They’d found a movie theater, the old Fox, where Alex sometimes saw the staff putting
up red ropes for premieres. Alex had nestled against Hellie’s shoulder, smelling the sweet
coconut scent of her still sun-warm skin, feeling the silk of her blond hair brushing occasionally against her forehead.
Eventually she’d dozed off, and when the theater lights came up, Hellie was gone. Alex
had gone out into the lobby, then the bathroom, then texted Hellie, and it was only after
the second text that she finally got a reply: It’s ok. I figured it out.
Hellie had gone back for the party. She’d gone back to Len and Ariel. She’d made sure
Alex wouldn’t be there in time to stop her.
Alex had no money left, no way to get to home. She tried hitching, but no one wanted
to pick up a girl with tears streaming down her face, dressed in a dirty T-shirt and the nubs of black jean shorts. She’d walked up and down Westwood Boulevard, unsure of what to
do, until at last she’d sold the last of her pot to a redhead with dreads and a skinny dog.
When she got back to the apartment, her feet were bloody where blisters had formed and burst inside her Converse low-tops. The party was in full swing at Ground Zero, the
music filtering outside in thuds and chirps.
She crept inside but didn’t see Hellie or Ariel in the living room. She waited in line for
the bathroom, hoping no one would report her presence to Len or that he’d be too wasted
to care, washed her feet in the tub, then went to the back bedroom and lay down on the mattress. She texted Hellie again.
Are you here? I’m in the back.
Hellie please.
Please.
She’d fallen asleep but woke to the sound of Hellie lying down beside her. In the dim
shine of the security light from the alley, she looked yellow all over. Her eyes were huge
and glassy.
“Are you okay?” Alex had asked. “Was it bad?”
“No,” Hellie said, but Alex didn’t know which question Hellie was answering. “No, no,
no, no, no.” Hellie wrapped her arms around Alex and drew her close. Her hair was damp.
She had showered. She smelled like Dial soap, devoid of the usual sweet coconut Hellie
smell. “No no no no no no,” she kept saying. She was giggling, her body shaking in the
way it did when she was trying to keep from laughing too loudly, but her hands clutched
Alex’s back, the fingers digging in as if she were being pulled out to sea.
Hours later, Alex had woken again. She felt as if she’d never have a real night’s sleep
or a real morning, just these short naps broken by half waking. It was three a.m., and the
party had died down or moved elsewhere. The apartment was quiet. Hellie was on her side, looking at her. Her eyes still looked wild. She’d vomited on her shirt at some point in the night.
Alex wrinkled her nose at the stink. “Good morning, Smelly Hellie,” she said. Hellie smiled, and there was such sweetness in her face, such sadness. “Let’s get the fuck out of
here,” Alex said. “For good. We’re done with this place.”
Hellie nodded.
“Take that shirt off. You smell like hot lunch,” Alex said, and reached for the hem. Her
hand passed straight through it, straight through the place where the firm skin of Hellie’s
abdomen should have been.
Hellie blinked once, those eyes so sad, so sad.
She just lay there, still looking at Alex, studying her, Alex realized, for the last time.
Hellie was gone. But she wasn’t. Her body was lying on the mattress, on her back, a foot away, her tight T-shirt splattered with vomit, still and cold. Her skin was blue. How
long had her ghost lain there waiting for Alex to wake? There were two Hellies in the room. There were no Hellies in the room.
“Hellie. Hellie. Helen.” Alex was crying, leaning over her body, feeling for a pulse.
Something broke inside her. “Come back,” she sobbed, reaching for Hellie’s ghost, her arms passing through her again and again. With each swipe she glimpsed a bright shard of
Hellie’s life. Her parents’ sunny house in Carpinteria. Her callused feet on a surfboard.