Chapter 27
Hiromi led me north out of Chinatown, into a neighborhood that neither of my nightwalks had passed through. Gleaming hotels punctuating six-story tenements, bike repair shops next to restaurants with Michelin reviews in the windows.
The day’s heat had settled into the sidewalk, and now in late afternoon was oozing back out. Each block seemed to have its own scent.
I was carrying Hiromi’s duffel bag full of sharp things, effectors trying to poke their way out. I could feel her beside me, walking close. I imagined her on the estate. Training with me, knife in hand, covered in sweat.
“Is Crystal your ex?” I asked.
“Just protective. You work for Garrett, who she doesn’t like. Plus, she might’ve guessed that you’re related to him.”
“How?”
“At the Xenakis opening, you mentioned your grandmother, and I talked up your awesome family. Crystal knows I went to Peter’s funeral.”
“She suspects I’m a product of nepotism.”
“Hardly unusual in the art world. But now you’re stalking me!”
“Pretty low-grade stalking,” I said. “It was at best fifty-fifty you’d be there.”
“You could’ve just got my number from Garrett. You’re his favorite, after all.”
I swung the shifting, clanking bag to my other shoulder. “I prefer to keep things private.”
“So I noticed. No socials. No search results. You have the online profile of an Amish spy.”
“Who’s stalking who here?”
Hiromi gave me an innocent smile. “Did you miss the part where I said you could have my number?”
I handed her my phone.
She stared at it. “The plot thickens.”
“What?”
“When you walked into the Swap, you were sliding a different one into your pocket. Something off-brand, smaller than this.”
Arabella’s phone, with its pulsing blue dot.
I’d forgotten about Hiromi’s sharp eyes. It was time for another half-truth.
“It’s kind of embarrassing—that was my family phone. Grandma tracks my location. She’s concerned about me, here in the big city.”
“You are so homeschooled, Jessica.”
“But this one’s all mine. You’ll be my secret.”
Hiromi began to tap her digits. “Always happy to be classified.”
“Oh, I haven’t begun to classify you yet. You aren’t like most people I’ve met.”
“Flirting,” she said, still looking at the screen. “What kind of people have you met?”
The various offshoots of my ancient, sprawling family. Ordinary Hellions, the locals of Upper Falls, other legacies at weddings, competitions, and funerals.
“Not as many as I’d like.”
“New York will fix that.” She handed back the phone. “Candy’s this way.”
When the door of the candy store opened, cold air rolled out, thick and sweet as it met the humidity outside. Like the scents from Aunt Beatrice’s kitchen on a hot day, sugar caramelizing on the stove.
“This is…a lot,” I said as we walked inside.
The store was crammed floor to ceiling with every kind of candy, a library of pastilles, Pocky, gum, suckers, and chocolate bars.
Two entire shelves were devoted to Korean snacks and sweets, others to Dutch and Turkish delights, to candies labeled in alphabets I didn’t recognize.
A wall of jelly bean dispensers with unlikely flavors—cantaloupe, watermelon, bacon, root beer, popcorn, cheese.
There were gummies shaped like tacos, like pizzas, like bugs and coins.
“Where do we start?”
“Pay close attention.” She took me to the shopping baskets, then the hard candy.
Huge boxes of it sat in the front windows. There were paper bags ready to be filled, old-fashioned scales hanging from the ceiling. Hiromi seemed to shop by color, lifting up handfuls, letting sunlight spill through the translucent drops, the crinkling cellophane wrappers.
We browsed the foreign confections, the novelty shapes, the antiquated modes of taffy, marzipan, and nougat. The staff all knew Hiromi and directed her to exciting new imports and arrivals.
As the shopping basket filled, her intensity eased a little.
“The other night,” I began, “you left so suddenly. When that man showed up.”
“He didn’t see me, did he?”
“Only a glimpse. Your friends made sure of that.”
“They dislike him.” She let out a slow sigh. “He talks to me like a shrink—which he is, but not mine. Asks what I’ve been dreaming, what’s worrying me, what I’m afraid of. Like buying my art comes with a ticket to my psyche.”
“Creepy.”
“His actual patients are weird as hell. He brought a bunch of them to my last opening, like some fucked-up therapy field trip. Five of them bought pieces!”
Were Dr. Lyon’s patients mirroring him? Or following orders? More sales would drive up the value of Hiromi’s work. Like my project for Ms. Delicato—a self-created currency, defining and controlling a group.
“Weird,” I said. “But any sale is good.”
“Not if it comes with a shrink.” She began to pick through an array of Pixy Stix, inspecting each flavor, like an archer choosing arrows. “Have you ever had one?”
“A Pixy Stix, yes. A shrink, no.”
“Because Mortons have all the answers.”
“Because we ask different questions.”
Hiromi didn’t respond, staring at the candy, going silent for the first time that afternoon. A disconnect opened between us.
I needed to give her something small and true.
“When I was seven years old, I did therapy. With invisible friends.”
Her eyes lifted to me. “Imaginary friends? Garrett said you were a child of strict logic.”
“It was all very logical. They understood my anxieties. They didn’t judge. They were available in the middle of the night.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Their lives,” I said. “Their failures. My fear of ending up like them.”
Hiromi arranged the Pixy Stix in her basket. “Your imaginary friends had backstories?”
“Tragic, early deaths. All of them.”
“Fuck. Do you remember their names?”
“Jessica,” I said.
Hiromi stared at me.
“They were all called Jessica,” I clarified. “Every single one.”
She turned away again and addressed an audience of butter rum suckers. “That’s very…something.”
“They were versions of me. Why shouldn’t we all have the same name?”
“Because you aren’t supposed to know that when you’re seven.”
“That there’s more than one Jessica?”
“Is there?” she asked.
I placed my palm against her cheek. She felt warm despite the air-conditioning. She didn’t pull away.
“It’s just me now,” I said. “The other Jessicas are all in the graveyard.”
As I broke contact, Hiromi breathed out a little shudder, her pupils wide. Prey responses. I was in full control.
But then she asked, “Is that why you make art with bones?”
For a moment, I couldn’t answer, thinking of Cyrus giving me Peter’s collection, and of the bones in Garrett’s backyard, in the Barrow Marsh, in the Little Graveyard, and under Hiromi’s skin.
“It reminds me that we’re all skeletons in the end,” I said. “I’ll buy you this candy, if you take me to dinner sometime.”