“I wish you were here,” Cole said.

I didn’t answer right away. Then, because it was a phone, and he couldn’t see my face, so I could be as honest as I liked, I admitted, “Me, too.”

“Isabel —” Cole said. He stopped. Then he said, “Don’t hang up.”

“I haven’t hung up.”

“Keep not hanging up.”

“I still haven’t hung up.” I heard a bird shrill on his end of the phone. “Are you outside?”

“I’m in the alley. Waiting for Leon. He’s done at midnight and we’re going to go get food on a stick and I’m going to win him a stuffed monkey on the Pier. These are the things I do when you leave me alone, Isabel.”

I said, “Don’t break Leon’s heart.”

Cole laughed. His real laugh was a funny sound — not funny like ha-ha, but funny strange. It was percussive rather than tonal. He said, “Tell me you’ll see me tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tell me you’ll see me the next day. And the day after that.

And the day after that.”

My heart thumped convulsively. It had happened. Against my will, despite the naked girls and the smell of wolf and all of the things that hinted at future misery, I had fallen back in love with Cole.

I said, “Good night, Cole.”

“Good night, Culpeper.”

I hung up and closed my eyes. Later, later, I knew that I’d probably regret all of this. But right now I couldn’t feel afraid. I just kept hearing his silly lyrics and his real laugh. I kept remembering the feel of his hands on me. I tried to tell myself that everybody in the House of Ruin and Misery eventually cried themselves to sleep, but right then, in that moment, I let myself imagine I wasn’t like anyone else.

Chapter Twenty-Two

· cole ·

In the morning I woke up and discovered there was really nothing wrong with the world at all, apart from waking up with barbecue breath. I boiled eggs and drank a carton of milk, and then stood on the roof deck for an hour trying to piece together a lyric that would say exactly all that while not saying exactly all that. Baby called me and said, “Why aren’t you picking up your work phone?”

It took me a moment to realize that she was talking about Virtual Me, which of course was not in my possession. I stretched and closed my eyes. The sun was straight overhead and pointed only at me. I replied, “Because I only use it for, like, connecting with the Internet. Don’t cross the streams, Baby.

Why haven’t you got me my Mustang?”

“Ha-ha, this is me laughing, Cole. I want that girl on the show.”

It felt slightly less sunny out here. “I hope by that girl you are referring to my car.”

“The Internet loves the idea that you’re dating someone.

They want to know if she’s the one, Cole. She’s a very pretty girl. Think about what it would do for viewership.”

I didn’t have to think. I knew exactly what the world would do with it, because they’d done it with every other girl they’d ever spotted me with. The idea of trying to date in public tweaked exactly the same part of my brain as the idea of speaking to my parents or old friends from home. Which was to say the same part of my brain that was always contemplating blowing myself away or jumping off a bridge or eating some pills.

It wasn’t a part of my brain I liked to engage. Until very recently, I thought I’d lobotomized it from my skull, but apparently it was still in there.

Baby said, “Convince her to be on the show and I’ll get you a Mustang.”

I laughed before I’d even though about it, because it was such an obvious devil’s bargain that there was no danger I’d fall into it.

“We need to have dinner, Cole,” Baby said. “I think that is the thing. Bring her. Tonight. Clear your schedule.”

“I’m not feeling very dinner-y,” I replied. “Seeing as my track nearly got screwed over yesterday and I had a bunch of topless girls in my apartment last night.”

“That sounds exciting. I like exciting.”

“I was being plenty exciting without that.”

“Were you?” Baby asked curiously. “Are you being exciting now?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Great. I look forward to seeing it. Dinner tonight, don’t forget. Also, pick up your other phone when I call it.”

She hung up. I called Isabel.

“Culpeper,” she answered.

It never got old, her taking my calls.

“It thrills me when you answer the phone like that,” I told her. I walked to the edge of the roof deck. I could see palm trees and more roof decks. The rest of them were empty, so it was just me and the sun. “Please tell me you are naked.”

“I’m at work, Cole.”

“Naked? Well, it is Santa Monica. Do you have Virtual Me?”

“Of course I do. You just tweeted.”

“Was I funny? Did the Colebots like it?” I watched a little boy appear on one of the roof decks one house away, on the other side of the empty rental. He had a little plane in his hand, and he was flying it up, up, up as high as he could get.

“Oh, please,” Isabel replied. “Also, I think Baby tried to call Virtual Cole.”

“I know. I know everything. Could you possibly use your skills to find me a Colebot who’s having a party in the L.A. area today? Or getting married? Or divorced? Some sort of festive occasion that might involve music?”

I watched the little boy on the deck sail his plane around the table. He was deeply content in a way that I couldn’t ever remember being. If it had been me, I would’ve flown that plane to the edge of the roof deck and jumped.

“I thought you knew everything.” Isabel sighed noisily.

“What’s in it for me?”

“My eternal admiration of your superior intellect.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Also, Baby wants to have dinner with us.”

She made a noise that I couldn’t interpret. Then she said again, “I’ll see what I can do.”

After she hung up, I noticed the boy had come to the edge of the roof deck and was staring at me.

“Hey,” I told him. “We’re twins.”