Bage smiled at Celia. “Have fun. I’ll see you later.”
The twins, Ava and Amelia, took her to the makeshift bar and mixed her something called a Tanker. The glass was like a fishbowl; Celia had to carry it in two hands. It was unnerving to be surrounded by giants, many of them dancing, some drunk and weaving. She barely came up to Ava and Amelia’s kneecaps.
She’d never had alcohol before, but now seemed like a good time to try it. She took a sip: it tasted like cherry ginger ale.
“So what were you thinking, when the guy shooting at you turned out to be your own father?” Amelia asked as they wound through the crowd.
“He’s not my father.” Celia had to shout to be heard.
“I know he’s not your father father, but, what did you think when you saw him?”
Celia wasn’t sure how to answer. “I thought, what the hell is going on? I was confused. When it sank in, I was devastated.”
Ava squeezed Celia’s arm. “What’s up with you and Anand? You make such a great couple. I thought by now you’d be all breezy.”
“You’ll have to ask him about that. I have no idea what’s going on.” Celia took a swig of her Tanker. It was good stuff; she was feeling better than she’d felt in a long time.
Amelia leaned down to nudge Celia’s shoulder. “So you do like him?”
Celia blew a stray lock of hair out of her face. “Let me tell you the part you didn’t see.”
Ava let out a little shriek of excitement and shook her fists. “Inside info. Tell us.”
They found a relatively open spot in the corner of the living room. Celia told them what Anand had confessed when they were close to drowning. Both girls listened as if Celia was a prophet delivering ultimate truth.
Two fingers touched Celia’s head. “You want to dance?” She turned to find a tanned red-haired guy in a cutoff shirt and loose white pants. He was weaving slightly.
“I don’t—”
One of the twins took her drink and steered her toward the center of the room, where giants were bouncing and weaving.
“Bring her right back!” Ava or Amelia said.
“I’m Essan,” the guy said as he led her out.
“Celia.”
He laughed. For a moment she didn’t get what was funny, then realized everyone already knew her name.
When people saw her coming out to dance, they hooted encouragement and made space. Back in Record Village they’d had parties all the time—there wasn’t much to do there, so they’d made their own fun. But the music they’d played had had a beat, and a singer singing actual words. Celia did her best to move to the clanking thud and grunting.
A girl dancing nearby had purple eyes. She was watching a compact screen hanging in the air while she danced. Celia wondered if she was wearing contact lenses, or if her parents had chosen her eyes before she was born.
The purple-eyed girl saw her looking, and waved at the screen, which abruptly vanished. That had happened a few times since she’d joined the party, as if they didn’t want Celia to see their screens. Maybe it was considered rude to look at people’s screens.
Try as she might, she wasn’t loving the music. It was grating, and really hard to dance to. “Do you ever play old stuff?” Celia asked Essan. He couldn’t hear her; he leaned down, still dancing, and she repeated it.
“Like what?” he shouted.
“The Sundowners? Persephone Plant?”
Essan threw back his head and laughed. “Now that’s old stuff. Okay. You got it.” He worked his handstrap, shouted, “By request of the guest of honor.”
A Persephone Plant song came on. Some of the dancers laughed as everyone took a moment to adjust to the tempo. Celia was feeling fine, her heart thrumming, her cheeks warm. She cut loose to the familiar beat as people hooted encouragement.
“Not only am I really small, I’m hopelessly out of date,” she said to Essan.
“You’re not like other girls, that’s for sure. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.” Essan raised his eyebrows and grinned.
“No, I’m definitely not like other girls.” She watched the giant, gorgeous girls move to the music. She was nothing like them, because besides being small and out of date, she didn’t look like she’d stepped out of a Hollywood film.
“What do you think? Want to step up?” Essan said.
“Step up? I don’t understand—is that a dance?”
He scrunched his face. “No. You know. Step up.”
No, she didn’t know, and she felt so stupid for not knowing. Did it mean get a drink? Maybe step out, like, go for a walk?
Essan raised his eyebrows again.
Suddenly, she realized what he was getting at, although she couldn’t quite believe it. “Are you hitting on me?”
He popped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “That’s right. That’s what they called it, back in the Persephone Plant era.”
“How would that even work?” Celia tried to imagine kissing Essan’s giant lips. Even if she wasn’t hung up on Anand, she couldn’t see how it would be in any way enjoyable. It reminded her of a scene in Grendel’s Travels, when Grendel is repulsed by the sight of a giant naked woman.
Essan shrugged. “There are things we could do.”
Celia burst out laughing. “I don’t think I want to hear what you’ve got in mind. But, thank you for asking. I’m flattered.” She was more than flattered—she was elated. Maybe she could make a life here. She already had some potential friends, and she now knew what stepping up was. There were small adults who got along fine in the world. She’d seen a movie once about a guy maybe half again as tall as Celia who had a great life by the end of the film. Maybe this could work.
Ava and Amelia applauded when she returned.
“We’ve been thinking about what you told us,” Amelia said. “Why don’t you just ask Anand what’s going on?”
Celia could do that, couldn’t she? Anand had said they needed to talk when they were both feeling better. Well, she was feeling awesome, thanks to a third of a Tanker. “Maybe I will.”
“He’s outside.” Amelia gestured toward a long verandah just visible through an archway beyond the living room.
She headed toward the verandah; it felt like she was walking on the deck of a ship. She passed Lexie, who was talking to an older guy with a long braid. “Have you checked your pop rating? Mine’s going through the roof.” The guy pointed at Celia. Lexie turned, gave her a wave and a wide smile.
Celia paused when she reached the doorway. Anand was looking out through a railing taller than he was, clutching the bars. He looked so serious. She padded out in her new, incredibly comfortable boots and touched Anand’s shoulder.
Jerking violently, Anand drove his elbow into Celia’s face. Everything went black.
When Celia came back to herself she was lying on the floor with Anand kneeling beside her. She sat up. Blood dribbled down her blouse.
“Oh, God. Celia, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you. I thought—” He pulled off his shirt, wadded it up and touched it gently to Celia’s nose. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Celia took the shirt from Anand, adjusted it to cut off the blood dribbling down her chin. Her ears were ringing. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Anand looked up at the audience that had gathered, which included Lexie, Bage, and the twins. “Can you give us a minute, please?”
The crowd filed inside through the French doors. Lexie closed the doors behind her.
“Who did you think I was? Did you think Dominion security had slipped into the party in their bright red uniforms without anyone noticing?”
“No, I—” Anand dragged his hand down his face. “I thought I was back in Slaughtertown. Sometimes something will remind me of it. This time it was the music they were playing, the sound of those voices. Suddenly I’m back there. I’m not remembering it, I’m there. Running. Hearing screams. I can’t get out. I can’t escape that place, even now.” He stood, went to the
railing, his back to Celia, and dropped his voice to a harsh whisper. “I can’t stand for anyone to touch me. Even you. The only time someone touched you where I came from is when they wanted to hurt you.”
Celia thought of Anand lurching backward time and again when someone tried to touch him, the times he’d ignored people offering to shake hands.
Anand turned to look at her. “After what I said in the water, I felt so guilty. I gave you the impression we might be able to build something together, and the truth is, I’m way too messed up for you, or anyone else.”
It hurt to smile. “You’re a work in progress; that’s for sure. I get it. But, can’t we be close without touching? I need you here with me.”
One of the French doors opened. Beaners stepped through, a ring of powdered sugar around his mouth.
“Can you give us a minute?” Anand said. “We’re having a private conversation.”
Beaners folded his arms. “I told you, stop trying to keep me out of the loop.” He squinted at Celia’s black eye and bloody nose. “What happened to you?”
Celia pinched her temples. “Anand gets jumpy when people touch him. You might want to make a note of that.”
Beaners leaned up against the wall. “I got just the opposite problem: people get jumpy when I touch them. The one time I dared put a hand of encouragement on a female tub diver’s shoulder? She acted like I’d dropped a snake down the back of her shirt. And it wasn’t like she was all that and a sack of clown chow, either.”
“The hell with her,” Anand said. “She didn’t deserve you.”
“Damned right she didn’t.” Either Beaners missed Anand’s sarcastic tone or he chose to ignore it. Celia was just happy to hear Anand crack a joke. It was almost worth taking a shot in the nose to get things between them on a normal track.
#
When they got back to Bage’s apartment, Anand and Beaners went straight to the closet to sleep. It had been a long day, full of strange new things, and they were exhausted. Celia was too, but when Bage invited her to hang out in her bedroom, Celia decided to stay. There were still so many things she wanted to know.
She’d been thinking about Sander on the ride home, and how her movies had been altered to erase him.
“I’m still trying to understand why someone who looked just like Paul Francis was in Dominion City. Were Sander and Paul Francis the same person?”
Bage shifted on the bed to face her and drew up one foot. “Paul Francis was my size. He died six years ago. He was about ninety. Sander started out on a Dominion TV show called Spitting Image. They collected DNA samples from a bunch of A-list celebrities by retrieving their cups from the trash, or buying their stray hairs on u-bid, and created runt-sized doubles. The show had to be cancelled because of a class-action lawsuit.” Bage stuck out her tongue. “The show sucked anyway.”
Celia took this in. “But Sander looked the same age as Paul Francis.”
Bage nodded. “They can speed things up. When they made Sander, they kept him in this incubator thing and let him cook a little longer, say six months, and he comes out ten years old instead of as a newborn baby.” She pointed at Celia. “What’s your oldest memory? How old were you?”
“I guess about seven.” In the memory Celia kept interrupting one of their teachers, Annalise, with the sort of questions you weren’t supposed to ask, and Annalise finally took her out into the hall and shook her until her teeth rattled.
“That was probably how old you were when you were born.” Bage must have seen how much this particular nugget rattled Celia, because she reached over and patted Celia’s leg. “Don’t let it get to you. You’re a very special little woman. You don’t know how much I envy you.”
Celia almost choked. “You envy me? I’m two feet tall, I’m someone’s property, and people treat me like livestock. Why in the hell would you envy me?”
“You’ve done things.” Bage poked herself in the chest. “I shop, I go to school, I watch other people’s exciting lives on TV.” She looked down, her eyes getting teary. “It’s pathetic.”
Celia wasn’t sure what to say. The thought of having a quiet, normal life seemed like heaven. How could Bage envy the misery and terror Celia had gone through to get here? Maybe Bage didn’t understand how awful it felt to be hungry, exhausted, afraid. And if she wanted to do things, why the hell didn’t she just do them? People here seemed so interested in what other people were doing. She couldn’t imagine spending her days in Record Village following Molly around to see what she was doing. Why would you watch someone else do things when you could be doing things yourself?
Chapter 19
The closet door clicked closed, waking Celia. She’d been dreaming that Anand had become a clown, and was chasing Celia and Max through the tunnel that ran under the towns, shooting at them with a comically huge handgun. The tunnel began to rotate like in a funhouse, and she and Max kept falling down.
Beaners wasn’t in the closet; Celia figured he’d gone to the bathroom. How weird it must be for Bage, to have a two foot tall clown with serious issues using her bathroom.
Celia’s new clothes, stacked against the wall beside Bage’s enormous shoes, made Celia smile. It wasn’t the clothes themselves, although she loved the wild range of colors and fashions they had here; it was the memory of the girls chattering excitedly, helping her pick outfits. It would take getting used to, and she’d probably always face bigotry, but if she had Anand, and good friends, this might become a place she could love.
The door opened and Beaners slipped in, carrying a handstrap. Celia looked over to the spot on the carpet where they kept the handstrap Bage had loaned them. It was still there.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was on Bage’s nightstand, still on.”
“Put it back.” Celia lunged for it; Beaners pulled it out of her reach, growling.
Anand sat up. “What’s going on?”
“He stole Bage’s handstrap.”
Beaners was working it, scrolling through menus. “When we were out shopping, people on the street would give us this look. Then again at the party. It’s like there’s a joke we’re not in on. There’s something these people aren’t telling us.”
She lunged for the handstrap again. Beaners turned away. “Just give me ten minutes.”
“Put it back.”
“Ten minutes, then I will,” Beaners hissed. “I swear.”
She looked at Anand. “He’s going to ruin everything.”
Anand laced his fingers behind his head, blew out a breath. “Honestly? I don’t disagree with what he’s saying. These people sit in their living rooms munching on pretzels, watching us suffer. For fun.”
“But Bage and her friends have been nothing but good to us. They got us away from Dominion. Not to mention the money they spent buying us clothes.”
Anand nodded. “And we need allies here, I know. Why don’t we give him ten minutes? I mean, he already took it.”
Sighing, she slumped against the door and folded her arms.
Beaners expanded a screen at random. At the top was a still photo of the three of them in the garbage truck with Lorena, heading toward the water.
“What does it say?” Beaners asked.
Celia leaned forward. “‘Dominion Network has resorted to a fourth-wall shattering meta-show with their own network cast as the villains, in hopes of righting its sinking ship.’” She stopped reading aloud and skimmed the rest of the article. “It says Dominion’s ratings have been sinking for years. Their audience is aging. Their expenses are enormous. Good. I hope they go bankrupt.” Although, what would happen to the residents of the towns if they did? Who would feed them?
Beaners swept the screen aside, then expanded another with dozens of videos of their exploits running.
Celia leaned closer. “It’s sort of a fan club, I guess.”
He expanded another.
It was a video of the three of them, sitting in the closet, staring at the screen.
“What is this?” Beaners reached toward the screen; his mirror image reached toward him.
“You must have triggered a recording function,” Anand said. “It’s working like a camera.”
Celia raised her hand. The Celia on the screen raised her hand.
Beaners worked the handstrap. Other videos, of people kissing, fighting, talking, appeared in quick succession. Then the screen returned to the video of them.
“It’s not on record. It’s a channel, like the rest.”
A sick, icy cold radiated down Celia. “Are you sure?” She felt disembodied, as if her double on the screen was the one moving her lips.
Staring into his own wide, confused eyes, Beaners nodded.
“We never stopped being a show,” Celia whispered. They’d been watching when Anand rebuffed her their first night in Dublin, and when she got drunk at the party. People were watching them right now, as they reacted to the discovery that people were watching them. They’d been watching all along, gobbling up their shock and fear and confusion like it was buttered popcorn. Celia crossed her arms over her chest, turned away from the screen.
Bage’s handstrap was clicking madly, alerting her to incoming messages. She must have been in on it from the beginning. All of her kindness, her generosity, her assurances that she wasn’t one of those people who saw Celia and her companions as property. It had all been an act. She and her friends had done it to be on TV.
“We have to get out of here,” Anand said.
“Yeah.” Beaners was still staring at the screen.
“Grab some food from the kitchen on the way out.” Celia turned, looked right into the screen. “Or is it more entertaining if we’re hungry, you sadistic bastards.”
They left Bage’s handstrap in the closet, padded past her single-file, grabbed a giant loaf of Peterman’s bread and a tube of Jax peanut butter from the kitchen, and headed out the front door.
Beaners paused in the doorway. “Hang on, I have to use the bathroom.” He turned, unzipped his fly, and took a leak on the marble floor of the foyer.
“Beaners,” Celia hissed. Behind her Anand was laughing, hand over his mouth.
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