Page 9 of The Attic on Queen Street
“Oh, yeah. She was definitely there. I could smell her perfume. I finally remembered the name of that song I kept hearing, and now I can’t get it out of my head. It’s one of those earworm songs that, once you hear it, replays over and over so you can’t forget it no matter how much you want to. It’s an old one—early eighties, I think. My freshman-year roommate was obsessed with eighties music and especially that one song and would play it over and over.”
“What was the song?”
“ ‘O Superman.’ ”
She stopped suddenly, her face noticeably paler. “By Laurie Anderson?”
“You’ve heard of it? How?”
“That was the CD that was in Adrienne’s Discman when they found her. We could never figure out why, though. She absolutely hated that song.”
“That’s strange,” I said.
“That she hated the song?”
“No—everybody hates that song. I meant that it’s strange that not only was it in her Discman, but she would use that song to lure me upstairs to her dorm room. It must mean something.”
We rejoined the rest of the group, my heart doing its usual flip as I spotted Jack, then immediately falling when I remembered that nothing was settled between us, and he would not be returning home with me.
He walked us to the Farrells’ SUV and waited for Nola to get in. I held back, having no rehearsed words but needing to say something. “Jack...”
He looked at me with those eyes and it was all I could do not to throw my arms around him. I realized I was leaning toward him because he gently pressed his hands against my shoulders to steady me. “Yes, Mellie?”
“You left a shelf full of sweatpants and sweatshirts in the closet. So I unfolded everything, made it messy, and tore off the shelf label I made.”
His lips quirked, and I saw a hint of the old sparkle in his eyes. “Well, that’s progress. Congratulations.” He leaned past me to say good-bye to the other occupants of the van, then stepped back. “Good-bye, Mellie,” he said with a brief smile before turning around and walking away. I’d begun to hate those words.
I climbed into the SUV and sat down, aware of something behind my back as I buckled my seat belt. I reached behind me and pulled out a red heart-shaped pillow. I didn’t need to examine it to know it was Adrienne’s with the small careful stitches and ruffled edge. I’d found it in the box of Adrienne’s belongings in Veronica’s attic. The pillow had the odd habit of showing up unexpectedly, regardless of where it had last been placed. I looked up to find Veronica watching, but thankfully Michael was focused on pulling the SUV out onto the street. She raised her eyebrows in question.
“Later,” I mouthed, then placed the pillow in my handbag.
I stared out the window the remainder of the short ride home, withsomething Veronica had said while we were at the dorm echoing inside my head.I can’t let her down again.
I’d have to ask her what she meant. After I got home and locked myself in the bathroom, where I could cry without Nola hearing me. And after I started a new spreadsheet, one to help me navigate a problem for which I didn’t have a clue where to start.
CHAPTER 3
I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop open to a new blank spreadsheet under the headerMELANIE V. 107. One hundred seven was only a guess—the real number was probably much higher—but admitting that my false starts at becoming a better version of myself had reached at least three digits was as far as I was prepared to go right now.
The days of the week sat at the top of each column, but only one row description had been filled in.Get dressed.The number one had been typed underThursday, today. The curser had been blinking to the left of the second row now for almost thirty minutes.
I took another sip of coffee and winced. Mrs.Houlihan and her superior coffee-making skills would return on Monday. I put down my mug and reluctantly raised my hands before forcing them to typeExercise.Jayne had been calling me daily to start running with her again, but despite how I currently felt, I didn’t hate myself enough to drag myself out of bed before dawn, throw on something that wouldn’t keep me warm enough, and then run.
But it was supposed to be good for me. And it was something I could do with my sister. And it got me outside of the house so I wouldn’t focus on how empty it was. All things the new Mellie needed to embrace tobecome a better version of herself. Except I imagined I could get the same benefits having a conversation with Jayne over coffee and doughnuts.
Sadly, she didn’t share my assessment. Jayne told me to pick Monday or Tuesday to resume our running, which was a lot like choosing which day you’d like to be guillotined.
Nola walked into the kitchen, dragging her backpack, the three dogs bounding in behind her and racing to their bowls, which I’d filled the night before. She would never be a morning person and I’d already made a mental note that when I helped her schedule her classes for her first year in college, no classes would start before ten. I couldn’t allow myself to believe that she wouldn’t need my help in organizing her life when she started college. Things were hard enough for me as it was.
She stopped short when she spotted me. “You’re wearing real clothes for the second day in a row and your hair is clean. Who are you and what have you done to Melanie?”
“Very funny. I’ve decided it’s time to go back to work. I’ve even showered.”
“Good for you,” she said without a hint of sarcasm. “What are you working on?” She indicated the laptop.
Before I could close the lid, she moved to stand behind my chair. “Just a little mental health worksheet. Trying to be my best self and all that,” I said, parroting what Jayne and Sophie had been trying to drill into me. “Attempting to discover what’s missing.”
Nola glanced over my shoulder. “Wow, Melanie. ‘Get dressed’ and ‘exercise.’ Careful—you don’t want to aim too high.”
