Don’t Let Me Go(72)

“Not that kind of moral. Like morale. Like when you want someone’s morale to be better, so you come along for moral support.”

“I have more trouble trying to understand you when you talk, Billy.”

“I know. It’s a wonder you put up with me.”

“Yeah. OK. Fine. So bring Jesse. I like Jesse. Rayleen, though. Rayleen’ll be pissed.”

“True,” Billy said. “She will.”

The door flew open wide.

“Neighbors!” Jesse said.

Then he looked at Billy for a long time, and took hold of his shoulders, and turned him first one way, then the other. Like there were sides of Billy he just had to see.

“You cut your hair.”

“Rayleen cut it,” Billy said, sounding embarrassed.

“Looks nice. She did a nice job.”

“She kept saying she couldn’t do it. Only Bella could do it. But I told her whatever she did would be better than leaving it the way it was. When I finally wore her down it turned out fine.”

“That’s a lot of hair to lose after all those years.”

“Tell me about it. I feel weirdly light.”

“You should give it to that place—”

But Grace knew what he was going to say, so she jumped in and said it for him. “That makes wigs for cancer people! Rayleen thought of that. She took his ponytail to work with her, so she could do that.”

“Should’ve known Rayleen would think of everything,” Jesse said.

? ? ?

The white sage made Grace’s nose tickle, as though she might be about to sneeze. It was wrapped up into something like a stick, like the world’s fattest cigar made out of sage leaves. But instead of being wrapped in one big solid leaf, like a cigar, it was wrapped in a criss-crossing of heavy blue and green threads that burned as the sage burned. Jesse held a lighter to the end of it for the longest time while Grace watched a curl of the smoke rise up to touch the ceiling of what had used to be Mr. Lafferty’s apartment.

Jesse had grouped them all around in a circle, with a plate in the middle for the sage, if he needed to put it down. Next to the plate Jesse had set a copper bowl and a short, thick, carved wooden stick, both of which Grace had been watching, because she knew those two things fit into all this somewhere, but she didn’t know where.

She looked around the circle, and around the apartment. Jesse didn’t have a lot in the way of furniture, probably because he had come to LA on a plane, and was only staying a few months. But, even so, even without much stuff, the place was nice because he had all the drapes pulled back and the windows wide open. So there was light, and air. Nobody else’s apartment had light and air. Grace knew they were afraid of unlocked doors, and each other, but what did they have against light and air?

Grace already felt she might miss Jesse some when he moved away again.

“Wait,” she said to Jesse. “We can’t start yet. Somebody’s missing.”

She did a quick count in her head. Billy was here, and Jesse of course, and Rayleen, and Felipe, and of course Grace herself was here, too.

“Mrs. Hinman! We have to wait for Mrs. Hinman,” she said.

“She’s not coming,” Jesse said. “She says this is preposterous.”

“Oh,” Grace said, surprisingly disappointed that there should still be disagreements within the group. “But it isn’t. Preposterous. Right?”

“I guess it is if you think it is,” Jesse said.

It was one of those sentences that seemed to make sense to grown-ups, and Grace was wise enough not to question it.

Jesse put down his lighter and blew on the end of the sage stick, which glowed brightly red.

“The former Mr. Lafferty,” Jesse said, like he was saying hello to him directly. Like Mr. Lafferty was right here at the meeting, and not former at all. “I didn’t know you at all. These people I brought here today, they all did. They have some thoughts they want to get off their chests, I think. They feel like you were unkind to them, and I’m not saying you weren’t. I see no reason they would lie. But now that I’m living here in your leftover energy, I want to tell them something they probably don’t know — and maybe you didn’t even know it, either. You were scared. Did you know you were mean because you were scared? Well, you were. I know what fear feels like, and that’s what you left behind in this room. So we’re going to clear this room of all the leftover fear, but we’re going to remember just enough of it to remind us to live our lives and be less afraid. See there? Everything has a purpose, even if it’s only a reminder of what not to do.”

Jesse stood in front of Billy, and Billy got this weird, shy smile on his face that Grace had never seen before, like he was embarrassed, but embarrassed in a way he sort of enjoyed. He also didn’t look like he was just dying to run back to his own apartment, but maybe he was, and Grace just couldn’t see it from the outside. Or maybe he wasn’t, because maybe Jesse was giving him morale support.

Jesse blew on the end of the sage stick, sending a soft curl of smoke Billy’s way. Jesse waved at the smoke with his hand so that it wafted all around Billy, from over his head to down below his knees. Billy didn’t sneeze.

“I’m smudging each of you at the same time as the apartment,” Jesse said, “in case there’s any of his leftover energy in you. Which there probably is. Billy? Want to say anything to your former neighbor?”