Fall of Night (4 page)

‘Do what? Um … doesn’t the luggage go in the trunk?’ Surely the world hadn’t changed
that
much.

‘Look over your shoulder,’ Elizabeth said. ‘You’ve done it every few seconds since you came out of the terminal. Are you worried about someone? Did someone follow you?’ She looked very serious again, and earnest, and Claire suddenly realised that her friend was right – she’d been checking routinely, automatically, to be sure nothing was sneaking up on her.

Morganville caution.

‘Oh,’ she said, and mustered up an apologetic laugh. ‘I guess – well, the part of town I’ve been living in isn’t that safe, I guess. I got used to looking out for myself.’

‘Well, you’re in civilisation now, not Backwardstown,’ Elizabeth said, and slammed the trunk lid. ‘Banzai, bitch, we are
moving
!’

Claire climbed in the car, and Elizabeth got in, whooped in excitement, and turned the music up loud and sang along at the top of her lungs as she steered them out of the parking garage and into a weak afternoon sunlight.

The drive was really educational, because Cambridge didn’t look anything like Dallas. Dallas had been steel and glass, heat and angles; Cambridge was
age-rounded
, grassy, still virulently green even though fall chill was thick in the air. The trees were so much taller than she’d expected, and the
colours
… Claire gaped like a kid at Christmas, too stunned with the beauty of it to join in the sing-along, even though she liked the song Elizabeth was currently belting out. The houses were small and square and so
neat
and at the same time so … old. Everything in Morganville looked old, too, but in a falling-apart way. This looked more like lovingly cared-for history.

‘You’re going to need a car,’ Elizabeth said suddenly, turning the radio way down. ‘I know you walked all the time in Hicksville, but we’re not going to be living
that
close. You’re going to really love the apartment, it’s super cute and yeah, it’s kind of small, but cosy, really … okay, it’s a pit, but we’ll have fun, right? So. Tell me about this
boy
.’

The switch of topics was sudden, but that was Liz; she’d always been like that, leapfrogging from one thing to another without much in the way of traffic signals. ‘The boy’s name is Shane,’ Claire said. Just saying it twisted hard inside her, and for a second she could hardly breathe; it felt like a fist closing over her heart and crushing it flat. Tears suddenly gathered in her eyes, and she had to breathe deeply to get herself under control again. ‘He’s – he’s—’

‘Super cute?’ Elizabeth supplied, when Claire hesitated. ‘Adorable like a fluffy bunny? A giant dickhead? What, girl, come on! Spill!’

‘Perfect,’ Claire said. No, that wasn’t right. He was far from perfect, that was the whole point of why she’d come here to put some space between them.
Perfect for me, though
. ‘He’s taller than me, and has really broad shoulders, and yes he’s super cute – and he makes me happy.’ There. She’d said it. ‘I love him.’

‘Love,’ Elizabeth sighed, and shook her head. ‘Snap out of it, girlfriend. I don’t want you mooning over some Texas loser when you’ve come to prime dating territory! I thought you said you wanted to get some distance?’

‘I did,’ Claire said. Right now, she was missing Shane with an intensity that made her shaky. And not
just
Shane. She missed Eve and Michael, and the easy way they all fit together as friends. She already felt that Elizabeth, as positive and funny and energetic as she was, intended to push her to be something she wasn’t, and that Liz wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Eve would have just made me feel comfortable
, she thought.
And welcome. We haven’t even made it to the apartment and Liz is already trying to make me speed date
.

‘So forget about your Cowboy Hottie and let’s just start out two fun single girls, ready for anything. Right?’

‘Elizabeth—’

‘Right?’ Elizabeth took her eyes off the road long enough to give her a commanding stare.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Just – just drive. You’re making me nervous.’

‘You’ve gotten all serious, did you know that? What did they do to you out in the sticks?’ Liz pouted a little, but she started humming along with the radio in a few seconds, and the clouds cleared. ‘I hope you like blue. I gave you the blue room.’

Elizabeth hadn’t been kidding. It was
blue
, this room. The apartment was in a run-down building that had probably once been a big house, but had been sliced into four narrow sections, each with three stories. Claire’s room was at the top of a creaky, flaking staircase, and it was really … blue.

The walls had been painted an unfortunate, shiny dark colour, that made everything look even more cramped than it really was (which was pretty small). There was room for the battered twin bed, a broken-down dresser painted a distressed pale blue, and a mirror old enough to have dull flecks all over it. Vintage would be one word for it.

Claire tested the mattress. Vintage would be a word for that, too.

‘It’s great, right?’ Elizabeth demanded, having wheeled her larger suitcase in behind her. With the two of them and the two suitcases, there wasn’t room to walk. ‘Cheap, too. The rent’s only two thousand a month, plus utilities.’

That brought Claire bolt upright from the sagging bed. ‘
Two thousand?
’

‘Not
each
,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I mean, split, so a thousand for you.’ She laughed outright at the expression on Claire’s face. ‘What, you didn’t think living here would be cheap, did you? Come on. The reason prices are low in Texas is nobody wants to live there!’

I do
, Claire thought, and swallowed hard. She hadn’t counted on paying that much in rent, but she could manage it. Eating anything but Ramen noodles and peanut butter was pretty much off the table, though.

Elizabeth was looking worried now. ‘It’s not a problem, is it?’

‘No,’ Claire said. ‘It’s okay. I just—’ She swallowed the words,
hate this room
, and said, ‘just didn’t expect it to be quite that much. I should have asked.’

‘I should have warned you,’ Elizabeth said. She sat down on the bed next to Claire and bounced up and down, which strained the old springs to their limits. ‘Sorry, I just thought – I guess I was scared you’d say no. And I couldn’t stand it if you said no, Claire. I just – it’s so nice to have somebody from the old life, you know? Someone who knows me. Really knows the real me.’

‘Isn’t this the real you now?’ Claire gestured at – all of it. The outfit, the hair, everything.

‘I guess so. I just – sometimes it feels so strange, and I wish I could go back to being … a kid, you know? A kid at home, with nothing to worry about.’ Elizabeth sighed and stopped bouncing. ‘I spent so long wanting to be on my own and now it’s – it feels weird. And pretty frightening, to be in charge. Right?’

Claire didn’t answer this time. She put her arm around her friend, and they sat together in a suddenly comfortable silence for a few long seconds, before Elizabeth – practically a Ritalin kid, with all her energy to burn – wiggled free and grabbed Claire’s hand to haul her to her feet. ‘You have to see my room!’ Elizabeth said brightly. ‘You’ll love it, we can fix yours up too, make it really yours …’

She kept talking as she pulled Claire toward the door, and to be honest Claire wasn’t really listening until Elizabeth, midway down the stairs, finished up a sentence with, ‘and the ghost.’

‘Wait.’ Claire pulled her to a full halt. ‘What did you just say?
Ghost
?’

‘Sure! The house is haunted; isn’t that the coolest ever?’

Claire waited a second. She had always been able to tell, in Morganville, if something paranormally weird was going on around her, but here it just felt like a draughty, creaking old house. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Well, yeah, of course! I’ve seen her. It’s a lady in white, I think, and she drifts around on the stairs sometimes. Cool, right? I think she probably died here. Maybe she was
gruesomely murdered
!’

Maybe it was a Morganville thing, but Claire was reasonably certain she’d never thought of someone being horribly murdered with quite so much enthusiasm. She’d seen too many examples of it in real life. That, she realised, was the real gap between her and Elizabeth now … life experience. Elizabeth still lived in a world where the worst that could happen was a stolen wallet or a minor accident. She didn’t know how fragile things were, or how hard you had to fight to hold them together when the world spun out of control.

Claire felt ancient, even though she was a full year younger. She said, ‘Um, can I see your room now?’

‘Creepy talk creeping you out?’

‘Little bit, yeah.’ Shane would have had a brilliant comeback, or Eve, but Claire couldn’t come up with one, suddenly. It didn’t matter. Elizabeth pulled her down the rest of the twisting flight of stairs to the second landing, and opened up the door and flicked on the lights.

‘Ta da!’ she sang, and did an extravagant sweep of her arm. The room was as orange as Claire’s was blue. To be fair, only one wall was painted that colour, but it was the far one, and it practically glowed in the dark. So did the bedspread with its profusions of ruffles, and the piles of pillows. It
was
nice, though, even if it was unsettlingly bright … Elizabeth had taped up band posters and some kind of fantasy art featuring winged, half-naked male angels. Her dresser was practically covered with make-up and piles of jewellery. It was the girliest room Claire had ever seen, actually, and that included Eve’s. At least Eve’s was
dark
.

‘It’s really … cheerful,’ Claire said. That was true. It also gave her a headache. Maybe that was the incense, which smelt like freshly peeled … oranges. That seemed a little bit too much theme for sanity. On the plus side, she was suddenly grateful that Liz had chosen blue for her bedroom. ‘Well, let me get unpacked, and you can show me the rest of the place, okay?’

‘Not much else to see. There’s a tiny little living area and a crappy kitchen. No TV; I figured we could stream something if we wanted to watch it, but I’m not really into that stuff anyway.’

‘What stuff?’

‘You know, TV, books, films, all that kind of stuff.’ Liz dismissed it with a wave of her hand. ‘I like the real world. Besides, only geeks go all nuts over made-up stories.’

That was a shock, because Claire clearly remembered squealing with Liz over the latest Harry Potter book, and excitedly chattering about what Snape would get up to next. This Elizabeth – this platinum blonde, carefully made-up, fashion-conscious young woman – this one was a stranger. ‘I still like it,’ Claire said. Not defensively, because she really didn’t feel a need to defend it. She was just stating a fact.

But it seemed like Elizabeth took it as a personal attack. Her face turned pink around the cheeks and at the top of her forehead, and she glared and said, ‘Well, I
don’t
, so let’s get some ground rules straight – you don’t bring home any geeky weirdos who want to sit around and play games or talk about movies or that stuff. You’ll never find a guy that way, and you’ll ruin my chances, too!’

‘A … guy?’ Claire felt suddenly at sea, because this conversation was getting weirder and weirder. ‘Liz, I’m not looking for—’

‘Fine, sit around and sulk about your stupid cowboy all day and night, but I’m finding someone worthwhile.’

‘What’s worthwhile for you?’ It might have been goading, but Claire honestly wanted to know. Sort of an anthropological experiment.

Elizabeth looked puzzled for a second, then ticked off what she wanted. ‘Money,’ she said. ‘A decent job, something medical or finance or something. And a good car. He’s got to have a good car. Also, he should have short hair and wear ties most of the time. Nice silk ties, not those crappy Kmart special ones.’

She had remarkably specific rules, Claire thought. ‘Found anybody yet?’

‘Not yet, but I know what to do. I go to the places that those kind of men show up, like the upscale food stores, and the opera, and I wait for one to notice me and talk to me. I’ve gotten loads of conversations. Sooner or later one of them will date me.’

That was … well, Claire didn’t have any other word for it. Bizarre. ‘Don’t you want to, I don’t know, meet somebody and fall in love because you’re just … right for each other?’

Liz shrugged. ‘Don’t really care about that,’ she said. ‘Romance is for idiots. I’m done with all that stuff.’

‘Liz—’ Claire didn’t know how else to put it. ‘What the hell happened to you? Because you’re just not … not the same.’

Elizabeth gave her a long, bitter look. ‘You don’t want to know,’ she said. Claire remembered the flash of fear in Liz’s eyes at the airport, and wondered even more. ‘I’m just telling you, your boyfriend? He may pretend to be Prince Charming, but he’ll show his true colours. They all do.’ She stepped into her room and took hold of the door. ‘Let me know when you’re unpacked, we’ll make some dinner.’

Then she shut the door, and Claire was left standing on the stairs, feeling very alone. Elizabeth
had
changed, all right – far more than Claire herself had, even with all the pressures of Morganville. She was trying so hard to be adult that she was going to break something – probably herself, Claire thought.

But Liz was right … she did need to unpack. Though when she went back upstairs, and surveyed the depressing blue room again, the first thing she wanted to do was take her suitcases and run, run away, run back to …

… To Shane.

Claire took out her phone and scrolled the address book. All the familiar, aching names.
I can call him
, she thought.
I can call right now
.

Instead, she put down the phone, took a deep, slow breath, and threw the first suitcase open on the low, creaking bed.

Maybe putting things in drawers and in the narrow closet would make her feel less … lost.

An hour later, though, the suitcases were empty, and the drawers were full of underwear and T-shirts and clothes, what needed to be on hangers successfully on the closet rod, and her battered assortment of shoes neatly arranged … and she put the small number of personal things she’d brought with her around the room. She hadn’t bothered with posters, but she had framed photos of Shane, and an album of photos of Michael and Eve and Myrnin and Amelie and everybody else she knew in Morganville who’d stand still for it, or even those who wouldn’t, like Oliver, taken on the stealth. A record of what she’d left behind, the good and the bad. Even Myrnin’s pet Bob the Spider had his own close-up. He was surprisingly kind of cute.