"You're. . Harper, aren't you?" Her speech pattern wasn't so much an accent as a vague tint over her English.
"Yes," I replied. "Ana Choi?" I recognized her from the recordings, but I asked anyhow.
She nodded. "Sorry I made you wait. My parents were having an argument. If I just walk out, they think I'm being disrespectful, so I had to wait for them to quiet long enough to say I was leaving.”
"You live with your parents," I said, making a mental note.
"Yeah. We moved from Macao twelve years ago and they're still very old-fashioned. I'm not a traditional Chinese girl, but I try to make them happy when I can. Sometimes it's hard." She looked around the damp street. "Let's go, huh? We can talk while we go.”
"Sure," I agreed. I'd parked across the street in the sparsely used lot of the blue-tiled building.
"I'm grateful for the ride," Ana said. "Usually I take transit, but it's a long ride on Sundays—one of my buses runs once an hour on weekends.”
I shrugged. "It works out for both of us. When did you start with the project?”
"Back in January. Ian wanted me to. He said it would be fun.”
"Is It?”
Her turn to shrug. "Yeah, I guess it is. It was kind of stupid at first, but it got better. I like it.”
We stopped to get into the Rover. Ana smiled. "This is neat. Very tough.”
"Yeah, it's pretty good. Except for the gas mileage—then it's a bit of a hog.”
She nodded, settling herself in the seat. "OK. So. What do you want to ask me?”
"How do you feel about the group?”
"I said I liked it.”
"I mean the people. Do you like them?" I asked, starting the engine and heading the truck toward PNU.
"Yeah, mostly.”
I watched her reflection in the windshield glass. I didn't see any yellow line of Grey energy around her from that angle. "Anyone you don't get along with or feel uncomfortable with?”
She laughed. "You know, I don't care one way or the other. I like most of them pretty well, but I don't feel like I know them enough to care a lot. They're nice, but. . they're just nice and nothing special to me.
"Even Ian?”
She made a face and rolled her eyes. "Oh, Ian. Sometimes I think I don't even like him anymore. Sometimes he's mean and so selfish. He never spends any time with me anymore. He's always busy and we don't even— Our sex life doesn't exist except when it's bad. I only joined the project because he wanted me to and I thought we could see more of each other, and now he sometimes acts like he doesn't even want me to come to the group.”
This didn't jibe with Ian's version, but I wasn't surprised by that sort of thing anymore. And I remembered how Ana had flinched in the recordings as Ian pulled her hair from her earrings.
"Why wouldn't he want you to come?" I asked.
"So he can flirt with Cara Stahlqvist. He's such a dick.”
"If he's a dick, then why do you go?”
She scowled. "It's my project, too. Why should Ian get to scare me off? Besides. . he's not the only person there who matters.”
"You just said none of them meant anything to you.”
She looked at the side window. "I lied.”
'You're seeing someone else from the group?”
"No! Not outside the group, really. Sometimes we go out for drinks after…. And I like talking to him. He likes to talk to me, too.”
"Who?”
She blushed. "Ken." She kept looking out the window.
I nodded. "Does Ian know?”
"I don't know. I don't think so. Ken teases Ian sometimes and I know he's doing it because of me, but Ian just laughs it off. I think he'd be nasty to Ken if he knew, but he seems OK.”
"Do you plan to do anything about this?”
She sighed. "I don't know. I can't just leave Ian and start going with Ken right now. It would be bad. For the group. Ian's not the sort of guy who takes a breakup well. And besides. . it's hard, you know. Sometimes I just want to keep the peace. I don't want a big deal over everything.”
I shook my head, but kept my mouth closed. They'd cooked up a rotten little triangle. Misery not only loves company it makes its own. The whole group was full of sexual tensions and power plays, so far, and this seemed about par for the course.
"I just don't seem to pick the best men," Ana said. "But at least Ian was OK with my parents. If I started dating Ken, they'd be furious.”
"Why?”
"My father would say he's not good enough. And my mother always sides with my father—it's part of her role, you know. Traditional Chinese wife.”
"I'm still not getting it. Why is Ian—who's mean to you—OK, but Ken's not?”
She turned and blinked at me. "Because Ken's brown.”
"What?”
"Brown. He's not white.”
"You're not white, either.”
"I know that. But my father's racist. He thinks there's something. . dirty or bad about being colored if you're not Chinese—or at least Asian.”
"He doesn't know India is part of Asia?”
"It's not the right part. If the people are darker than he is, they're dirtier than he is. It's OK for me to date a white man or an Asian like us, but someone who's brown? No. It would be even worse if I wanted to date a black man. He'd never speak to me again. My sister went out with a black guy once and he's still angry at her. He'd go insane if he knew they slept together.”
"That's a bit over the top.”
"My dad." She looked grim. "So. . you know. . that's why I don't want to stop going to the group, although it would be the best thing. I wish I could just make it all change. Why can't we all be happy? If we can make a ghost, why can't we make ourselves happy?”
I grabbed the chance to get back on topic. "Are you certain that you're making a ghost?”
"Yes." She gave a hard, decisive nod. "I'm Chinese—we know about ghosts. They're all over the place. They live through us, so our ghost is real, too, even though we made it up.”
"What do you mean 'they live through us'?”
"I mean we give them strength—energy. We remember them and they continue. That's why it's important to remember ancestors and family, or they fade away. Or they become angry and then you're in trouble. We made up our ghost and we keep her alive by our thoughts, so if we stop believing in her, she'll go away.”
"How do you know it's not just a fake? That someone in the group isn't making it seem real when it's not?”
"That would make Celia very angry. It can't all be fake—there's no way for everything to be made by one person fooling us—so the part that's real would know when someone was faking. How would you feel if someone was pretending to be you? That's how Celia would feel and she would get even.”
"What about you?" I asked, turning the truck into PNU's west parking lot.
Ana looked surprised, her narrowly plucked brows arching upward. "What about me?”
"If you found out someone was faking anything, would you be angry?”
"Yes. Sure I would.”
"And would you want to get even with them for it?”
She gave me a bemused look. "No. I would tell them to stop, but Celia would be the one who would punish them, if they needed it.”
"Do you think she could?”
A deep frown took over her face. "I don't know. I really don't." She looked up again. "We're here. Good. Thanks for the ride," she added, opening the door and swinging out. "I hope I was some help.”
"Quite a bit.”
"Cool, cool. See you later." She closed the door and walked toward St. John Hall. In the dismal sunlight I could see the bright yellow thread around her, pointing toward the hot yellow spot on the window of room twelve like a compass toward north.