Sometimes, Ginger could hear Evelyn laughing in her sleep, a harsh, broken sound, and she touched her shoulder, trying to feel the joy that her sister could experience most fully in her dreams. During the day, Evelyn talked about ordinary people, the loved and loving, with too much scorn; Ginger knew that her sister wanted her life to be like theirs. She believed that Evelyn wanted to get rid of her.
One evening in the bar, Evelyn was talking to a man who claimed to work in the movie industry. His hands jabbed the air with the hard confidence of the insecure. He gazed at Evelyn as though he could see a precious light inside of her, and Ginger watched Evelyn’s shoulders tremble, delighted, under his gaze. She told him offhand, that she was an orphan. He leaned toward her and took her hands in his.
“I’ll take care of you,” he said.
Evelyn went home with him that night. The next day, she met Ginger at their room and said, “I am going to go live with him. He loves me and likes the fact that I have no family.” She paused; her face was relieved. “You will have to be a secret.”
Ginger looked into Evelyn’s eyes and saw that this was the most truthful statement she had made in her life. Her own response was the most deceitful. She nodded. “All right,” she said.
Evelyn packed her suitcase and was gone, leaving only a lipstick the color of a rose. Ginger waited. Each morning, she put on a new costume, applied Evelyn’s lipstick, and murmured the same false pleas to strangers. Ginger made more money without Evelyn. Strangers could see a new emptiness in her eyes that touched them. After two weeks, she tried, briefly, to find Evelyn. She stood outside the walls of the movie studios, waiting to see the man. Her search paralleled her fantasies of what Evelyn would desire; she waited outside of expensive restaurants, wandered through fancy clubs, but as she rushed past the crowded tables, the patrons’ faces bloomed up, monstrous, unknown.
It was three weeks before she saw Evelyn again, at the palisades overlooking the Santa Monica beach. Evelyn walked toward Ginger with a curious lightness in her step. She covered her mouth when she laughed. She flicked her wrist at the end of a sentence, as though trying to toss away her words.
“He loves my hair,” Evelyn said. “He loves my laugh. Listen.”
The sound made Ginger cold. It was difficult to stand straight; the ground was rising like slow, heavy waves.
“You look well. I have to go,” said Evelyn. She backed up, as though fearful that Ginger would grab onto her. Then she stopped and pulled a small red purse from her pocket. “Here,” said Evelyn. She thrust out a purse. “It has two hundred dollars.”
“No,” said Ginger, stepping back.
She felt her sister shove the purse into her hands and press her fingers around it. ‘Just take it. Here.”
Evelyn quickly ran toward the bus stop. Ginger understood that this would be the last time she saw her. It would be Ginger’s own decision to move and not tell her sister where she was going. She sat down for a long time after the bus had pulled off, eyes closed, imagining that the wide blue sky, the gray elephantine palms would be gone when she opened them. When she looked again, the world was still there; Ginger left the purse on the bench and started walking.
The next morning, when she woke up, she did not remember how the crowd had buffeted her like an ocean, how she had finally found a man in a maroon uniform who helped her find her room, but her legs were weak, as though she’d walked a great distance, and her mouth was dry from calling out Darlene’s name.
She was trembling, as though she were extremely hungry. She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to buy a present for Darlene. She wanted to do this simple action: go into a store, select a gift for her, and buy it. That was all. Ginger stood up, wearing the same dress she had the night before, faint with the scent of smoke and alcohol, and walked slowly to the gift shop.
There she stood, surrounded by the store’s offerings: the butterfly-sequined blouses, the china statues of noble wildlife, the authentic replica Eskimo fur hats, the jars of glacier-blue rock candy.
“May I help you?” the girl at the counter asked.
Ginger selected a large opal brooch set in a gold snowflake. It was three hundred dollars.
“Beautiful taste,” the salesgirl said.
“Hey,” said a voice. It was Darlene. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
The girl stood before her. Ginger put down the brooch.
“Are you all right?” asked Darlene. “Who’s that for?” she said, glancing at the brooch.
Ginger looked at her. “You,” she said.
“That will be three hundred and fifteen dollars and seventy-three cents,” said the salesgirl.
Ginger put her hand into her red velvet purse. There was nothing in it but the silk lining. She shook out her purse. Now she had one dollar and thirty-seven cents.
“I have no money,” she said, softly.
“Is it in your room?” the salesgirl asked.
“This is all I have,” Ginger said.
She pushed her hand deep into the purse, feeling its emptiness. Her coins fell onto the floor. “You don’t have to buy me anything,” said Darlene.
The lights were too bright, as though someone had turned them all on at once.
“I want to buy it,” said Ginger. “Don’t you understand? I want to.”
She stood, swaying a little, aggravated that Darlene did not recognize her goodness. Darlene squinted at her, as though Ginger had begun to disappear.
“What are you looking at?” she asked Darlene. She lurched toward her. “What?”
“Hold on,” said Darlene, looking at the salesgirl. “I’ll be right back.” She backed up and began to hurry down the hallway.
“Where is she going?” asked Ginger. She stepped toward the door. Then Ginger went into the hallway and began to follow her.
An elderly couple floated toward her. The woman wore a white brimmed sunhat and the man wore a camera around his neck. “Thief,” Ginger whispered. She passed the maid clutching armfuls of crumpled sheets. “Thief,” she said. The maid turned around. Ginger began to walk onto the deck, the sunlight brilliant and cold on her arms. She staggered through the crowd in their pale sweat suits. “Thief!” she yelled. She believed one side of her was becoming heavy. Her heart banged in her throat. Her voice was flat and loud. She heard the jingle of ice cubes in people’s drinks. “My money!” she yelled. Her voice was guttural, unrecognizable to her. “Give me my money! “
The girl was running up to her.
“Thief,” she yelled.
The girl blinked. “What?” she asked.
“Thief,” said Ginger. She wanted to say the word over and over. Ginger’s face was warm; she was exhilarated by the act of accusation. She had forgotten the girl’s name. It had simply disappeared from her. “I know who you are.” Her knees buckled. The girl grabbed her arm.
“Call a doctor!” the girl yelled. “Quick.”
The ocean was moving by very quickly, and Ginger stared, unblinking, at the bright water until she was unsure whether she was on the deck looking at the water or in the water looking up at the light.
The girl’s firm grip made her feel calmer. Ginger did not remember her name, did not know who this friend was, did not know who had loved her and whom she had loved. She leaned toward the glaring blue world, the water and ice and sky and she felt as though she were part of it.
“You’re not what you say,” murmured the girl. “I don’t believe you. You’re not a swindler. You’re a nice old lady. It was all a joke, wasn’t it—”
Ginger breathed more slowly and clutched the girl’s arm. She saw everything in that moment: saw the trees on the shore giving up their leaves to the aqua sky, the ocean shimmering into white cloud, and the passengers’ breath becoming rain. She felt the vibrations of the ship’s motor in her throat. She stood, with the other passengers, looking. Through the clear, chill water, the ship moved north.