Luz took off her yellow latex cleaning glove so she could pat Alice’s hand awkwardly. “I hear you’re very talented yourself, Alice. You draw, is that right? I always wished I could do that. Very relaxing, I’d think. And so nice to have something at the end, something to hang on the wall.”

Alice made murmurs of agreement, but she found Luz’s words depressing. What a talent. Transferring things that existed in the real world onto a flat piece of paper. Camilla’s talents sounded so much more exciting, so much more dynamic.

As Alice left Luz, wandered back upstairs to her room, she thought about Camilla. Camilla who possessed a beauty that couldn’t be forgotten, an intelligence that was as generous as it was penetrating, and a smile so high-voltage it could light up a room. Good at everything she turned her hand to and yet patient with those less gifted. Somewhere in the house her laughter still lingered. There were rooms that contained objects she had touched, patches of floor that her feet had walked across, mirrors that had held her image. She was more present dead than Alice was alive.

Who’s really the ghost here? Alice wondered.

• • •

Alice slid the metal tongue into the metal buckle, then leaned back in her seat. Richard inserted they key in the ignition, turned it. He pressed the button to lower his window, then paused, looked at her.

“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” he said.

“No, I don’t mind.”

“Are you sure? I could put on the air conditioner just as easily.”

“Seriously, it’s fine. I’m not fussy about temperature.”

He gave her a tight smile and nodded.

Alice looked out the window as they started down the long driveway. Though she was dreading this little outing, she was hoping it wouldn’t be a complete waste of time. Last night she’d received an e-mail from her best friend, Angela, who was big into Occupy Boston, the Boston faction of Occupy Wall Street. A group was going to be gathering in Dewey Square on Tuesday to demonstrate. Alice had been following the movement in the news for what seemed like forever now and was itching to get involved. This struck her as an ideal opportunity, made that much more ideal by Patrick’s guaranteed absence. (According to Angela, he’d be in New Hampshire visiting his cousin through the weekend, which meant she’d only have to duck his calls.) Not that she never wanted to see or talk to him again. She just wanted to wait until she knew where she stood with Tommy before having a conversation with her kind-of, sort-of, not-really-boyfriend boyfriend.