Gaia stared blankly at the book on her desk. She almost laughed. What was she thinking? Did she really believe she would spend Friday evening in this lame little bedroom and actually read? Maybe she was finally pulling herself together after the trauma of Mary's death -- but still, normalcy came in stages. It came in baby steps. And reading The Great Gatsby in the Nivens' house felt like a giant step clear into somebody else's life.

Besides, nobody did homework on Fridays. Not even the ultranormal. Not even studious people like... well, like Sam Moon. Not even if The Great Gatsby was the great work of literature everyone said it was.

Time to bolt. Bolting was a specialty of hers.

Gaia sighed and brushed a few tangled strands of blond hair out of her face, then pushed herself away from the desk. Part of the problem was that Ella was home, and even though Gaia had avoided her (Ella was locked in her bedroom, listening to some horrid Celine Dion CD), the knowledge that they were under the same roof was enough to make Gaia want to puke.

She stood up and stretched, peering out the window. It was cold and dark -- but that had never stopped her from going out before. Maybe she'd go to the park and try to hustle a chess game. Or maybe she'd swing by Ed's and see if he wanted to see a movie. She grinned. That sounded perfect, actually. Ed would definitely be up for something. He hated being stuck in his bedroom almost as much as Gaia hated--

"I'm sorry about your friend."

What the hell?

Gaia whirled around, her blue eyes smoldering.

Ella was standing in the open doorway -- decked out, as usual, as if she were going to model at a teen fashion show. Today's outfit consisted of a tight baby T-shirt that wouldn't fit a dwarf, black leather mini-skirt, and boots. And her red hair was in pigtails. Freaking pigtails. It was almost funny.

"Don't you knock?" Gaia asked.

Ella stared back at her blankly. "Not in my own house," she replied.

Touché, Gaia thought. That was classic Ella. Always reminding Gaia of her place. Always making sure Gaia knew who was in charge. And this was Ella's house. Not Gaia's. It never would be. At least that was something they could agree on.

"So what do you want?" Gaia demanded impatiently, turning toward her closet.

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about your friend," Ella repeated. Her tone was colorless, without emotion. "You know. The one who died."

Gaia froze. She scowled. Sorry about your friend? Please. Ella didn't give a shit about anyone but herself. And she sure as hell had never offered any kind of sympathy toward Gaia before.

"What do you really want, Ella?" Gaia asked, looking her directly in the eye.

"I told you," Ella replied.

"You're... sorry," Gaia stated dubiously.

Ella's face darkened. "Look, just forget it. I..." She bit her lip, hesitating. Finally she shook her head. "Forget it," she said again. "This isn't going to work." She turned and strode down the steps.

A moment later Ella's bedroom door slammed.

Gaia's jaw fell open. In all the months she'd been stuck in this freakish house, that was by far the most bizarre encounter she'd ever had. And disquieting, too -- much more so than any of their arguments. That's because their arguments made sense. Even when Gaia had smacked Ella in the face a couple of months ago, there had been some kind of logic involved. Ella had said something particularly loathsome. Therefore Gaia had found herself throwing a punch. A led to B, which led to C. Gaia had regretted hitting her; she'd promised it would never happen again -- but Ella had provoked the incident. It hadn't come out of nowhere.

Not like this.

So. That posed a very disturbing question.

Could it be that Ella actually meant what she said? That she was sorry about Mary?

No. Gaia shook her head. Of course not. This was the woman who treated Gaia like dirt ... who was using her unsuspecting husband for some sinister purpose Gaia had yet to determine -- but that probably involved embezzlement and sleazy affairs with one or more men. Ella was evil. Plain and simple. This was just another manifestation of Ella's multiple personality disorder: slipping from mask to mask without ever revealing her true face.

Still, what had she meant by "This isn't going to work"? It sounded like the kind of thing that somebody would say if they were trying to mend a relationship. But she and Ella didn't have a relationship of any kind. At all.

Gaia took a deep breath. She took two quick steps across her room and picked up the phone, then punched in Ed's number.

After two rings he picked up. "Hello?"

Ed's voice could always make Gaia smile. It was so open, so friendly -- but with an edge, too.

"Hey, Ed," she whispered.

"Hey, I think we've got a psychic connection," Ed remarked dryly.

"Why's that?"

"Because I was just about to call you. My new wheelchair came today while we were at school. I wanted to show it off. It's radical. I'm talking state-of the-art. Power steering. It goes from zero to sixty in four hours. Faster down a flight of subway steps, of course."

Gaia wanted to give Ed credit for being funny, but she couldn't muster a laugh. "Sounds good," she mumbled. "Actually I was... um, I was just calling to see if you wanted to go see a movie. Or rent one, maybe."

"Sure." There was a pause. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said automatically. But then she frowned. In the past she would have shrugged off Ed's questions or told him to mind his own business. But after the events of the past week -- after she'd nearly killed Ed and destroyed his wheelchair on the aforementioned subway steps -- she was determined not to hide from him anymore. He was her one friend, so she might as well treat him like one.

"Nothing's wrong?" Ed prodded.

She flopped down on her bed, twirling the phone cord in her fingers. It took a few seconds to get the words out. "Actually, there is something wrong."

"What's that?" Ed's voice registered both surprise and happiness. Not that there was something wrong, but that Gaia was telling him so.

"Ella."

"Something new?" Ed asked.

"She told me she's sorry about Mary."

Ed was silent. "And that is bad because...?"

"Come on, Ed. I would have felt better if she'd punched me in the face. I'm comfortable with our mutual hatred. Her pretending to care really gave me the creeps."

Ed fell silent again.

"Hello? Ed?"

"Maybe she is sorry," he suggested.

Gaia rolled her eyes. "Believe me, she isn't. The woman is completely evil."

"Mmmm," he said equivocally.

"What, mmmm?" Gaia asked, frowning. If she was going to be open and honest, the least Ed could do was agree with everything she said.

"Listen to me, Gaia," Ed said. "Nobody's completely evil."

"Oh, no?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "Why's that?"

"Well, I guess there's Charles Manson. But ninety-nine-point-nine percent of people aren't completely anything. See, it's like... you've got Charles Manson on one side of the spectrum and Mother Teresa on the other. The rest of us are in between. Aside from a very few extremes, nobody's all good or all bad."

"I didn't know you were such a philosopher, Ed."

"Being in a wheelchair makes a person philosophical," he replied. His tone wasn't self-pitying; it was matter-of-fact. That was one of the things Gaia loved about Ed most: He never let people feel sorry for him because of his accident. He took people's pity and threw it right back in their teeth.

"So you're saying that everybody's got a little Manson and a little Mother Teresa inside them?" Gaia asked.

"Exactly," Ed stated confidently.

"I'd say Ella's snuggled up pretty close to Charles Manson," Gaia theorized.

"Maybe Ella is mostly Manson," he agreed. "But today she let her pinprick of Mother Teresa shine through."

Yeah, right. As much as Gaia wanted to tell Ed that he was full of crap, she laughed instead. That was the beauty of Ed. He could take any asinine theory and improve a person's mood with it.

"So are we gonna rent a movie or what?" Gaia asked cheerfully.

"Sure. Meet me at the Blockbuster by Thirteenth and Broadway."

"Yup."

"And maybe after that we can go to Alice Underground and buy me a blazer."

"Why would we want to do that?" Gaia asked.

"Because I need to wear a jacket and tie to an engagement party."

Gaia picked at her thumbnail. "Who's getting engaged?"

"My sister. She's marrying a guy named Blane."

Gaia sat up on the bed. "Your sister? Really?" she asked, genuinely surprised. Ed hardly ever talked about his sister. Gaia got the feeling the mysterious other Fargo sibling didn't take many opportunities to hang around Ed.

"Yeah. Blane."

"Weird."

"Yeah, so I'll see you at Blockbuster in twenty minutes," Ed said.

"You got it." Gaia hung up the phone. She sat on her bed for a few seconds, staring into space.

Amazing. She couldn't even remember why Ella had freaked her out so much. Maybe Ella was letting her Mother Teresa shine through.

Sure. And maybe Gaia would end up marrying a guy named Blane, too. It was great to be back in the denial stage again.