Hugo blinked. “Why would I? I have my shop. I have my family. I have a job that I love because of what it brings to others. What more could I ask for?”

  Wallace turned his face back toward the stars. They were really something else. He wondered why he’d never noticed them before. Not like this. “What about…” He coughed, clearing his throat. “A girlfriend. A wife, or, like…”

  Hugo grinned at him. “I’m gay. Probably would be pretty hard to find me a girlfriend or wife.”

  Wallace was flustered. “A boyfriend, then. A partner.” He glared down at his hands. “You know what I mean.”

  “I know. I’m just playing with you. Lighten up, Wallace. Not everything needs to be so serious.” He sobered. “Maybe one day. I don’t know. It’d be kind of hard to explain that my tea shop is actually just a front for dead people to have pseudo-intellectual conversations.”

  Wallace scoffed. “I’ll have you know I’m extremely intellectual.”

  “Is that right? I never would have guessed.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Eh,” Hugo said. “Sometimes. I try not to be. You just make it so easy. What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  Hugo shrugged, fingers twitching on the railing. “You were married.”

  Wallace sighed. “It was over a long time ago.”

  “Mei said she was there at the funeral?”

  “I bet she did,” Wallace mumbled. “Did she tell you what was said?”

  Hugo’s lips twitched. “Bits and pieces. Sounded like quite the show.”

  Wallace laid his head on the backs of his hands. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t have the right. I messed up. I wasn’t a good person. Not to her. She’s better off without me. I think she’s still screwing the gardener though.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. But I don’t blame her. He’s pretty hot. I probably would have done the same if I thought he was interested.”

  “Wow,” Hugo said. “I didn’t see that coming. You contain multitudes, Wallace. I’m impressed.”

  Wallace sniffed daintily. “Yes, well, I do have eyes, so. He liked to work in the yard shirtless. He was probably messing around with half the women in the neighborhood. If I looked like that, I’d do the same.”

  Hugo looked him up and down, and Wallace fidgeted uncomfortably. “You’re not so bad.”

  “Please, stop. You’re far too kind. I can’t stand it. How on earth are you still single with ammunition like that up your sleeve?”

  Hugo squinted at him. “You think that’s what I’d say?”

  Abort. Abort. Abort. “Uh. I don’t … know?”

  “Multitudes,” he said again as if that explained everything.

  He glanced at Hugo, relieved he was ignoring Wallace’s awkwardness. “Is that a good thing?”

  “I think so.”

  Wallace picked at the peeling paint on the railing, barely realizing he was doing so. “I’ve never been very surprising to anyone before.”

  “There’s a first time for everything.”

  And maybe it was because the stars were bright and stretched on forever across the sky. Or maybe it was because he’d never had a conversation like he’d just had with Hugo: honest, open. Real, all the bluster and noise of a manufactured life falling away. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because he was finding the truth within himself. Whatever the reason, he didn’t try to stop himself when he said, “I wish I’d met someone like you before.”

  Hugo was quiet for a long moment. Then, “Before?”

  He shrugged, refusing to meet Hugo’s gaze. “Before I died. Things might have been different. We could have been friends.” It felt like a great secret, something quiet and devastating.

  “We can be friends now. There’s nothing stopping us.”

  “Aside from the whole dead thing, sure.”

  He startled when Hugo stepped back from the railing, a determined look on his face. He watched as Hugo extended his hand toward him. He stared at it before looking up at Hugo. “What?”

  Hugo wiggled his fingers. “I’m Hugo Freeman. It’s nice to meet you. I think we should be friends.”

  “I can’t—” He shook his head. “You know I can’t shake your hand.”

  “I know. But hold out your hand anyway.”

  Wallace did.

  And so, under the field of stars, Wallace stood before Hugo, their hands extended toward each other. Inches separated their palms, and though it still felt like an endless gulf between them, Wallace was sure, for a moment, he felt something. It wasn’t quite the heat of Hugo’s skin, though it felt close. He mirrored Hugo, raising his hand up and down, up and down in the approximation of a handshake. The cable between them flashed brightly.

  For the first time since he’d stood above himself in his office, his breath forever gone, Wallace felt relief, wild and vast.

  It was a start.

  And it terrified the hell out of him.

  CHAPTER

  10

  A few nights later, Wallace was determined. Irritated, but determined.

  He stopped in front of a chair. Nelson had taken it off one of the tables, setting it in the center of the room. Around them, the house creaked and groaned as it settled. He could hear Mei snoring in her room. Hugo was probably doing the same somewhere above, a place Wallace hadn’t dared go to yet for reasons he couldn’t quite explain. He knew it had to do with the door, but he thought Hugo was part of it too.

  The only people up were the dead, and Wallace wasn’t a fan right now of two-thirds of them. Nelson was watching him calmly and Apollo had that goofy grin on his face as he lay next to Nelson’s chair.

  “Good,” Nelson said. “Now, what did I tell you?”

  He ground his teeth together. “It’s a chair.”

  “What else?”

  “I have to unexpect it.”

  “And?”

  “And I can’t force it.”

  “Exactly,” Nelson said, as if that explained everything.

  “That’s not how any of this works.”

  “Really,” Nelson said dryly. “Because you have such a good idea about how this works. What was I thinking.”

  Wallace grunted in frustration. He wasn’t used to failing, especially not so spectacularly. When Nelson had told him he was going to start teaching Wallace the fine art of being a ghost, Wallace had assumed he’d take to it like he’d taken to everything else: with grand success and little care for whatever got in the way.

  That had been the first hour.

  And now here they were in the fifth, and the chair was just sitting there, mocking him.

  “Maybe it’s broken,” Wallace said. “We should try another chair.”

  “Okay,” Nelson said. “Then take another one off a table.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to cross?” Wallace asked. “Because I can go get Hugo right now and he can walk you to the door.”

  “You’d miss me too much.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slow. “Unexpect. Unexpect. Unexpect.”

  He reached for the chair.

  His hand went right through it.

  And oh, did that piss him off. He growled at it, swinging for it again and again, his hand always passing through the wood as if it (or he) weren’t there at all. With a yell, he kicked at it, which, of course, led to his foot going through the chair as well. The momentum carried his leg up and he teetered back before crashing onto the floor. He blinked up at the ceiling.

  “That certainly went well,” Nelson said. “Feel better?”

  He started to say no but stopped himself. Because strangely, he did feel better.

  He said, “This is so stupid.”

  “Right?” Nelson said. “It really is.”

  Wallace turned his head toward him. “How long did it take you to figure all of this out?”

  Nelson shrugged. “I don’t know that I’ve figured all of it out. But it did take me longer than a week, I’ll give you that.”

  Wallace pushed himself up. “Then why do you think I’m going to be any different?”

  “Because you have me, of course.” Nelson smiled. “Get up.”

  Wallace pushed himself up off the floor.

  Nelson nodded toward the chair. “Try again.”

  Wallace curled his hands into fists. If Nelson could do it, Wallace could too. Granted, Nelson wasn’t exactly offering specifics on how to do it, but Wallace was determined.

  He looked at the chair before closing his eyes. He let his thoughts drift, knowing the more he focused, the worse off he’d be. He tried to think about nothing at all, but there were little flickers of light behind his eyelids, like shooting stars, and a memory rose up around them. It was a trivial thing, something unimportant. He and Naomi had just started dating. He was nervous around her. She was out of his league and sharp as a tack. He didn’t know what the hell she was doing with him, how they’d even gotten here in the first place. He hadn’t had this before, too shy and awkward to ever instigate anything. There’d been furtive attempts at the end of high school and into college, women in his bed where he tried to pretend he knew what he was doing, and a man or two, though it was awkward fumblings in dark corners that carried a strange and exhilarating little thrill. It took him time to admit to himself that he was bisexual, something he’d felt relief over, at finally giving it a name. And when he’d told Naomi, a little nervous but firm, she hadn’t cared either way, telling him that he was allowed to be whoever he wanted.

  But that wouldn’t happen for another six months. Now, it was their second—third?—date and they were in an expensive restaurant that he absolutely could not afford but thought she would enjoy. They’d gotten dressed up in fancy clothes (fancy being a relative term: his suit sleeves were too short, the pant legs rising up around his ankles, but she looked like a model, her dress blue, blue, blue) and a valet had taken his shitty car without so much as a raised eyebrow. He held the door open for her, and she’d laughed at him, a low, throaty chuckle. “Why thank you,” she said. “You’re too kind.”

  The maître d’ eyed them both warily, his snooty little mustache wiggling as Wallace gave his name for the reservation. He led them to the table in the back of the restaurant, the smell of seafood thick and pungent, causing Wallace’s stomach to twist. Before the maître d’ could act, he hurried around the table, pulling the chair out for Naomi.

  She laughed again, blushing and looking away before sitting down.

  He thought how beautiful she looked.

  Things would fall apart for them. They would hurl accusations like grenades, not caring they were both still in the blast radius. They did love each other, and they had good years, but it wasn’t enough to keep it all from crumbling. For a long time, Wallace refused to accept any blame. She was the one who’d messed around with the gardener. She was the one who knew how important his job was. She was the one who’d pushed him to go all in with their own firm, even as his parents gave him nothing but dire warnings about how he’d be destitute and on the streets with nothing in a year.

  Her fault, he told himself as he sat across from her in her lawyer’s conference room, watching as he pulled the chair out for her. She thanked him. Her dress was blue. It wasn’t the same dress, of course, but it could’ve been. It wasn’t the same dress, and they weren’t the same people they’d been on that second or third date when he spilled wine on his shirt and fed her bits of pricey crab cake with his fork.

  And now, in a tea shop so far from everything he’d known, he felt a great wave of sadness for all that he’d had, and all that he’d lost. A chair. It was just a chair, and yet he couldn’t even do that right. It was no surprise he’d failed Naomi.

  “Would you look at that,” he heard Nelson say quietly.

  He opened his eyes.

  He was holding the chair in his hands. He could feel the grain of the wood against his fingers. He was so surprised, he dropped it. It clattered against the floor but didn’t fall over. He looked at Nelson with wide eyes. “I did it!”

  Nelson grinned, flashing his remaining teeth. “See? Just needed a little patience. Try again.”

  He did.

  Only this time, when he reached for the chair, there was a strange crackling the moment before he could grab onto it. The sconces on the walls flared briefly, and the chair rocketed across the room, smashing into the far wall. It fell on its side on the floor, one of the legs broken.

  Wallace gaped after it. “I … didn’t mean to do that?”

  Even Nelson seemed shocked. “What the hell?”

  Apollo started barking as the ceiling above them creaked. A moment later, Hugo and Mei came rushing down the stairs, both of them looking around wildly. Mei was in shorts and an old shirt, the collar stretched out over her shoulder, her hair a mess around her face.

  Hugo was in a pair of sleep shorts and nothing else. There were miles of deep brown skin on display, and Wallace found something very interesting to stare at in the opposite direction that was not a thin chest and thick stomach.

  “What happened?” Mei demanded. “Are we under attack? Is someone trying to break in? I am going to kick so much ass, you don’t even know.”

  “Wallace threw a chair,” Nelson said mildly.

  Mei and Hugo stared at Wallace.

  “Traitor,” Wallace mumbled. Then, “I didn’t throw it. I just … tossed it across the room with the power of positive thinking?” He frowned. “Maybe.”

  Mei went over to the chair, hunkering down beside it, poking the broken leg with her finger. “Huh,” she said.

  Hugo wasn’t looking at the chair.

  He was still staring at Wallace.

  “What?” Wallace asked, trying to make himself smaller.

  Hugo shook his head slowly. “Multitudes.” As if that explained anything at all. He glanced at Nelson. “Maybe don’t teach people to destroy my chairs.”

  “Bah,” Nelson said, waving his hand. “A chair is a chair is a chair. He barely even touched it, Hugo. It took me weeks to even be able to feel it.” He sounded oddly proud, and it was all Wallace could do to keep from puffing out his chest. “He’s taking to this whole ghost thing pretty well, if you ask me.”

  “By murdering my furniture,” Hugo said wryly. “Whatever you’re planning, you get it out of your head right now.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nelson said. “I’m not planning anything at all.”

  Even Wallace didn’t believe him. He didn’t want to know what was going through Nelson’s head to cause the expression of utter deviousness he wore.

  Mei picked up the chair. The leg fell off onto the floor. “He’s kind of got a point, Hugo. Have you ever seen someone do this only after a few days?”

  Hugo shook his head, still looking at Wallace. “No. I don’t suppose I have. Curious, isn’t it?” Then, “How did you do it?”

  “I … remembered something. From when I was younger. A memory.”

  He waited for Hugo to ask what memory it was. Instead, he said, “Was it a good one?”

  It was. For all that came later, for all the mistakes he made, pulling out Naomi’s chair was something he hadn’t thought about in years, but apparently hadn’t forgotten. “I think so.”

  Hugo smiled. “Try to keep my chairs in one piece, if you can.”

  “No promises,” Nelson said. “I can’t wait to see what else he can do. If we have to sacrifice a few chairs in the process, then so be it. Don’t you dare think about stifling us, Hugo. I won’t have it.”

  Hugo sighed. “Of course not.”

  * * *

  They all fell into a schedule of sorts. Or, rather, they added Wallace to the one they already followed. Mei and Hugo were up before the sun, blinking blearily as they yawned and came down the stairs, ready to start another day at Charon’s Crossing Tea and Treats. At first, Wallace wasn’t sure how they did it, as the tea shop never had a day off, even on the weekend, and there were no other employees. Mei and Hugo ran everything, Mei mostly in charge of the kitchen during the day while Hugo ran the register and made the tea. They were a team, moving around each other like they were dancing, and he felt the hook tugging gently in his chest at the sight of it.

  Those first days, Wallace stayed in the kitchen, listening to Mei’s terrible music, watching Hugo through the portholes. Hugo greeted most everyone by name, asking after their friends and families and jobs while he punched the ancient keys of the register. He laughed with them, patiently nodding along with even the most long-winded of customers. Every now and then, he’d glance back at the kitchen doors, seeing Wallace looking out. He’d give a small smile before turning back to greet the next person in line.

  It was on his eighth day in the tea shop that Wallace came to a decision. He’d spent a good portion of the morning working up the nerve, unsure of why it was taking him so long. The people in the tea shop wouldn’t be able to see him. They’d never know he was even there.

  Mei was telling him about how she’d tried to make tea but somehow had ended up almost burning down the kitchen, and therefore was never allowed to touch even the smallest of tea leaves again. “Hugo was horrified,” she said, leaning over to look at a batch of cookies in the oven. “You would’ve thought I’d stabbed him in the back. I think these are burning. Or maybe they’re supposed to look like that.”

  “Uh-huh,” Wallace said, distracted. “I’m going out.”

  “Right? I mean, it wasn’t that bad. Just smoke damage, but … wait. What?”

  “I’m going out,” he said again. And then he went through the doors and out into the tea shop, not waiting for a response.

  Part of him still expected everyone to stop midsentence and turn slowly to stare at him. While he’d been able to move a chair (only breaking two more, though one did leave gouges in the ceiling when Wallace accidentally kicked it as hard as he could), he still hadn’t figured out how to change his clothes. His flip-flops snapped against the floor, and he felt oddly vulnerable in his old shirt and sweats.