hand and said: “Mute. I’m trying to focus—Oh, for crying out loud. Now I’ve got to start over.”
She was still counting when Marlow thudded down the corridor to the waiting jet.
Then she was alone in the eighteenth row of a sparsely attended flight. Marlow’s stomach felt vaguely jumpy; she had never been on a plane. She found both ends of her seat belt and clicked them firmly into place. Then she closed her eyes, forgetting her naked wrist, and intuited: How do I fly?
There was no voice to answer. It was only then, hours after she had torn herself away from every person she knew, that Marlow felt alone.
* * *
Someone touched her shoulder as she waited on the curb for a taxi. Marlow turned to find two women staring at her. The younger of the two, a teenager in a low-cut dress all wrong for her age and the time of day, was fidgeting in her heels as she looked at Marlow, uncertainty and exhilaration competing for control of her expression. The older one, fiftysomething, had on a dour look and an I NY shirt that reached her knees. As the younger one’s hand drifted toward Marlow’s arm, the older one glared at what must have been her daughter. “You can’t touch them,” she whispered. “There are rules.”
Marlow stood there, feeling naked, clutching her duffel over her torso. These were people—real people—who had never met her, but knew who she was. Followers in the flesh. She supposed that on some level, she had never believed it, that behind those millions of screen names were humans with heartbeats and luggage, like her.
The girl withdrew her hand. “I’m a huge fan,” she said. “I used to give myself eraser burns a zillion times a day, but you know.” She gestured at Marlow. “I’m good now.”
Marlow felt a little streak of triumph shoot through her; this, she was prepared for. There were dozens of phrases she used to respond to followers who sent her messages of their own mental health plights; they had been scripted by the network’s advertorial team, massaged by Ellis on behalf of Antidote, and signed off on by standards at the network.
“Isn’t it amazing what we can conquer,” Marlow said to the girl, “with willpower plus a little help from Hysteryl?”
The mother snorted. The girl looked confused. “Huh?” she said.
“And—I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Marlow rushed to add, her face growing hot. “I mean, eraser burns—those really hurt.” It wasn’t part of the approved verbiage, she thought, but she was far away now from anyone who would care. At the thought, something lifted in front of her. The sky seemed to lighten. This was it—this was the world where people didn’t live on camera. She was in it. Her audience, right now, was two. She let her duffel drift back to her side.
The girl stepped closer to Marlow and planted one high-heeled foot into the concrete. She jutted her hip out petulantly. “But what happened at the rest of your sowing?” she said. “Your feed is down. It’s killing me!”
Her mother shot her a look. “That’s enough, Donna,” she said. She looked for something with which to tug her daughter back, but the girl’s dress was so skimpy, her mother’s fingers kept finding skin.
The girl pressed on, batting her mother’s hand away. “Really,” she said, squinting. “What are you doing here? Where’s Ellis?”
Marlow felt like her heart was at the base of her throat, trying to climb to the light. The girl said Ellis’s name just like she did—as if she had known him forever.
“Mom, she’s not answering,” the girl complained after a moment. “Will the baby be a boy or a girl?” she said to Marlow. “You could at least tell us that.”
Marlow could not think of one thing to say. She stood there, frozen, as the girl’s face turned disappointed, then annoyed, before her mother forced her away, dragging both of their bags herself. Marlow turned toward the line of cabs, pretending not to hear the rest of their conversation.
“Just not my cup of tea,” the mother was saying. “You know, the other girl still has the most terrible scar.”
Marlow felt a stab of cold rip straight through her chest. She saw crimped black at the edge of her vision. Anger closed in on the other things she was trying to hold on to: reminders of her age and privilege and the benefits of the high road. There would be more of these people. They were