Do you like me?
Will you let me kiss you?
When it’s time, Dad, will you let me go?
Christos was leaning against a car outside when Marwan left.
“I don’t want any trouble,” Marwan said.
“Your father told me you’d be here,” Christos said.
“He would never do that,” Marwan said.
“Well, my father was with me. He’s at the restaurant now.”
“What are you even talking about?” Marwan asked.
“My father found out about the eggs,” Christos said. “Suffice it to say, he wasn’t happy.”
Marwan just waited.
“I guess, well … do you remember kindergarten moving up?”
“Who could forget?”
“I guess my dad always felt like a real jerk about all that. And when he heard I was sort of being the same way, he wasn’t having it.”
Marwan guessed this was as close to an apology as he would get.
“So I’m sorry,” Christos said.
Wow. “So hell has frozen over,” Marwan said, fighting a smile.
“Bundle up,” Christos said.
“Wait, so why is he at the restaurant?”
“He brought his glass guy, to take some measurements and fix the window, which by the way we did not do. It wasn’t us, I swear. I’ll cop to the eggs but not that.”
Marwan nodded and looked away for a second, spotted an Alaska license plate on a mint-green Fiat convertible right there. He was half-tempted to climb in and try to hot-wire it and drive all the way there.
“Why do you hate me so much anyway?” Marwan asked.
“It’s dumb,” Christos said.
“Well, I know that.”
“It was my great-grandfather’s,” he said.
“What was your great-grandfather’s?”
“The space where your restaurant is,” Christos said. “It was a little Greek restaurant.”
Marwan nodded and said, “Sorry?”
“No,” Christos said. “I’m the only one who has to apologize.”
Christos held out a hand to shake and Marwan shook it and Christos walked off and Marwan went to take a picture of the license plate. He wanted to tell Eden about it, about how he’d finally done it.
Setting off toward the restaurant, he got out his phone and earbuds. He was down to the last episode of the beauty queen podcast, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to listen to it, wasn’t quite ready to be done. He’d either find out the truth about what had happened to her or he wouldn’t and either way he’d be disappointed.
He spotted a flyer on a streetlight post. For a rally against hate on Saturday morning. He took a picture of it and sent it to Eden.
She wrote back right away: I saw.
EDEN
He was sitting with a few girls Eden didn’t know and didn’t like. But this was happening. Real life. She’d seen his post so knew where he was and decided, simply, to go there. She did not need backup from Anjali or anyone.
“Hey,” she said to him, and he looked up from his phone.
“Hey,” he said.
“Can we talk?”
“Um.” He smiled awkwardly. “I guess.”
Eden waited for him to get up, then walked out onto the sidewalk, holding the door for him as he followed.
“I wanted to clear the air,” she said. “In person.”
“Okay?” he said, like he had no idea what she was talking about.
“Asking people to send them sexy pics or whatever is gross.”
Julian made a face and looked away, like he was amused.
“Coming on to people and then acting like it never happened is also gross,” she said.
“I thought you were into me.” He looked like he might just walk away.
“But you weren’t into me. So why even ask for the pic so many times?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She shook her head and studied him for traces of whatever it was she’d initially found attractive in him.
“Are we done?” he asked finally.
“Yeah, we’re done, Julian,” she said, and he went back into Starbucks.
She got out her phone and earbuds and thought about listening to her dad’s voice mail, which had been restored to her phone, presumably right before the device imploded, but instead she opened Spotify and went to the playlist called “Current Faves.” After some serious help from Gmail and Spotify she’d gotten them all back, and now they were on her own account. The last two tracks her father had favorited before he’d died were at the top—one was called “Pain”; the other, “The Day Will Be Mine.”
Svetlana was suddenly there. It was as if a unicorn had walked up to her.
“What are you staring at?” Svetlana asked.
“Nothing,” Eden said, taking one of her earbuds out again.
“Ilanka told me about that thing you guys had. How you thought I was dead.”
“I’m glad you’re not.”
“Me, too.” Svetlana laughed awkwardly. “Obviously. But it’s gone, right?”
“Yes,” Eden said. “It’s gone.”
Svetlana just nodded and walked off, and Eden started on her way, too. Whatever Aizel had meant when she’d said, “You wouldn’t believe the things I’m capable of,” well, Eden didn’t want to know. She only knew that the next time she got a flight out of LaGuardia, she’d get a window seat and look down at that spot with the tall reeds, where life had become this completely insane, out-of-control thing. She’d think how maybe, when it was all said and done, it had been a little bit—just maybe the tiniest bit—fun.
Looking at the song titles again, she put her earbud back in for the walk home. She picked “The Day Will Be Mine” because the idea felt right.
ILANKA
At the gym after school, the core troupe members were taking their spots on the floor mats. The spot where Ilanka had been during the routine at previous rehearsals had been filled in somehow, by moving this girl that way and that girl this way? It was as if she’d never been a part of it, and that felt right and true.
Their coach was talking about a certain sequence, and then she cued the music with a signal of her hand and the air filled with orchestra swells. The group began to move the way the best groups do, like a single living organism.
From here, from the outside, Ilanka saw beauty in it that she hadn’t been able to see from within. And when the girls somehow seemed to magically produce ribbons and began to dance with rainbow strips of satin, Ilanka let a small gasp escape her. Letting go was never easy, but sometimes it was necessary, and this was one of those times, maybe the first moment in her life that she’d made a conscious decision to walk away from something.
When the group finished and took a break for water, she approached her coach. She was going to miss her. Sort of. Not really. It was like having another mother in a way, and one was plenty.
“I’m sorry,” Ilanka said, “about just not showing up.”
Her coach just listened. That felt new, having a voice that people maybe heard.
“I’ve decided I’m done. It’s time for me to move on.”
“Well, we’re sad to see you go, of course. But if your heart isn’t in it, there’s no point.”
“Exactly.”
“Promise me you’re giving this up so you can find something else that really lights you up. Don’t give up because it’s hard work.”
“I promise,” Ilanka said. “I will. I’m not.”
Ilanka thought about saying goodbye to the team, but they were all scattered and chatting and it suddenly didn’t feel that important to make a big exit. She could text the girls she was closest to later if she wanted to.
In the subway station, she stood on the platform and felt the wind of a train coming from the tunnel and heading out toward Coney Island. She closed her eyes against the warm, smelly air and, when the train stopped and opened its doors, thought about hopping on, going all that way aga
in, so she could feel sand in her feet and stare at the horizon and daydream about things she might do with all the free time she’d have now.
Read more.
Trapeze lessons?
Make more friends. Actual ones.
The future felt wide open.
Her father was on a plane home. She’d already asked him about Eliza, and he said that yes, they’d tested an earlier version for an old associate years ago. That when that associate wanted to launch the toy he decided to do it in the U.S.—a more tech-friendly place than Russia—and how Ilanka’s father had helped him find the office space, how when it failed user testing the guy had just packed up and gone home. Her dad still had a lot of explaining to do about the data—but from what she’d read it seemed like he’d be looking at a fine and not jail time. A lot of this data stuff, he’d said, was still a gray area, and it sure felt that way to her.
She still felt weirdly violated, but there was more to her than just her data.
She opened her eyes and let the train to Coney pull out without her, because she was carrying that freedom inside her now anyway.
When the train in the right direction pulled in, she got on, took a seat, and counted the number of people in the car who were on their phones.
Fifteen that she could see.
The one person not on her phone was a woman in her forties, maybe, reading a book called The Awakening.
Ilanka knew she could look it up on her phone and find out what it was about, but she opted not to and tried to guess instead. Was it about a zombie apocalypse? Maybe a robot, like the device but more advanced, wakes up and becomes human—or monster? Or maybe it was some kind of call to justice—like a wake-up call about the state of things in the country and the world?
She sat that way for the whole ride, with her hands loosely folded in her lap and her phone dark in her jacket pocket.
ELI
They all came to the funeral Thursday morning, surprising Eli’s mother, who apparently didn’t think he had any friends who would do such a thing. Which maybe he hadn’t, before all this.
They’d even come to lunch at a restaurant after. Marwan had brought cards from this idiotic conversation-starter game that Eli had seen a commercial for online—apparently they all had—and had gotten them to agree to play. But when Marwan read from the first card he said, “You didn’t really think I wanted to play this dumb game, did you?”
Eden had whacked him on the arm and said, “Give me my dumb cards back.”
“Wait, those are yours?” Eli said.
“My dad bought it,” she said. “As a joke.”
Eli fulfilled all his family obligations afterward, hugging some aunts and helping gather up the photos they’d posted around the room of his grandfather, bringing some flower arrangements to the apartment. He sat with his sister at the kitchen table—she’d somehow managed to bring home a few conversation-starter cards that had been left behind by accident, and Eli asked her now to pose for a picture with one of them.
That was when he saw the text from Aizel. The second Aizel. He checked when he’d gotten it, and it had come right before the explosion.
Just four numbers without explanation. Again without an alert or notification that he’d seen. Again marked as read even though he hadn’t read it.
His heartbeat quickened as his mind set to work trying to figure out what it could mean.
The revelation was nearly instant: the code for the door of Aizel Inc.
He should just delete the message.
The whole thing was over.
But the others hadn’t mentioned it. So he was the only one Aizel had reached out to?
What did she want from him?
Was he ready to be done?
It would be easy to just hop a bus up Twenty-First Street and try the numbers.
If it didn’t work, it didn’t work.
And if it did work, then what?
He’d see if he could get the computer to start up again? He’d see if he could clean out the printer and print another device?
Failing all else he could take home one of the old toys and dissect it and see what he could learn. He could go back to the toy site and see if that chatbot came back and said, TELL ME ABOUT YOUR INTEREST IN AIZEL.
He didn’t know what he’d do, and it was oddly thrilling.
Eliot was used to doing risky things; Eli not so much. Maybe it was time for that to change.
What else was Aizel capable of?
What about me?
MARWAN
There was a nip to the air Friday evening so they didn’t open the garden, but the so-called tiny eatery seemed larger than ever to Marwan. Watching his father cook and mingle, he enjoyed a sort of calm he hadn’t felt there in days or weeks or maybe ever.
He didn’t have to ask to know that they weren’t moving to Egypt—not now, probably not ever. This—Queens—was home, and the restaurant was home more so, even, than their house with its crazy solar panels. And while it might not be Marwan’s home forever, he was lucky to have it now.
He texted Eden on his breaks. Just making plans to meet up for the rally tomorrow and some texts about maybe going bowling on Sunday. It was weird to talk about normal things with her—weird to think ahead to things they might do together in the coming weeks—without the looming feeling of a ticking time bomb in their pockets.
There’d be no fire alarms, no Panera rain, no secrets, no hiding, no bomb threats, no fear.
It felt like a wire had been cut and they’d all been defused.
He’d taken some more notes on his podcast after the funeral yesterday but then decided, for now at least, to just let the device be done, to let the story sit awhile until he could make better sense of it.
He still hadn’t listened to that last episode of the beauty queen podcast and was pretty sure he wouldn’t. It seemed weird, suddenly, to spend so much time immersed in other people’s darkness instead of out in the world, looking for light.
Eli had started a group text: Send help.
Marwan felt himself tighten and reactivate, but then a photo came through. It was a picture of Eli’s sister holding one of the cards from the conversation game. If you zoomed in you could just make out the question: What is the most valuable lesson you have learned?
Eden sent a rolling-on-the-floor-laughing face.
Marwan sent the pondering emoji.
Ilanka wrote: Um. Do I know you? then, a minute later, a smiley face.
“Marwan,” his father said. “No sleeping on the job. Table four needs water.”
He put his phone in his pocket and grabbed a glass pitcher. “I’m on it.”
EDEN
At first it seemed like maybe nobody was going to turn up except for Eden and her mom and the rally organizers: a small group of women with their children in tow who had gathered at the center of the park, all holding handmade posters. But then more people started to mill, and then more people, including her friends, filled out the edges of the park and suddenly it was a thing. The idea was to walk quietly through the neighborhood, past the places where hateful incidents had occurred in the past few days and months. The organizers had mapped it out on paper and printed up copies and started passing them out.
Eden’s mom finally met Marwan. And Ilanka and Eli (again), too. He’d brought his little sister and his dog, Cora. Some of Marwan’s friends from soccer were there so Eden met them.
Svetlana was there with Ilanka. And Anjali was there, of course—with Tristan and Thea and Thea’s moms. The Rankins had turned up, too. Mark came over and asked Eden about life post-Aizel.
“So far so good,” she said.
“And it’s definitely destroyed?” he asked.
“Definitely,” she said, thinking it was nice that he cared but weird that he maybe cared too much?
His parents were both there, looking happy chatting with her mom, so that was weird or maybe not. Eden had made a decision to forgive all that, whether she fully felt it yet or not.
One of the organizer women held up a megaphone and said, “Okay, we’re going to start now! Thank you all for coming out! Hate will not be tolerated in our neighborhood. We stand together against it today!”
Applause and woots rose up. People on benches stood; people who’d maybe only just decided to join in came closer. She and her mom hooked arms and started to follow the procession out of the park.
When her mom found a friend and went to chat, Marwan fell into step beside Eden. It was a few more blocks—past the house that had like a hundred small birds in its shrubs all the time, and past the apartment building whose gardens the owners decorated for every imaginable holiday—before she reached out and took his hand. There was no hesitation or surprise on his end; it was like he’d been waiting for it.
She didn’t know what she even wanted with him—maybe what they already had was enough, whatever it was?—and she had no idea how you were supposed to know that. When enough was enough. When enough was just right. She wanted to kiss him, though. Right there in the middle of a crowd. She wanted to kiss everyone who’d turned up, though. For standing up for something good.
She loved this crazy place so hard in that moment in spite of everything.
Marwan dropped her hand and went to talk to a friend near the stalled construction site where someone had apparently thrown a ton of wildflower seeds, because behind the plywood wall at the sidewalk rose tall sunflowers and other flowers Eden didn’t know the names of.
She whispered to her dad, “I wish you were here,” then wondered who would still talk to her when she was dead, but really there was no way to know and it was probably not something she had to worry about for a very long time.
She wondered if she’d ever tell anybody about what they’d all just been through or if it was the kind of thing that only mattered when you were in it.
Maybe you had to be there.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket and triggered a knee-jerk feeling of panic—what now?
The Citizen app alerted her to “Two women carrying a large tub of an unidentified hot liquid” about a half mile away.
Take Me with You Page 25
