you think you don’t wear lipstick already? Floss has only given it to you 128,913,291,003 times!!!!!!! Because I don’t really like it, Marlow thought, but then something else occurred to her: one of the things that turned her off about lipstick was that she always seemed to lose it. Later on, she thought of this again, after they were married and Ellis complained about a clear gloss she put on. That night, she had stolen out of the house during off-camera time and sneaked into her parents’ home, where she went into her old bedroom and cleared out her glitter-stuck dresser drawers. She found plenty of other things that she was sure had disappeared, but she didn’t come across a single lipstick.
Uneasy, Marlow picked up her drink and tasted it. Ice-cold, vaguely minty, and strong. Strong enough to make her gums ring. Maybe she’d have just the one, to put her at ease, to blur the last two days. She drained half the glass in a sip.
Honey nodded approvingly. The sounds of the apartment beginning to fill with people—whispering, laughing, finding each other in bursts of happy recognition—wafted down the hall. Honey got up and smoothed the front of her jumpsuit. “See you out there,” she said, almost grimly, then strode away with the gait of a woman on a mission, spike heels pummeling the dark floors.
Marlow got dressed, worming her feet into Honey’s shoes, tugging gently at the dress’s purring zipper. The mask was rubbery and warm. It had neat cutouts for her eyes, so she could keep Honey in her sights. It left her nose and mouth free, too. Technically, she could breathe easy.
* * *
David intercepted Marlow at the end of the hallway, just before the living room. He held out a gray-screen tablet with minuscule printing—a contract—and asked her to sign with her finger.
“Standard nondisclosure,” he said. “Nothing leaves this room. There’s no recording, no messaging, no mapping allowed at Honey’s gatherings. No devices at all, actually. No one’s to tell anyone they’re here.” He nodded, approvingly, at Marlow’s bloodied wrist.
“And no one can say I was here,” Marlow said.
David nodded. “Not if they don’t want Honey’s lawyers to ruin their lives.” He lifted her hand to the tablet gently and pointed at the empty line.
There were about fifty people in the living room, waiting, fidgeting, gripping their drinks. Like her, they were all wearing white, and the masks. It took her a moment to place what the room was missing. Every guest, to a one—she thought of Elsa’s smirk—was pale-skinned. When Marlow emerged from the hall, they all looked up at the sight of someone entering the room, dropping their conversations instantly. She braced herself for the looks of recognition, afraid that the mask she was wearing wasn’t enough to hide who she was, that the temptation to cash in on the hunt would trump some partygoer’s fear of Honey’s NDA. But all she saw was disappointment; she was not who they were waiting for. It was somehow true, she thought, her mood warming with the booze—she was safe. The best place to hide in New York was in a crowd that only cared about Honey.
And then Honey was there, making them roar, stepping into a spotlight that swung toward her from somewhere unseen. The people began to clap. Marlow edged into a space along the wall and watched them. Men were misty-eyed. Women bounced in their shoes. Honey held up her glass to them.
“My friends,” she said. “So good to see you.”
As if prayer had begun, every head tucked downward.
“I remember privacy,” Honey said. She slid her free hand into her jumpsuit pocket and began to sway slightly. “I was born right before the Spill. The federal internet didn’t start till I was five, in 2021. Yes—I’m old.” She gestured, with her drink, at a cluster of twentysomething girls. They tittered. “My parents didn’t trust it, like most people,” Honey went on. “Though they did like the mapping.” She smiled with practiced mischief. “There was an old sycamore tree on my uncle’s land my mama wouldn’t never let me climb,” she said. “But I used to sneak right past her and climb that dang tree anyway. That tree gave me courage. That tree made me strong. But once the new internet came along, the government always knew where everyone was. And my mama always knew where I was. I never climbed that tree again.”
Marlow glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed that