Ghosts of Bergen County by Dana Cann Page A

multipierced, with hair that fell in their eyes. Irony and cool were the same. The women wore black, except those who wore metallic dresses. The men wore black, except Ferko, whose khakis and blue button-down were the uniform of business casual. He didn’t feel conspicuous, though. Might he not have been ironic?
    He sent a text to Mary Beth at two thirty: mb—late. home tmw xo g
    They arrived at the PATH station in the morning, just as the sun was coming up. Jen bought a ticket, too. “Since I’m here,” she said, “at the gateway to New Jersey. Let’s go shopping. You owe me.”
    â€œI thought you owed me.”
    â€œI did. But now you owe me.”
    â€œI’m going home.”
    â€œTake me to Paramus first.”
    She was relentless. But he wasn’t tired.
    â€œOr don’t,” she said. “Take me to my dad’s. I’ll get his car.”
    â€œParamus. For an hour.”
    â€œYippee.” She put her palms together and tapped her fingers, mock applause.
    They were in the mall by ten, the only customers, it seemed, in one of the anchors. Music played from the speakers in the high ceiling. He followed her to formal wear. She sized up a mannequin in a black dress, hemmed at the knees. She found the dress on the rack and took it and a blue scarf to the dressing room.
    Ferko waited in the center, near the escalator, wondering if there was something he should buy for Mary Beth. A wallet. A belt. It was all stuff. Random junk.
    Jen emerged in the dress, barefoot, with the scarf draped to cover the bandage on her arm. He went to her. She found a pair of black shoes on a sale rack. They were high-heeled, open-toed, and she slipped them on her feet. They were a little big; her toes got lost in the thin straps. Still, she looked hot, despite having partied all night, despite having been hit by a car the prior afternoon.
    She handed him her bag, which had grown thick with, he guessed, her jeans and shirt and sandals. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, but she was straightening her shoulders and fixing her hair.
    â€œI’m going out there,” she said.
    â€œOut where?”
    She pointed her chin toward the front of formal wear. “Keep an eye on me. I want reviews and reactions.”
    â€œA mannequin?”
    She walked ahead, turned her ankle on a heel.
    â€œThis is stupid,” he said.
    â€œYou owe me.” She righted herself.
    â€œWhat for?”
    She didn’t have an answer. She walked ahead, more carefully now, and, truth be told, Ferko didn’t mind. He steered away from her, past the dressing rooms and up the next aisle. He checked his phone. No reply from Mary Beth. It infuriated him. When he saw her, he’d tell her about his night. All of it except the heroin. And the mannequin part, which was a little weird and hard to explain. But he’d tell her about Jen Yoder and Greg Fletcher, about the lunch and about the parties. He actually had a lot to tell her. And if she didn’t care, if she was indifferent, that would be one more disappointment in a series of disappointments.
    He was back in the center again, near the down escalator, waiting and watching as Jen stepped up on the pedestal with the mannequin, which was wearing the same black dress and posed with legs apart, right hand on right hip, chin down, white lips curled in a pouty expression, evoking an attitude that said, The night is mine . Jen struck the same pose, though opposite (left hand on left hip), so that the two looked like bookends. She was shorter than the mannequin, didn’t have the same Barbie features in neck length and leg height. Jen had freckles, too, on her arms and nose. But she kept as still as the mannequin. Amazingly so. From Ferko’s vantage point thirty feet away, she wasn’t breathing.
    He glanced around the store. No shoppers in sight. Two salesladies were talking behind the counter in handbags. Another was