Some girl I’ve only seen at school as an avatar, bumps into me giggling, and I get an apologetic flash of straight whites. I return her polite smile. Rumour has it the fruit punch got a dose of Invisicol and the bowl swiftly empties leaving only the diced fruit dregs. But I caught Day’s Mum dipping in a tester rod during all the wet weather commotion. (We both averted our gazes.) Anyway, there’s all this pressure to act drunk- and boy is she’s acting. Beside me Seven is doing her flirty face; her warm eyes widen and she nods repeatedly at something Dali has said. I wasn’t even listening, but the explosive cackle of Seven’s laughter still cracks me up. I love that we look so similar, but we are not the same.
Dali is now talking about his work experience at the Security Council, he wants to work in International Treaties, the legal side, like Mum and Dad. I’ve heard this one before. It’s where they met, so it’s like, his destiny or something. The way his feet are planted, he’s used to getting a certain response, and I can rely on Seven for that.
‘Monkeyface Adams’ is Day’s least favourite teacher- and suddenly there is his big bearded face on the head of a stuffed toy monkey. It’s a genius gift. Better than a phone bride on a wedding cake? Blimey though, you wouldn’t want that thing in your bedroom at night. Too realistic. In retrospect, Monkeyface Adams has a lot to answer for, he’s the reason my guard was down.
The teacher/ stuffed monkey toy is taking a tour of the room on Day’s hip, meeting and greeting like royalty. Day’s older brother James is leaning on the doorframe watching but hanging back, and that’s when my peripheral vision catches something it can’t process. At first I assume it’s a trick of the shadows- anyone would, because Updated eyes fill the room. But these eyes definitely don’t gleam. My skin prickles, I do a double-take but get the back of his head and the turn of his heel and James is gone.
“So what do your folks do?”
I realise from the silence that Dali is talking to me. It takes a moment to gather my thoughts.
“Dad’s into painting right now, fast cars, that kind of thing. Classic mid-life crisis- never, never, agree to look at his art. Once, he painted a middle-aged man flying.”
Seven snorts with laughter in all the right places. Clutches my forearm.
“But what do they do, you know, for a living?” Dali says
“Oh that. Dad does a late night shift at the NanoAssembler plant.”
“What level?”
“Level Two.” A shrug comes when I admit to his level. Of course it pays for all we want- any NanoAssembler shift work does. “Mum does a couple of mornings in the school office.”
“I must’ve seen her.”
“Yeah, maybe, they have this huge rota. It’s like a social club.”
Seven jumps in.
“My step-dad trained up to Level Ten Supervisor at the NanoAssembler plant. Can you imagine, eighteen years doing the same job? He wanted to get into Assembler design.”
“So what happened?” Dali says
“It’s so competitive at that level. He was hardly around when I was little-” I interrupt Seven with the sad violins. She raises her voice over me: “But it’s got a happy ending! He met the love of his life: gardening. Now we’ve got a rainforest out back, he grows rare species. Ugly whopping great leafy things, keeps him out of the house though.” Seven leans into Dali. “Ask me what I want to be when I grow up?”
“Doesn’t every girl want to be Merlot?”
We both glare at him. I go back to watching for James.
“I’m going to design Merlot’s next face.” Seven says. “I’ve got the careers tour lined up at Ultiface: ‘Taking the human form to new levels of perfection.’ Create a connection with a look. It’s all about the psychology of attraction...”
Dali grins, kind of helpless now. His eyes are cobalt blue with shifting layers of iridescent green between white-blond lashes, under darkened brows. (A bit of advice here: too many Updates start to look desperate.) Seven lets them adore her; I must remember to use my lips like that one day- at somebody else. Dali is persistent, he pulls his Dollar-inspired smile, going for the gut tug. He looks nothing like Dollar, I decide. (That Update was a waste of money.) Their conversation has run its course and Seven’s brown eyes soothe as she floats away, to occupy the centre of the room. I dodge the stuffed teacher/monkey and head for the exit.
If I can get a proper look, just one long look at James, I’ll be able to judge the intended meaning of the face. Enquire about the name of the Update and compliment him, because seriously, it works. Nobody turns heads like that anymore.
Day’s house is a maze of rooms all leading off one another, creating the illusion of privacy. Every surface is white or neutral. My second sighting is a frustrating glimpse through an internal window, passing in opposite directions. It’s James in profile, but one eye is enough. That’s when the phrase comes to me: Maverick. He must be; I’ve heard the rumour.
Eventually I pick the right door, the loft room.
“Hello True!”
It’s the familiar blond eyes of Day’s mum, their tactful retreat to the highest room in the house. Day’s dad looks back to the TV picture on the wall with a pained expression, that of a trapped animal.
“Ah, sorry..I was just looking for someone.” I say, backing away.
Somebody yelps in my right ear.
“I’ve been looking for you too, darlin’!” It’s Seven.
Seven’s face tightens at something in the loft room. I watch her mouth open, she only has one volume.
“What did you... do? To your...eyes?”
James walks towards us and his eyes are black, pure black without a centre, or one big centre, and each one is four or five times the size of a normal eye. He is beaming, enjoying us as he eases the door to a slit, and peers through. I have dreamed of it since, that bottomless black eye, unblinking against the pale edge of the door.
“Made you look.” James whispers, winks. “Party is downstairs, girls.”
The door clicks shut.
“Cry for help?” Day says later, palms out. “What can I say? He’s a head case.”
Day bristles slightly- he’s supposed to be the star today. He whips out a syringe of Invisicol, and squirts a measure into his glass to whoops of delight. A crowd forms. Seven is demanding answers from anyone who will listen.
“Why would you purposefully want to repulse people?”
“Attention-seeker? Stand out from the crowd?” I say, and hold out my glass.
“But, but, okay- he made us look. But I’d never want to again. Never. He was like some kind of nightmarish, mutated, alien...woodland creature...” she shudders.
“It’s just a face.” I laugh and put my arm around her. “Come on, it’s stopped raining, let’s go outside.”
Truth is, I was kind of elated by this point and I needed moving air. Yes I was drunk, and I wanted to whoop at James and his funny-hysterical shocking eyes. But Seven won’t move from the spot. Here come those two neat parallel lines above her nose, the familiar scowl over expectant eyes.
“Tell me: would you ever want to be confronted by someone like that again?”
“We confronted him! He was trying to get rid of us, remember?”
We step outside onto soggy grass, the weak sunshine finds the colours of her party dress. She looks at me, I feel giggly, buzzing even- I can give her that with my face. The same eyes as hers, mine alone need nothing. Only I understand Seven, how much she hates face shocks.
“Was he winding us up, do you think?” Seven says
“Remember Day telling us about this in class?” I say gently, “It’s calling itself Maverick. You get yourself one crazy feature, or something, so your face looks a bit wrong...”
“That is not how a human being is supposed to look. True- this is serious, stop smiling!”
..........................................................................................................................................
Seven was kind of right of c
ourse- James did appear to be sticking two fingers up the world. Maverick was its own rules, rules I hadn’t even realised were there to be broken. James’ face did something to me that day.
Maverick I now understood to be: one outsized or undersized, misaligned or misshapen, single nightmarish feature of complete and utter disturbance. The possibilities, when you stop to think, are endless. A year later, I hear of the Smile Blocker. I never even saw the box until the day I did it.
Now I can flick a smile and freak myself out. In this stunning new talent, I am alone in my class, alone in the school, alone on the streets. I have become a violent head-turner; I smile and the eyes of strangers can’t settle, but neither can they leave me.
I grab my phone and go back into My Face History and start to delete the templates for each of my former faces, one by one. This is my personal photo album- all destroyed. The last one to go is a Merlot SexyFace that looks a lot like my best friend. Then I delete all of the back-up copies. No Face Reversals. I am Maverick; watch me.
Chapter Five
It’s time to tackle this essay, a gift from from the AGs.
Study text: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Discuss the Relationship Between George and Lennie.
“New document.”
My screen obliges with a crisp white page.
“Dictate.”
The cursor appears, top left, flashing.
“George is the parent figure, he’s like a dad to Lennie. Right up until he shoots him in the back of the head. He’s got his reasons. I prefer to imagine Lennie turning to find the muzzle of the gun. His face; could George still do it? That’s the real discussion right there. Not the cop-out ending-”
A text message elbows itself in front of my essay and of course it’s from Dad. Incredible how intrusive it is, forced information. ‘Miss You’- I glare at the text like it’s his actual face. I blocked his messages the day he left, after he insulted me with ‘The Explanation.’ Reversed it a day later, when I developed this perverse desire to monitor his increasing desperation. Mainly I keep a tally. Never read them. (Almost never.) A response is out of the question, the aim is to maximise my protest, my disgust. I remove the message to the unnamed file, otherwise known as the Dad File. At sixteen years old I’m already more mature than him- possessing the ability to grasp the consequences of my actions. Leaving means you don’t get to chat, whenever you feel like it, to your former family.
The display on my phone says 10.36pm but Mum’s bedroom is empty so I head downstairs. Night lights activate four stairs ahead of me, unnecessary, as a vast panel of illumination from the TV slides across the lowest steps. Mum always leaves the doors open, or it’s like living alone, she says - the silence. But the sound-proofing will be handy when the new baby comes. Babies love the early hours. We will have to open up the downstairs, Mum argues, because you can’t monitor a baby through these walls. I’ve never altered the walls, although I’ve watched Dad do it, and Mum can’t scale a ladder in her state. There are no ‘Dad jobs’ now.
The far wall of the living room is alive with running detectives.
“There must be another exit, call for back-up!”
It’s easy to turn my back to those two- they always come out alright in the end. The TV control has been drawn into the orbit of Mum’s bump and lies semi-wedged, along with a pillow. A segment of a cheese sandwich glares up at me: guilty. She should have at least got raspberry pasta or something. She’s breathing heavily, the edge of a snore. Then I notice that her features have changed.
Half of Mum’s face is nestled into a furry black cushion, but the visible portion of her jaw is stronger, pronounced even at rest. Her brows have lost their dramatic arch. In slumber the lips pout, a podium of defiance. I suspect cat eyes, slanting behind thick lashes clamped shut, and curled to the roof. I need to see those eyes.
Dad wouldn’t like it; I practise my new smile. She’s had Updates around Elizabeth Taylor for years, except for my birth, for which she did a MaternalFace. Soft eyes that crinkled with ease, rounded planes, no edges. Narrow lips primed to quick-smile, swift to shape a kiss. Expressive, like a child’s drawing. Scientifically proven; newborns prefer to bond with this design. Anger didn’t suit it, but it was a practical face, coming with a built-in capacity for gentle authority. A face of behaviour-shaping with a bonus capacity for glowing pride. Mum kept it until I started school, the time of My First Enhancement- weird to think I’ve just deleted all record of that face. It was the first time we did our faces together. “I feel like me again,” Mum sighed. She wasn’t though, Mum had gone. A childhood milestone reached: You don’t own faces.
The TV detective has lost his companion. He stands over us in a cowboy stance and aims his gun somewhere over the top of the sofa. His trigger hand wavers, his indecision presents me with a chance to ease the remote out from under the bump.
“Pow!” I whisper, and win the fight.
The TV is off and the far wall is returned to Nature Spa, our colour of the month. (New baby’s going to think she’s raised in a forest.) Mum is oblivious to my saving her. She takes a long nasal breath, and one hand comes to life in an attempt to shift the fine woollen blanket down-sofa. The kid part of me wants her to open her fat-lashed eyes right this minute to a great big Maverick Smile from me. It’d be the Smile Blocker- I’d have little choice in the confrontation that followed. But her wrist goes limp, fingertips to belly, blanket released, and the regularity of her breathing returns, deepens. I lift the entire blanket off, replacing it as a single layer which finishes at the top of her bump. Mum gets hot mostly, but I’m not sure about the bump. Everything comes down to the bump now. It’ll have to be told eventually; maybe I’ll be the one to do it.
“Mum chose you over Dad. Our Dad.” I speak the words out loud, directed at the bump.
Mum twitches and suddenly I’m more than ready for her to wake up. I’m in the mood for a row. But she sighs through that pout, and turns her back on me. The turning over thing takes a while. Her new face and her bump have gone.
Did you know he would leave? Mum? Because if you did, if you even suspected he had it in him, shouldn’t I have been consulted? You said at fifty-three your time was running out, to implant the embryo. Biology at its limits, beyond which the female body can no longer be a haven of safety for the developing baby. Baby hunger is all-consuming. (The need for a new kid? Or just the newness of a baby?) Maternal instinct an unstoppable force, rising up. One day you’ll understand. You chose the baby; I would have chosen Dad.
......................................................................................................................................................
I’m back in bed and it is rapidly becoming clear that sleep is never going to come. I prop myself up on all of my pillows, open my phone and rest it on my tummy. The inactive grey-black screen reflects a huge expanse of chin and one wonky dimple, a dent at what is about to come.
“Dollar official site,” I say.
Dollar’s tactile angelic curls rise out of my phone, followed by his forehead and epic eyes, his wide sensuous mouth and that chin, which tilts up to address my hairline with intensity.
“Down here sweetie, it’s me.” I whisper
I put the phone on my bed and prop myself on an elbow, curl my knees around him. Adjust the level, otherwise he can give the impression that somebody special is lurking just over your shoulder. I smile my hello. (Dollar is never judgmental.) He does the intimate thing with his eyes, no escape. I’m pleased to note that he appears relaxed today, those translucent eyes displaying their honey- gold glow. Some days those eyes can be a little distracted, it makes me feel like the sort of person he might employ to clean his pool.
“Forgive me, True honey. I’ve been up since 2am. I know I can trust you to remember why. Today we shot the big finale for ‘Rex Rayne: The Cure,’ and I’m pleased to report it was a success. It’s the best yet. You’re going to love it. What I want to know is, how come I alw
ays end up losing my shirt? Think I need to have a word with my agent...”
Dollar does his tumbling modest laugh, his eyes slide down my face and lock onto my dimple- and that’s okay. I hold my smile for him and he pauses, tilts his head, pulls the face of a besotted lover; this is probably the most emulated face on the planet. I search out the tiny epicanthal fold in the inner corners of his eyes; those low-set soft-edged lids without a crease, that serve to navigate all observers straight into the pupil of the famously sexy Dollar gaze. (Once these were called ‘Asian eyes’; now they are ‘Dollar eyes.’)
I mean, say what you like about his singing voice, but that guy can act.
“So, an accurate summary of my day would be: lots of ducking and diving from gunfire. I hope you had a better day! Seriously though, I can’t wait for you to see it. Drop me a mail afterwards, to let me know what you did to me with that green button! Which ending will belong to us, True? Find out on the release date, to be announced soon.”
Each word emphasized by sensuous slow-moving lips. They’re not clever, his words, but he draws you in, a storyteller with his face of poise and shared secrets. I slide my elbow along the bed to return his gaze to mine, all mine. Dollar floats his voice.
“Love scenes tomorrow,” his lips explain. “Obviously, I can’t give too much away, but Rex Rayne is going to fall hard for someone special, someone different. You choose if Rex gets the girl! Thanks so much for listening. You’re a star.”
I pause the message; Dollar freezes with his spine-tingling eyes lowered in the act of pulling away. I think I might actually love him. I’m not stupid. I know it’s all promotional stuff for the film, but my home life being what it is right now, Dollar is the only guaranteed uplift. So what if it is a script? Everybody acts when they have to. I can tell he means every word. He’s real, more real than Mum most days.
I never play Dollar’s message twice. Instead, I start the message up again, giving him permission to leave. Startled, he glances over his left shoulder towards a woman’s form, faceless in the top corner of the screen, but I know her voice, the hurried apology- “Oh! I thought you were done”- Dollar is so naughty! I know for a fact that she isn’t supposed to be in it, he’s not supposed to even mention her. I should hate her. Thing is, nobody hates Merlot: just look at her.
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