“You’re lying, though,” the man went on. “She must’ve run. Her hair’s too long.”
He had to be Alinean. Few others would notice her hair, and none would dare call her palace scum. No one else had the money or connections to get away with it. That was what Maart always said.
Maart would be so upset. He would be so upset when he found out.
“I’ll pay you!” Jorn shouted. “Get some damned towels!”
“Listen—”
“You listen.” Cilla was still here. She’d been so quiet. Amara heard her footsteps on the floor. She stepped into Amara’s view. She was hard to see from this angle, and in the dark, and with everything red. Cilla still kept her scarf pressed to the side of her mouth, and she lifted her head higher, her hair falling away from her face. She was pretty like that. Even upside down. Even when red.
“Don’t!” Jorn snarled, but he couldn’t stop her with his hands pressed to Amara’s stomach.
Cilla couldn’t do this again. Not after that mage had just—didn’t she see the danger?
Cilla’s free hand went to her scarf. Most of the fabric was already wadded up, so she pulled the rest loose easily. The scarf drooped over her arms, exposing bare shoulders, the beginning swell of her breasts, and that single mark right in the center of her chest. The tattoo’s glow pulsed with her heartbeat.
That tattoo was pretty, too. Even when Amara hated it. And she always hated it.
The pub fell silent.
Someone barked an order about getting towels, and the world went away.
17
Pat didn’t realize he was there.
Nolan had taken up a quiet spot at the other end of the middle-school gym, leaning on a vaulting horse to watch Pat and her classmates rehearse. They wore their regular clothes and didn’t use many props, but when Nolan imagined them in fake hospital gear, with clipboards in their hands, he had to admit the scene might work. Pat was doing a good job. Her biggest problem was waiting for others to finish before she blurted out her lines. No one seemed to mind, though. Their biggest problem seemed to be remembering their lines in the first place.
After twenty minutes, Pat noticed him. She squeaked an apology to her drama teacher and crossed the room. “Nolan! What’re you doing here?”
“I was thinking about the movie from last night.” Nolan stayed by the vaulting horse. It was weird being back in this gym—though his leg meant he’d never spent much time here to begin with. “That actress was good.”
“You just liked her boobs.”
“That, too,” he said, mainly to get a laugh or cringe out of her. Not that she was wrong. “But her expression when she saw that train explode … I was impressed.” He nodded slowly, casually. A simple conversation with his sister shouldn’t make his heart race like this.
The thing was, they’d never had a simple conversation. Even the times when Amara slept were weighed down by her dreams.
“I know, right?” Pat said. “Did you see what she did with her lips? Just that little quirk at the end—it’s so subtle, you know? People online say she was flat, but—” She looked at her classmates and lowered her voice. “What’re you doing here?”
“Wanted to see you rehearse.”
“Did you walk all the way? It’s 108 degrees out!”
“Seemed like a good idea,” Nolan said, though his shirt was drenched and he must smell worse than the dressing rooms nearby. “So, you want to be an actress.”
“What? No.” She paused. “Yes. It’s stupid, I know, but—”
“It’s not stupid.”
“It is,” she said heatedly. “Whatever. I want it, anyway.” She tilted her head, and it took Nolan a second to realize she was redirecting his attention to the kids at the other end of the gym. “Claudia, over there? She’s got a big part, and her cousin is coming over from LA to watch. He’s mostly done ads and this one dumb reenactment, but Claud says he just got a part on a CSI-type show. I figure, if he sees me, and I’m good … maybe he can give me some advice?”
“Maybe.” Nolan tried not to laugh. That’d be one way to get Pat mad at him real quick. Today, though, not laughing was a real challenge. He was in his own world. When he shut his eyes, he still heard Pat and still smelled the stale sweat of the gym, the old leather of the vaulting horse under his elbows. He straightened out his smile. “Do you still need volunteers?”
“You have time to watch the movie? You’re sure?” Nolan asked Mom the next evening, halfway up the stairs. “I’ll get the laptop!”
“It’s that superhero movie, right?” Mom called. “Super-heroes are cool.”
“That’s why I downloaded it.” He returned to the top of the stairs with the laptop bag around his shoulders and hopped carefully down the steep steps.
This would be his third movie in as many days. He’d spent Tuesday and today doing more than he’d ever thought possible. He was nauseated from the increased dose of medication, yeah, but he’d rehearsed with Pat, who’d learned to get her eyebrows under control; volunteered with her drama teacher; done homework; flirted with Sarah at school—clumsily, though she seemed not to mind—and at the end of the day he still had energy left for TV, swimming, chores.
Maybe he could get superhero comics from the library and see if Mom liked those, too. Maybe he’d finally get to study Nahuatl alongside Dad and Patli; he knew how important Mexica pride was to Dad and how important it was becoming to Pat. To feel that kind of passion about who you were and weren’t … Maybe Nolan could learn. Maybe he could understand. God, he wanted to understand.
How had he been able to fill his days all those years, doing nothing at all?
In the kitchen, Mom was wiggling past Dad to grab plates. “Almost done,” Dad singsonged at the stove. He stuck a pinkie into the sauce and licked it off. “Very almost.”
Mom turned. With her free hand, she reached out and finger-combed Nolan’s hair—he could swear she’d lifted that hand before she’d even gotten a good look at him. “Ah, Nolan, you really need to use some gel. Did you run out?” She was seconds away from licking her fingers to improvise. Instead, her hand moved down the side of his face to cup his chin. “I told you we’d get here.”
She turned for the living room with a bounce in her step.
Dad leaned against the counter’s edge, regarding Nolan appreciatively. “The new dosage really is working, isn’t it? You’re not having any seizures?”
Nolan aimed for a casual shrug, but the bag around his shoulder—the laptop was a heavy old model that by all rights should’ve broken down years ago—made it a challenge. “None.”
“You happy?”
Nolan’s growing smile should say enough. “Yeah. I’m adjusting, but I’m good.”
Dad twisted a knob behind him, turning the flame under the saucepan into a tiny blue flicker. “That’s what matters. What’s on your arm?”
Nolan tilted his lower arm inward. “Just doodles. Hey, I need to set up the movie …”
“Sounds good.” Suddenly Dad was all business, stirring the sauce around the chicken, sending scents of peanut and sharp chili through the air. Dad rarely cooked like this. Real food took too long and cost too much. Nolan had taken care of the second part, calling Grandma Pérez for advice and using his last remaining birthday money to pick up the necessary items at the corner store, only remembering when he got home that his parents would have too much work to do to cook. They’d taken one look at the freshly stocked fridge, though, and decided to make an exception. Today marked Nolan’s third evening and second full day without seizures; they had something to celebrate.