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As for himself, he had no time to do anything but raise an arm. It was completely reactionary, as necessary as John sighing

in exasperation or squinting against LA sunshine.

The plate rebounded off his palm.

Had he imagined it?

As he rose from the table the woman threw a set of silverware that bounced off his chest with bursts of cold, odd pressure.

John watched, transfixed, as the woman spit on Bean’s arm and he carried her, kicking and screaming, toward the front door.

“We’re outta here,” said Persephone.

Outside, the darkness split open with white rapid fire. Paparazzi shot them as they moved from the door to the idling Navigator. John! John! Persephone! John—over here!

John frowned as Persephone clambered into the truck. The plate, the silverware bouncing off his body... John required her,

but what if she was accelerating an unfortunate transition—what if her presence trapped him in the living world?

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Persephone had taken hardly two bites of her ricciarelle al tartufo, which, at thirty dollars a teeny plate, she had only

dreamed about eating since first setting foot in LA, and she hadn’t even had a chance to order the fresh Maine lobster, after

all, when the nutjob made her big splash. Which meant not only did Persephone not get to relish the white truffle pasta and

two-and-a-half-pound lobster she’d waited five years to eat; she was starving. The next best thing: Pink’s. They made a quick

stop (only quick because William had put in a call that John, yes, John the Ghost John was stopping by), and thirty minutes and three onion and sauerkraut turkey dogs later, Persephone and John were sitting in

the O of the Hollywood sign.

He watched her take another bite of her last hot dog. “You’re really hungry.”

“A perceptive one, my bf.”

“Don’t you mean your satanist bf?”

“Thick skin. You’re gonna make it in this town, kid.” His skin was turning out to be a lot thicker than hers. “Anyway, every

Black celebrity who makes it big suddenly becomes set-throwing Illuminati.”

“I don’t care what people think,” he said firmly. “They’ll never love you. You can’t put your faith in that.”

“It is Hollywood, after all.”

“It’s people. Anywhere. Human beings. It’s what they are.”

She was struck by a realization. “You hate people.”

He turned to her.

“Yeah,” she said. “What’s it called? Misanthrope. You’re that.”

“ I’m the one who was attacked. And I didn’t ask for any of this, I’m just making the best of it, like everyone else.” He paused.

“Well, you did ask for it. Hope it’s what you expected.”

“See? Hope it’s what you expected. You sounded like you hope it’s exactly not.”

He turned away. “Sure, if you want to take it that way.”

“Ironic. That an asshole would become the poster child for Zen, truth, and spiritual goodness. That a man who can’t stand

personal relationships becomes a personal Jesus for the masses.”

“Have your twenty-plus years on Earth given you reason to be surprised?”

Persephone turned away so he wouldn’t see her frown. Because maybe they hadn’t.

“All I know is being dead, Persephone.” He sighed, and she couldn’t get over the strangeness, John doing unnecessary things

like taking deep breaths or sighing or shifting in a seat when his clothes didn’t need rearranging. “It was so peaceful.”

He kept staring out at the city, and its lights reflected off the whites of his eyes, his dark irises... He looked alive,

real.

He is real , Persephone reminded herself.

“You know something strange?” John asked. “I think that when a person dies, they are in danger of their death becoming the

most important thing about them. But they are so much more than whatever happened to them at the end. They’re supposed to

be, anyway...”

Persephone thought of people who refused to hold open-caskets even when the deceased purportedly looked good, or those who

refused to attend funerals at all; she thought of people who refused to have the final impressions of their loved ones be

dead versions. “Yeah.”

“I suppose I’m just wondering what to do with that fact. That I’m dead and, apparently, it is the most important thing about

me.”

“But you don’t care about what anyone thinks, right?”

He gave an ironic half smile, and was that sadness she detected? “Right.” He nodded toward the city lights. “This is nice.”

There was a stint, during her first year of living in LA, when for three months she drove her tiny rental to the canyon and

walked up the trail, all the way up to the Hollywood sign. Close up, the white letters that formed the famous sign weren’t

as large as one might expect them to be. Christine had been unimpressed at how small they looked in person, and Persephone

felt a little let down, too. Up close you could see the metal frame in the back and the bars running through the spaces within

the letters and the rain-spattered dirt. She realized the letters were like Hollywood itself—and maybe everything: better

from a distance.

“Sorry about dinner,” he said. “You were excited about it.”

“It’s OK.” The truth was, ever since that one reporter brought up going back to Corpus Christi, stirring up the past like

that, Persephone’s brain was cloudier than a kicked-up creek bed. “It’s probably best we left when we did. I’m pretty sure

at least one person got a photo of me with my fist on my cheek. That’s all I’ll need tomorrow. SPOTTED: John with Persephone Cross at Giorgio Baldi in Pacific Palisades, CA. Sources say she didn’t crack one smile, let alone a lobster claw, leaving John one sad phantom.

Trouble in paradise? ”

John laughed. Had she ever heard him laugh? Not the fake one he did when he was On, but a real one?

“Sorry,” he said, “but what was that?”

“Just something silly, you know, a side-column thing. The way the tabloids write celebrity sightings.”

“You really want this life.” He said it matter-of-factly, without judgment.

Her reflex was to say yes , but when they’d left the restaurant, the paparazzi flashes were blinding and their words slammed into her like hurricane

winds. Her teeth chattered. She shook, even after they pulled away. But she didn’t want to tell him any of that. “Hannah says

our relationship is great for you. The We’re Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts theory.”

“Hannah knows all the angles.” John sounded a little judgy now. “I thought I overheard something about an upcoming magazine interview? Your first solo?”

“A Cosmo Q forgotten, old stars. Black holes where something special used to be.

“So you came to LA to get away.”

“I came to act.”

“Is that why you want to act?”

“Maybe,” Persephone said, “you were a psychoanalyst in your past life. I mean living life. You know what I mean.”

He hadn’t meant to upset her, she knew that. But the night air was damp and the cavernous sky was claustrophobic and the lights

of the city just weren’t bright enough. She wanted to go but also wanted to wait for the view to work its magic.

There was the Cosmo Q&A, the Interview pitch, the meetings... it was all thanks to being John’s girlfriend, thanks to HJPR, who repped her because she was John’s

girlfriend and, let’s face it, for no other reason. Since their official debut, she’d become a hot commodity, and they were

just getting started. If John didn’t need her anymore, Persephone would have to kiss all this traction goodbye.

And the idea of that chilled her more than ghost teeth reflecting moonlight, chilled her more than anything.

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