CHAPTER 3 #3
The fact that I can confirm it with a single text tells me it’s true.
But even if, through some mental lapse, Vivian is okay with Harrison being part of an entourage, my parents wouldn’t be.
If they ever find out he’s in an entourage, they’ll lose it, especially Dad.
At best, they’ll push to delay the wedding until after he graduates; at worst, they’ll withdraw their support for the marriage altogether.
“And what about my dad, Harry?” I ask. “You realize that if he knew you were advising me to do this, he’d beat you to death with his saxophone, right?”
“And it’d be justified, too,” Charlotte adds, waving a hand at him. “Sorry, Harry, but your advice sucks.”
He cuts her a look, clearly growing tired of her voice in this conversation. “Why are you acting like you know more about Blues than I do? You’re not a Public Person yet. You’ve never been to Grandmaster.”
Charlotte toys with the stem of her cocktail glass. “Oh, I don’t know… maybe because I know Edmund Prew.”
Harrison laughs, loud and amused. “Bullshit.”
Charlotte side-eyes me as if she’s waiting for me to accuse her of lying, too. Under different circumstances, I might agree with Harrison, but if I’ve learned one thing since seeing her again, it’s that time can turn the tables… and in this case, flip them over.
I don’t know the Prews personally, but my parents do.
Mom says they parade their power and wealth like a flag, staking it in every room they enter.
They own three gold mines, enough to buy half the Civilized World, and lease out the rest for sport.
Edmund’s older brother is a Blue Representative, and his mother is the Headmistress of Grandmaster University.
Dad once told me to see the Prews the way rats see poison: recognize it fast, run away faster.
“How do you know Edmund?” I ask Charlotte.
“Met him through Jack.” She slides onto a barstool, her eyes glazing over, as if she’s had too much to drink.
“I haven’t seen him since Jack and I broke up, but during our relationship, I learned enough about Blues to convince me they’re all spiders.
They might act nice when you’re caught in their web, sucking up to you as they suck out your blood, but the niceness only lasts until you do something wrong… or until your blood runs out.”
Harrison grunts and turns back to the putting green. “Having experience with one Blue isn’t comparable to being a student at Grandmaster.”
“It’s not just Edmund—I know his twin sister, too.” Charlotte’s face twists as if the very mention of Edmund’s sister were a curse word. “Look, Harry, I’m not pretending to know more about Blues than you. I’m just saying that this shit you’re trying to sell us is—”
“It might be shit, but I’m not the one selling it,” he assures. “Spend a few days at Grandmaster, and this shit sells itself.”
Harrison steps off the putting green, running a hand down his face.
I know he’s trying to help us, but advising us to join an entourage is like telling us to strike a match in a room doused with gasoline.
Plus, I’m not convinced it’s necessary. Blues have the legal right to kill us, sure, but only under certain conditions.
As long as we avoid breaking the law or insulting their honor, they have to wipe their boots on somebody else’s face.
“I didn’t expect you to react like this, Lore,” Harrison says. “But I don’t regret telling you. Even if you’re against joining an entourage now, there might come a time when you don’t have a choice.”
“Then I’ll just have to make sure I always do,” I say.
Our eyes lock, and we share a long, unblinking stare. For the first time since we met, he looks at me like I’m a child, as if he’s thinking: Wait. You’ll learn soon enough.
But I’m already wearing enough chains.
Harrison checks the time on his pocket watch. “I’m heading to bed. If you two stay up, think about my advice. I’m not saying being part of an entourage isn’t hard, but for people like us, everything’s hard. Choose your hard.”
He heads down the corridor, swinging the putter back and forth, as if he didn’t just drop a bomb on our heads and play it off as a firecracker.
Despite his bad advice, I still don’t think the worst of Harrison the way Hillaire does.
He has no addictions, he’s ranked seventeenth in his class, and like all Greens, he’s as strong as a tank.
I’ve always believed he’s more than capable of protecting Vivian and their future family.
But if someone like him has to resort to begging high-citizens for favors, then I’m missing something.
Something big. Something even Dad doesn’t know about.
At the bar, Charlotte stares into space, absently running her fingers through her hair. I remember how she used to brush it everywhere, whether we were at track meets or tap dance clubs. It was what she liked most about herself, which is probably why it’s the only thing she left unchanged.
“You look like you could use a drink,” she says. “Let me guess… martini?”
“Wine.” I walk to the bar and check the selection. “A good Imperial, if Harry’s got it.”
Charlotte snorts. “Don’t tell me you swirl before you sip.”
I glance at her sidelong, surprised to see her expression light up with a hint of her old self: the Charlotte who had music inside her, ragtime in her walk, and jazz in her laugh; the Charlotte you could never get to shut up, even in her sleep.
The feeling intensifies as I sit on a brass barstool beside her and catch a whiff of her black orchid perfume.
The scent takes me back to roofless hovercar rides and sunny afternoons by the lake, when Charlotte and I sprawled on the dock and talked about her dream of becoming a long-distance runner and my dream to be a fencer.
The memories are so vivid that, for a brief moment, I’m tempted to admit how much I needed her over the past year—to tell her how many nights I cried myself to sleep, not just because I was afraid the sealed court records would leak, but because I didn’t know how to cope with the aftermath of taking a life.
What stops me is the reminder that while I was fighting for my life against a Blue, Charlotte was cozying up to one.
“Is Edmund Prew Jack’s best friend?” I ask as a Pinkie hands me a glass of Imperial, a red wine that’s light and not too acidic.
“Yeah.” Charlotte nods stiffly and lights a cigarette with an emerald-studded lighter.
“So, Edmund’s the one who made you cut me off?”
“No. I never told him about you.” Her mouth hardens, as if she’s holding back half of what she’s thinking.
“When I was with Jack, I saw Edmund and his twin sister all the time, way more than I was comfortable with. I loved Jack, so I figured putting up with Blues was worth it, but I didn’t want to drag you into the Prews’ path, especially since your dad would’ve killed me. ”
“So why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Because I knew you’d try to protect me. And since Jack would rather die than turn his back on Edmund, you wouldn’t have approved. You’d have tried to break us up.”
She’s right about that. There’s no way I would’ve stood by and watched her risk her life for a relationship.
“You really love Jack that much?”
“Yeah, Lore, I do. But…” Charlotte stubs out her cigarette with a slow, defeated motion. “It’s over. He’ll never take me back. I was hoping being at Grandmaster would help me move on, but last week I found out Jack got accepted. Edmund and his spider of a twin sister did, too.”
It strikes me how differently Charlotte talks about Edmund compared to his twin. There’s pain in her voice when she mentions Edmund, but pure hatred when she mentions his sister.
“Grandmaster’s got thirty thousand students,” I say. “Why can’t you just avoid them?”
She laughs bitterly, as if I just told her to outrun a heat-seeking missile.
“Attention, passengers,” an automated voice says over the jet’s PA system. “We are now leaving the Green District. Remaining flight time: eight hours.”
Charlotte and I get up from the bar and rush to the nearest window.
Through the darkness and rain, I can make out only a sea of hazy lights, shimmering like bright blooms of jellyfish.
But I know it’s the Rainbow District. Of the five districts in the Civilized World, it’s the only one where high-citizens and low-citizens live together.
“Can’t see a damn thing,” I mutter, my breath fogging the glass.
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Charlotte says. “The Prews own property in the Rainbow District. When Jack and I were together, Edmund invited us there a few times a month. The driveway alone is the size of a damn freeway.”
I frown. “You’re still a Private Person. How’d you get permission to leave the Green District?”
“Edmund got it for me.” She tugs off her T-strap heels with a shrug. “Sometimes, hanging with Blues has an upside.”
That’s more than an upside. The only time I was allowed to leave the Green District was for the Junior Fencing World Championship.
Even then, it took more than three months to obtain travel approval from the border police.
Not even Dad, with all his political influence, could fast-track the process.
Charlotte returns to the bar with a tired sigh. “I’m going to get some sleep. You should, too.” She drains the rest of her Gibson in one go, then hands the empty glass to a Pinkie. “If you’re up for it, we can finish talking in the morning.”
“No.” The word comes out sharper than I intend, but I don’t take it back. “There’s nothing else to say. Even if you hadn’t cut me off, our friendship wouldn’t have lasted.”
Her eyes narrow. “You sound sure about that.”
“I am, Charlotte. Because you were right: Blues are my line. Maybe I’ll have to cross it one day, but I’ll never do it willingly.”
“Well, I didn’t cross it willingly, either.” Charlotte swipes her T-strap shoes off the floor with a grimace. “Look, Lore, I don’t regret what I did, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. It took months for me to stop watching from the window, wondering if you’d show up at my door for answers.”
“I never considered coming.”
“Not even once? Why not?”
“Because I don’t chase love.”
Charlotte stiffens as if I slapped her. “If that’s true, consider yourself lucky. For a lot of people, chasing love is the only way we get it.”
“I never made you chase after mine.”
“Yeah, well, you were the only one.” She swings her shoes over her shoulders, stalks down the corridor, and disappears into her bedroom.
I stay in the lounge for a long time, staring out the window, barely noticing the view beyond the glass. Maybe I should be less angry after Charlotte’s explanation, but two years of feeling betrayed aren’t easy to forget. Whether she meant to stab me in the back or not, the knife still struck.
And I’ll never forget the taste of those tears.
Around midnight, after a late dinner, I head to my bedroom and activate my Bond to check the news.
A blue light blinks in the periphery of my left eye, expanding into an augmented reality screen that hovers a few inches in front of my face.
From left to right, the screen displays rows of applications I’ve arranged by importance: web browser, email, text messaging, social media, photos, and videos.
I pull up Benjamin Bogart’s media outlet, The Civilized Voice, and am surprised to see almost no mention of the Bliss Prohibition Act vote.
The front-page story is about Bogart himself, announcing that he’s dating Scarlet Du Pont, the famous jazz singer who performed at the Bloody Sunday afterparty.
A collage of photos shows them tangled in each other’s arms at a glitzy nightclub in Charleston City, kissing so openly that I’m sure Bogart tipped off the paparazzi himself, probably to deter his most persistent stalkers.
I scroll past the story, digging through the feed until I spot a live countdown to the vote: just over five hours, meaning it’ll happen at 5 a.m. It’s a bullshit time for a legislative meeting, but that’s how Blues operate. Tired people are easier to intimidate.
Although I agree with Dad that Bliss is dangerous, I doubt the drug will be banned.
Too many buyers are addicted, and too many dealers are making big profits.
I wouldn’t be surprised if half the Civilized World has tried it.
I haven’t—mainly because doing so would’ve damaged Dad’s political campaign against it—but I know the drug causes intense feelings of happiness, which is especially appealing to low-citizens living in constant fear of Blues.
The downside is that taking it too often can lead to blackouts, memory loss, and violent outbursts.
In my bedroom, I change into a silk nightgown and slip into bed.
Sleep comes slowly. I’m tired, but my thoughts are loud, drifting back to my younger years: warm summer days spent with Hillaire and Vivian, holed up in the cedar-wood tree fort that Dad helped us build from scratch.
As far as I know, the tree fort is still there, hidden at the edge of a grassy clearing in the woods.
I haven’t gone back since Vivian started dating Harrison.
The three of us were much closer before he entered the picture.
Sure, we argued, but our fights never turned physical like Hillaire and Vivian’s fight tonight.
At this point, I wonder if either of them still cares about our secret song or the promise we made whenever we sang it.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to hold onto each moment, make it last a little longer, even wishing I could stop time completely. Eventually, when the clock strikes midnight, consciousness slips away… and with it, so does my childhood.