Love Minus Eighty (12 page)

Her mother looked the same—squat, bow-legged, her eyebrows pursed in a perpetual V of concern. While Mom approached, Veronika spotted Sander, watching from a distance, clutching a toddler as if he was prepared to use the kid as a shield if it became necessary. He also looked older. Or maybe not older so much as exhausted.

Nathan released Veronika long enough to introduce himself to Jilly and kiss her cheek, then he came right back, pressed his hip against Veronika’s, his hand on her back.

Like Jilly, Mom stopped at a safe distance. “Hello, Mom,” Veronika said, nodding tightly.

Mom nodded back, just as tightly. “How are you?”

Nathan surged forward, hand outstretched. He grasped her mom’s hand in both of his, said something Veronika couldn’t hear, causing Mom’s face to uncloud. Then he turned to Veronika. “Sweetie? Should we go see the birthday boy?”

“Sure.”

Nathan took her hand, then leaned in toward her and kissed her. It was a warm, wet kiss so unexpected she started to recoil before catching herself and recovering her composure.

She was floating as they walked, hand in hand, toward Sander and little what’s-his-name. Other guests watched as they crossed the roof.

“Now, this isn’t so bad, is it?” Nathan said under his breath.

“This is fucking awesome.”

Veronika gave Sander a one-armed hug, then knelt to say hello to the birthday boy, who had jets of yellow snot protruding from both nostrils, as Nathan shook Sander’s hand, introducing himself as Veronika’s boyfriend. She patted the boy’s
enormous, apple-shaped head as he stared at her, openmouthed. “Hi there.” She looked up at Sander. “Can he talk yet?”

“A few words. Ike? Can you say hello to Aunt Veronika?”

Ike put his finger in his nose.

As Veronika stood, Nathan put a gentlemanly hand on her elbow, then lightly kissed her neck. “You want something to drink?” He gestured toward a folding table set out with soft drinks and disposable cups.

“Some water would be great, honey.” It felt a little goofy saying “honey”—not something she’d actually say to a boyfriend, but in this context it felt right. Hey, she was a dating coach; she could act, too.

“He seems wonderful.” Veronika turned to find Jilly at her side.

“Yeah, he is.”

“You look great, Veronika. You look so happy.”

The view from her seat on Lemieux Bridge flickered in her mind, unbidden. She gave Jilly her brightest smile. “I am happy.”

“Can you watch him for a minute?” Sander broke in. “He keeps heading for the edge, and I need to bring the cake up.”

“Sure,” Jilly said, lifting Ike, who wrapped his legs around Jilly’s waist and buried his runny nose in her dress.

Nathan was back with her water. “If you need me, I’m over there talking to your dad.”

Her dad. She hadn’t even said hello, and Nathan was already having a conversation with him. “Okay.” Let him wait.

“I’m so glad you came,” Jilly said as Nathan walked off.

“Me, too.” It was true. She felt like Cinderella at the ball—beautiful, worldly, complete with handsome prince.

“As you can tell, Mom’s still her same warm, radiant self.”

Veronika laughed. “Yes. I thought she was going to crush my ribs with that hug.”

To Veronika’s relief, Jilly didn’t bring up the whole issue of her and Sander. Veronika didn’t want to wade into that mess. Another time, maybe. Seeing them together, imagining herself coordinating this dreary birthday party with Sander, was a balm for the sting of their betrayal. Let Jilly have this life—Veronika didn’t want it. She wanted… well, not her life, either. She wanted the life she was pretending to lead for the benefit of her family, with a kid of her own tossed in.

She scanned the roof for Nathan, spotted him talking to her mother. Excusing herself, Veronika headed over. She wanted to soak in Nathan’s affection while she could, wanted to feel his breath on her hair, to entwine her fingers with his.

“… no question, she’s still hurting, but I think if the family reaches out—” Nathan spotted her, lifted his arm to draw her in. “Come join us, your mom was just telling me about what you were like when you were a little girl.”

There’s an art to seamlessly changing the subject when the subject shows up unexpectedly, and Nathan clearly hadn’t mastered it, but Veronika was touched that he was trying to broker peace between her and her family. It meant he cared.

As the elevator closed, Nathan withdrew his hand from around her waist. The void there was like a blast of frigid air.

“So, how’d I do?” Nathan asked.

“You did great. It was one of the best hours of my entire life. Thank you so much.”

Nathan reached out, and for a moment Veronika thought he was going to put his arm back around her, or draw her in and kiss her, like he’d done at the party. Instead, he patted her shoulder. “I’m so glad.”

A woman in a nearby crèche was having an emotional meltdown. Rob was surprised more women here didn’t have them, given their circumstance. A man with a red, multilevel beard was shushing, trying to calm her. Rob waited beside Winter’s sealed crèche, his lute in his lap. He didn’t want to begin their visit until it was quiet. He was eager to play for Winter.

“I can’t, I can’t,” the woman was wailing. It occurred to Rob that music might soothe the woman, or at least distract her, so he lifted his lute and played a tune as light as soap bubbles. The woman stopped wailing. She asked her visitor a question Rob couldn’t hear over the lute, maybe where the music was coming from. Her visitor murmured an answer.

Rob played on until the woman seemed in a better state of mind, then paused long enough to revive Winter before returning to his song.

Winter’s green eyes fluttered open. They darted around, unfocused, lost, finally fixing on the lute. Rob watched
lucidity creep back into them, and thought he could pinpoint the exact moment when memory returned.

She smiled. Her face was still stiff from cold, so the smile looked more like a grimace, but it was wonderful to see. Rob played on, allowing one precious minute to bleed away before setting the lute aside.

“I’ve never heard a more beautiful sound,” Winter said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. How are you?” The question came out automatically, and he kicked himself. Dead—she was dead, that’s how she was.

“I’m good,” she answered.

Now that he wasn’t playing, Rob could hear the conversation between the recently agitated woman and the guy with the red beard, and understood why the woman had been saying, “I can’t.”

“I’ll slap your ass while you suck me. Would you like that?” the guy was saying.

“Oh yeah. Spank my ass,” the woman answered, her voice thick with embarrassment.

He could tell from Winter’s expression that she heard it too, and felt himself turning red. There was a way to block sounds. It took him three or four precious seconds to figure it out and activate it.

“I brought something else I thought you’d like.” Rob picked up the mirror he’d borrowed from his dad’s barber room, held it over Winter’s face, and slowly tilted it toward the big window at the end of the hall. “Tell me when.”

“Oh.
When.
” Winter laughed with delight. Her laugh was a beastly croak rather than the musical laugh she probably had when she was alive, but a chill of delight ran up Rob’s
spine nonetheless. She admired the green-leaf-and-blue-sky view for nearly thirty seconds before she was satisfied.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” Rob asked.

Winter considered. She had such beautiful, remarkably expressive eyes. The attractiveness-rating services had cheated her out of a half point, at least. It gave him hope that she would eventually be chosen by one of the men who came here.

“Do you believe in an afterlife?” Winter asked.

The question caught him off guard. “I don’t know. I haven’t given it much thought.” He didn’t want to say no, because it was probably an important issue for her, but he thought cryogenics had answered the question pretty conclusively. Forty years ago, when Georgio Moldovar became the first dead person to be successfully revived, most religions withdrew to the position that the afterlife, or reincarnation, begins after the body decomposes. Some Christian denominations pointed out that the Bible actually says everyone goes into the ground until Jesus comes back and takes everyone to heaven. Rob figured he’d find out when he was dead.

“I haven’t given it much thought either. I wonder if I should have passed on this second chance at life. Maybe I’m putting myself through this misery when I could be somewhere wonderful.”

“Maybe.” He wasn’t sure what to say to that. It felt wrong to encourage her to change her mind and go into the ground, just because he had a vested interest—that would release him from his promise. And he still held out hope that Winter would be rescued and given a second life, which would be the ideal resolution for both of them. “Do you have any particular religious faith?” Her profile had a blank under religious affiliation.

“I’m kind of a sampler,” Winter laughed. “I used to rotate—I’d go to Jewish services one week, Zen Buddhist the next, Quaker, Catholic Mass, even Raw Life. Each fed my soul in a different way—I didn’t feel obliged to choose one.”

Rob opened his mouth to reply, then noticed the time. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” The dread in her tone told Rob she knew what. “How much longer?”

“Thirty seconds.”

She laughed with a panicked urgency. “I just tried to nod. I can’t feel my body, but I keep reaching for it, you know?”

Rob nodded, feeling guilty that he was able to.

“How about this? I’ll just
tell
you when I’m nodding, or shaking my head, or punching you.”

“Oh, no,” Rob laughed, “are you planning on punching me often?”

“We’ll see.”

Rob couldn’t help glancing at the timer, though he knew it would only make Winter more aware of what was about to happen. Seven seconds.

“I keep expecting this to get easier, that it will start to feel as if I’m going to sleep. But it doesn’t. Maybe it’s not possible to get used to dying.”

Rob reached out to comfort her, then remembered it was forbidden and drew back. If not for the surveillance, Rob would have reached under the silver cover and taken her hand, cold and stiff as it would have been.

As she stood on the bottom step outside her apartment building, waiting for an opening in the flow of human traffic gliding by at morning rush hour, Veronika felt simultaneously exhausted and energized. It was the three-month anniversary of the Red Letter Day, as she thought of it, and still, that flurry of events occupied most of her waking thoughts. The man on the bridge, her semi-reconciliation with Jilly, her intimate playacting with Nathan, Rob’s struggle for redemption. She had spent her days cycling from pain to longing to joy to curiosity, riding a merry-go-round of emotion.

She stepped onto the sidewalk, quickly got up to speed with the other pedestrians, a cool morning breeze blowing her hair, which was unsatisfactorily frizzy this morning. She was only half watching the sidewalk, her attention focused for the moment on Nathan. Those hours spent pretending to be his girlfriend had been some of the best of her life. The problem was, now she was back to her normal life. It felt
so dreary by comparison. Until now, she’d only been able to fantasize about what it would be like if she and Nathan were together. Now she knew exactly how his strong arm felt wrapped around her waist, saw how people looked at her when they thought Nathan was her boyfriend.

Rationally, she knew this crush on Nathan was absurd. But love wasn’t rational, and there didn’t appear to be any way for her to
stop
feeling what she felt, or even to tone it down so that it wasn’t so all-consuming. Dwelling on his many flaws—his narcissism being front and center on that list—did nothing to cool her ardor.

Up ahead, a man was standing motionless in the middle of the sidewalk, clogging traffic, forcing people to push past on either side of him. He was a black man, tall and huge. He was glaring at Veronika with lunatic rage.

Although she knew it couldn’t be the man who’d jumped off the bridge, she was certain it was him.

Veronika jolted to a stop, her momentum almost causing her to tumble forward. Heart pounding, she ran a facial match with the recording from the bridge her system had made, sure she must be mistaken.

The match was confirmed. It was him.

The man stepped toward her. He seemed livid, though uneasy with his rage, unsure whether to clench his fists and grit his teeth or leave his hands and mouth open.

“So here I am, alive. Are you happy?”

“Hey, come on,” a passerby growled after bumping into the man.

People passed on either side, brushing against Veronika’s coat. “I don’t understand. You didn’t survive the fall, did you? You couldn’t have.”

The man made a guttural sound of disgust, squeezed his
eyes closed, as if the sight of Veronika was just too much for him. He stormed off.

Veronika was relieved to be out from under his angry stare, but couldn’t just let him walk off. She ID’d his fast-retreating form, was surprised to discover he didn’t have a privacy block on his system. His name was Lycan Hill; he worked at a place called Wooster.

Had he survived the jump? Maybe he was wealthy enough to afford complete revivification insurance. If so, why did he kill himself without canceling the insurance first? This was going to torment her.

Veronika took off after him.

“Lycan?” she called when she was right behind him, almost running to keep up with his long, brisk strides.

Lycan turned, again grunted with disgust when he saw it was her.

“Look, I just wanted to help. I didn’t mean to make things worse.”

“All right.” He kept walking.

“Can we talk?”

“What about?”

“I don’t know. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.”

Huffing from exertion, Veronika stopped. “
Will you just please stop walking?
”

Lycan stopped, turned to face Veronika, waiting for her to say something.