She froze as the vague shadow grew clearer and she could see a young woman, a girl, really, big-eyed and pretty with masses of curly hair, her form translucent and shifting in what looked like a party dress.
Hello, the girl said, swishing her full skirt as she pirouetted, blue in the moonlight.
“Who are you?” Andie said, and her voice seemed dreamlike, as if it were coming from very far away.
Oh, I’m you. The girl laughed. I’m you when you were nineteen. She leaned forward, the illusion of her shadow shifting a few seconds behind her movement so that she disassembled and reassembled as she moved. Don’t we look alike?
“Don’t do that,” Andie said, feeling nauseous now. She didn’t have dreams about past lives, that was entirely too twee, or maybe too Flo. Her mother would be all over this if it were happening to her. She struggled to wake up, but the girl only moved again and disoriented her, and another wave of cold nausea hit, so she stopped.
What happens to me after nineteen? the girl said. Do I have wonderful adventures?
“What?” Andie sank back on the pillows, sick to her stomach.
I want to know what happens next, the girl said. I want to know the future. Do I fall in love? Is it wonderful?
Andie thought of North, and then guiltily of Will. “Yes.”
The girl drifted closer and the room grew colder and Andie shut her eyes to block out the sickening vertigo.
Tell me about him.
“He’s a writer.” Andie kept her eyes shut, picturing Will, laughing and warm.
Is he exciting? Does he make me crazy for him? Do I want him all the time?
“No.” Andie tried to roll over, away from her. “I’m thirty-four. I grew out of that.”
Terrible. That’s terrible. You never get exciting?
“The first one. Go away.”
Tell me about him.
“I’m freezing. Go away.”
The girl moved back to the window, and the air around the bed grew marginally warmer.
Tell me about the other one.
“I want to sleep now.”
Is he the one you dream about? The hot one?
She thought of North, of the muscle hidden by his suits, the passion behind that calm beautiful face, all of it focused on her in the first months of her marriage, those memories on perpetual replay in her dreams every night. “Yes. But then his uncle Merrill dies, and he works sixteen-hour days at the family firm, and he forgets I… we… exist, and I leave.”
You left that guy? You should have done something. You should have seduced him again. You should have-
“Hey,” Andie said, struggling to sit up. “I had therapy for this. Sometimes things end. The bastard broke my heart, and I got over it and moved on.”
The girl drew back, alarmed. All right. Andie lay back down, and the girl said, Tell me how you met. How do we meet him?
Andie closed her eyes. It was weird to be harassed in a dream. But she remembered… “We’re twenty-four, after too much to drink, we look across the bar and see a man watching us.”
What does he look like? He’s the blond guy in the dream?
“Yes. Almost white hair, cropped short. Tall. Great shoulders.” She yawned again. “Wire-rimmed glasses.”
This guy gave you the head-banging sex you’ve been dreaming about? The shadow sounded doubtful.
“Bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. Classic nose. Beautiful mouth. Women stop to stare at him and he doesn’t notice because he’s looking at me. Us. Are you sure you’re me?”
Yes, the girl said. Although I like guys who are built.
“No you don’t,” Andie said, confused. “You go for musicians and art majors. And your mother tells you to stop chasing water signs and find an earth.”
What?
“Flo. Our mother. You’re not me.” She struggled to sit up again, and the girl moved, and the vertigo sent Andie back to her pillows. She squinted at the shifting shape. “I think my hair was bigger then. Who are you?”
I’m you. You saw him. Then what happened? Did you smile at him?
“I was already smiling,” Andie said, sinking deeper into the bed, trying to get from dream to sleep. “I stopped smiling when he walked toward me.”
And you waited until he came to you. You made him come to you.
“No, I met him halfway. The band was playing ‘Somebody’s Baby.’ It’s hard to stand still when you hear ‘Somebody’s Baby.’ ”
The girl swished her skirt again. It would have been better to wait.
“I don’t wait for anybody.” Andie pulled the covers up over her head, feeling like Alice.
The girl was quiet for so long that Andie was almost asleep when she said, That’s better.
Andie pulled the covers off her face. “What?”
Not waiting for anybody. That’s better. Then what happens?
Andie shifted against the pillows. “We dance, and I’m so turned on I can’t talk.”
Dancing is good.
“And he says, ‘Come with me,’ and I do, and he kisses me in the street and it’s the best kiss of my entire life. I want to go to sleep now.”
Then what happens?
“We go to his apartment and have head-banging sex, and twelve hours later, he proposes, and I think he’s crazy, but we go to Kentucky.” Talking about it brought it all back, how crazy happy she’d been, how crazy happy he’d been. Not like himself at all. “He remembered to put Jackson Browne in the tape player, but he forgot a ring and we stopped in an antiques store and got this old gold band that I loved.” Andie pulled her hand out of the covers and looked at it. “A week later, it turned my finger green, and he went crazy because he wanted to get a real one, but I said no.”
You’re wearing a green ring? the girl said, disapproval strong in her voice.
“I cleaned it up and painted and varnished it so the green didn’t happen again. I should get rid of it.” Andie closed her hand so the ring wouldn’t slip off and put her hand under the covers again.
Then what?
“Then we got married. Because I can’t say no to him. Couldn’t say no to him for a whole year. From the minute he said, ‘I’m North Archer and I think we should leave,’ I was done.”
The shadow shifted quickly, moving closer. You were married to North Archer?
Andie woke up at that.
The girl was much more solid now, still translucent but clearer, stronger, beautiful, big dark eyes and mad curling hair, and when she moved, all the parts of her moved together so the vertigo was almost gone. You were married to North Archer and you divorced him? WHY?
“Because the guy I married disappeared into his law office and came out a walking suit.” Andie sat up. “What kind of dream is this? You’re not me. I was never beautiful.”
The room was very clear now, the moonlight almost like sunlight, edges sharp and entirely non-dreamlike, and the place was freezing.
“This isn’t a dream,” Andie said. “You’re a ghost.”
Don’t be silly, the girl said. There’s no such things as ghosts.
She moved toward Andie again, but this time Andie stayed sitting up, staring into the eye sockets of a dead woman.
“No,” she said, and the girl flowed over her, freezing her to the bone, saying, You should get him here. You should bring him here. He should be here to kiss you goodnight, and the nausea swept over her again, a disorientation so fierce that she fell back onto the bed, spiraling down into the dark again.