“Well, what did you expect me to think? Yesterday we had a nice plan worked out. Today you can barely look at me. I’ve had seven hours to scratch my head over it. All I have now are a bloody scalp and a few second thoughts of my own. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Maybe it’ll be easier for everyone if we just forget it.”
Tiny spikes of stress tempis hatched from Amanda’s feet, piercing the straps of her borrowed sandals. She banished away the whiteness, then cast a thorny glower at the parade.
“I swear to God, Zack, sometimes I think you’re played by twins. I never know which one of you I’m going to get.”
“Great. Maybe the four of us can go out for burgers sometime.”
“Go to hell.”
Amanda cut through the crowd, her jaw held rigid with forced composure. Zack tossed another glance at the pay phone before trading a desolate look with Hannah. She wished the two of them would get over their issues, whatever they were, and just screw already. She feared she and Theo were partly to blame for their hesitation. They didn’t provide the best sales brochure for the carpe diem hookup.
They sat side by side on an unattended shoeshine stand, their faces both covered in weeping theater masks. Theo’s head dipped and jerked erratically. Hannah couldn’t tell if he was asleep or lost in premonitions. She ran gentle fingertips up and down his forearm. The caress always seemed to soothe him, no matter how far gone he was.
“Where’s the happy face?”
Hannah jumped at the high voice next to her. A cute young brunette leaned against the wall. She wore a sleeveless white gown that hugged every contour of her elfin body. Her long brown tresses matched Mia’s hairstyle to the strand. If it wasn’t for the girl’s honey skin and vaguely Eurasian features, Hannah might have wondered if a Future Mia had sent herself back in time.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“You and your fella are wearing the same theater mask,” the stranger noted. “It’s supposed to be one happy face and one sad face. You know, Thalia and Melpomene. The Muses of comedy and tragedy.”
Hannah felt silly to be conversing through a disguise. She pulled it away. The girl studied her.
“Nope. Still sad, but prettier now. Damn, hon, you’re a scorcher. I bet you drive all the boys wild.”
The actress bloomed a bleak little grin. “Not enough to keep them.”
“You seem to be doing all right with that one.”
Hannah peered at Theo, oblivious in his torpor. “It’s not like that.”
“I wasn’t slapping a label on it. I just see the way you’re comforting him without a second thought or a ‘what’s in it for me?’ Whatever you are to him, he’s lucky to have you.”
It was the sweetest notion Hannah heard in days. But for all the girl’s rosiness, she wielded a sad face herself. She held a glossy mask in her hand, the plain white fa?ade that Hannah had spotted ad nauseam five minutes ago.
“You were in that first parade.”
“The Ghostwalk. Yeah. I do it every year, though I never make it the whole way without losing it. I’m probably the only one who still cries about the Cataclysm. Everyone else is thinking about their aunt Jody or that dog who ran out in the road.”
“Well, you can hardly blame them. It happened a century ago.”
The girl shrugged tensely. “What can I say? I’m a slow griever.”
The next float ferried four lithe young women in black rubber speedsuits, prancing around the platform in slow ballet motions. Suddenly their gear glowed with patchwork strips of color and they swayed around each other in a hazy blur. Hannah watched in gaping astonishment as their streaking hues combined to form ethereal images—an ocean sunset, a city skyline, a crude American flag. The crowd cheered wildly with each new tableau.
Soon the quartet de-shifted and resumed their gentle mincing. The girl smiled at Hannah’s slack-faced awe.
“Guess you’ve never seen lumis dancers before.”
“No. That was incredible. Jesus. I don’t know how they do that without breaking a bone.”
“Years of practice,” said the girl. “Takes months to rehearse one routine. You should see what the Chinese do with it. Their stage shows are mind-blowing.”
“Do they have one here?”
“Here? God, no. You’d have to go to China.”
Hannah snorted cynically. “Yeah. That’ll happen.”
“Hey now. You never know. Someday someone might jaunt you around the world just to put a smile on that sexy face.”
“I don’t have until someday.”
The girl narrowed her eyes. “Sweetie, you know you’re in trouble when a chick who just marched in a five-mile death parade is telling you to lighten up.”
Hannah smiled despite her mood. She realized how nice it would be to have a friend outside the group, a fun and witty galpal who could bring some sanity back to her existence. If only it were possible.
“I’m Hannah. What’s your name?”
The girl kept a busy stare on the parade. “Ioni.”
“Wow. That’s very pretty. It really suits you.”
“Oh stop it. I’m already a little gay for you. You’re just poking the fire.”
Hannah laughed. “If you can hide me from my life, Ioni, I’m all yours. You can have me any way you want.”