Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
“Hey, Lovejoys!” Jamie said as they swept into the store. Their combat boots added an inch to their height, and their denim vest had an eye painted on it the exact blue of Jamie’s own eyes. Everything about them was beautiful and interesting.
Did Jamie feel their own warmth? Could they bask in the kindly, sunny disposition of Jamieness the way Edgar did? What would it feel like to be the battery of your own joy?
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Allie said. “I love what you’re wearing, and I’ll greet you in approximately three minutes when I finish extricating myself from this chair.”
Allie had a precise process for getting up that Edgar had learned not to interfere with, no matter how much it looked like she wasn’t going to make it.
Finally she got to her feet and greeted Jamie with a hug.
Edgar had always thought of his sister as larger than life. She was capable, strong, had basically raised him after their father left. It was only looking at her now that he realized she was shorter than Jamie. The hand she pressed to her lower back dug in. She had a tangle in the back of her hair, and the hem of her shirt was frayed.
Allie showed Jamie the clothes she’d pulled. Edgar went around the desk and lowered the shade on the side window for privacy.
It had been a hard week. Two ghost sightings in the same afternoon had sent him rushing for home, and he’d narrowly missed being sideswiped by a car while he was on his bike the next day. In swerving, he’d toppled a whole crate of Lagniappe Lemonade, bottles smashing in the street and the scent of honey going sickly sweet on the sticky cement.
Helen and Veronica were understanding and glad he wasn’t hurt, but Edgar felt awful. Then when he’d turned a corner walking to the cat café, he’d walked directly into something that felt like cold water dumped down his back. The ghost was a blur of purplish lips and gray skin, but its parts weren’t where they should have been. It was stretched tall and thin, looming above him.
An encounter like that would usually shake him. But this time, owing to the week he’d already had, Edgar found himself crouched on the sidewalk, arms over his face. The murmurs of concern from passersby and a bracing Hey, man, I think you had a little too much, accompanied by an extended hand, had been so overwhelming and mortifying that he had pretended not to hear or see them, curling into a ball, trying to make himself as small as possible.
The smaller you were, the harder it was for them to find you.
The smaller, the plainer, the quieter. The less you affected the fabric of the world they shared, the less likely you were to bring them down on you.
Right?
Edgar had always thought so. But three times this week, he’d encountered them. And all three times, he’d been walking alone, quiet and plainly dressed.
Maybe he’d have had four encounters if he’d dressed or acted differently. Or five. Or twenty.
But maybe, just maybe, trying to make himself invisible didn’t accomplish anything at all.
Edgar had gone home, only able to relax once the door to his apartment closed tight behind him and the only creatures that existed in his world were the cats he watched on the video monitor. He’d taken a long shower, then stood naked before the mirror, wondering.
In the present, Jamie and Allie were still talking. “Did Edgar ever dress in any specific style?” Jamie was asking.
“When he was eight, he got into dressing monochromatically, from head to toe. And for a while, he swiped all my good band shirts, even though he didn’t listen to any of the bands. But not really. Our house was pretty chaotic. There wasn’t much money for clothes besides school clothes, and we mostly fended for ourselves. As long as he was dressed and got to school…”
“I bet he looked pretty cute no matter what he wore.”
Allie winked. Oh god, what would happen if his sister and his…whatever Jamie was…became friends?
Allie sighed wistfully. “He was honestly the cutest kid. He had this infectious giggle, and he’d get Poe going, and they’d both roll around like puppies.”
Edgar tried to remember a time when he’d done anything unselfconsciously. When he’d rolled around on the floor with no awareness of his surroundings or what was out there waiting for him.
For the first time in years, he missed Poe so much it choked him. Poe had been younger and smaller but fierce. Much fiercer than Edgar.
“Poe always won when we wrestled,” Edgar remembered.
“Yeah,” Allie laughed. “Because you were trying not to hurt him, and he was trying to win.”
Edgar hardly had time to register this information, because Jamie’s eyes narrowed, and they looked between Allie and Edgar.