Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(34)

Gideon groaned. “Goddamn it.”

*

Since it was also the year of the Miss Ordinaria test run, and press would be there, the celebration this year was bigger than usual. Fancier. A crowd of people clustered outside the gates in cocktail attire, trying to fake their way in by saying some invented relative was a dearly departed donor.

“Laaaame,” Peter sighed, barely looking up from his game app.

“Baby, stop,” whined his girlfriend, tugging at his tux sleeve.

As their driver handed the limo keys to the valet, Gideon made his way toward the ballroom with Ashbot, wincing from the flashbulbs of press and paparazzi that usually followed a Maclaine at a social event. It didn’t faze Ashbot, naturally, and the photos would end up looking great, which was the reason so many actresses were Ordinarias passed off as real by their managers and agents: nary an unflattering candid shot in sight.

The grand ballroom was huge, white, and full of sparkling decorations. A live jazz band played tasteful standards under the conversation, with a few couples dancing and chatting on the dance floor. Expensive seafood was draped over a giant avalanche of ice on a long marble table, and a fountain burbled in the center of the room. Caterers, all in white, drifted from one side of the expansive room to the other, offering hors d’oeuvres to the millionaires and investors and Silicon Valley boy-geniuses. They were too busy invasively prodding and examining the new Miss Ordinarias, awestruck by their seeming so real.

It felt, all in all, more like a wedding reception than a donors' ball. A wedding reception at a gigantic doctor’s office. This was both excellent branding work and a weird vibe that made Gideon even more nervous.

Ashbot didn’t look fazed, because “fazed” was not a setting. She looked at him and smiled—he watched the glittery green makeup on her eyelids appear and disappear when she blinked. (They didn’t need to blink, but the feature was added when the company realized the lack of blinking made people uncomfortable.)

“Why don’t you go talk to them?” Gideon gestured toward the guys’ dates, clustered in a tight circle in front of the bar.

“Okay!” She practically skipped away.

Gideon scanned the crowd. So, a black dress. It was impossible. They were on everybody, from eleven-year-old heiresses to seventy-year-old matrons. He could just give up. Maybe she would find him.

That’s when he saw her.

He couldn’t explain how he knew it was her, really, other than he just did. She was standing on the edge of the dance floor, her arms crossed, and she was staring at him without any subtlety. He began walking toward her, his heart pounding. She didn’t move, didn’t meet him halfway, and she wasn’t smiling.

She just looked so familiar somehow, but the way déjà vu is familiar—it could be a real memory, or it could be that one of your synapses just fired weirdly for a second.

As he came closer, he saw she had brown hair, pinned back, and olive skin. She was sort of skinny-fat: skinny but not toned like Ashbot. Most of all, she stuck out. She didn’t belong here. But instead of pitying her, or tattling to a security guard, Gideon immediately recognized himself in that.

Finally he reached her, and they faced each other.

“Who are you?” he asked apprehensively, then made a face. “God, this is so melodramatic.”

She shrugged. “I’m Anonymous. Obviously.”

“What’s your real name?”

She continued glaring at him, ice-cold, and deadpanned: “You don’t think my parents named me that?”

“If they did, you should call Social Services.”

Bantering with her felt as natural as eating or sleeping. Weird—he was usually so quiet.

“So. Your dad’s empire is doing well.”

“Do you go to Pembrooke? Is that why I recognize you?”

Her mouth twisted in a sad smile.

“I’ve only been in your grade for, like, eight years. Sometimes in your class.”

Gideon pushed on his temples, like it might shift his mind into place. Frustrated, he said, “I remember, but I . . . don’t remember. Does that sound crazy?”

She shook her head, then glanced around them rapidly.

“We shouldn’t talk here.”

*

They walked briskly out of the industrial back door, her in the lead, and after five minutes wound up sitting on a curb just near the highway. It had rained, and the black pavement was strewn with shining puddles. The curb was damp, but the situation itself was too surreal for either of them to make “damp formal-wear ass” a priority right now.

“What’s going on?”

She turned to him and took a breath, like she’d been preparing for this for months and knew she didn’t have much time.

“They wiped your memories of me. And some . . . other things, which are also related to me. We were friends for a really, really long time. From when we were kids to when they found out.”

“How would they wipe me? And they found out what? Just get to the point.” Gideon was wondering if he should call 911 on this crazy girl. He was also beginning to notice that damp formal-wear ass right around now.

She halted and glared at him.

“Wait. First, can I just say, I can’t believe you’re doing what you’re doing.”

“Excuse me?”