All the Birds in the Sky(39)
Patricia recognized Laurence right off the bat. The sandy hair was the same, cut into a messy part instead of a fringe. He was a lot taller and a tad stockier. The eyes were the same hazel-gray and his chin still jutted, and he still looked kind of perplexed and a little pissed off about everything. But that could be because he was one of the people she hadn’t yet healed. She did that now. He was wearing a collarless black button-up shirt with a small tiger embroidered on it, and black canvas pants.
“You feeling okay?” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, straightening up. He half-smiled, and rolled his neck like an owl. “Yeah. Thanks. Starting to feel better. There was something weird about those hors d’oeuvres.”
“Yeah.”
He did not recognize her. Which made sense, it had been ten years, and a lot had probably happened. Patricia should just keep moving through the party. Just move along, don’t try to have some kind of bullshit uncomfortable reunion. But she couldn’t help herself.
“Laurence?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. And then his eyes grew. “Patricia?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, cool. It’s good to, uh, see you again. How have you been?”
“I’ve been good. How are you doing?”
“I’m good too.” Long pause. Laurence shuffled and kneaded a square napkin. “So. You violate any laws of physics lately?”
“Ha ha. No, not really.” Patricia needed to get out of this conversation before it crushed the life out of her. “Anyway. Good running into you again.”
“Yeah.” Laurence looked around. “I should introduce you to my girlfriend, Serafina. She was here a second ago. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll just, uh, just find her.”
Laurence turned and plowed into the throng, looking for his girlfriend. Patricia wanted to get out of there, but she felt like she’d promised Laurence she wouldn’t leave this spot. She was bound to this place, as sure as if she’d been imprisoned inside a rock. Minutes passed and Laurence did not come back, and Patricia got more antsy
Why had she thought it would be a good idea to say hi to Laurence? It just brought up a lot of weird, painful memories of puberty and nearly losing herself, and it wasn’t like she needed more awkwardness in her life right now. She’d been feeling invincible, partly because she had just “saved” this UFO party, but now she felt sour, maybe even depressed. Patricia wasn’t naturally manic-depressive, but a big part of the instruction at Eltisley Maze had involved keeping two very different, maybe incompatible, states of mind at once—and in some ways, it was like being taught to be bipolar on purpose. People had a rough time of it, and nobody should be surprised that you wound up with people like Diantha. But Patricia was trying not to think about Diantha.
Patricia’s mood was crashing fast. Promise or no promise, she had to get out of here.
“Hey.” A guy was standing in front of Patricia. He had on a ridiculous waistcoat with purple fleur-de-lis on it, and a watch chain, plus puffy white sleeves. Wide sideburns and shoulder-length dreadlocks framed his face, which had a nice jawline and an easy smile. “You’re Patricia, right? I heard you were indirectly responsible for the amelioration of the atrocious dubthrash music. I’m Kevin.”
He had an accent that she couldn’t place—sort of Mid-Atlantic. Anglophile. His handshake was soft and encompassing, but not grippy. He was an animal lover, she could tell, who had pets, plural.
Kevin and Patricia talked about music and the basic incompatibility between “cocktail party” and “dance party” (because a floor could be a dance floor or a sophisticated-mingling-with-shallow-glasses floor but not both: Floors were not infinitely subdividable or versatile).
Laurence came back with a cute waifish redhead with a pointy chin, wearing a sparkly scarf. “This is Serafina. She works with emotional robots,” Laurence said. “This is Patricia,” he told Serafina. “My friend from junior high. She saved my life.”
Hearing herself described that way made Patricia spit-take her cosmo. “She saved my life”—apparently, that was the anecdote that she’d been boiled down to, in Laurence’s mind.
“I never thanked you,” Laurence said. Then Serafina was clasping Patricia’s hand delicately and saying it was nice to meet her, and Patricia had to introduce Kevin to both of them. Kevin nodded and smiled. He was taller than Laurence, and you could have fit two of Serafina inside him.
Laurence gave Patricia his card and there was vague talk about getting lunch.
After Laurence and Serafina drifted away, Patricia told Kevin, “I didn’t really save his life. He was exaggerating.”
Kevin shrugged, causing his watch chain to jangle. “It’s his life. One tends to privilege personal insights in such matters.”
*
A LEXUS PULLED up in front of Patricia’s apartment building just as she was getting her house keys out of her purse. It was three in the morning, and somehow Kawashima had known the exact moment that Patricia would get home. As usual, he wore a bespoke dark suit, with a thin black tie and a bright red pressed handkerchief providing one splash of color, even on this hot night. He got out of the car and gave Patricia a cheery smile, like he was pleased they’d happened to run into each other. Kawashima was one of the most powerful magicians Patricia knew, but everyone who met him thought he was a hedge-fund manager. His black hair was short except for one perfect swoosh, and he had the kind of boyish good looks that made people want to trust him even when he was scamming them out of millions.