She sat up and swung her feet to the floor. Something was different this morning. She could feel the blood circulating in her veins. She felt… alive.
Was it the weed? Maybe it was working. Not that she was certifiably ill, but something was different. Maybe it was the sleep. Maybe that’s all it ever was. She’d gotten so sleep-deprived when she first had Teddy, she just needed to catch up.
People died from exhaustion. It was a good thing she hadn’t died.
She stood up quickly, eager to get on with what would surely be a new kind of day. Whoa, maybe too quickly. Lying in bed watching movies all the time had made her weak. She looked down at her wobbly ankles and doughy knees and looked quickly away. How had she allowed herself to get this fat? Plus, she was starving.
The fridge was full of Stu’s gross green juices and Ted’s baby carrots. Mandy wanted something substantial, like a roast chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy or shepherd’s pie. She didn’t know of any place that delivered that sort of food, and she wasn’t about to eat at a restaurant all alone. Maybe there was someone she could call, someone with a weird work schedule who might be free. She scrolled through the contacts on her phone. Nothing but doctors she never saw, hair salons she never went to, and a few girls from high school she’d completely lost touch with. Her entire existence had always centered around Stu and his band, and then Stu and Ted. She didn’t have any friends. She didn’t have much of a life.
Showering was so tedious when she was this hungry, but she made it through by eating half of one of Stu’s weed cookies first. By the time she’d dressed, blow-dried her hair, curled her eyelashes, and tied her sneakers, she was buzzing with hungry energy. She took a picture of herself in the mirror and texted it to Stu, showing off how up and at ’em she was today.
Going out, she wrote.
She waited a few minutes but he didn’t write back.
There was a luncheonette in Carroll Gardens where all the old neighborhood Italians went. She could get takeout chicken Francese on a bed of linguine with fresh garlic bread, bring it home, and eat it on the sunny stoop.
Her shoes felt tight after weeks of not wearing shoes, and the brownstone steps were so steep she had to brace herself and take them one at a time, but she made it all the way to the sidewalk. A cute orange truck pulled up in front of the neighbor’s house. FULL PLATE, it said on the side of the truck. DELICIOUS DINNERS DROPPED AT YOUR DOORSTEP.
The neighbors were never home. Mandy and Stuart had decided they were Russian spies, trying to blend in. The reason they were never home was because they didn’t really live there—it was just a front. Mandy had seen them only a few times, hurrying into a black car with suitcases. They’d probably forgotten they’d even ordered from Full Plate.
The delivery guy placed the box at the top of the neighbor’s stoop.
“Have a good one,” he said to Mandy as he trotted down the steps to his truck.
The box would probably just sit there for days, unopened, and the luncheonette was on Smith Street, which was pretty fucking far away.
“Excuse me,” Mandy called out to the delivery guy. “Um, the couple you just delivered the box to? They’re away, and they asked me to take their box. Would it be possible to carry it up to my front door for me?”
“Oh. Oh sure,” the delivery guy said with a sympathetic smile. Mandy could tell what he was thinking: there was no fucking way a chubby, out-of-shape lady like her could carry a heavy box like that all the way up to her kitchen. “Just tell me where.”
She smiled pleasantly with her hands on her hips and gazed down the street, looking out for watching neighbors and judgers. A police car had pulled over at the corner and a few people were standing around talking to the police. Something must have happened. At least they weren’t watching her steal her neighbors’ dinner. Man, was she famished. And pretty high from the weed cookie. The Full Plate box was hopefully full of something delicious.
The delivery guy carried the box right to the kitchen. Mandy fished a ten-dollar bill out of her purse and gave it to him. “You’re a lifesaver,” she said.
She found a pair of scissors and cut through the cute orange-and-white checked packing tape. Inside, the box was fully lined with four frozen gel packs, which must be full of something eco-friendly, otherwise the people at Full Plate were going to hell. There was a neatly wrapped package of frozen, sustainably harvested mahi-mahi chunks from Oregon, a stack of white corn tortillas baked in Queens, half a free-range chicken from the Hudson Valley, diced mango from Puerto Rico, shredded cabbage and arugula grown hydroponically on a rooftop in Brooklyn, some hot sauce, some orzo, a block of Vermont goat-milk feta cheese, and a bunch of beets and chives, both from Long Island. At the very bottom of the box were a ready-made flourless chocolate cake, two bottles of white wine, and two laminated cards with pictures and step-by-step instructions for how to prepare fish tacos with mango salsa and arugula and half a roast chicken with beet, feta cheese, and orzo salad. Score!
Mandy wasn’t much of a cook. She could make Bisquick pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches that sometimes came out burned. She’d certainly never made fish tacos or half a chicken. But the instructions made both dishes look pretty easy, and she had nothing better to do. She’d cook the fish tacos for her lunch and make the chicken for her and the boys for dinner. Ted would go apeshit over the cake. Stu didn’t like white wine, so she could have that all for herself.
She expected to feel guilty, stealing other people’s food, but she didn’t. It wasn’t like she was stealing from the hungry.
Stu’s face appeared on her phone.
Crazy shit happening over at the school. Did you see?
Mandy’s mind drifted to the police car and then back to the mahi-mahi taco instructions.
Don’t bother me, I’m cooking.
There was a moment’s pause before he replied.
Whoa. Seriously? Can’t wait to taste! Sorry, gotta run, client here.
Mandy pulled the freezer packs out of the box. On each one was a warning label: THESE PACKS ARE FILLED WITH NON-TOXIC POTATO STARCH. PLEASE REUSE OR CUT OPEN CAREFULLY AND DISSOLVE IN SINK. Bingo. Mandy carried them over to the sink to dissolve them. Everything in the box was shrink-wrapped in plastic on a cute blue cardboard plate thing that she was probably supposed to reuse, but she probably wasn’t going to. Getting rid of all the packaging was going to be a huge pain in the ass, but she couldn’t let Stuart find out she’d stolen the neighbors’ food. The taco instructions said preparation time was only fifteen minutes. In fifteen minutes she’d be eating fish tacos for two and fully ready to tackle the pile of plastic wrap and cardboard before moving on to the half chicken. She turned on the TV, just for background noise. The midday local news was in the middle of a report.
“… Police are investigating a schoolyard fire in Brooklyn. An empty liter bottle of vodka and a plastic cigarette lighter have been taken into evidence. Luckily the fire occurred last night after school hours and no children were harmed. A portion of the schoolyard will be closed for repairs.”
“We want to know who’s behind this.” Mandy recognized Ted’s assistant principal’s nasal whine. “We also want our schoolyard back. This isn’t just a playground for our children. It’s the hub of the community.”
Mandy dumped the pre-marinated fish chunks into the pan. They began to sizzle.
PART II OCTOBER
Chapter 9
Roy unwrapped the second half of a cold onion bagel with cream cheese and bit into it half-heartedly, scrolling up to reread what he’d just written.
Bettina opened the airlock.
“No!”
He snapped his laptop shut and stood up. Gold? What a joke. The book was shit.
Wadding up the waxed paper, he threw the rest of the bagel over the railing and watched it drift downriver and then disappear in the dark water. He could never get used to how much dough was stuffed into a bagel. It seemed like such a waste of flour and whatever else was in bagels—cemen
t?
“That’s what I love about this river,” a woman seated on a bench behind him remarked. “You got worries? You just throw them in that river and they’re gone.”
Roy smiled grimly at her and continued walking. Oh, he had worries. He’d walked all the way from home, across the Brooklyn Bridge, through South Street Seaport and Battery Park. Now he was at the end of the pier on Christopher Street, in the West Village. His feet ached and he had no reason to walk so far, but walking made him feel like he was writing even when he wasn’t.
Why was he killing off Bettina and probably Ceran if they were his main characters? And what about his girl with the gold? He’d barely dealt with her.
Beneath the pier, the Hudson River roiled and churned. The water was so dark here, even on a sunny day. It wasn’t green or blue or brown or even black—it was just dark. And deep.
He thought of that poor woman, all in pieces, all over New York. Wendy had read the latest Brookliner column aloud to him from her iPad this morning: “Head Found!” They’d found it only yesterday, after weeks of searching and waiting. Thankfully there was no picture. Oddly, that annoyed Wendy.
Bettina and Ceran and Isabel were annoyed too. Not just because they were teenagers, but because they were being used. Bettina and Ceran were being used by the scientific establishment as guinea pigs, to see how teenagers develop in space. And Isabel, with her backpack full of gold, felt like life had handed her a backpack full of shit because her parents were cowardly crooks who’d left her on her own.
Roy continued to walk. He did like, or at least appreciate, the dichotomy between the teenagers in space and the one on earth, who were all lucky in their own way—lucky to see and experience what few had seen and experienced, or lucky to have their own island in the Bahamas and a backpack full of gold—but who truly felt that they were unlucky.
Lucky.
Unlucky.
Gold.
Or Red.
Every time Roy considered scrapping the whole bloody book, he began to wonder if maybe Peaches was right. If he just plodded on, he’d eventually break through the fog and all would become clear. There was something there—there had to be. Otherwise it was his head they were going to find floating in the river next.
Wendy was strangely excited about the head. Something about this particular murder had captured her imagination.
“Where does one even purchase a chain saw?” she’d asked him. “Do you have to plug it in, or does it run on batteries? Kerosene? Diesel?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Roy had answered.
“Aha.” She laughed. “Covering your tracks.”
Roy wasn’t sure why this was funny. It seemed unmotherly to be obsessed with the gruesome details of a local murder instead of worrying about the safety of one’s own children.
“I bet you can buy one on Amazon,” Shy had piped up. And then she and her mother had spent a good hour scrolling through pages and pages of chain saws, selecting the ones that might be best for dismemberment.
“I wish they could put her back together again so she could tell us what happened,” Wendy had said wistfully.
Roy had an inkling they were leaving him out on purpose so he could focus on his book, but he still felt a bit ignored.
He continued walking. Whenever anyone on Battlestar Galactica visited another planet, they never wore spacesuits or had any trouble breathing. What if Bettina didn’t die when she opened the airlock? What if Ceran only thought she was dead and then he kills himself and then Bettina has to kill herself because he’s dead and she’s lost her will to live, like Romeo and Juliet in space—and thus stupidly unoriginal.
What if she tries to die but can’t? Because she’s no longer human. Neither is Ceran. They’ve been experimented on for so many years, before and during their time in space, they’ve evolved into something else.
Roy winced. Even within the context of the total shit he’d written thus far this was lunacy. What were they then, mutants? What did that even mean? He supposed since he was the writer he could make it mean whatever he wanted. He was in charge of the situation. He just had to take charge.
Roy stopped walking, pressed his palms against the pier railing, and looked down into the dark water.
Maybe Bettina opens the airlock, expecting to die and possibly kill Ceran, and nothing happens. Nothing. They can both breathe and walk around and do everything as normal. They’ve been there so long their still-growing bodies have adapted and adjusted. Their keepers on Mars know this, know Ceran and Bettina don’t have to stay inside. They’ve been lying to them, keeping them trapped in the Mars space station to serve a purpose instead of letting them live their lives and roam free. Teenagers hated to be lied to. Roy and Wendy had told Shy they had to move to New York for Wendy’s big new job, which wasn’t really true. They’d decided to move and then she’d found the job. He still felt guilty about it.
Roy backed into a nearby bench, opened his laptop, and began to type.
* * *
Head Found!
The severed head of a murdered Staten Island woman was found amongst discarded soccer balls, bobbing in the water between two Brooklyn Bridge Park piers, less than five nautical miles from where the woman’s torso was found weeks ago. The deceased woman has been identified as twenty-eight-year-old Lelani Dimakis of Tompkinsville. Dimakis held a part-time bartending job at Jimmie Steiny’s Pub near the Richmond County Courthouse. She lived with her parents and was unmarried. The deceased’s ex-boyfriend, Dante Belsito, has been arrested on charges of murder and is being held by Staten Island police without bail. Belsito has a history of substance abuse and was diagnosed with issues involving “anger control” by a middle school psychologist. A 20-inch Craftsman chain saw was found in Belsito’s garage. No traces of the victim’s DNA were found on the chain saw, although traces of the victim’s blood and hair were found in the drain of Belsito’s shower. Dimakis and Belsito had been engaged. Their relationship ended more than two years ago when Dimakis began a new relationship with a local attorney and frequent Jimmie Steiny’s Pub patron. The victim’s family has postponed a funeral until Dimakis’s remaining body parts are found. The investigation is ongoing.
The image of a severed head bobbing in the water amongst lost soccer balls was delightfully disgusting. Wendy wished there was a picture. It was day-old news now, but she could not stop reading about it. Manfred, her former assistant, had a theory that the more mundane your life was, the more you craved the macabre. They were probably right.
Of course, she and Manfred no longer worked together. Wendy had been moved to another magazine.
Yesterday, just two weeks after turning in her excruciatingly dull and mostly plagiarized piece on Grasse and the history of the perfume industry in France, Wendy had received an email from her boss, Lucy Fleur, inviting her to dial into a conference call. Manfred had been on the call.
“A pregnant editor is going on bed rest downstairs and I offered you, Wendy, to replace her,” Lucy Fleur announced, forgoing any sort of greeting or small talk. So Lucy Fleur did exist after all. Her accent—from her upbringing in Rome, St. Kitts, and Senegal—was musical, lovely. A voice that launched a thousand ships, or at least one glossy, $23 bimonthly magazine comprised almost entirely of handbag and jewelry ads.
“I see. Thank you,” Wendy said, even though this was very definitely a demotion. “Which magazine did you say?”
“Enjoy!,” said Lucy Fleur musically. “Manfred will show you.”
“No problem,” Manfred agreed.
“And Manfred, you will take Wendy’s place at Fleurt.”
There was an awkward pause. Wendy wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. She felt like an enormous failure. What would she tell Roy and Shy? She’d dragged them away from England against their will, only to wind up getting fired? Was it because of the Gucci sneakers? Her boring outfits? Her addiction to reading about the dead woman on Brookliner? Wendy glared at the white ceramic bird perched on the top shelf of the glass
bookcase opposite her desk. She hadn’t put it there. Did Lucy Fleur have a camera hidden inside it? Had she been spying on her?
As soon as Lucy Fleur hung up, Manfred practically kicked her office door down. “You’re going to love it at Enjoy!,” they said. “Gelato on tap. Afternoon yoga. Remember the December chocolate issue last year? I gained ten pounds just reading it.”
Wendy did not remember the December chocolate issue. She didn’t read the other magazines produced in the building. She imagined Enjoy! was one step up from an in-flight magazine.
She clicked back to the Home for the Holidays space she needed to fill in for Enjoy!’s upcoming December issue. Examples from previous issues were a feature on homemade throw rugs and one on rearranging your furniture to accommodate extra family members. Wendy thought about the things she and Roy and Shy had brought with them from England. Roy’s framed fish portraits, which he’d picked up in a gallery in St. Ives in Cornwall and was completely obsessed with even though he didn’t fish for sport and rarely ate fish. His books, which he’d been collecting for forty years and took up most of the moving truck. Shy’s pink fuzzy rug, which probably had fleas. Wendy’s collection of tacky commemorative royal family mugs. The old chairs. The dining room table with its one tarnished brass leg. Their décor wasn’t particularly stylish, but their home looked like a home.
“Shout if you need help.” Gabby, with whom Wendy now shared a cramped, windowless office, stood up and did a few squats. Gabby was Wendy’s physical opposite, with cascading black curls, huge brown eyes, and an extremely ample midsection. She wore a purple batwing dress. There were pictures of desserts pasted above her desk. Enjoy! staff were encouraged to get up from their desks and take a breather whenever they needed to. They were also encouraged to sample recipes in the test kitchen, learn to weave or snowshoe, drink hot chocolate with caramel sauce, and generally Enjoy!.
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