Beautiful: Truth's Found When Beauty's Lost Part 18

"All right, go ahead. Bring it here."

He took the box to the floor, patting the carpet for her to sit down beside him. They sat with the box between them like a treasure about to be opened.

"It's like Pandora's box," Ellie said softly.

Will nodded as he stared at it. "In the Greek myth, Pandora's box was actually a large jar. When she peered inside, she unleashed all these bad things into the world, like sickness, hards.h.i.+p, and toils."

"I'm supposed to be the brainy one. Didn't you nearly flunk first grade?"

"Einstein got poor grades in school as well."

She smiled. "Quite the comparison."

He nodded as if she'd agreed with him. "There is one other part to the story that is very important. Are you paying attention?"

"Yes, and avoiding opening the jar of toils and sickness. I think you'll have to open it and put the curse upon the world-not another woman who can be blamed for the sins of mankind."

"Ah, the feminist revealed." He laughed when she punched him. "Okay, so dear, curious Pandora had the gumption to-"

"Gumption?"

"Such words are necessary when discussing mythology. Now, as I was saying before your rude interruption, Pandora had the foresight to close the jar and retain one final item inside."

"What?" Ellie couldn't remember the details of the story.

"Hope."

"Hope? So hope was trapped back in the box?"

"The jar. Yeah, apparently."

"What does that mean?" Ellie suddenly didn't want to know. She didn't want a discussion about hope. "Let's just open the box-not the jar, the box."

He smiled-and it was a pretty nice smile-and motioned for her to go ahead.

Ellie pulled open the flaps. She stared at the contents inside and caught a slight scent of charcoal or fuel that made her stomach instantly sick.

She pulled a purple stuffed animal out of the box. "This isn't mine." But then she remembered holding it that night. She hadn't known it was a cute little dog with black b.u.t.ton eyes. Its purple fur was dirty, and the smell of smoke became stronger in her nose.

She set the dog on the floor and looked at the other items. A bottle of Victoria's Secret lotion-Vanilla Jasmine-which also wasn't hers. CDs, a book, papers, a compact, and some lipstick that she recognized.

"Only half of this stuff is mine."

"Let me see those," Will said when she pulled out a stack of CDs.

Ellie handed them to him. "My iPod was never found," she said more to herself than to him.

"Cryptonic. Owl Eyes, Krater . . ."

Will shook his head, and Ellie suddenly wanted to touch his hair, with its thick curls. She wanted to lie in bed beside him and sleep a long while.

"Who was Stasia, anyway? She looked so sweet and somewhat boring on the surface, but then you get this little view into her life, and she's pretty interesting. I would've guessed her for Pink or Justin Timberlake maybe, but not these."

"We listened to country music and cla.s.sic oldies in the car before the accident."

"Really? She had a double life, then."

"Yeah, like who gave her the stuffed animal that her mom thought must be mine?" Ellie picked up the little dog once again.

"It was important enough to keep in her car, and obviously in a visible spot."

"Guess we'll never know. No one ever will."

At the bottom of the box was a book.

"My organizer," she said with surprise, almost afraid to open it. It was like opening the life she'd had that was now dead. Her left leg was aching from sitting on the floor, so she stretched it out.

"First of all, what kind of person takes her organizer to a party?"

"I grabbed my larger bag because I didn't know what we were doing that night, and I like to be prepared."

"For someone so popular, you sure have some nerd qualities."

"Nerd? Who uses the word nerd? And what does that make you, Mr. Greek mythology geek?"

"If the word fits, and by the way, there's no shame in being a geek. That's a far cry from nerd. Do you see any billionaire nerds-no, you do not. Do you see billionaire geeks-'most every single one."

The joke fell a little flat as they stared at the box and its contents spread out on the carpet.

"That was my life," Ellie said, opening her organizer. "What's the date today?"

"March 27."

Ellie flipped the pages. "Look, this weekend I was supposed to emcee a fas.h.i.+on show for a women's club. I wonder who they got to replace me."

She turned the pages back to the date of the accident.

Special date with Ryan. Party at Mitch's.

"Stasia was still alive on all the boxes before this one. And she's dead for all the rest and forever." Ellie pictured the thousands of boxes ahead that did not include Stasia in this world. "That's my before-and-after box too."

Will nodded.

Ellie thought about that night. The night that changed everything. "I ruined our date, which made it a horrible party."

"How did you ruin it?"

"Ryan told me he loved me. I couldn't say it back. He had all these plans for us. He was upset about it, really upset. That's why he started drinking at Mitch's."

Will didn't say anything for a long time. "You didn't love him?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I miss him. But maybe I couldn't really understand or believe that he loved me as he thought he did. It's better for him to just move on."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Is it better for you to move on?"

She closed her eyes a moment. "Move on . . . what does that mean for me now?"

"What would it have meant for you then?"

Ellie thought a moment and just didn't know. The words were easy to say, but before the accident, like now, she'd been trapped in a place that all her efforts, all her accomplishments, all her drive hadn't been able to pull her from. It was like sprinting full force on a treadmill. People praised her, but she wasn't getting anywhere.

"Maybe if I could have moved away . . ." Her voice drifted off.

He kissed her then, leaning in and over the box. The taste of his mouth sent s.h.i.+vers throughout her body. He pulled back slightly and then kissed her again until Ellie s.h.i.+ed away, bending her damaged side toward her shoulder. Why would he want to kiss her?

He either didn't notice her embarra.s.sment or pretended not to. "I'm taking advantage of this friends.h.i.+p, you know. Is that harmful?"

She smiled then. "Maybe I'm taking advantage of it too."

A tap sounded on the door. Will rolled onto his back, and Megan came in with a tray.

"If anyone calls me Martha Stewart, I'll hit you," Megan said, though her expression faltered a moment at the sight of them. Ellie sat up. She wondered if Megan had a thing for Will, despite her words to the contrary.

"Which one of us would do something like that?" Will said.

"I see Mom gave you the box." Megan set the tray that held a plate of cookies and two steaming mugs on Ellie's desk. She pointed toward the purple dog. "You were holding that," she said.

"I was holding it when?"

"When they pulled you out. They couldn't get you to let go of it until your surgery."

"It's Stasia's," Ellie said. "I guess we should give it to her parents." The black b.u.t.ton eyes looked at her with empty compa.s.sion.

"It's not Stasia's." Megan leaned up against the back of the desk.

"It has to be. It's not mine."

"Ryan gave it to you."

Ellie shook her head, racking her memory of that night. The candlelit pathway for their picnic, the party at Mitch's, Ryan's drunken declarations . . .

"No, he didn't." Again the stuffed animal seemed to stare at her. Her favorite color as a child had been purple-Ryan knew that. He also knew her favorite pet-a dog named Purple, who had died of cancer the summer before. But she had no memory of his giving her this little dog.

"He said he put it in your purse as a surprise before the party."

Ellie glanced at Will, but for some reason he simply stared down at the box and fiddled with the edge of her appointment book.

"Well," Ellie said finally, setting the dog out of view. "Does anyone want to play a board game?"

Will and Megan looked at her with mixed expressions.

"A board game?" Megan asked.

"If not, then how about one of Will's movies? Some dark montage about the social ramifications of politics in post World War II South America?" Ellie put the contents back into the box. She closed the lid quickly before she could feel bad for the little dog.

"Funny," Will said. "That would be post-Vietnam, by the way."

"I vote for Marsha Brady's board game," Megan said in mock enthusiasm.

"Who?" Ellie asked.

Megan and Will gave each other humored expressions. "The Brady Bunch?"

"Oh." Ellie had heard of the show but hadn't ever seen it. In her old life, she rarely watched television. "So I may not know TV trivia, but at least I'm not Martha Stewart."

Megan's mouth opened in surprise as Ellie and Will laughed.

What has happened to my life? Megan wondered as she scrolled through the list of contacts in her phone. Naomi and Lu were down in the city at some belly-dance show. They were trying to convince her to join a cla.s.s and had wanted her to come with them. Now Megan wished she'd gone. She looked at the text that had come through while she played board games. Board games-everyone would laugh at them for that.

James: Babes, I want to see you. Playing at Cocobeans tonight. Let's make this right.

Megan wondered what could make them right. Something about James, or maybe about trouble, drew her. She was restless and grouchy otherwise.

"I'm going out," she told her parents, who sat on the couch, waiting for Planet Earth to come on.

"Be careful," Mom said, glancing after her with her usual worried expression.

I'd rather not, Megan thought.

Ellie lay still in bed-oh, for the days of tossing and turning without pain shooting through her left side. She thought about how small her world had become. Would it always be this way? On impulse, she typed in her first text message in months.

Ellie: Hi Vanessa: Hi? Is this really u???

Ellie: Yes. Just got a new phone. I haven't had one.

She could have had a new phone earlier, but she'd refused her parents' offer while still in the hospital.

Vanessa: I've been so worried. You wouldn't see me, and then you dumped Ryan. I've been going crazy wanting to talk to you.

Ellie: Sorry.