whole time I act like an Indian,” Aston said, while bouncing on a pogo stick.
“No,” Craig said, trying to imagine which kind of Indian Aston meant, and which kind would sink the both of them faster. “Artist,” he reminded him. “You’re an artist.”
Aston nodded. He did some coke. Seven minutes later, he had an idea: he wanted to stage an exhibition in which he would sit in a pitch-black room, completely naked but for a pair of glow-in-the-dark leg casts, like the ones he had to wear the summer before fifth grade, after he fell under a friend’s ATV. Visitors to the exhibit would each be allowed five minutes alone with him, to sign his casts with black light markers. “Let’s do it at a museum,” he said to Craig. “Whichever one’s gonna pay us the most.”
“That’s not how museums work,” Craig said.
Aston, who had turned twenty-one the day before, shrugged and said, “Urban Outfitters, then.”
Which was how, that night, Orla and Floss ended up walking to the store on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Fourteenth Street. They stood in a long line beneath a marquee that read: “Urban Outfitters Presents an Extraordinary Work: Aston Clipp’s My Legs, Your Canvas: On the Summer of 2005 Being Shitty as Hell.”
“He’s seven years younger than you,” Orla reminded Floss as they shuffled forward.
“Yeah,” Floss said. “But look at him.” She gazed up at the story-tall black-and-white photo of Aston in the window. In the picture, Aston gripped an old Super Soaker in one hand, offered the lens the middle finger with the other. “He’s totally an old soul,” Floss sighed.
A black Mercedes sedan crept around the corner, came to a stop in front of them, and expelled a model. The model, whose towering shoes were made of slippery wood, walked toward the store haltingly, like each step was her first. She cut the line and was ushered inside by a man with an earpiece, in a blazer.
Someone behind Floss and Orla said, “Oh, I think they’re dating.”
Floss dug her fingers into Orla’s arm. Tears were clinging precariously to her mink lashes, the ones they had saved up for, the ones that weren’t supposed to get wet. “Don’t worry about her,” Orla said. She thought of Catherine talking to Danny first, sealing their fates forever. “Just go down there and get him like she isn’t even there,” she went on firmly. “Once he meets you, she won’t matter.”
* * *
After an hour of wandering the upper level of the store, touching dream catchers and face-sized hoop earrings, Orla spotted Floss coming out of the dark room where Aston sat naked. She walked to the top of the staircase to wait for her.
As Orla stood there, the model brushed by her and began descending the steps, carefully negotiating the slick teak of her heels. Orla’s pulse quickened as Floss stopped where she was, her hand on the railing, and waited for the model. Her mouth curled into a shape that Orla knew meant she had just thought of something. When the model was only a stair or two above her, Floss raised the back of her hand to her mouth and, with great deliberation, wiped it.
The model cursed and spit at her, wobbling as she jabbed her finger in Floss’s direction, but Floss only smirked and started climbing the stairs again. Just as the two of them met in the middle, the model’s ankle buckled in her strange, dangerous shoes and her torso jerked to the left. She yelped and reached out for Floss to steady herself.
The motion Floss made was so small, so fast, like the flit of a hummingbird, and yet it was entirely unmistakable: she jerked her arm away. The model tumbled down the stairs. Her head knocked against the steps twice. She settled at the bottom in a shape that hurt to look at, one arm hooked unnaturally beneath the rest of her body. A gasp echoed through the store, loud but barely audible over the throbbing trance music. Floss looked up at Orla helplessly.
Orla looked back, her mouth dry and hanging open. She wasn’t sure if the hollow thumps she had heard came from the model’s shoes or her bones, which sat so close to the surface of her skin, Orla felt like she could see her whole skeleton struggling. The model groaned and thrashed her head. Nothing else was moving. “Paulina!” someone shrieked. Someone else yelled, “Call 911!”
Floss clambered up the stairs, knees bound by the hem