“Convince the taxpayers and shareholders that they’re making a good investment. Convince them you’re earning your keep. Adri, practice smiling.”
They sipped coffee with the hosts and repeated the same talking points: that Mars was full of mineral exports to justify its costliness, that it had four seasons like Earth and 664 days a year. Adri and Saba offered technical information, while D’Angelo and Alexa won people over with their charm.
Adri had only ever seen Manhattan on TV. That evening, she gazed from their shared hotel suite in Midtown toward the old part of the city, the empty skyscrapers of the financial district glinting at sunset. That part of the island was dark, waterlogged, impassable—not viable as a place to live anymore, river water obscuring the streets. Giant electronic banners stood at the top of some of the abandoned towers. Use Ivory Soap! one said.
The others stayed up late to play cards, taking puffs of cigars (there’d be no tobacco at all on Mars, so now was their chance), and drinking tiny bottles of vodka that arrived through the bar via glowing pneumatic tubes. Adri went into her room to read a city travel guide. From her room she could hear them learning things about each other: how Saba had weirdly chubby thumbs, how D’Angelo managed to be both a shameless flirt and socially awkward at the same time, that Alexa was a walking pharmacy, always keeping a bag on her full of cough drops and Band-Aids and hand sanitizer and bottled water.
Around 11:30, D’Angelo appeared in her doorway, pushing it open gingerly.
“Adri? Aren’t you going to watch the ball drop with us?”
“I don’t think so,” Adri said.
But instead of leaving, he pushed farther into her room. He had a weird look on his face, mischievous. “I really think you should.”
“I’m not really into that stuff,” she said.
He leaned down and linked his arm through hers, giving her a big cheesy grin.
“Come on. Everyone insists.”
Adri didn’t know how to keep saying no without being rude, so she stood up and followed him into the living room, where everyone was gathered around a cake, with eighteen candles lit.
“Is that for me?” Adri asked flatly.
“Sorry it’s late,” Alexa said. “Lamont only just told us this morning. He sent us a message.”
The cake said, in glowing yellow words on chocolate icing, Happy Birthday, Minty.
“That’s what we call you behind your back,” Alexa explained, “since you said you’re trying to quit mints.”
Adri was painfully embarrassed and flattered at the same time. And guilty. She couldn’t understand why they’d taken the time to do it. And she liked that she had a nickname, even if it was making fun of her.
As they ate popcorn and watched TV, Adri was quiet, but not unhappy, her knees up to her chin and her arms folded around them. D’Angelo and Alexa were flirting, and Saba had already established herself as the practical one—reminding them that they had to be up at 4:30 the next morning and that she was going to bed at 12:01. Everyone went out of their way to include Adri, trying to get her to puff a cigar, fixing her a drink.
The night devolved after that, into laughter (even, a few times, hers) and a few strange confessions. Saba admitted that she was terrified of flying, and everyone found that hilarious. D’Angelo admitted he’d started studying for the Expeditions requirements in fifth grade, to try to impress a girl. Adri didn’t reveal anything about herself, but she also didn’t walk away.
Sitting there, she felt a part of them. And she found that, the more they talked about what was coming, the more she wanted to be. She wanted to go to Mars, as badly as she ever had. In the fear of going, it was sometimes easy to forget it.
As they waited for the moment the ball would drop, the TV showed footage of celebrations that had happened all over the world already: in Sydney, Tokyo, Moscow.
“Next time we watch this,” Saba said, “it’ll be like—there they are on that other planet, celebrating New Year’s. It won’t be our New Year anymore. Doesn’t that feel crazy?”
Everyone was quiet for a long time.
“Earth,” Alexa finally said. “It’s not that great anyway.” And they all smiled sadly. Because, of course, it was everything.
Pulling into Canaan in the back of a private car, Adri’s heart lifted the closer they got to the farm. She was eager and excited to see Lily, more eager than she would have thought.
Turning into the driveway, she could see Galapagos craning her neck and then launching into her version of a run, which was really a slow walk. By the time she climbed out of the cab, the tortoise had just made it past the edge of the pond toward her. Adri climbed over the leaning fence and knelt next to her, scratching her neck. Galapagos rolled her eyes, luxuriating. “I missed you too, you inscrutable little weirdo. Aren’t you cold?”
Lily was in the kitchen, bent under the sink, sniffling and rubbing her sleeve along the bottom of her nose, which was unlike her, her hair messy and unwashed. When Adri said hello she thwapped her head against the cabinet, and then leaned back to peer up at her.
“Damn pipe is broken,” she said, by way of explanation and hello.
Adri gazed around. There were dishes piled in the sink. It was unbearably hot, and when she looked at the thermostat, the heat had been turned up to ninety-six degrees.
Adri turned it down as Lily came to sit at the table.
“How was your trip?” she asked.
“It was good,” Adri said uncertainly.
“Well that’s good.” Lily gazed around at the kitchen as if she didn’t want to meet Adri’s eyes.
Adri sat down across from her, picking at the edges of the table, unsure what she was supposed to do.
“Have you been okay here?” she asked.
Lily gazed at her for a few minutes sheepishly, then nodded.
Adri unpacked and showered quickly so she could make it back down to Lily. But she couldn’t find her in the kitchen or the living room.
She went back upstairs to look in her bedroom, didn’t find her there, and then, just as she was about to leave, caught a glimpse of her out the window.
Lily was standing next to Galapagos in the pasture, petting the tortoise’s head and looking around. She’d brought out a pile of blankets that lay in a lump beside them.
Adri hurried outside and crossed the grass toward her.
“Lily, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just thought she might be cold,” Lily said.
Adri looked down at the blankets, then at Lily. Lily folded her hands together at her waist, studying them, and then glanced up at her.
“I don’t remember where I am. Can you help me?” she asked. “Can you call a doctor?”
CHAPTER 9
After they sat in triage for half an hour, a nurse admitted Lily and brought her into a room in the back of the small hospital. Adri excused herself while Lily was changed into a gown and a doctor came in to examine her.
When she entered the room again, Lily was back in her clothes and lying on top of the white sheets under the yellowish glow of the ceiling lights.
“Where’s your gown?”
“I hate those things. I changed back.”
“But you’re not supposed to.”