A stab of embarrassment. And wonder. Bella was so old. How had that happened? How had he gotten so far from home? He wanted to do it all over again. He wanted Doran’s shoulder next to him and tiny Christina in his arms. He wanted Carlos on his shoulders at the National Zoo. All of it, all of it again.
“It’s okay, Papa,” Bella said. His tears concerned her. What a small, common thing to worry about.
He inclined his head toward the little girl. “My apologies, Annie. How are you doing this afternoon? Did you fly all the way from California?”
She let go of her mother’s hand and approached him. “I have a flower.”
“Yes, you do.”
“It’s a pretty flower.”
“It certainly is.”
Bella said, “She likes to tell people things.”
The girl offered the flower to him. Up close, the black petals seemed to ripple and shift. Their dark surfaces swirled with traceries of silver that caught the light and spun it prettily. He raised it to his nose and made a show of sniffing it. The little girl laughed.
Words were not required. Sometimes the only way you could tell someone you loved them was to show them something beautiful. Sometimes, he thought, you have to send it from very far away.
“Where did you find this lovely flower?” he asked.
She pointed past his shoulder. He could feel the tower of green behind him. The leaves were about to move.
NOTE: The mnemonic for meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites was written by Andy Duncan and is used with his permission.
Nino Cipri
Dead Air
from Nightmare Magazine
Entry 1.
[Beginning of recorded material.]
[Laughter.]
VOICE: Wait, are you actually—
NITA: Time is, uh, 9:42 in the morning, September 22nd, 2013. This is Nita Rosen interviewing subject by the name of—
VOICE: Jesus, I really did not think you were serious.
[Rustling paper.]
NITA: So you thought I made you sign a release as, what, foreplay?
[Laughter.]
VOICE: I was, like, four tequilas deep by the time you walked in and probably at five when you waved that paper in my face. I would’ve signed my soul away to . . . Uh, I didn’t actually sign my soul over, did I?
[Laughter.]
[Rustling paper.]
NITA: Maybe you should read this again. It’s a standard release that says you’re willing to be interviewed and to have this interview used in a published—well, a hopefully published art project. Thing. I’m not sure what it’ll look like exactly.
VOICE: Seriously? Okay. What’s this project about?
NITA: It’s an ethnography of the people I fuck.
[Moment of silence.]
VOICE: Wow. That’s. Okay.
NITA: Scared off yet?
VOICE: Are you gonna play this in front of, like, some crusty old sociology professors?
NITA: It’s art, not sociology. Or it’s, like, sociologically influenced art. If you read the release, there’s a description.
VOICE: “Documenting the erotic discourse of . . .” [Laughs.] This is pretentious as shit.
NITA: Duh. How else am I gonna get funding?
[Laughter.]
VOICE: So if I say no . . .
NITA: I turn the recorder off, make us some breakfast, and shred the release form. Bid you a nice goodbye and maybe ask for your number.
VOICE: Maybe?
NITA: No promises either way.
VOICE: So no pressure.
NITA: That would be unethical.
VOICE: I think most ethics boards would object to an author having sex with her subjects, but what do I know.
NITA: That’s why it’s art and not science. So?
VOICE: . . . All right. Hit me.
NITA: Okay, so time is now 9:44 in the morning, September 22nd, 2013. Do you want to be referred to anonymously, or . . . ?
MADDIE: Maddie. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.
[Laughter.]
NITA: Oh, no, the pleasure was all mine. So, first question, what’s the first thing you noticed about me in the bar last night?
MADDIE: Oh, wow, okay. Um. I think I saw you from the back first, so—
NITA: Was it my ass? I have a great ass.
[Laughter.]
MADDIE: No! I mean, yes, you have a great ass. No, that’s not what I noticed first. It was your shoulders and neck. The way your hair got stuck to the sweat on your neck when you were dancing.
NITA: Oo-kay, that sounds really unsexy, but—
MADDIE: I wanted to bite you. In a good way. Just put my teeth on this tendon right here and . . .
[. . .]
NITA: Mmm. That’s nice. That’s . . . yeah.
MADDIE: Did you have another question?
NITA: [Clears throat.] Why did you come out last night? Were you hoping to get laid?
MADDIE: I was hoping to dance, drink, have fun. Get out of my head for a while, I guess.
NITA: What was in your head that you were hoping to get away from?
[. . .]
MADDIE: Uh. Stuff?
NITA: You don’t have to answer questions you’re not comfortable with.
MADDIE: Okay, I’m gonna not answer that one.
NITA: Totes fair, totes fair. Were you out alone last night?
MADDIE: I was by the time you got there. A couple of people I knew from work had come with me, but they went home early.
NITA: And you stayed.
MADDIE: Didn’t have any other plans for the night. And like I said, I wanted to, you know—
NITA: Get out of your head.
MADDIE: Yeah. And get laid, I guess. I mean, I don’t know if I put it like that to myself, but if we’re gonna be blunt about it, yeah. I wanted to find somebody. Or at least dance with somebody.
NITA: Just like Whitney, huh.
MADDIE: Who?
NITA: Seriously? You don’t—okay, we’re gonna deal with that later. But I will say that you are a serious outlier in my study, at least with your knowledge of eighties music.
MADDIE: Ooh, an outlier. I like the sound of that. Though I’m curious about how many other subjects you’ve, uh, interviewed.
NITA: We can talk about that later too. All right, this isn’t a normal question for my interviews, but . . . Can I ask about, uh—
[Static.]
NITA: What the hell?
[are you sure you]
MADDIE: Something wrong?
[want to]
NITA: Yeah, the recorder’s being weird. Piece of crap.
MADDIE: What were you going to ask?
NITA: The scars on your back. What are they from?
[. . .]
NITA: You don’t have to answer that if you don’t—
MADDIE: Yeah, I’ll pass. It’s, uh. Not really first-date material.
NITA: Sorry. [Clears throat.] Though if you’re amenable to follow-up interviews, you could give me your number.
[Laughter.]
MADDIE: Shit, that was smooth. Fine. Gimme your phone.
NITA: I’m gonna pause the recording, okay? We can finish the interview after breakfast. You don’t have anywhere to be, do you?
MADDIE: Nowhere I’m not happy to—
[End of recorded material.]
Entry 2.
[Beginning of recorded material.]
[Voices, jazz music, rattling cutlery.]
NITA: Okay, so we are at KnockBox Café, Chicago, Illinois, and it is . . . 2:24 in the afternoon, September 29th, 2013. And I’m here with the lovely Maddie for our, ahem, follow-up interview.
MADDIE: Follow-up interview my ass. [Into microphone.] She asked me out on a date.
NITA: It’s an interview! I’m recording it!
MADDIE: How is this going to fit into your sexnography or whatever if we’re not actually . . .
NITA: In bed?
[Maddie clears her throat.]
NITA: Well, I’
m not gonna make any presumptions, but, like, I’m not here just for the sake of science.
MADDIE: I thought it was art.
NITA: Sociologically influenced art.
MADDIE: Let your record show that I am rolling my eyes right now.
[Laughter.]
NITA: So I missed some of the questions on my initial interview, because a certain someone distracted me. You ready for them?
MADDIE: Let me get coffee first. I feel like I’m gonna need caffeine if you’re gonna ask me about my sex life in public.
NITA: Let me get your drink, okay? I promise, the imaginary ethics review board won’t object.
MADDIE: Okay. Can you get me a dirty chai? With soy milk?
NITA: Sure.
[21 seconds of ambient noise.]
MADDIE: This is so transparently a—maybe not a date, but it’s definitely a something. I have no idea why I am actually charmed by this. [Whispering into microphone.] It doesn’t hurt that you’re cute as hell.
[14 seconds of ambient noise.]
MADDIE: It’s been a long time since I felt like this. I don’t know if I . . .
[39 seconds of ambient noise.]
NITA: Okay. So. Are you from Chicago?
MADDIE: I’m from Washington. State, not D.C. A tiny mountain town up in the Cascades.
NITA: What’s it called?
MADDIE: You wouldn’t have heard of it. It’s a wide spot in the road called—
[Garbled.]
NITA: . . . Yeah, definitely haven’t heard of it.
MADDIE: Told you. Most people in Washington don’t even know it’s there.
NITA: What’s it like?
MADDIE: Used to be a logging town, now it’s a ghost town. Gray and rainy. Lots of forests, lots of overgrown clearcuts.
NITA: Is it pretty, at least? With the woods and the mountains?
MADDIE: I guess. Pretty isn’t really the word I’d use.
NITA: What word would you use, then? To describe it?
MADDIE: Hmmm. Fairy-tale-ish. But not the nice kind of fairy tale. Not something Disney would make into a movie.
NITA: [Laughs.] I’m gonna nod like I totally understand what you’re talking about.
MADDIE: You never read the old versions of fairy tales? The kind where, like, girls drown and turn into swans—
NITA: WHAT? Wait. You’re saying that [garbled] had, like, kids drowning and—
MADDIE: No! No. Just. Uh. My mom just had, uh, books when I was a kid, and I— It’s just like the sort of place where you could imagine things happening. Like Twin Peaks? Have you seen that? Sorta like that. Very David Lynch. Yeah.
[. . .]
NITA: . . . Okay! Moving on. So when did you move to Chicago?
MADDIE: Just this year.
NITA: From [garbled]?
MADDIE: No, no, I left there after, uh, 2009. I’ve lived in a few places since then.
NITA: Just get restless?
MADDIE: Something like that. I guess I, uh, haven’t really wanted to get tied down to a particular place.
NITA: Cool, I get that. Sorta. I grew up in the suburbs and then, like, moved here for college. Anyway. Next question: do you still talk to your parents and—
MALE VOICE: I got a latte and a dirty chai with soy!
MADDIE: I’ll get them.
[. . .]
NITA: Thanks.
MADDIE: Thank you. You’re the one who bought them. So . . . I don’t really want to talk about my parents, if that’s okay?
NITA: Of course! Yeah. Like I said, this is—
MADDIE: Have you seriously asked everyone that you’ve . . . you know. Slept with. Have you asked them these questions?
NITA: Yeah. I mean, it’s a little less awkward when you’ve already, like, stuck your face in someone’s pussy.
MADDIE: . . . True. I guess.
[. . .]
NITA: Did I make it weird? I think I made it weird.
MADDIE: No, it’s fine.
NITA: I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I’m just . . . curious. About you.
[The ambient noise briefly dips in volume. One of them breathes. The other fiddles nervously with a pen. The moment passes; conversations and the music resume.]
MADDIE: It’s okay. I mean. Also I don’t know how to tell you this, but, uh. You’re interviewing the randos you take home for sex, it was never not gonna be weird.
NITA: [Sighs.] Yeah, fair.
MADDIE: It’s all right. I’m used to weird.
NITA: Sounds like it.
[. . .]
MADDIE: What? Is there something on my face?
NITA: No, it’s not . . . Can I just . . .
MADDIE: What?
NITA: Would you mind if I kissed you? I just . . . I’m curious.
MADDIE: Yeah. Yeah, all right.
[. . .]
[Soft laughter.]
NITA: [Softly.] Yeah, that’s as good as I remember.
MADDIE: Okay. Um. Did you have any other questions to ask, so we can keep pretending this is an interview?
NITA: I wasn’t pretending! This is an actual thing. You’re just . . .
MADDIE: Just what?
NITA: An outlier.
MADDIE: [Snorts.] Right. Thanks. Just what I always wanted to be.
NITA: I did have one other question. But I don’t know—
MADDIE: You can ask.
NITA: Well. I . . . So. I’m still curious? About the scars on your back?
MADDIE: Oh.
NITA: What are they from?
MADDIE: A car accident.
NITA: Really? They look like scratches. Like—
[Chair scraping.]
NITA: Wait, Maddie—
[Thumping, footsteps. A door opening, and the sound of traffic.]
NITA: Maddie, please, I’m—
MADDIE: Turn it off.
NITA: What?
MADDIE: The recording. Turn it off!
NITA: All right, see, I’m turning it—
[End of recorded material.]
Entry 3.
[Beginning of recorded material.]
NITA: Okay, it’s . . . 1:13 in the morning, September 29th—no it’s the 30th now. Maddie just left, she said she had work in the morning so she couldn’t stay. Um. I kinda wish she had, but I’m—it’s probably more than I deserve, that she stayed this long and this late. That she didn’t just tell me to fuck off when we were at the café.
We talked for a long time. She told me a little bit about the car accident, and . . . One of her friends was in the car with her and . . . Maddie didn’t just, like, come out and say it, but reading between the lines, uh, this other girl didn’t make it out. I shouldn’t have been such a nosy shit, but I—
This project, like so much in my head, sounded like it would be really cool. My ethnography, LOL. You can’t see it, but I just did really big air quotes. Why not interview the people that I fuck and then edit it all together and find some deep and underlying truth about the nature of, whatever, queer millennial sexual practices? I figured I’d end up on This American Life and then get, like, a genius grant or something eventually. The first few interviews were cool, because, like, yay, getting laid in the name of art. But this thing with Maddie is . . .
We’ve got a date for Friday, and I’m, like, scared shitless and also hella excited. I like Maddie a lot. A lot a lot. I’m leaving the recorder at home. Wish me luck that I don’t fuck things up more than I already have.
[End of recorded material.]
Entry 4.
[Beginning of recorded material.]
[7 seconds of breathing.]
MADDIE: You’re asleep right now. Which is good, because, like, I don’t know how to tell you that I don’t really want to be part of your project. The ethnography of the people you sleep with. I just . . . I’ve been having a good time with you, and I want to keep having a good time with you. Being an outlier was all right, but I think I wanna . . .
[Soft snore. Rustling cloth.]
MADDIE:
[Whispering.] Maybe it’s not something I should say out loud yet. It scares me how much I’ve already let you in. But I really like you. I wanted you to have a record of me saying that, just in case I . . .
[4 seconds of soft breath.]
MADDIE: It’s probably too soon to be worried about that.
[Rustling cloth. Nita stirs. The sound of skin touching skin; comfort.]
MADDIE: I don’t want to be just an outlier, okay? Let me be something more. For as long as I can.
[End of recorded material.]
Entry 5.
[Beginning of recorded material.]
VOICE: November. Sixteenth. Two thousand thirteen. Voicemail from phone number seven seven three—
[Garbled.]
MADDIE: Hey, it’s Maddie. I have a favor to ask you, and it’s a pain in the ass, and I wouldn’t be asking you if you weren’t my last hope, but . . . Anyway. I’m flying home for Thanksgiving and my ride just bailed on me. Do you think you could take me to O’Hare? Sorry, I know it’s a pain in the ass to go to O’Hare, and my flight is at the ass crack of dawn and traffic will probably be terrible. I will repay you with, like, massive amounts of your booze of choice. You can ask me prying and personal questions and record them for the thing. Are you still doing the thing? You haven’t mentioned it in a while. Anyway. Let me know. About the ride, not the thing. Okay. Bye.
VOICE: End of message.
[End of recorded material.]
Entry 6.
[Beginning of recorded material.]
VOICE: November. Twenty-second. Two thousand thirteen. Voicemail from phone number seven seven three —
[Garbled.]
MADDIE: Hey, it’s me. Sorry, I know it’s late, just wanted to let you know I got in okay—
FEMALE VOICE: Who are you calling? Is it that girl you were telling me about?
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 Page 40