The Towering Sky
But hoping for things also magnified your joy when they actually came true.
“Hiral, I’m glad you’re thinking about the future—”
“Because you never expected me to?”
Rylin winced. She hadn’t meant to sound condescending.
“I’m sorry.” Hiral reached below her chin to tip it up so that Rylin was looking into his eyes. “All I want is a future with you. But being in New York is tough for me, because of everything that’s happened. Because of who I used to be.”
There was a current of significance to his words that made Rylin’s stomach drop. “What’s going on, Hiral? Is there something you want to tell me?”
“No,” Hiral said too quickly.
Rylin looked directly into his warm brown eyes, the eyes she thought she knew so well. She didn’t need a biosensor to tell her that he was lying.
“What about you, Ry?” he asked, turning her own question on her. “Is there something that you want to tell me?”
Rylin wondered if Hiral had guessed about Cord—if he could see her guilt written there on her face. Maybe she should confess everything, clear the air between them of secrets.
“No,” she whispered instead.
She couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Cord. Whatever was bothering him, Hiral clearly had enough to worry about as it was. Her moment with Cord was nothing, just an almost-kiss. There was really nothing to tell.
But deep down, Rylin knew that was another lie to be added to her ever-growing tally.
CALLIOPE
CALLIOPE HAD BEEN to a lot of weddings for an eighteen-year-old. Dozens, really, all over the globe, in connection with some con or another. She thought fondly of the year that she and Elise had run wedding cons almost exclusively. “People tend to let their guard down at weddings,” her mom had explained with palpable excitement. “Emotions run high, everyone drinks too much, and especially among the super wealthy, they try to outdo each other with over-the-top jewelry.” It made weddings a great place for some high-class pickpocketing.
Today, though, Elise was subdued. She’d barely spoken through their interminable hair and makeup appointments, through all the time they spent hooking and fastening her into her enormous white dress, pushing each tiny silk-covered button patiently through its matching loop. Calliope wondered if she was having second thoughts. If she regretted seeing this con all the way through.
They were standing now in the Temple Brith Shalom, up on the 918th floor. An enormous chuppah rose overhead: a floral canopy, with roses twining up its sides to spill over the top in glorious profusion. Calliope knew that the flowers would all be donated to the hospital once the wedding was over. Practically everything at this wedding was marked for donation—the roses, the leftover food; even Elise’s dress was going to a drive for underprivileged brides. Calliope secretly hoped that the leftover booze would be donated to high schoolers with strict parents—the kids who didn’t have a liquor cabinet to raid for their parties.
Under the chuppah, Elise and Nadav stood before a plump rabbi, who held a hand toward them in silent blessing. Calliope stood to one side with Livya, each of them wearing their enormous tiered bridesmaid dress and holding a spray of white flowers. Hundreds of faces were lined up in the pews of the synagogue, their expectant smiles blurring indistinguishably together. Calliope kept glancing out there, trying unsuccessfully to find Brice in that sea of people. She hadn’t been able to see him since their date at the chocolate shop; their entire household had been on wedding-stress lockdown all week. But it hadn’t stopped her from messaging him whenever she knew Livya wasn’t watching.
At the thought of Brice—of the way he’d kissed her, warm and certain and tasting of chocolate—a secret smile played around her mouth. Livya noticed it and shot her a dark look. Calliope quickly lowered her head, trying to arrange her features into a more pious expression.
“Welcome. We are gathered here today to witness as Nadav and Elise take the first steps of their new life together,” the rabbi intoned. He wasn’t even using a mike-bot, Calliope realized, yet his booming voice projected throughout the temple. Very old-school.
“The love that they share is a love for the ages, a love built on selflessness. Nadav and Elise were first brought together through their shared love of philanthropy. They each put the needs of others before their own needs.”
How lovely, Calliope thought ruefully. If only it were true.
“Before they step into the chuppah, I would like to invite Nadav and Elise to participate in the ceremony of the bedeken, or veiling, in which the groom covers the bride’s face. This is to signify that his love is for her inner beauty, and not her outer appearance.”
Livya coughed under her breath, just once. Calliope pretended not to hear.
Nadav tentatively lifted the lace veil over Elise’s head. It fluttered in opaque folds before her. Calliope felt an odd stab of panic, seeing her mom faceless like that. It could have been anyone getting married up there.
“And now the hakafoth, or circling. The bride will walk around the groom seven times as a symbol of the new family circle that she is creating with him.”
Calliope watched as the ghostly form of her mother began to loop around the edges of the chuppah’s platform, her skirts swishing behind her. Nadav was beaming with a bright, eager joy.