“Coming!” Eris called out, balancing on one red-soled heel as she pulled the other on, then running to let Mariel inside. She’d never realized how convenient the instant-access list was until she had to start answering her own door.
“Sorry, I just need a few more minutes, to curl my hair …” she said, stepping back into her bedroom. Her mom was out somewhere—probably apartment shopping; she’d been talking of nothing else since she got the transfer from Mr. Cole.
Mariel sailed calmly through the clutter of Eris’s room. “I should have known we’d be on Eris time,” she said, not unkindly. “Do you always have this much trouble making decisions?” She nodded at Eris’s narrow bed, invisible under the mountain of clothes piled atop it.
“I like options,” Eris replied, feeling an inexplicable stab of guilt. Most of those clothes had been purchased on the shopping spree she and her mom had gone on this morning, funded by Mr. Cole.
The hair curler beeped, and Eris reached up to attack the long layers around her face, her lower lip pulled under her teeth. Seeing her expression, Mariel sighed. “Here, let me,” she said, stepping to the corner where Eris stood. As she turned, Eris caught a glimpse of her plain black dress from behind. It was shockingly low-cut. Normally Eris wouldn’t have cared; god knows she was all for showing more skin. But the dress swooped so far that it revealed part of one of Mariel’s inktats, a line of script in Spanish. Eris cringed at the sight. The half-revealed inktat looked completely tacky.
“What does that say?” she couldn’t help asking.
“Oh, the tat?” Mariel arched her neck to look over her shoulder. “Don’t you know how to look things up, Eris?” She laughed and began using the curler to wind pieces of Eris’s hair tight, letting them fall again in wide tousled waves. “See? I have the hang of it way better than you.”
“Thanks.” She met Mariel’s eyes in the mirror. Mariel was smiling. Eris smiled automatically in return.
“Tell me more about this party,” Mariel went on. “I’m excited to meet your friends.”
Avery was having a party tonight—the first real party she and Atlas had thrown since he came back from abroad. It would be huge.
“Do you want to borrow one of my dresses?” Eris heard herself say.
Mariel paused. The lock of Eris’s hair in the curler sizzled, and she let it go. “What’s wrong with my dress?” she asked.
Eris opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out. How could you tell your girlfriend that she looked bad? That next to your glamorous classmates with their custom-made clothes and perfectly applied makeup, she seemed almost pitiable?
The thought of what they would all say about Mariel—and about her, walking with Mariel into the party—made her flush a sudden bright red.
“Nothing. Forget I said it,” she amended quickly. After a beat of pained silence, she kept going, answering Mariel’s question as if nothing had happened. “Anyway, yes, you’re going to love Avery. She’s been my best friend since we were kids. She and her brother, Atlas, are throwing the party—and Jess and Risha will be there too, I’m sure, and all the girls I used to play field hockey with …” She was babbling, she knew it. Mariel kept working on Eris’s hair, her motions tight, her back stiff with wounded pride.
“What about Leda?”
“I’m sure she’ll be there.”
“Does she know yet, about her dad?”
Eris hesitated a moment. “He isn’t going to tell her.”
“What!” Mariel set down the curler and moved around to look Eris square in the eyes. “Eris, why didn’t you mention this sooner? I thought you said the dinner went well! What do you mean, he isn’t going to tell her?” She sounded upset.
Eris took a deep breath and related the whole story, about the restaurant and the scarf and all the questions Mr. Cole had asked about how she and her mom were doing. How he’d mentioned that it probably wasn’t a great idea to be publicly related—that it would cause too many issues with his job and his family. “He’s transferred a ton of money to us,” Eris said finally. “We’ll be able to move back upstairs, as soon as we can find an apartment.”
“Wait. Let me get this straight.” Mariel had taken a step back from Eris, and was looking at her with something akin to disgust. “He’s paying you off to keep quiet about the fact that you’re his daughter?”
“That’s a harsh way of phrasing it.”
“I’m sorry, how would you phrase it? Eris, this man is buying your silence with a new apartment full of shiny things. Don’t you see? It’s hush money!”
“I’m taking it.” Eris squared her shoulders stubbornly. “I’ve already decided. Hell, I’ve already spent some of it.” She gestured to the heap of clothes on the bed, all new and expensive, still on their velvet boutique hangers.
“It doesn’t bother you that your father is bribing you to stay quiet? Because your existence is inconvenient for him?” Mariel had raised her voice.
“Why are you getting so upset about this?” Eris shot back. “I can’t force him to spend time with me if he doesn’t want to. At least with money I can do something.”
“Do what? Buy yourself more worthless crap?” Mariel grabbed a handful of necklaces from the dresser and let them slide through her fingers. “Does this really make you happy, Eris?”
“Yes, it does!”
Mariel blinked at her, horrified. Eris sighed and lowered her voice. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just … don’t you see? I can do things with money, real things that matter. I could help you and your family!” Misreading Mariel’s expression, Eris forged on. “You could move to a higher floor. You wouldn’t have to work at Altitude after school anymore—you could focus on school, spend more time with your mom.”
“God, Eris. You don’t get it, do you? I don’t want your damn charity.”
“It’s not—”
“I thought you’d changed,” Mariel went on, and the disappointment on her face hit Eris like a physical blow. “I thought you were different. But I was wrong. You’re just the same spoiled bitch you were back when you waltzed into Altitude every day and saw straight through me like I wasn’t even there.”
“I haven’t changed?” Eris felt her temper rising. “You’re as stubborn and arrogant as you were the first day I met you!”
“Guess what, Eris? Money won’t solve your problems for you.”
“At least it’ll get me out of this shithole!” Eris shouted.
She knew right away she’d gone too far.
“This shithole is where I grew up,” Mariel said coldly, punctuating every word.
“I’m sorry,” Eris began, but Mariel was already taking another step back, the distance between them gaping ever wider.
“Forget it, Eris. God forbid I come to the party and embarrass you, in this dress you apparently hate so much.” She turned and left the room. A moment later Eris heard the front door close behind her.
She thought of running after Mariel, but her feet were rooted in place. Eris felt as if something were shattering inside her. Maybe it was her pride breaking, she thought; her stupid, foolish, stubborn pride. Or maybe it was her heart.
She stepped closer to the mirror, taking a shaky breath, trying to hold it together. There was no denying that she looked fantastic in her new vermilion dress. Fortunately she owned the perfect accessory for it.
Eris tied the scarf Mr. Cole had given her in a tight loop around her neck, Parisian-style, and set out for Avery’s alone.
WATT
“LIGHT OFF,” WATT moaned, rolling over.
Everything hurt. His throat felt dry, his tongue fuzzy, and his head was pounding worse than the day he’d had Nadia installed. He wasn’t sure why the damned light wouldn’t turn off, but he kept his eyes shut tight in a valiant attempt to block it out. He wanted to curse, except that it seemed like too much effort.
“Watzahn,” Nadia spoke into his eartennas.
“Ow! Too loud!” He winced, hands over ears. He rolled himself over and realized, dimly, that he was still in his clothes from last night. What had happened?