Orla touched her gin and tonic to Floss’s tequila, but couldn’t bring herself to take a sip. She watched the men and the bachelorette girls flirt. One of the women was wearing a sash that said “#TeamBride.” She was pointing at something beyond the wall with great excitement, and now the rest of the girls clustered in on her to see. The men did, too, pressing against them.
“It’s a bachelorette party,” Orla said to Floss. “Who isn’t Team Bride?”
Floss didn’t answer. She was perfectly still, her mouth slack, her eyes tracking the stare of the bachelorette girls and the guys who were buying their drinks. Orla twisted around. Everyone in the bar was now looking north, past Team Bride’s finger, at a building twenty blocks or so up. The tower, thin and glassy, could hardly be distinguished from the twilight. Most of its units were dark, so the sky bled into the bedrooms and kitchens, turning the building bluish gray from top to bottom—nearly. Just beneath the penthouse, the tower had a wound: one square was startling orange. Inside it, a fire ebbed and raged.
Floss stood up suddenly, knocking her chair into the one behind it. “That’s—” she said. She looked at Orla wildly. She pumped her arm in the direction of the burning building.
“What?” Orla stood, too, frightened by Floss’s flailing hands. By the time she was on her feet, she had put it together herself.
“Aston’s building,” Floss said. “The candles.”
Orla grabbed Floss’s phone from the table and took herself back to the browser, back to the window where they left Aston crying on the floor. This livestream has ended. She thumbed the screen. She tried to call him instead. Voice mail picked up promptly. “Aston? It’s Orla,” she said into the phone, raising her voice above a sudden chorus of sirens below. “Aston—we’re worried.”
Across the roof, Team Bride crossed herself with great fanfare, then turned and sobbed into the blazer of one of the Middle Eastern guys. “It just looks so much like 9/11,” she warbled, then drew her face back, sniffling, and peered up at the man. “No offense.”
Orla watched the girl who was getting married lift her drugstore veil from her eyes. “Y’all, I know it’s fucked up,” she said softly. “But from here, it’s kind of beautiful, too.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Marlow
New York, New York
2051
At eight thirty, Honey tapped the door of the guest room and pushed in without waiting for an answer. Marlow, who had been dozing, uncurled herself and looked at her. Honey was wearing a strapless white jersey jumpsuit. Her hair had been ironed and slicked straight back. She carefully set down on the bed a gold tray that held a clear drink, a pair of white leather ankle boots, a folded square of white silk—a dress, Marlow supposed—half a dozen silver tubes of lipstick, which wobbled as the tray touched down, and a white mask, the kind that covered just the top half of the face, with winged ends pointing upward on either side.
Marlow sat up and touched one finger, gently, to the rim of the glass. The smell of mint and lime rose from it as the ice cubes gently rearranged themselves. “I’d rather red wine, if you have it,” she said.
Honey snorted. “And risk a spill?” she said. “You can’t afford to reupholster my couch.” She nodded at the lipsticks. “If you use any of these, please do it over a sink.”
Marlow looked at the lipsticks—beautiful, all of them, in dark raisin and eggplant and pewter and even an old-fashioned red. “I don’t wear lipstick,” she said. “Not a fan.”
“No?” Honey raised her eyebrows. “And you decided that?”
Marlow rolled her eyes. “Yes, Honey, I decided that.” Such a believable assertion—I decide what I like and I don’t—and yet she had a feeling Honey could tell it wasn’t true. Marlow had been in the midst of deciding whether or not she was a lipstick kind of person when she met Ellis, years ago. He had mentioned nonchalantly, on one of their early dates, that he couldn’t stand lipstick, that it reminded him of Stella the clown, that fixture of Constellation childhoods. His vote had made up her mind. But her followers were skeptical. That whole lipstick speech he gave you? one of them commented after the date. BullSHIT. His last girlfriend SLEPT in the stuff. Homeboy’s just toeing the company line. Think about it: the Hysteryl peeps don’t want you drawing ANY attention to your mouth—brings back memories, CHOMP! I mean, why do