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tidies up inside.
    Small talk. I ask her about her major. “Journalism,” she says. She is sitting on the porch step, blowing smoke up to the sky, a protective arm across the sling bag she hugs to her
chest.
    “You want to be a reporter?”
    She chuckles. “You can work in media or PR. At the end of journalism school, the students will either be the reporters or the source of the story.”
    “And who do you think you will be?”
    “Neither. I’ll probably just work in a call center receiving daily abuse from American clients.”
    She has been crying constantly ever since her bicycle fell. Maybe even long before. “You and Meryl were close,” I say.
    She goes still and nods. The yellow chrysanthemum moves in the light breeze, nodding with her.
    “The news says they were only able to identify the body based on the bag and its contents,” I say.
    “I have this fantasy,” Ivy says, “that the girl they found in the building was someone else. A thief. Just a stranger who happened to have Meryl’s stuff, and Meryl is
somewhere else, alive and enjoying an early summer vacation.” She shrugs. “My mother says a mother’s intuition is never wrong. I spoke to Meryl’s mother on the phone. You
know what she said?”
    She waits for me to shake my head. I shake my head.
    “She says it’s horrible but she knows in her heart that her daughter is already dead.”
    I feel the planner throbbing like a heart beneath the earth. I remember my dream and the shadow on the wall.
    Ivy wipes her eyes. “You can’t argue with that.”
    “I’m so sorry,” I say.
    “I should have told her,” Ivy says. I remember the glossy prints hitting the coffee table with a splat.
    “You shouldn’t blame yourself,” I say.
    “No, I—” Ivy sighs and smiles at me. She shakes her head.
    Louis helps Ivy with her bike when the cab arrives. “Thank you for all your help,” she says. “I promise to come back with some cake.”
    “Come back any time,” Louis says. “Even without the cake.”
    At that point I realize why Louis let her in, why he’s inviting her back. What better way to find out new developments about the case than through the victim’s adamant friend? This
way, we know what they know.

11
    IVY COMES BACK after three days, carrying not only a box of cake, but also a covered Pyrex bowl filled with
pancit.
“I’m not sure if you like sweets, so I
brought something savory,” she explains. Louis, of course, lets her in once again, and takes out three plates and three forks, her invitation to stay.
    In those three days, news about Meryl centered mostly on the university’s beefed-up security, CCTVs in the lobbies, and additional guards in civilian clothes carrying flashlights and
arnis
sticks. The University President implores students to avoid walking alone, especially at night.
    I let Louis take care of the small talk. They talk about her fall, how her wounds are starting to scab. I help him when the conversation veers away from Ivy and into our general direction.
    “So you live here together?” she asks.
    “No,” Louis says, glancing at me. “This is just a temporary arrangement.”
    I tap my knee immobilizer when I see her frown in confusion. Ivy presses her lips together and lifts her chin—
Oh
—and lapses into a heavy, awkward silence.
    “So what are you up to now?” Louis asks as she burrows further into her slice of cake. She will be the only one touching that cake. After she leaves, Louis will return the rest to
the box and dump it in the trash.
    She shrugs. “Exams. Papers.”
    “Life goes on?” Louis says, with surprising tenderness.
    Ivy nods. After a moment, she lifts her sling bag from the floor and takes out a laptop. She boots it up. She has Van Gogh’s
Blossoming Almond Tree
as wallpaper.
    “I’ve been interviewing people about Meryl,” she says as she scrolls through her files. “I plan to make a video about her and the case. Can I show this to you? Maybe you
can give me some