Was Avery Fuller, the girl from the thousandth floor, actually asking her what it was like to be a con artist? “I’m sure you’ve traveled all over the world,” Calliope replied, disconcerted. “I mean, you just came back from a weekend in England.”
Avery waved that aside. “I’m traveling as myself, and usually with my parents. Which comes with its own set of expectations. What’s it like to become a new person whenever you go somewhere new?”
All of Calliope’s senses were on high alert. She had never, ever talked about this with anyone. It was so taboo it felt like blasphemy.
She wiped her palms on her jeans. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m just curious,” Avery said, and Calliope heard the edge beneath her words. Even Avery Fuller doesn’t always know her own mind, she thought wonderingly. Even Avery Fuller occasionally felt torn between two different paths, two different versions of herself.
Calliope cleared her throat, not wanting to get this wrong. “It is liberating sometimes, but also lonely. Every time I go somewhere new, I have to let go of whoever I was last time, and become the person that the situation calls for. I’m constantly pushing restart on myself.”
“Doesn’t anyone ever recognize you?”
Calliope looked up sharply, wondering if Brice had said something to Avery, but the question didn’t seem prompted by anything in particular.
“Sorry,” Avery breathed. “I guess what I mean is, what do you change about yourself? Just your accent?”
Calliope flashed suddenly to all those hours of practicing accents with her mom. She used to stand before Elise, her hands folded, like an actress at an audition. Tell me a story, Elise would command, and Calliope would launch into some inconsequential anecdote about what she’d eaten for breakfast or how she wanted to cut her hair. Toulouse! Elise would exclaim, and then Dublin! Lisbon! Each time she named a city, Calliope had to switch to that accent seamlessly, without breaking stride in her narrative.
“It’s the accent, sure. But it’s as much about confidence, and how you carry yourself. You, for instance, have the posture of a girl who’s used to being at the center of the spotlight, in every room you’ve ever been in. No offense,” she added quickly.
Avery nodded slowly. “What if I wanted to carry myself differently?”
“Slouch. Don’t make eye contact with people; use your peripheral vision instead. Shrink in on yourself, and de-emphasize the physical,” Calliope told her. “It’s surprisingly easy to keep people from looking at you. I bet you’ve just never really tried.”
Avery seemed to think that over for a while. “You’re very brave,” she said at last, and Calliope couldn’t have been more shocked if Avery had begun stripping off all her clothes, right there in the train station. Brave? She was selfish and impulsive, but never had she thought of herself as brave.
“I guess it’s only brave if you succeed. It’s just reckless if you fail.”
“But when have you ever failed?” Avery asked.
Calliope blinked. I’ve failed in New York, by living as someone I’m not, she wanted to say, but then she thought of Brice and brightened a little. He knew the real her, whoever it was, buried beneath all those layers of lies.
“I’ve had my moments,” she evaded, but Avery didn’t really seem to be listening anymore. She was looking back out at the sunrise, thoughtful.
“See you in class later,” Avery said abruptly, standing up. “I’m sure we’ll both be exhausted.”
“I’ve had later nights—and earlier mornings. And I’d venture to say you have too.” Calliope was pleased to see that she had coaxed a smile from Avery. For a moment, it felt as if they were almost friends.
As the other girl walked off, Calliope turned away from the sunrise to watch the anonymous sea of people moving through the train station: all the greetings and good-byes, the laughter and tears, the commuters chattering on various pings, the travelers standing in pools of isolation. She was very accustomed to being alone. But it suddenly struck her how many other people there were in this vast city, also alone.
RYLIN
“YOU ARE ALLOWED to take me out in New York, you know.” Rylin pulled aside the curtain of their enclosed private deck to gaze at the view.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Cord laughed, seeming unconcerned.
They were on the evening cruise of the Skyspear: the most luxurious, and most famous, of the space tourism vessels now in operation. Though this hardly counted as space, Cord insisted. They would remain at an altitude of three hundred kilometers the entire time, never leaving the comforting band of Earth’s low orbit.
“I mean, you don’t have to always be making big romantic gestures with me,” Rylin insisted. Last year he’d whisked her off to Paris, and now this?
“Maybe I like big romantic gestures,” Cord replied.
“I know. But next weekend, let’s cook tacos and watch a holo. Something more . . . low-key,” she finished, and smiled. “I guess I feel silly being on a flight to nowhere.”
They had taken off from New York a few minutes ago, in the late afternoon, and would land back in New York just two hours after departure, having circumnavigated the entire globe. They had already technically reached orbit, which meant that they weren’t burning any more fuel. The Skyspear worked like a high-speed satellite, propelled by the slingshot effect of Earth’s gravity.