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that she was the one who had missed
out.
    “Screw it,”
she muttered, still staring down the street. She reached into her coat pocket,
took out the napkin with his name and phone number, and crumpled it up and
tossed it onto the sidewalk, where it instantly turned into soggy mush. She was
tempted to step out into the rain and grind it underfoot like she was crushing
out a cigarette, but enough was enough.
    As she keyed
the door open, she told herself she’d be a fool to think about this Samael guy
ever again, but then, the next morning—Saturday—bright and early, a huge
bouquet of flowers arrived with a handwritten Get Well card from Samael,
saying:
    “I hope you’re
feeling better and I hope to see you soon.”
    “You slick
devil,” she whispered, not knowing how true that was.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter
     
    3
     
     
     
     
    Burning Boat
     
    Things happened fast after
that.
    It was, as
they say, a “whirlwind courtship.” After she received the flowers on Saturday
morning, Samael called and asked—if she was feeling all right—if he could take
her out for lunch, maybe to Dominick’s, the “floating” restaurant on a huge
barge on Casco Bay, beside Chandler’s Wharf. Although she wasn’t a huge fan of
seafood, Claire didn’t hesitate. She had always wanted to eat there, but felt
she couldn’t afford it. So she spent the next hour fussing about what to wear and
how she should do her hair.
    Sally got up
late, as was usual for her on weekends. Around noon, while Claire was touching
up her fingernails in the kitchen, her roommate hovered around, clattering
dishes and banging pots and pans as if that was the best way to demonstrate to
Claire that she was irritated and/or couldn’t care less where she was going or
what she was doing. Sally’s cat, Mittens, stuck her tail into the air and left
the room; and when Claire couldn’t take it any longer, she decided to say
something. Not wanting to start an argument, Claire chose to take a gentle
approach.
    “So…how was
the concert last night?”
    “Huh? Oh,
great…except I kept getting these text messages from someone.”
    “Really?…Who?”
    “Oh, sure. Go
ahead ‘n play all innocent now.”
    “What are you
talking about?”
    So much for
nonconfrontational.
    “Who do you
think?”
    “I don’t have
a clue.”
    Claire’s first
thought was: What if it was Samael?…What if somehow he had gotten Sally’s cell
number and had been texting her?
    “You, you
moron. You only sent me, like, fifteen or twenty messages.”
    “The hell I
did. I called you once, early this morning, but you were too groggy to talk,
and then I…walked home.”
    “I don’t
remember you calling this morning.”
    “Well, I did.”
    “You want me
to show you the texts?” Sally said.
    Sally’s face
was pale, her expression pinched with eyes narrowed to two dark, glassy beads
that looked like they would shatter if she opened them too wide. Before Claire
could respond, Sally grabbed her purse from the counter where she usually
tossed it after a night out. Huffing under her breath and frowning, she dug
until she found her cell.
    “Hold on,” she
said as she pressed a few buttons to call up the record of messages received.
Smirking, she held the phone out so Claire could see.
    “See?…Satisfied?”
    Sure enough,
there was a string of messages, all listed with the times they had been sent.
Claire cocked her head to one side and studied the screen. She didn’t try to
count them all. She guessed more than twelve. But all of the texts had
originated from her phone.
    “That’s…really
weird,” she said, genuinely perplexed.
    “Irritating’s
more like it.”
    “Honest to
God. I didn’t text you last night.”
    Sally’s smirk
said it all, before she turned her phone off and tossed it onto the counter.
Then she leaned back, folded her arms across her chest, and scowled as she
looked at Claire. “It was really irritating.”
    “Talk about
irritating.” Claire waved her