by Anna Carey
We waited until a whole line of passengers streamed out of the car, then we ducked onto the platform. Something opened up inside me. It was freeing, to be lost in a vast sea of people, just another anonymous face next to a dozen others. We were packed shoulder to shoulder as we stepped onto an escalator. Everyone was staring straight ahead, enduring the commute, or typing away on their device.
I looked back, making sure Kipps and I didn’t get separated, but there was a middle-aged man between us, with a single patch of gray hair in the center of his bald head. Before I could say anything Kipps reached his hand up the railing for me to take. When I grabbed it, it didn’t feel the way it had when Tyler and I held hands. I wasn’t nervous. My palms didn’t sweat. It felt good, right—like we were always meant to be this way, joined as one. When I squeezed, he squeezed back.
The escalator climbed one flight, then the next. As we traveled up the glittering white tunnel, the station came into view above. At first I could hear the rush of the crowd, see glimpses of the neon advertisements projected onto every flat surface. But it wasn’t until the escalator spit us out onto the main concourse that I understood the scale of it. The ceiling was hundreds of feet high, a towering dome with a skylight at the very top. Dozens of faces looked down on us from different screens. A young couple modeled swimsuits while a man with salt-and-pepper hair did a shaving demonstration. It wasn’t long before I recognized some of them.
Amber was on a screen above a place called Coffee Craze, only the caption said her name was Kiki Wilder. Inside the set she was the preppiest of the three of us, with crisp collared shirts under sweaters, or pleated plaid skirts and shift dresses. She always wore pearl earrings. Now she weaved through an audience in a patent-leather halter dress, high-fiving kids who looked about my age. She was hosting some kind of talk show. WELCOME BACK, read the caption that scrolled past. I’M KIKI WILDER AND WE’RE COUNTING DOWN WITH THE DANDELIONS. THEY’RE COMING IN AT NUMBER SIX THIS WEEK. The screen cut to three girls with spiky blue hair singing on the roof of a skyscraper.
“Kiki Wilder? That’s her real name? Since when does she have her own television show?” We moved through the crowd, trying to find an exit. A dozen tourists in matching blue sweatshirts stood in the middle of the concourse, taking photos, oblivious to the people maneuvering around them.
“Kiki doesn’t just have her own television show. She has a clothing line and I heard she’s developing a makeup line too. This is supposed to be a riff on Total Request Live, that MTV show from the nineties with Carson Daly,” Kipps said. “Ever since she and Kristen became producers on the show, their careers have taken off.”
“Producers?” I could barely get the word out. I’d thought they were just reporting to the producers, or Chrysalis, or whatever her name was. I remembered Amber’s expression after she’d followed me into the park. And Kristen arguing with me about the phone that had fallen out of Amber’s bag. There’d been levels upon levels of manipulation. I didn’t know what was true anymore, what was real.
“I thought you knew…” Kipps whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be. I should’ve known. That makes sense.” I took a deep breath, trying to push away any feelings about it. The idea that our entire friendship had been faked. It was easier, thinking they were supporting actors like Kipps, that they’d been urged on by Chrysalis or my parents. I hated to think about how much time I’d wasted, all the thought and energy I’d spent caring about them, when they’d cared so little about me.
We turned a corner and walked down a wide corridor, passing a wall with more screens, more advertisements. There was a smiling Jen Klein, her hair in perfect spirals down her back. She held a bottle of what looked like purple vitamins. LULU HAIR GUMMIES, the screen read. SHINE ON, GORGEOUS. We passed a few more ads, some animated, and then there was my mom, doing a cooking demonstration in a kitchen I didn’t recognize. Cooking with Helene Hart, read the chyron underneath. I’d always wondered why she’d been so meticulous, writing down everything she cooked at home. I’d find scraps of paper in the utensil drawer, with recipes named things like Ten Minute Chicken Piccata.
We passed an ad for a big-budget action movie. A buff middle-aged man swung from the bottom of a helicopter, his shirt blown back, revealing his six-pack.
“Is that…” I asked. “Mr. Henriquez? Our tech teacher?”
“Yeah, he’s a huge star,” Kipps said. “A lot of people inside the set have whole other careers. Kristen’s been doing really well with this podcast network she started, and then she has two different stand-up specials out. Millions of YouTube followers.”
Podcast network? YouTube? I didn’t even bother asking.
We turned the next corner, which was lined with shops and restaurants. There was an All Time Market, like the one we’d found just outside the set, and a store devoted to something called a “selfie stick.”
I’d felt good, better, after our walk to the train. We’d used the time to go over all the basics of iPhones, iPads, and social media, and how the show had aired five nights a week, an hour of all the best footage from that day. It ran most of the year, ending in late spring and picking up again in the fall, though they sometimes did summer specials. Kipps recounted the whole first book of the Voyage of Laggerbath and confirmed that yes, the Harry Potter series was actually a really big deal.
But now I couldn’t walk three steps without seeing some phrase or reference I didn’t recognize. Kipps was cool about answering questions, and he didn’t do that infuriating, stereotypical guy thing where he turned the answers into mini lectures, like he had a PhD in the twenty-first century. I just didn’t want to be the girl who asked. I’d been on Principal’s List, honor roll. When our family computer broke I was the one who took it apart and replaced the hard drive. I’d never needed anyone’s help before, and I didn’t like that I needed it now.
“Let’s call Sara as soon as we can,” I said, starting toward an exit. I scanned the shops, hoping one might sell phones, but there weren’t any.
“Roger that,” Kipps said. We passed a group of tourists in sweatshirts and baseball caps. Beside them, Kipps and I looked normal. We blended in.
We passed a sports bar, its door propped open with a bucket of these plastic cartridges I’d seen everyone smoking. Several screens inside were playing clips from Stuck in the ’90s. The moment I took my first steps toward my parents, my dad capturing it all on his camcorder. Sara and me running circles in the backyard. My mom zipping up my seventh-grade formal dress, and Jason Chin breaking up with me on the bus home from middle school. As Kipps and I stood there watching, the scenes cut away to a woman with a stiff, plastic expression.
“In a few minutes we’re going to go live to a vigil being held in Boston, Massachussetts. Jessica Flynn and Patrick Kramer have decided to leave the set, and according to a recent statement the producers released, they’ve supposedly decided they’re done being filmed on the show. Like most of us, people in Boston are holding out hope that Jessica and Patrick will be brought back to Swickley safe and sound. The Like-Life Productions team encourages you to be on the lookout for them, particularly if you live in and around Lakeville, Long Island, where they were last spotted. There’s a $500,000 reward for any information leading to their return, and remember: if you do see them, livestream all encounters on the Stuck in the ’90s fan channel, along with the location.”
“Don’t worry,” Kipps said, pulling me away. “We’re not going to be here long. In and out.”
“Of course I’m worried,” I whispered. “They just put a bounty on our heads.”
“Let’s try that place.” Kipps pointed to an unassuming storefront a few doors ahead. It looked like a post office, with cardboard boxes piled high in the front windows. We both adjusted our hats so the brims dipped down, covering more of our faces, then pushed through the front entrance.
The store had three different rows, made enti
rely of metal cages. Each cage contained hundreds of cardboard boxes in different sizes, all stamped with the same AMAZON logo. A screen in the corner was blinking a neon-blue sign that read STAND BY.
“Last name and date of birth?” a man with a white ponytail called from behind the counter. His green-and-black polo shirt was streaked with a weird brown stain. He didn’t bother looking up from his device.
“We’re not here to pick up anything…” Kipps said. While he approached the man, I circled the back of the store, making sure no one else was there. The guy stared at his device. Every now and then he’d take a long, slow sip of his soda.
“This is crappy,” Kipps said, “but I lost my phone—I’ve literally been going back and forth to the platform trying to find it. No luck. You mind if I borrow yours to make a call? It’ll be quick, two seconds?”
“What about hers?” the man nodded toward me.
“She doesn’t have one on her. She’s doing one of those seven-day device cleanse things, they’re really popular right now…”
The man just shook his head and pointed to a screen in the corner.
“Can’t,” he said. “It’s almost time to vote.”
“Oh right, sorry,” Kipps said, seeming to understand. “I’ll try you later?”
“Sure.”
Kipps looked back at me, then nodded to the exit. It wasn’t until I was at the door that I saw what the man was talking about. IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN, a graphic on the screen in the corner read. TIME TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD. MEET TODAY’S CONTESTANTS. Peppy electronic music filled the store, signaling the start of…what? A TV show?
I tried to stay behind Kipps, out of the man’s line of sight, but I quickly realized it didn’t matter. He never looked away from the screen. A gray-haired woman in a cape danced around a decrepit kitchen, producing doves from under her arms, inside her pockets, and behind her back. Before long she had eight birds lined up across her shoulders. Some weird stats hovered in the corner of the screen during her performance, then a prompt urging people to VOTE NOW. A timer counted down thirty seconds. As soon as the timer was up the woman disappeared, and a teenage boy appeared. He was sitting on his bed playing a harmonica. It was so terrible it made me wince.
“What is this? Vote for what?” I asked.
“People are competing for a chance to work inside the set,” he said. “They film these auditions themselves, and if they get enough votes, they start them off as extras. It’s a paid job. Especially now, with the strike, the producers are probably looking to fill hundreds of new positions. They’re already anticipating us coming back.”
“Boo, you’re nothing. Get him off.” The man behind the counter laughed at Harmonica Boy. He kept tapping his device, voting as many times as possible.
A caption on the screen displayed a series of details: YOUTUBE FOLLOWERS: 278, DOMINION FOLLOWERS: 22, INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS: 1905. NUMBER OF TIMES AUDITIONING: 4. WHY I DESERVE A SHOT: I WANT TO PAY OFF MY MOM’S MEDICAL BILLS.
After the vote counted down, it went to another shot, this time a family with three kids all under the age of ten. They’d put together an amateur contortionist act, where the kids stacked themselves in elaborate shapes and pyramids. All five of them were decked out in shiny, sequined blue spandex with their last name, Tannuzzo, printed on the back.
“This is weird,” I said. “Who would humiliate themselves like this? It’s embarrassing.”
We stood there, watching the next audition. A twenty-something blond woman in a bikini made seductive faces at the camera. That was it—just faces—she didn’t even bother saying anything, and she still somehow got 58 percent of people voting to advance her. I turned to Kipps, about to make a joke, when I noticed his cheeks were flushed. He was staring at the floor.
“Kipps?”
He wouldn’t look at me.
“That’s not how your family got on, right? I thought…”
I waited, hoping he’d fill the silence between us, but he didn’t. Instead he pushed out the door and started down the corridor.
33
“Hey, wait up,” I called to Kipps’s back. He didn’t turn around. He just hopped on the next escalator, and we both sailed up toward the street. I had to maneuver past a woman and her giant I-may-have-a-corpse-inside-this duffel bag to get to him.
“Come on, Kipps, talk to me. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s fine. It’s whatever.”
“It’s not whatever.”
The escalator spit us out onto a bustling city street. The sidewalk traffic was thick and fast in both directions, and several people bumped my shoulder before I managed to catch up. Kipps was right beside me now, and I held onto his arm, even though it didn’t seem like he wanted me to. We couldn’t afford to get separated here. It would be a disaster.
Office buildings, apartment buildings. A theater with a glittering marquee. Sleek cars raced past in both directions while people on bicycles and scooters zipped along the edge of the street. Everything towered above us. Fifty stories, a hundred. I felt like we’d shrunk somehow, miniature versions of ourselves inside an elaborate, polished maze.
We passed a tourist superstore filled with NEW YORK CITY hats and I LOVE NY mugs and Lego replicas of the Statue of Liberty. Just beyond it I saw a sign for City Eatery. The asymmetrical building was all glass, and the cafeteria inside was a glossy white from floor to ceiling. Dozens of white tables and chairs set against a glittery white floor. Everyone was watching giant projections on the back wall, casting their votes for the auditions. We found a table in the corner, away from the crowd, and I made sure we sat facing in, so people passing on the sidewalk couldn’t see our faces.
I grabbed the menu, thankful to have something to focus on. It had this glossy front that said CITY EATERY but when I touched it nothing happened. I turned it over and pulled at the edges, but it wouldn’t open.
Kipps smirked. “It’s just like an iPad…” He drew a line with his finger in the air.
I drew a line over the front of it, using the same motion he did, but it didn’t do anything.
Kipps laughed. “You have to actually touch the screen, like swipe at it.”
He scooted his chair closer to me, and we each held the menu with one hand. He put his other hand over my finger and showed me how to swipe to the drinks, to the desserts. The screen changed over each time we traced a line across it.
“That’s actually pretty cool,” I said.
“Yeah.” Kipps hit a few buttons, ordering a burger and milkshake. After he helped me place my order, he finally spoke. “About before, you were just being honest.”
“I was being judgmental.”
“I shouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“I can try.”
He glanced sideways at the crowd in the back of the café. Most people ate as they voted, occasionally pausing to order something else from the electronic menu or refill their drink at the beverage machines. Two little girls played with their dolls. They kept looking in our direction, but I told myself they were too young to watch the show, they couldn’t recognize us.
“You spent your whole life inside the set,” he said quietly. “In Swickley—this made-up town you’ve always wanted to leave. But out here, it’s just not as simple. The same rules don’t apply to everyone. Nothing is easy. There aren’t a ton of opportunities. Working inside the set is a good job; it’s stable. It pays.”
“Pennsylvania, where you grew up,” I said. “It’s nothing like this? Nothing like New York?”
Kipps picked at the menu’s leather case. “We’re from this tiny town most people have never heard of. Wyattsville. There are just a few places to work, and they laid off a ton of people when the recession hit. My dad was out of work for two years. You know how many times we auditioned to get on, just to be extras in the set?” Kipps asked. “Twenty-eight times. As a
family. My parents were obsessed with it—we’d come up with these elaborate parody songs. My dad wrote a really complicated one about living in the nineties and that’s the thing that finally got us a break. That silly, inane song.
“It really was great at first, it was. All this stuff is taken care of. My mom had been working for this delivery service called ASAP. It was long hours and barely any money. Zero benefits. And then suddenly all we had to do was go to the set every day and just…live our lives. For ten, twelve hours every day. Go to school, dress the part, not say anything stupid or give anything away. It was easy. My mom was talking about building this following out of all the books she was reading on set, like a special book club or something. But you can only spend so long living in a world that’s not real before you start to lose something.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yourself. What you believe. I don’t know.”
We sat there, watching as the auditions continued. A trio of break-dancers made it through and were heading to the semifinals at the end of the week. An all-girls a capella group got 38 percent of the vote. The audience hated a skinny, gray-haired guy who sang Frank Sinatra, and as soon as he saw the results his face crumpled and he turned away from the camera. It was difficult to watch.
“You regret leaving?” Kipps pretended to study the menu, to be absorbed in all its details. He seemed nervous, though. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
It would be easier not to care, to just explain away what had happened, and every lie my parents had told me, just so I could have my old life back. My bed, and the comforter that always smelled like lavender laundry detergent. My guitar and keyboard, and the case of CDs that I could flip through with my eyes closed, always landing on an album I wanted to hear. The steady routine of school, friends, dinner, homework, school, friends, dinner, homework…