Love Minus Eighty (34 page)

Veronika turned her face to the sky.

Veronika retrieved a pebble by her feet. She leaned far over the railing so she could see the choppy water far below, centered the pebble just below her face, and let it drop.

It seemed a long, long time before it made a tiny splash.

Turning away from the water, she leaned against the railing, closed her eyes, listened to vehicles whoosh by. She never thought she’d come back to this spot, but since Lycan was alive and well, it still felt like her sanctuary—a place to reflect, more than a place of tragedy.

Veronika had prayed for Lorelei and Nathan to split, but now that they had, she didn’t feel the elation she’d anticipated. She felt angry, and sad for Nathan, who was taking it much worse than Veronika would have guessed. Mostly, though, she felt petty and frustrated that she cared so much about all of this, that her life revolved around petty crap.

This was not the life she wanted to lead, but somehow she couldn’t pull herself out of it and lead a life of consequence.
A life like Sunali’s. Veronika didn’t care much for Sunali’s abrasiveness, but she admired Sunali’s guts. She respected Sunali, who lived for something larger than herself. You could psychoanalyze her motives—she was clearly driven by a profound rage at being abandoned by her son in the bridesicle center—but her actions were pure, and honest, and worthy of respect. And now she had the resources to do even more. No more meetings in her living room. Learning about the contents of Kilo’s will was the important event from yesterday, not Lorelei’s childish antics.

Ironically, Sunali could now execute Lorelei’s idea of unleashing ten thousand bridesicles on the city if she chose to, although Lorelei herself seemed to have lost interest in Bridesicle Watch. Maybe Veronika should continue volunteering, although she doubted Sunali would offer her a seat at the strategy meetings now that the group was well funded enough to attract seasoned professional protesters. Still, there was no shame in serving in the trenches for a cause you believed in. And she most surely believed in this cause. Seeing what Winter had gone through, and continued to go through, talking to Winter at the party about what it had been like to be in that crèche… it had moved Veronika deeply. If only everyone could speak to Winter. If only everyone could feel what Winter had felt.

Veronika’s eyes snapped open. She spun back toward the river, clutched the railing, her mind suddenly racing.

If only everyone could feel what Winter had felt.

“Oh,” she said aloud. “Oh, that would be incredible.”

Was it possible, though?

She pinged Lycan. He popped up in a screen almost instantaneously.

“Your new technology… is it far enough along to be used now, if it’s for a good cause?”

Mira was glad when she saw it was Sunali again. Then again, who else would it be? No men were going to visit the oldest woman in the place. She was both twenty-six and one of the oldest people on Earth. It was hard to reconcile.

Maybe Sunali would be willing to wake Jeannette again. She wondered if there was any way Sunali could arrange it so they could speak directly. The possibility filled her with such intense longing she almost blurted it out. Better to wait for the right moment.

“It’s good to see you again. I would have fixed the place up if I knew I was going to have a visitor.”

Sunali smiled. “It’s good to see you, too, Mira. I think about you.”

It was comforting, to know there was someone out there who knew she was in here.

Sunali started to say something, then caught herself, rolled her eyes. “I have to keep checking myself, to avoid falling
back on phrases that are nonsensical in here. Like, ‘I won’t take up much of your time.’ So let me just tell you why I’m here. I could use your help again.”

“I’ll do anything I can.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” It was hard to believe Sunali had once been like her. She was so fully, vitally alive. “What I need is simple, really. I just want you to imagine you’re talking to everyone in this city. Pretend they’re all listening to you right now. What do you want to say to them?”

“What do I want to say to them?” Mira repeated, because she couldn’t think what else to say.

“That’s right. Take all the time you need.”

Mira almost asked Sunali if she could take a year. If she did take a year, would she age a year? She doubted it. The dead don’t age.

What did she want to say to the people out there? That she missed splitting a Peterman’s Double Chocolate Stout with Jeannette at the Green Leaf, and playing keep-away with Gordon, their slate-blue borzoi, in Crotona Park. That she missed bickering with Jeannette about who did more of the housework, missed seeing her wander past in a baseball cap and antique PF Flyer sneakers. She would give anything for five minutes with Jeannette. Just five minutes, and after that they could lock her away in this freezer for eternity. She would take that deal, if someone offered it. But no one was offering deals.

She looked at Sunali and said, “Please help me. Please, I’m afraid. I’m so lonely and afraid. I don’t want to be in this box anymore. Can’t you please get me out of here?”

Sunali fiddled with something beneath the midnight-blue blazer she was wearing. She was beaming. “That’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.” She stood. “Mira, I can’t thank you enough.”

It took Mira a moment to understand. Sunali hadn’t realized Mira was talking to her.

Sunali reached toward Mira, closed her hand around the air over the space where Mira’s hand must be. “This is going to help us more than you know. I can’t say how, but I’ll come back and tell you… after.” She raised her eyebrows. It reminded Mira of the way that first man who woke her—Alex—had raised his eyebrows. “I’d better go.”

She wanted to ask Sunali if she could talk to Jeannette, but was suddenly afraid. Sunali had promised to come back, and she was Mira’s only hope of being waked again. If she asked too much, Sunali might not return.

“All right,” Mira said. Though it was far from all right.

Walking the streets of Low Town, past the pizza joints and dream parlors, everything reminded him of Winter. It was as if they’d walked these streets together a thousand times, and each corner, each stingy strip of green lined with benches, was stamped with a memory they shared. Maybe it felt that way because Rob found himself having silent conversations with an imaginary Winter as he wandered, his lute case dangling from his left hand. He kept thinking of things he wanted to tell her, funny stories he wanted to share. He wanted to revel in his newfound freedom, wanted to feel happy for Winter, but all he could do was brood.

Crossing the gray steps in front of the Museum of Natural History, he found himself wishing things were back the way they’d been, with Winter in her crèche, the two of them packing so much into five-minute conversations. It was a sick thought. He needed to get out of his head.

Maybe a change of scenery would give him a new mind-set.
It was time he moved back to the city. He could probably rent a cube in a marginal neighborhood for two thousand a month. His dad probably preferred he keep living at home (though he’d never say that out loud), but Rob was twenty-seven. He belonged on his own.

Rob crossed into the park, past banks of sunlamps set on enormous T-shaped posts that kept the foliage alive in the shade cast by High Town. He picked a bench set across from a fountain that reminded him of the fountain inside Cryomed, even though they looked nothing alike, took out his lute and began to play.

It was impossible to make the lute play what he felt. It was not a sad instrument; its sound was inherently cheery. Which was probably why Rob had been drawn to it in the first place. He tried playing songs with sad, forlorn lyrics, at least, tried unsuccessfully to pour every drop of his heart and mind into them, so there was nothing left to devote to Winter.

When that didn’t work, he decided to compose a song for Winter. He tried to capture her staccato laughter, the way she scrunched her lips to one side when she was thinking, her slightly knock-kneed walk, the flecks of gold in her eyes.

There was a woman across the lawn, heading toward Rob. Rob squinted, trying to make her out. She was bent forward, moving stiffly, clearly in distress.

Rob dropped his lute. “Hang on.” He ran to help her.

As he drew closer, it became clear that something was very wrong with her. Her face was bone white, her lips midnight blue. She reminded Rob of Winter, dead and frozen in her crèche.

“Please, help me,” the woman said as Rob drew closer. “Please, I’m afraid.” There was so much need in her voice, such aching desperation.

Rob reached out to help her, but his hand passed through her arm as if it was so much smoke…

Suddenly he was terrified, and felt utter, bleak despair like he’d never known. She had no hope; she would be dead again in just a few seconds, and she knew it. She was trapped in a coffin, her living face attached to a corpse. Rob sank to his knees, sobbing. It was intolerable.

And then it passed, and Rob was all right.

“I’m so lonely and afraid,” the projection said, panting with fear. “I don’t want to be in this box anymore.”

Rob stepped back, examined the image—a screen without the screen. Someone was going to get a hefty fine.

“Please, help me…”

Rob turned toward the voice—it was the same voice, but coming from behind, and farther away.

Outside the park, on the sidewalk across from the museum, the same projection was telling a woman she was afraid, so lonely and afraid. The woman was covering her face with her hands, muffling a wail of despair. On the steps of the museum, two more projections climbed the stairs toward people coming out. Rob couldn’t hear them, but knew they were asking for help because they were lonely and afraid and didn’t want to be in a box anymore.

As soon as they were finished begging for help, each of the women moved on, toward another person.

Rob laughed out loud. The explanation was suddenly so obvious. It had to be Sunali. How was she generating those terrible emotions, though? Rob had never felt anything like it; they had felt so utterly, horribly real.

Rob ran back to the bench to retrieve his lute, then hurried toward the streets, wanting to see it unfold.

Movement caught his eye: a body, falling from High Town,
plunging toward the roofs of Low Town, arms spread, loose dress flapping wildly. His breath caught for an instant before he realized it was another projection of the bridesicle.

He spotted another, falling toward the river. Then another.

Out on the street, traffic was at a standstill, drivers standing beside open doors, staring at the falling bodies, at the ghostly white women limping painfully from person to person, begging for help.

“Brilliant,” Rob said under his breath.

He probably should see if there was anyone who needed help, but instead he returned to his bench to finish composing the song for Winter—not just about Winter, but for Winter—as the bodies rained down from High Town.

When he finished, he played it through, flawlessly, as if he’d been playing it for years. He sent an audio recording of the performance to Winter, with a simple text message:
I wrote this for you.

“I think we’re on the cusp of a new age, of awesome changes.” There was a drop of foam on the end of Lycan’s nose.

Veronika swept at it with a napkin. “Yet you jumped off a bridge. When I hear you talk about your work, so excited… I don’t know, there’s such a disconnect.”

“Work and life are different things. If I could work all the time, I’d be happy all the time.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Lycan thought about it. “I don’t know. It gets lonely.”

Veronika barked a laugh. “What you need is a wife.
Then
you could work all the time, comforted by the knowledge that you have a neglected wife at home.”

Lycan didn’t laugh. “If I had a wife, she would always come first.”

He was such an earnest soul. He and Rob were similar in that way—incapable of sarcasm, unable to laugh at others. The complete opposite of Nathan. And her.

Lycan cleared his throat, which he seemed to do almost incessantly when he was nervous. “By the way, assuming everything goes well, do you want to do something to celebrate? Maybe a celebration dinner at my place?”

“Sure, that sounds great.” Veronika looked around for Nathan. He’d sent a message nine minutes ago saying he’d be there in five or six.

Lycan checked the time. “It won’t be long now.” He stuck his hands under his arms and squeezed, leaning forward in his chair. “I’m nervous. If something goes wrong, it could end my career.”

It had taken Veronika a while to convince Lycan to help them. When Lycan explained just how enormous a risk he’d be taking if he helped, Veronika had been sure he’d refuse, given that he hadn’t even been willing to donate money to help Winter. But in the end he’d surprised her, and once he’d agreed, he worked tirelessly.

Lycan was peering up at the thousand-story buildings that surrounded the massive Liberty Med Courtyard. He looked down at the hole that opened onto an expansive view of Low Town. Their seats were impressively close to the doughnut hole, providing them with the full, dizzying effect. Greenery bloomed among the tables, warmed inside an invisible containment barrier. It made nearby trees, with their naked winter branches, look dead.

“I should come to places like this more often. You get into patterns, going to the same places all the time.” He shrugged. “Or to no places at all, besides home and work.” He checked the time again, licked his lips.

“Hey, hey.” Nathan pulled up the third seat at their table, looked from Veronika to Lycan. “Just call me
rueda de tres
.”

He was not snapping back from the breakup with Lorelei
in typical Nathan fashion. There were dark circles under his eyes, and maintaining the roguish smile appeared to be taking a great deal of effort. Referring to himself as the third wheel insinuated that she and Lycan were a couple. Veronika let it go.