Sea of Tranquility(14)
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Ohio.”
“No, I mean originally.”
“Still Ohio.”
“Oh. I thought maybe I heard an accent.”
“The accent’s from Ohio too.”
The fortune-teller’s eyes were still closed.
“You have a secret,” she said.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Her eyes opened. “You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine, and we’ll never see each other again,” she said.
It was an attractive proposition. “Okay,” Mirella said. “But you go first.”
“My secret is, I hate people,” the woman said, very sincerely, and for the first time Mirella liked her.
“All people?”
“All except maybe like three,” she said. “Your turn.”
“My secret is, I want to kill a man.” Was this true? Mirella wasn’t sure. It had a ring of truth about it.
The fortune-teller’s eyes darted over Mirella’s face, like she was trying to work out if this was some kind of joke. “A specific man?” she asked. She smiled tentatively—You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you’re kidding?—but Mirella didn’t smile back.
“Yes,” Mirella said. “A specific man.” It became real as she said it.
“What’s his name?”
“Jonathan Alkaitis.” When had she last said the name out loud? She repeated it to herself, more quietly this time. “Actually, maybe I just want to talk to him. I don’t know.”
“Pretty big difference,” the fortune-teller said.
“Yeah.” Mirella closed her eyes against the dark of the sky, the tumult of the nearby party, the reek of cigarette smoke, the fortune-teller’s face. “I guess I’ll have to make up my mind.”
“Okay,” the fortune-teller said, “well, thanks for the light.” She slid away from Mirella and vanished into the party, through an open door like a portal into a lost world. It was a cold night, and the moon was brilliant over New York City. Mirella stood looking at it for a moment, then returned to the party, which felt like a dream she’d had once, all abstract color and commotion and lights. Louisa was dancing in the living room. Mirella stood watching her for a moment, then waded through the crowd.
“I’ve got a headache,” Mirella said. “I think I’m going to go.”
Louisa kissed her, and Mirella knew it was over. She felt nothing. “Call me,” Louisa said.
“Adieu,” Mirella said, as she backed away through the crowd, and Louisa, who spoke no French and didn’t understand the implication, blew her a kiss.
3
Last Book Tour on Earth /
2203
The first stop on the book tour was New York City, where Olive did signing events at two bookstores and then found an hour to walk in Central Park before the bookseller dinner. The Sheep Meadow at twilight: silvery light, wet leaves on the grass. The sky was crowded with low-altitude airships, and in the distance the falling-star lights of commuter aircraft streaked upward toward the colonies. Olive paused for a moment to orient herself, then walked toward the ancient double silhouette of the Dakota. Hundred-story towers rose up behind it.
The Dakota was where Olive’s new publicist was waiting, Aretta, in charge of all events in the Atlantic Republic. Aretta was a little younger than Olive, and deferential in a way that made Olive nervous. When Olive walked into the lobby, Aretta stood quickly, and the hologram with whom she’d been speaking blinked out. “Did you have a nice walk in the park?” she asked, already smiling in anticipation of a positive reply.
“It was lovely, thank you,” Olive said. She didn’t add It made me wish I could live on Earth, because the last time she’d confided in a handler, it was repeated at dinner—“Do you know what Olive told me on the ride over?” a librarian in Montreal had reported breathlessly to a restaurant table full of waiting librarians, “She told me she was a little nervous before her talk!”— so now as a matter of policy Olive didn’t reveal anything even remotely personal to anyone ever.
“Well,” Aretta said, “we should probably be getting to the venue. It’s about six or seven blocks, should we maybe just…?”
“I’d love to walk,” Olive said, “if you don’t mind.” They walked out together into the silver city.
* * *
—
Did Olive actually wish she could live on Earth? She vacillated on the question. She’d lived all her life in the hundred and fifty square kilometers of the second moon colony, the imaginatively named Colony Two. She found it beautiful—Colony Two was a city of white stone, spired towers, tree-lined streets and small parks, alternating neighborhoods of tall buildings and little houses with miniature lawns, a river running under pedestrian archways—but there’s something to be said for unplanned cities. Colony Two was soothing in its symmetry and its order. Sometimes order can be relentless.
* * *
—
In the signing line after the lecture in Manhattan that night, a young man knelt on his side of the table so that he was more or less at eye level with Olive, and said, “I have a book to sign”—his voice trembled a little—“but what I really wanted to tell you is that your work helped me through a bad patch last year. I’m grateful.”