right, I wanted to tell him that I would have swept up more of the dust if I had expected guests.

He just smiles.  “I think it looks great.  It won’t take much to make it an amazing place.  How many rooms do you have here?  I got a chance to peek in the library and ballroom, but I haven’t been upstairs.”

“There were um, three bedrooms on each side upstairs, but there was a fire or something so I knocked out the walls on my side and made one big room.  That’s my room.”  That was the last bit of renovation–the only bit of renovation–we did before Ren died, but I don’t tell Glen that.

Glen grins.  “Space for a car in there?”

“Hmm, maybe.  But…there isn’t one.  I might put one in the library though..”  There’s something else I want to say, but I can’t think of what it is.  Glen’s frowning.  “Downstairs so I could take it out…and drive.  When I wanted.”

He nods in understanding.  “Hell, you’ve got space for a mini-museum in that ballroom.”

“I’d rather dance in there…”  I lose myself for a moment in kneading dough.  It’s easy to do.  Dancing would be fun, too.  It seems like there are a lot of things that would be fun if I could bring myself to do them.  Some part of me is convinced that I’m not allowed to do things any more, and I’m not sure whose permission I need to be asking.

“How old is the house?” Glen asks.

“It was built in, um…”  I draw a complete blank until a Ford Model A pops into my mind.  Yes, the house was built in the first year for Model As.  “1928.  It was empty when I, when we bought it.  Had been…”  The dough captures my attention again.  Squash, fold, fold, squash.  It feels nice.  I like making bread.  I wish I could smell it but I can’t seem to.

“So,” Glen says, drawing my attention out of the dough, “let’s talk cars.  Who did the car thing first, you or Warren?”

“Technically, he did it first, but that’s just because he was born first.  I already had the disease when we met.”

“What was your first car?”

This is not hard to remember, surprisingly.  Words tumble out of me, as if Glen has pressed a button on a tape player.  “An ’82 Subaru wagon.  Four-wheel drive.  Yellow.  I went for practicality more than sport.  I named it Buttercake and drove it all through high school, into college.  By the time the rust got terminal, Buttercake had about three hundred thousand miles on her.  I got a new Loyale to replace her.  My first new car, a ’92 Subaru wagon.  It got wrecked within a month, of course.  Believe it or not, the guy I was dating when I first met Ren was chasing me at the time.  I’d have never hit that ice cream truck otherwise.”

Glen tilts his head, and Amy-Ann meows at him.  He wiggles his fingers and she pushes her nose into them.  “You left this guy for Ren?”

That’s not right at all, and I shake my head.  In fact I made a point of not leaving Darron for Ren, because I didn’t want to be that chick.  “He got increasingly paranoid about my friendship with Ren, and over time that wrecked our relationship.  Not to mention my Subie, my dignity, and both our houses, among other things.  After we reached the point of seriously irreconcilable differences, that was when I started going with Ren.”

“Okay, that’s a lot of information all at once.  How did it wreck your house?  And your…dignity?”

“His house got wrecked when Ren drove a Jeep into it, as some sort of boneheaded vengeance, after Darron–the prior boyfriend, in case you hadn’t guessed–and three of his friends trashed my house, killed my cat, and had a bit of a gang-bang party with me, this after I dumped a bowl of chili on Darron’s head because he slapped me during an argument.  The fact that we were at the Radisson at the time means more to him than it does to me.”  It all falls out of me, one thing after another, a massive information-dump, and if I was thinking I don’t think I’d have told him all of that but I can’t seem to shut up and am feeling apathetic enough that it doesn’t occur to me that maybe I want to keep the rape to myself until I’ve already babbled it out.  On the other hand, it startles the hell out of him, he’s predictably horrified, and I like that he’s reeling emotionally and not sure of what to do next.  It puts us on common ground.

It’s a few seconds before Glen can speak properly.  “What…wait…he did WHAT?  When did all of this happen?”

“Ask the car, silly–it was in ’92.”  I watch the bread for a while.  Glen falls silent.    When he doesn’t say anything for a while, I ask him, “Have you ever lost someone you loved a lot?” 

“Yes,” he says, “but not in the same way you did.”

The admission instantly makes me like him better.  I turn and give him the biggest smile I can.  He smiles back, but looks like he’s just bitten tinfoil.

Someone taps me on the shoulder; I turn and see Dobie Cassarell.  “Good afternoon,” Dobie says.

“Hey…” I say, trailing off with my hands in the mound of dough.  What’s he doing here?  Is he here?

“I just wanted to stop in and say hello before the big event,” Dobie says.  “How are you holding up?”

“Up?”  What is he doing here, anyway?  Does that mean Becka Packard is here too?  I don’t want to see her, but her being here makes no sense anyway, since Becka vowed never to set foot in this house because of the pain it caused her, reminding her of Ren.  I can’t remember when she said that but I’m sure she did.  And not only was that an utterly silly thing to say, but it was just like her, because even though Ren bought the house with me he hardly even came here before that, before he, before Vermont, and who cares, it’s her loss anyway and I certainly wouldn’t make bread for her…

“Really?” Glen asks.

Oops, I must’ve said that out loud.  “It’s…the truth.  She hates me, you know.”

“So I’ve heard,” Dobie says.  “Have no fear.  Danny’s here, but Becka isn’t.  He was excited to see the house.”

Why is Danny here?  He hates me as much as she does, with the added bonus that he’s jealous of Ren.  I manage not to say this out loud, but before I can protest that I don’t want the little blueblooded plague monkey in my house either, Ian appears out of nowhere and puts his hand on Dobie’s shoulder.  “Lexi’s got her hands a little full, guys,” he says. 

My mood changes like a card flipping over, and I forget all about Danny Packard.  It’s a weird feeling, but thinking or worrying about it is hard, so I don’t.  I pour myself more juice to make it easier not to think about it.  “Of dough,” I agree with a giggle, and hold up the soft mound I’m kneading.  “There’s some in the oven already, and then this one…” I tell Ian.  “Twenty minutes until bread.”

“That’s great,” Ian says, escorting Dobie out of the kitchen.  “I’ll be back for it.”

“What they need,” I tell Glen after they’ve gone, “is jelly.  Butter and jelly.  Strawberry jelly.  Or blackberry, from that place in Frankenmuth.”  He seems to think it’s a good idea.

Outside the window, I see another ghost.  She’s one of the three that appeared at first, not the tall woman who’s always trying to lead me from one place to another but the shorter Chinese woman.  She’s out in the backyard, standing in a pile of leaves.  I get the feeling that she’s beckoning to me but she doesn’t move.

Glen watched Lexi for a while as she pinballed unsteadily around the kitchen, working on baking another of her delightful, uneven loaves of bread.  When she rushed out of the kitchen again to check on her TV shows, he waited for her instead of following, grateful for a moment to pull a chair up to the table and lay his notepad down.  Table and chair both appeared to be thrift-shop refugees dragged in for lack of anything better.  Some of the rooms in Lexi’s big old house still contained dusty but solid antique furniture, presumably left by the previous tenants and spared rot by the cold northern Michigan winters.  Other rooms were filled with unpacked boxes, empty, or sparsely furnished with Salvation Army stopgaps like the kitchen, which was at least made twenty times more friendly by the smell of freshly baked bread.  It was cool in spite of the huge Depression-era gas stove that took up most of the back wall.

Most of the staff at Late Apex had more or less written Lexi off once Warren died and she shuttered the company.  The court fight had been of only trivial interest to the hard-core car guys, most of whom had met Ren at one event or another and spoken highly of him as a collector who drove his toys instead of shrink-wrapping them.  True, she drove the cars too, but old preconceptions died hard, and old cars were a “guy” thing.  Period.  As proof, here it was, eight months after Ren’s death and Lexi was auctioning off the collection.  Two of Glen’s editors were here for the sale too, but neither of them had wanted to talk to Lexi.  She wasn’t interested in keeping the fantastic collection; that was all they needed to know about her.

But there had been a funny phone call, as they’d been making plans to come to the auction, from a friend of Langdon Quimby’s named Curve.  Glen knew Curve and some of Quimby’s other friends, but had never met Quimby himself.  Quimby wasn’t interested in cars, but for some reason he was interested in Lexi, and suggested that Glen ought to be as well.  Quimby’s “suggestions” often had journalistic merit; he had mailed Glen Kirk Kerkorian’s business card in a Baggie the day before the ’95 New York Auto Show, before Kerkorian’s surprising hostile takeover attempt of Chrysler.  With that in mind, Glen had told his editors he was interested in doing a sidebar on Lexi, and they had dispatched him with skepticism as to its chances of seeing print in Late Apex.  Fair enough.

Things had gotten strange once he’d found her.  She wasn’t anywhere near the auction, which was taking place at a warehouse some distance from the house, and Ian Warnock had insisted on okaying the interview, as if he was Lexi’s lawyer.  Agreeing to cooperate seemed like the quickest way to talk to Lexi, as only Ian knew where she was.  Before he’d left Glen alone with her, Ian had taken him aside and asked him not to grill Lexi about Ren, or about the collection, especially the auction that was going on, and something definitely wasn’t kosher about that.  Ian’s explanation that Lexi was having the auction so that she wouldn’t have to think about the cars or Ren was a little weak, too.  It made more sense that he didn’t think the house was a good venue.  Lexi’s house, while beautiful in its unrestored state, was downright creepy.  Even early in the afternoon when the sun was at its height the house had more than its fair share of dark corners and shadows.  There was also the sense that something was watching him all the time.  Glen almost wanted to say that it felt like the house was watching him.  Lexi lived in one of those houses that adolescents in small towns snuck into only on the most desperate of dares.  Glen wouldn’t have been surprised to find that some of the kids in Arcadia had done exactly that in her house, either before or while she lived here.

The oddest thing was Lexi herself.  She was clearly stoned out of her mind.  She had freely apologized for being “off,” so she wasn’t being drugged against her will, Glen didn’t think, but there you were.  He had written off the interview for Late Apex as soon as it became clear they couldn’t talk about the auction, but judging by her emotional state he might be able to sell the story to someone else.  No one had ever interviewed Lexi Crane by herself since she’d broken apart after Warren’s death, but she was kind of a character once you talked to her a little.  Cute, too, in spite of a haggard appearance born of not going outside or feeding herself well for the better part of the year.  She was wearing a pale blue T-shirt with a picture of a hearse on it and a pair of well-worn jeans.

And, contrary to the other car guys’ opinions of her, she knew her stuff.  As she came back into the kitchen, he got her talking again by asking, “TR-6 or Tiger?”  He didn’t even have to tell her that the TR-6 was a Triumph, or that the Tiger in question referred to a sporty little Sunbeam.

Her misty, distracted air vanished when they were talking about cars.  It was uncanny.  “Not entirely fair.  Of course I like the TR better; it’s closer to my age.  And it looks better.”

“Matter of opinion,” Glen said, grinning.

Lexi shrugged, transferring her dough to a loaf pan and covering it with a towel so it could rise.  “Daimler SP250′s a fairer comparison to the Tiger anyway, since they’re both V8 beasties and about the same age.  And I like the Daimlers better, too.”  She even pronounced it correctly:  “dame-ler,” referring to the British company that had no connection to the German manufacturer, which was spelled the same but pronounced “dime-ler.”

“Oh, my God, you’re kidding?  That ugly thing?”

“Some things are so ugly they’re cute,” Lexi said with a secretive smile.  “And they make good noises.”

It happened as she opened the oven’s door to take out the bread that was finished.  Glen later guessed that the rush of oxygen had somehow ignited a cloud of unburned gas inside the ancient stove.  Lexi put her hand on the door and it blew open in a flash of orange-blue and a rolling blast of noise that shook the walls.  All of the burners and pots on top of the stove were blown into the air; one of them put a sizable dent in the tin ceiling.  A roiling curl of flame enveloped Lexi, lifted her off her feet, and threw her five feet into the wall next to the refrigerator.  For a moment it seemed as if the stove had reached out a giant flaming hand and slapped her away…

And then it was gone.  The fire blew itself out before the pans and burners had finished crashing to the floor, before Glen had quite reached his feet to begin looking for the fire extinguisher.  From somewhere else in the house he heard a male voice cry out, “Jesus H. Christ!” and running footsteps beginning to approach.

Lexi was sitting in a heap next to the wall.  Glen took two steps forward, swept the stove’s dials to make sure the gas was off, then went to her.  Eight years of amateur racing and track work showed in his crisis management skills, and he realized that he was ready to throw himself on top of her with a blanket if her clothes were on fire.  Luckily, there was no need.  She didn’t even look scorched.  Her eyes were closed, her feet splayed, hands limp on the floor at her sides.  The kitchen smelled heavily of spices and burning paper.

“Lexi?” he asked.

Ian had just gotten Dobie Cassarell back into his Mercedes, safely out of the house and on the way to the auction with the promise that they’d talk more when they got there, when he heard the noise.  It sounded like something heavy had fallen from a great height and crashed through the roof, and a rush of cool air from the back of the house seemed to support this theory.  It must have been some kind of explosion.  Panic burst in his stomach, and Ian was running for the kitchen without a second thought, the auction forgotten. 

The scene was disarmingly normal, except that Lexi was sitting by the wall next to the refrigerator.  No hole in the ceiling.  No flaming fragments of flesh rended to bits by an explosion.  The journalist was hovering over Lexi, touching her wrist lightly.  “What happened?”

“The stove blew up,” Glen told him.  “I don’t know if she’s–”

Ian was already kneeling next to Lexi, calling her name softly, taking her other wrist in his hand.  Glen thought that he looked more like a farmer tending to a prized cow than a concerned friend, but maybe that was just shock warping his perceptions a little.  Lexi didn’t respond to the touch.  “What happened?” Ian asked again.

Before Glen could answer, Lexi’s eyes popped wide.  She took in a long, drawn-out breath through her teeth and recoiled from Ian, banging her head against the wall.

“Lexi?” Ian said softly.  “It’s me.  Are you okay?  The stove–”

With a garbled noise, she started twitching and kicking in jerky, violent bursts, her eyes unfocused.  The flailing took Ian by surprise.  She kicked his feet out from under him and he tumbled backward.

“Shit,” Glen said, “she’s having a seizure.”

Ian crawled forward again and knelt next to Lexi.  He grabbed her wrists hard, trying to hold her still.  When that had little effect, he pulled her into a bear hug.  Lexi threw her head back, hitting him hard in the cheek, and he squeezed tighter.  The violent spasms shot through her body as if she was being electrocuted, and he couldn’t hold her still despite his weight advantage.  When had she gotten so strong?  “What do I do?”

Glen pulled the trash can away so she couldn’t kick it, making more clear space.  “Let her go!  Don’t hold her down.  Roll her onto her stomach and leave her be.  She’ll fall asleep when she’s done, and then you can carry her upstairs and put her to bed.”

“Shouldn’t I put my belt in her mouth or something, so she doesn’t choke?”

“No, just let her be,” Glen said with a great deal more calm than he felt.  Some large part of his mind was standing back to watch what happened next, ready to act.

Ian watched Lexi beat limp hands against the floor, then looked at Glen.  “How do you know she’ll be okay?”

“Seen it happen a lot.  My cousin has epilepsy.”

“Lexi doesn’t.”

“Are you sure?” 

“Positive.  I’d think her doctor would have told me.  She’s not taking any medication for that.”

“She’s taking medication for something,” Glen said, a hint of accusation in his voice.  He didn’t mean for it to be there.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.”

Ian was silent for about five seconds, and then he kicked the floor.  “I can’t stand here and watch this.  I’m going to move her.”

When Ian took a step forward, Glen put a hand on his shoulder.  “No.  Let her be.”

“She doesn’t have epilepsy.  You have no goddamn idea what’s wrong with her and I’m not going to let her kill herself!”

As Ian’s level of agitation rose, Glen felt calmer still. “A grand mal seizure is a grand mal seizure,” he said.  “Once she’s done, we can move her.  If you try to before that, she’s going to hurt herself.  She’s going to turn her wrist or her ankle, or break her hand hitting the floor, or break her own nose hitting the wall.  Is it possible she’s having a reaction to whatever she’s taking?”

Ian took a long breath, and let it out slowly.  Glen was right.  He’d have to get Lexi checked out.  Damn this woman for being so difficult!  The silence was broken only by Lexi’s sharp, erratic breathing and the sound of her hands and feet pounding against the floor.

After a few minutes Lexi’s twitching and kicking subsided.  Her breathing relaxed.  “Now,” Glen said.  Ian suddenly realized that Glen had been holding him the whole time.  “She’s probably asleep.”

He was right.  “I’m going to have to call her doctor to observe her again,” he said with a sigh.

“Tell you what,” Glen said with a smile, “I’ll check on her bread for you.  She’ll probably be out for a few hours.  I’ll conclude the interview some other time, if that’s okay.”  Next time he intended to ask Lexi straight out if he should be deferring to Ian or not, too.