（She is not the only one who thinks so.）
Seated across the red and white checkered table from each other, with Lennie and Sue still on their way, Ruby and Josh find conversation easier than either would have thought. Soon, Josh is telling Ruby an animated tale about the famous celestial ceiling of the Grand Central Terminal above them, a funny story I already knew, thanks to Noah. How back in 1913, on the day the terminal opened, an amateur astronomer passing through the new building stopped and noticed the blue and gold zodiac mural hung high above everyone’s heads had been painted in reverse, so that east was west, and west was east. Meaning the constellations were not at all where they should be. It is a New York blunder Josh loves; it amuses him to think about the grandeur of that opening day, and the moment one anonymous, practical man looked up and burst the gilded bubble.
‘I never knew that!’ Ruby laughs, admitting she wouldn’t know her Orion from her Pegasus. ‘So, you’re saying the sky is back to front up there?’
‘Either that, or the mural is meant to represent the heavens when viewed from the outside, in,’ Josh answers. ‘The jury is still out on whether the reversal of those stars was deliberate, or a rather ironic mistake for a building dedicated to navigation.’
They are both laughing now, mimicking the consternation of those in charge of festivities on that 1913 opening day. I prefer to think of the lone astronomer just off the train, thumb and forefinger to his chin, scanning the skies, and I see Noah’s face in this moment, and Franklin too, watching from the doorway, almost as if they’re waiting for me. The scene is blurry, as if I’m looking through tears, but the waves don’t come this time. I’m trying to understand what that means, when Lennie and Sue arrive, causing those other faces to shimmer and disappear.
We each take a seat at the table.
It soon becomes clear this will not be a regular Death Club meeting tonight. With Josh and Ruby still laughing, Lennie asks to be let in on the joke, and soon Josh is repeating the tale of the starry ceiling above them. From this beginning, the stories traded across Cape May Salts and martinis and crème caramels remain light, buoyant, and for the most part, I do not mind. Something about seeing Noah and Franklin like that has slipped me into a mood deeper than sorrow, and I cannot begrudge these friends wanting a night to themselves. It feels inevitable even, as I watch Lennie grimace over a raw oyster, and listen to Josh conjuring another story about New York’s quirks and mistakes, while Sue explains the difference between lobster and crayfish to Ruby, biting into her first Maine lobster roll. Nobody says they are not going to talk about life and death tonight, yet they all agree to this armistice. I see this understanding pass quietly between them, and I find myself moving back from the table, letting their conversations fade.
To watch them from a distance is to see arms touching, hands grazing. Broad smiles and secret glances. Glasses clinked together, forks dropped with a clatter. Butter dripping onto the tablecloth and napkins pressed against mouths. Red wine and whiskey ordered, and small, full sighs. I see how they have travelled a great distance together this past week, like the passengers teeming in and out of the terminal above us. If intimacy is exponential, it is opportunistic, too, taking advantage of nights like this to assert itself, lock everyone in place.
I am fascinated by the shift, yet that deeper-than-sorrow feeling persists. Because I know I do not belong at this table. I cannot join the living as they trade their stories, cannot share any part of my day, my past or my now, the way they do. They are discovering each other, moving forward together, while I remain the dead girl, Jane. Riverside, Doe. A month after my murder, without any fresh revelations to stoke public interest, I am a news story already growing old.
Because the people who do know my stories have stayed silent. Friends—and a lover, too—whose fingers might twitch toward their phones whenever the Riverside murder is mentioned, but they never, ever make the call. Just as the members of Death Club can set me to the side tonight, the people who know me, love me, have been doing this for weeks now. Ever since, each on their own, they thought, What if that’s my Alice? And then quickly pushed me away.
When you see it all from the outside, you realise how little of anything is where it is supposed to be. People’s love gets muddled up, too. Reversed. East is west and west is east. Sometimes the reordering is unnoticeable. And sometimes, when you look up, there is a vast, empty space where the stars used to be.
Life is getting better for Ruby Jones. She has, as she told her sister, made friends. New York glitters in their presence, and this is more than she could have hoped for. Some evenings, like this last one, she might even say that she is happy.