she chose was so formal and hateless, it sounded foreign. “Orla Cadden?” said a woman, sounding befuddled, like she was reading Orla’s name off something she hadn’t seen before. “I’ve been—You sent me an email earlier this year,” the woman said. “Or rather, it was last year. It was at least a year ago. I’m sorry to be getting back to you so much later. But if you still don’t have representation, let’s set up a time to talk.” She paused. “Oh—this is Marie Jacinto. I’m a literary agent.”
* * *
Marie’s assistant told Orla to come in the next day at eleven. In the morning, Orla put on a pair of black ponte pants that were snugger than she remembered, despite the fact that she had barely been able to eat lately, and a freebie owl-print blouse from a hipster store that once mistook her for larger and quirkier than she was. She put on the Yankees cap.
Outside, the air was warm, the sun beating. Orla registered for the first time that it was June, then realized, with a startled glance at the clock in the drugstore window, that it was actually almost July.
In the wake of Anna’s death, a crowd had gathered again outside their building. People who wanted to yell at them mixed with loyal fans shouting support. After the fuss died down, the police removed the barricade for good. For the first time in nearly a year, the whole width of the sidewalk on Twenty-First Street was open. Now it looked as it had when Orla lived here without Floss.
Today, though, Orla peeked under the curved brim of her hat and saw a woman sitting where the line used to be. She looked about fifty, and familiar. She was Latina, with woolly hair dyed brassy orange and eyes rimmed in smudged electric blue. Her soft upper arms shook slightly as she scratched at a sudoku. She had brought, Orla saw, her own chair, the kind of padded metal folding chair Gayle would have dragged to the table if they had an extra person for dinner. The woman looked up when Orla walked out of the building. She closed her book of puzzles.
Orla had time to stop at Starbucks. Hypothetically, she wanted coffee, but she found that the thought of actually drinking it made her queasy. She was, she supposed, nervous. She stood beneath the mermaid marquee, trying to decide what to do. Suddenly, in the glass, she saw the woman from the chair. She was standing still behind her, two sidewalk squares back. Orla started walking again, heading north. She crossed Twenty-Third Street and glanced over her shoulder. The woman was still there, following her. She looked Orla right in the eye.
Orla started to sweat. She wanted to raise her hand, hail a cab, escape, but she could see the cars jammed end to end, up to Madison Square Garden. She would have to take the subway to make her meeting on time. She sped up and crossed Eighth Avenue, headed for Seventh. The woman kept up with no effort, practically floating after her.
Underground at Twenty-Eighth Street, the woman gave Orla space, pacing two columns down on the platform. Just before the 1 train crawled into the station, Orla stole a look at her and tried to figure out where she’d seen her before. In a flash, she saw the woman on television, sitting with her eyes cast down, a man’s arm around her shoulders as she hiccuped and broke into tears. The rest of the memory flooded to the surface, shocking Orla into dizziness. The train’s doors opened, and she forgot, until they were closing again, to step on. She pressed in just in time. The woman was already seated at the other end of the car, with her sudoku back out again. It was Mrs. Salgado. Anna’s mother.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Marlow
New York, New York
2051
Marlow was still sitting in 6D, thinking of Honey and staring at the stationery with her name on it, when she heard the footsteps in the hallway, evenly pounding her way. She stood up. She watched the handle on the front door turn. Human or bot? Bot or human?
Bot. It was Mateo, from the Archive, and Marlow sputtered indiscriminately in protest as she took a step back from it, toward the apartment’s artless window. If Mateo belonged to the Archive, how could it be all the way down here?
And then she saw that an explanation must be on the way. Mateo was holding the