by M A Gelsey
“Yeah,” Edgar Prime said. “How is it you look so good? You were up as late as me last night.”
Celeste grinned. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m actually a robot. No sleep required.”
Edgar Prime snorted at the joke. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“You’d think they’d have made it so you wouldn’t need as much sleep as the rest of us when they engineered you,” Celeste said. “Then instead of a copy you could be Dr. Edgar Midas 2.0 — the new and improved version. I guess you don’t have a Ph. D. yet so maybe we’d have to lose the ‘Dr.’ part of that . . .”
“Right,” Edgar Prime said. Even though he usually didn’t like when people compared him to his original, Dr. Midas, Edgar Prime liked how Celeste mentioned the fact that he was a clone casually, so unlike the awkwardness or the clinical curiosity he usually encountered from people when they broached the subject with him. Her teasing felt comfortable, and he realized it was like the way she spoke to her other friends. Does this mean we’re friends? Edgar Prime wondered.
“Sorry, am I not supposed to joke about that?” Celeste asked.
“No, it’s fine,” Edgar Prime said. “I — it’s refreshing to hear someone talk about it like it’s not a big deal.”
“You can always count on me for that,” Celeste said. “I never take anything seriously. It drives my parents crazy.”
Edgar Prime smiled at that, but it also jogged a fuzzy memory from the night before, of Celeste leaning in and saying to him in a conspiratorial voice, “Hugo likes you, you know.” Had she meant that seriously, or was it another joke? Edgar Prime told himself it didn’t matter either way, it wasn’t like he was going to ruin things now by asking her. She’d probably laugh in his face if he did.
Oblivious to the questions that churned through Edgar Prime’s mind, Celeste had begun recounting the story of how she’d overheard Blake and George’s awkward drunken hook up through the wall the previous night. Edgar Prime laughed along with her, almost forgetting his exhaustion and the now-dull pain beneath his skull. He told himself firmly that this newfound camaraderie was more important than pursuing something that was surely hopeless with Hugo. It would be best for him to forget all about it. It wasn’t a big deal. He was only nineteen after all, he’d meet someone else before long and forget he ever felt anything beyond a platonic fondness towards Hugo. Laughing by Celeste’s side at that moment, Edgar Prime almost believed his own lie.
13: ANNABEL
She awoke the next morning naked and sticky with arms squeezing her and something hard pressing into her upper thigh. It took her a few seconds to realize where she was and why she felt a strange aching soreness in her pelvic region. Then the events of the previous day came back to her, and she had to resist the urge to scream. The arms around her tightened a bit, trapping her even more securely in their embrace. Rex’s arousal poked her leg more insistently, and his hands began caressing her gently.
With a sigh, Annabel rolled over and allowed him to insert himself inside her again with a grunt and a moan in her ear. It was still painful, but over more quickly this time. Almost as soon as he was done Annabel crawled to the edge of the bed and stood up, not wishing to be ensnared in his arms once again.
“Good morning, my love,” murmured Rex.
“Good morning,” Annabel forced herself to say, before grabbing her robe and taking refuge in the bathroom.
Rex’s things had been moved into the house during the wedding, and Annabel found it strange to see foreign objects like a man’s razor, deodorant and toothbrush in her bathroom. He had told her the previous afternoon — apologizing profusely — that the movers had put most of his boxes into the large empty room she used for yoga and meditation. She had lied and said she didn’t mind, but the idea that he had taken over her small sanctuary twisted inside her like a knife.
Annabel realized she’d been staring at her pale face in the bathroom mirror lost in thought for twenty minutes when she heard a soft knock on the door.
“Annabel my love,” came Rex’s voice, slightly muffled through the door. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she heard herself say; another lie. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Quickly, Annabel commenced brushing her teeth and showering. She made the water as hot as she could stand, and rinsed the dried blood from between her thighs with a wince. She suspected there was a stain on the sheet as well for Mrs. Lennox to scrub out; the thought made her blush. When she stepped out of the shower, she glanced at the foggy mirror once more before she left the bathroom. Everything had changed in the last twenty-four hours, but her face looked the same as always.
When Annabel returned, Rex was mercifully absent from the bedroom. He’d opened the curtains to let in the gentle morning sunshine. Even though it was cold, Annabel threw open the windows to let in the sea breeze. The bed drew Annabel’s eye, and she saw that it had already been stripped and remade. The room was all wood beams and white linens, with tall bookshelves along one wall and seashells artfully arranged at the end of each level. As with everything else this morning, it was simultaneously familiar and alien.
Annabel had to force herself to leave the tainted serenity of the bedroom. She arrived downstairs just in time to see dowdy Mrs. Lennox laying plates of food on the table for their breakfast.
“Good morning, Annabel,” Mrs. Lennox said as she poured Rex a cup of coffee.
“Good morning, Mrs. Lennox,” Annabel said. She felt embarrassed that the older woman had seen her bloody sheet, but Mrs. Lennox behaved with the same detached professionalism as always. She poured Annabel’s coffee, and then retreated back into the kitchen, her short black hair sticking up at odd angles as though she’d run her fingers through it too many times.
“I had Mrs. Lennox make your favorite,” Rex informed Annabel as she sat down in the chair to his right — he was seated at the end of the long dining table. He smiled an incandescent smile and she returned it, hoping that her happy wife facade would become easier to maintain over time. Looking at the table she saw a much more elaborate spread than usual: eggs scrambled with fresh parsley, cilantro, and green onions, chestnut flour muffins with homemade lemon curd, and a bowl of the reddest cherries Annabel had ever seen.
Rex served them both a generous portion of everything, and they began to eat in what Annabel supposed could be described as a companionable silence.
“I’m going to have to do a few hours of work after breakfast,” Rex said with an apologetic note in his voice. “But I thought we could go for a walk on the beach this afternoon.”
“That sounds good,” Annabel said with more enthusiasm than she felt. Still, at least she’d have the rest of the morning to herself. Once their plates were clean Rex kissed Annabel and went off to his study on the ground floor. Annabel drifted out to the balcony to watch the waves crash against the shore. For the first time, she felt sympathy for the rocks.
After a while Annabel decided to investigate the state of her meditation room in the hopes that there would be a small corner of bare floor she could use for her yoga practice. When she reached the third floor of the house she was pleased to find that there was still enough space for her to lay out her mat, and spent the next hour and a half working herself into a sweat with one sun salutation after another while striving to empty her mind of anything but the present. This proved more difficult than usual, and when Annabel finally lay back in the corpse pose savasana, her mind felt as frantic as ever.
From her place on the floor, she noticed that none of the boxes were taped shut. She sat up slowly, ignoring the dull ache in her muscles that always accompanied a good workout, and crawled over to the nearest box.
Without thinking too much about it, Annabel opened it up and began rummaging inside. Her vague intention was to discover more about this stranger who was now her husband. In the first box, she found nothing but clothes. They all appeared well-made and she recognized some expensive labels. Someone had meticulously folded them all an
d arranged them according to color. Annabel wondered whether it had been Rex.
Careful to put them back as she’d found them, Annabel moved on to another box. This one was full of books. Almost against her will, Annabel smiled. New paper books were something of a luxury but there were plenty of old ones to be had, ones printed before the conservation laws had been passed heavily taxing the use of trees for such things. There was something romantic about old paper books, even if they couldn’t compete anymore with the vast virtual libraries that existed.
Growing up, Ms. Durant had given Annabel access to all of the books owned by her original, and they took up most of the shelves in the master bedroom. The original Annabel had loved authors like Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, and Charles Dickens. She seemed to have collected nearly everything they’d ever published. Annabel liked them well enough, but her favorite was a small book she’d found on the lowest shelf in the corner, almost out of sight. It was called Mother Night and had been written many years ago by Kurt Vonnegut. She found the story of the man pretending to be someone else profoundly moving, and had read it so many times she’d practically memorized it.
Based on the contents of the second box, Rex liked a completely different sort of book; most of the ones he owned were spy thrillers. Annabel ran her fingers over the spines of the complete works of Ian Fleming, Barry Eisler and John le Carré. She wondered whether there were more books in the other boxes, and after resealing the second box she opened a third to see.
This box contained what seemed to Annabel to be random odds and ends. She found a couple of small, black and white abstract paintings carefully wrapped in soft cloth to protect them, tennis equipment, a small collection of signed baseballs each in its own hard plastic case, and a metal box with a handle on one side about a foot-and-a-half by a foot long. She picked up the gleaming box, and placed it carefully on the floor in front of her. It was heavy; much heavier than she’d expect based on its dimensions. The box was sealed with a metal clasp on either side of the handle, and she undid each one with a click. Annabel looked around, suddenly wary and feeling as though she was snooping where she shouldn’t, but she was completely alone and after all, she had a right to know more about the man who she had married. She dismissed the feeling, and slowly opened the box.
Nestled inside black foam was a pistol. Annabel just stared at it for a moment. She’d never seen a real gun before — she’d seen plenty of them on the crime shows that Ms. Durant liked to watch in the evenings, but never in person. Her heart beat faster as she reached out an unsteady hand to pick it up, wanting to feel what it was like to hold it. As she lifted it from its foam bed, she was startled again that something so small could be so heavy. There were three empty magazines in the foam indents alongside it, and underneath there was a cardboard box full of bullets. She picked one up to read the small .45 engraved on its base.
Annabel was gripped with a strong desire to know what it felt like to point this gun at something and fire it. She wondered whether it would make her feel powerful and if it did, whether that would just be another illusion. Deciding it would be best to pretend she hadn’t looked though Rex’s things, she carefully replaced the gun where she’d found it before resealing the cardboard box.
Later in the shower, Annabel pondered how much of a person is revealed by the things they owned. And if a person could be understood in such a way, what conclusions could she draw about the man who was now her husband? She came up with no answer, but continued to wonder for the remainder of the day— when she walked along the beach hand in hand with Rex, when they ate dinner, when they watched an old movie. When she lay on her back later in the dark as he plunged into her and moaned in her ear.
Afterward, Annabel tried to ignore the pressing arms around her, stifling her movement and holding her in place. Much as she wished for unconsciousness, sleep was once again elusive, but not for Rex who had begun to snore almost the moment he finished. Annabel stared at the ceiling, hoping she’d one day have the courage to elbow him away from her in bed so that she might be able to shift around more comfortably. Such a modest fantasy, she thought to herself. How small your hopes and dreams have become. Finally after a long while, she managed to fall into a fitful sleep.
14: JAVI
Monday morning brought with it the daily grind of school. Fred picked him up at 8:15 as usual, and Javi spent the remainder of the short drive being interrogated yet again about his conversation with Stella Castell.
“D’you think if you and Stella start dating she’ll set me up with one of her friends?” Herman asked.
“Shut the fuck up, Herman,” Javi snapped. “We’re just studying together she’s still dating Kato Barre.”
“For now,” Herman said slyly. “I still don’t know how you managed to get her to voluntarily agree to spend time with you at all. Maybe you’re secretly a wizard.”
Javi grinned in spite of himself. He was just as stunned as Herman was that Stella had not only suggested studying together that night at the party, but had confirmed the idea the following afternoon when he finally worked up the courage to text her. He spent twenty minutes trying to phrase it just right and had fully expected her to ignore the text or else respond with an excuse about being too busy. To his astonishment, she simply proposed meeting Monday afternoon in the park. He couldn’t have come up with a more perfect plan for their first date if he’d tried.
He knew of course that it wasn’t really a date, but it was still probably the closest he’d ever come to one with Stella. He spent most of the day vacillating between indulging in wild fantasies and sternly reminding himself that if he acted overly eager Stella would probably be put off. It didn’t help that Herman seemed unable to prevent himself from recounting in graphic detail every single porno he’d ever seen involving two people who had met up to “study” and wound up fucking instead.
Fred smirked and chuckled at this, but didn’t comment. Aside from telling them that he and Violet had “a nice time” on Saturday night he hadn’t given any other details. Herman speculated often and loudly that Fred had lost his virginity that night but promised Violet he wouldn’t tell anyone. If it was true (and Javi wouldn’t be surprised if it was) then Fred was the first of them to reach that particular milestone. Fred just gave them a knowing smile when Herman floated this theory by him. Javi was torn between jealousy and awe. How did it even happen? He wanted Fred to tell them his secret.
Aside from a cursory greeting, Stella didn’t speak to him in their Chinese class, causing Javi to worry she’d changed her mind. When the bell rang, however, she smiled and said, “See you later,” on her way out. Javi didn’t have time to reply with more than, “Yeah,” and mentally kicked himself afterwards for being so awkward.
When the three o’clock bell rang, Javi found Fred and Herman waiting at his locker.
“What are you two doing?” Javi asked, suspicious at the smug looks both of them wore.
“That’s not a very nice way to thank the people who are about to give you a ride to the park for your date with Stella,” chastised Herman.
“Shh!” Javi hissed. He looked around but fortunately nobody was paying them any attention. He glared at Herman; the last thing he needed was for Stella to hear he’d told people they were dating.
“Don’t be so paranoid, Romeo,” Herman said with a grin.
“I don’t need a ride,” Javi said. “I was gonna take the bus.”
“Nonsense,” Fred said. His expression shifted to sympathetic. “It’s on the way. And you don’t want to be late, I doubt Stella would wait for you if you were.”
“Fine,” Javi conceded. He pulled a few things out of the locker and slammed it shut. The three of them started walking towards the parking lot.
“Nervous?” Fred asked.
Javi didn’t answer for a moment but then nodded stiffly.
“I don’t blame you,” Herman said. “It’s a lose-lose situation really. Either you make a fool of yourself and Stella tells everyone
or you don’t and Kato Barre beats you up for trying to steal his girlfriend. One way or another, your imminent future sucks, doesn’t it?”
Javi scowled at Herman as they reached Fred’s car, but didn’t deign to respond. As soon as Fred pulled out of the parking lot, Herman started up again.
“Just tell us, Fred. Did you bang Violet, or not?” he asked.
Fred glanced at him in the mirror with what Javi knew was supposed to be a frown but looked more like a badly concealed smile. Grateful for the distraction from the roiling sensation in his stomach, Javi joined in.
“Come on, Fred. Something must have happened. Blowjob? Handjob? Did you at least get to see her tits?” Javi said.
There was a pause — Javi and Herman waited with bated breath.
“Okay, fine. We had sex,” Fred said in a would-be casual voice.
Herman and Javi both whooped and Fred started laughing even as his face turned red. Javi had never seen Fred look so pleased with himself, but he supposed if ever there was a time to feel self-satisfied it was when you lost your virginity to a pretty girl.
“What was it like?” Javi asked.
Fred gave him a sly look. “Whatever you think it’s gonna be like, it’s a thousand times better.”
Herman laughed uproariously at that and thumped Fred on the back. Fred swatted his hand away and added, “ We’re gonna hang out again at Violet’s place tomorrow after school. Her parents don’t get home ‘til 7 or 8 usually.”
“Wow,” Javi said, awed. The prospect of having sex even once seemed unbearably daunting, and Fred was already going to do it again.
“Who’d have thought scrawny Indian kids were Violet’s type?” Herman said, still laughing. “You whip out some Kama Sutra tricks for her or something?”
“Shut up about her, Herman,” Fred said and this time he really did scowl. “She’s — I really like her. We’re not like official or anything yet, but maybe . . .”
