The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(173)

Everyone turned to look as booming cheers erupted to the north. Exuberant music blared up the street. The last of the Ghostwalk was exiting the square. Now came the March of the Spirits.

Amanda crunched her brow behind her white burglar mask as confetti guns popped and the locals turned jubilant. The crowd had gone from funeral to Mardi Gras at the turn of a dime.

She sneaked an anxious peek at Zack, a parallel study in conflicting extremes. His rabbit-eared mask radiated levity while the eyes behind it screamed with bewilderment. He stood right next to her, but he might as well have been a thousand miles away.

She took his dangling hand in hers. “It has to be hard for you. Coming back to your hometown and finding it so different.”

Zack threw an antsy glance at the drugstore behind him, where a public phone lay encased inside an opaque metal cylinder. A red light on the door indicated that the tube was currently occupied.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It seems like every big difference in this world can be traced back to the Cataclysm in one way or another. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised New York changed the most.”

The first of the parade platforms approached, ferrying a gorgeous young blonde in a star-spangled minidress. She crooned a bouncy tribute to New York into her microphone while a thirty-foot ghostbox displayed a giant live projection of her buxom upper half. Zack noticed the empty space beneath the platform’s hanging drapes. It seemed aeris had turned all the floats literal.

Amanda stroked his hand with her thumb, then grimaced in affliction when he pulled it away.

“Zack . . .”

“It’s all right. I understand.”

“Understand what? We haven’t had a chance to talk.”

He pursed his lips in a crusty scowl. “If it’s a ‘let’s just be friends after all’ speech, I don’t need to hear it. You’ve been wearing it on your face for the last seven hours.”

Amanda threw a quick nervous glance at David, five feet away.

“It’s not what you think,” she said to Zack. “I’ve been waiting for the right time to explain it.”

“You don’t have to explain anything. It happens. It’s not like we signed a contract.”

Amanda clenched her jaw. She knew Zack well enough to see the mask behind the mask. He was determined to play the breezy teflon shrugger until one of them screamed.

“Would you listen to me? I’m not backing out. There’s just . . . a new complication.”

Exuberant children in brightly colored jumpsuits lined every edge of the second float. They reached into buckets and flung foil-wrapped candies at the crowd. Zack gave Amanda his full attention, even as a chocolate coin sailed between them.

“I’m all ears.”

She shook her head. “Not now. When we’re alone again, and when you’re less angry—”

“I’m not angry.”

“No. Of course not. You’re just convinced I dropped my feelings for you on a fickle whim. Why would that anger you?”

“Well, what did you expect me to think? Yesterday we had a nice plan worked out. Today you can barely look at me. I’ve had seven hours to scratch my head over it. All I have now are a bloody scalp and a few second thoughts of my own. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Maybe it’ll be easier for everyone if we just forget it.”

Tiny spikes of stress tempis hatched from Amanda’s feet, piercing the straps of her borrowed sandals. She banished away the whiteness, then cast a thorny glower at the parade.

“I swear to God, Zack, sometimes I think you’re played by twins. I never know which one of you I’m going to get.”

“Great. Maybe the four of us can go out for burgers sometime.”

“Go to hell.”

Amanda cut through the crowd, her jaw held rigid with forced composure. Zack tossed another glance at the pay phone before trading a desolate look with Hannah. She wished the two of them would get over their issues, whatever they were, and just screw already. She feared she and Theo were partly to blame for their hesitation. They didn’t provide the best sales brochure for the carpe diem hookup.

They sat side by side on an unattended shoeshine stand, their faces both covered in weeping theater masks. Theo’s head dipped and jerked erratically. Hannah couldn’t tell if he was asleep or lost in premonitions. She ran gentle fingertips up and down his forearm. The caress always seemed to soothe him, no matter how far gone he was.

“Where’s the happy face?”

Hannah jumped at the high voice next to her. A cute young brunette leaned against the wall. She wore a sleeveless white gown that hugged every contour of her elfin body. Her long brown tresses matched Mia’s hairstyle to the strand. If it wasn’t for the girl’s honey skin and vaguely Eurasian features, Hannah might have wondered if a Future Mia had sent herself back in time.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“You and your fella are wearing the same theater mask,” the stranger noted. “It’s supposed to be one happy face and one sad face. You know, Thalia and Melpomene. The Muses of comedy and tragedy.”

Hannah felt silly to be conversing through a disguise. She pulled it away. The girl studied her.

“Nope. Still sad, but prettier now. Damn, hon, you’re a scorcher. I bet you drive all the boys wild.”