XVIII

After another hour driving around the suburbs with Astrid, Elodie finally made it back to her house. The entire time they were out, she’d wanted to talk about the beautiful and exciting stranger from the ELU, but could sense that she’d be pushing Astrid past her limit. Her best friend could only handle a certain amount of curiosity before she shut it down completely and started talking about the facts, and facts weren’t as exciting as the stories Elodie made up in her head.

Now that she was home, she would busy herself with a task more important than obsessing over an encounter with the mohawked mystery guy she would probably never see again, and shouldn’t be thinking about anyway.

She would catch up with Vi.

As soon as she was in her room, Elodie tossed her backpack onto her bed, slipped out of her scrubs, and pulled on her comfiest pair of sweats. She folded herself under her weighted blanket and held her breath, listening for her mother’s pealing laughter and staccato footsteps downstairs. Satisfied that Gwen was nowhere near her second-story room, Elodie cracked the spine of her textbook and propped it against her legs.

Chapter Seven

Love had always been at the bottom of Violet’s priority list. Hell, if she was being honest, it hadn’t even made the cut. Now, lust had been there, standing rock hard and at attention. But any itches she had, she scratched with her clients—scratched with the kills. That was, until she’d met Zane Cole. He’d made her itch in a way that only he could scratch. At first, she’d hated him—but wasn’t that how all the best love stories started?

Zane’s hair was black today. The flat, false kind of black that would wash out later, filling the tub with inky water until it disappeared down the drain along with the remnants of whichever character he wore for his most recent job. Finding a partner who understood the world Vi lived in was lucky. Most people in her line of work were terrible assholes. Zane was just terrible. But in a bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold clichéd type of way.

Incoming call from Gwendolyn Benavidez / “Mom.”

Elodie groaned. The next time she started reading, she would have to remember to turn off her incoming calls.

“What? ” she said, with a deep sigh and a roll of her eyes, thankful that her mother had opted for the comlink instead of the vidlink.

“I hope you had fun with your little friend.” Gwen paused, waiting for a response Elodie wasn’t going to provide. “Honestly, Elodie, you take off with Astrid and now you’re giving me an attitude? That is no way to treat your mother, Elodie Grace.”

Gwen had not only said Elodie’s name twice, she’d added her middle name for emphasis. She was more upset than her tone revealed. Elodie clenched her teeth and drew a breath through her nose as her mother continued.

“Hopefully you can reclaim your wits enough to tell me what you think of this dress.” Another pause. “The three of us will have to go to the director’s funeral, and I want to make sure we don’t embarrass your father. He’s worked long and hard for his title, and I wouldn’t want us to do anything to put it in jeopardy.”

Elodie’s stomach soured with the mention of her father, and she closed her textbook. “Mom, there’s no way Dad is going to lose his job because you’re not wearing the right dress.”

Through her comlink, she heard her mother’s heels clicking against the new marble floor she’d just had installed in the kitchen. Gwen always wore heels. Not because she was unsatisfied with her height (her statuesque figure came in just under five ten), but because, as she always said whenever Elodie had the audacity to lounge around the house in her sweats, You always want to look presentable. You never know who might show up unannounced. Gwen had also told Elodie to wear a pantyliner at all times in case she was ever involved in an accident so that, before help arrived, of course, she could rip it off and throw it away and have pristine undergarments. As a nurse, Elodie wasn’t sure what perceived vaginal hygiene had to do with the type of care one would receive at the MediCenter, but, then again, her mother’s crowning achievement was that she had figured out how to make and bake muffins from scratch in less than ten minutes.

“Then you won’t mind doing me the favor of putting my mind at ease,” Gwen huffed. “Well, what do you think?”

Elodie twirled the frayed string of her sweatpants. “Of what?”

“Of what? The dress, Elodie, the dress. I swear . . .”

“I’m sure you look fine, but I can’t actually see you.” Elodie’s pillow slid out from the perfect spot behind her head as she shrugged. “You didn’t use the vid, just the com.”

“Well, crumb. How do I . . .?” Gwen’s strained words trailed off, and Elodie could picture her mother staring at her call screen, eyes pinched, tongue curled against her upper lip.

The gray box appeared with a bar of text: Accept vidlink from Gwendolyn Benavidez / “Mom”?

Elodie smoothed her hair and stiffened a bit before agreeing.

The box blurred and revealed Gwen. Her straight bangs brushed against her thick brows as she stared, eyes pinched, tongue curled against her expertly lipsticked upper lip.

Elodie couldn’t help but grin. Her mother was predictable to the point of comforting. “Uh, exactly how fancy is too fancy for a funeral?”

The black lace dress clung to Gwen’s curves like she’d been poured into it as liquid flesh. She turned in a circle, her coral lips moving.

Elodie leaned forward instinctually. “I can see you, but I can’t hear you. Did you mute the call?”

Gwen’s perfectly straight bangs shuffled against her forehead as she repeatedly craned her neck, birdlike. Besides Elodie’s mother’s faux blond hair, looking at her was like looking in a mirror. They both had the same smooth, full cheeks, perpetually pouty lips, square-tipped nose, and bronze skin. The only real difference was their eyes. Not the shape. They shared the same round eyes, the corners turning up like a sly half-smile. But unlike her mother’s crystal blue, Elodie’s were black and endless. Her father often said, Puedo ver el mundo en tus ojos, but Elodie could never remember what it meant.

Elodie’s own vidlink was still inactive, but she waved her hands in protest. “You don’t have to move your head around like that. There aren’t any options to select anymore. The update made it so that you just think about unmuting, and it’ll unmute. It’s way easier than it’s ever been.”

Her mom’s cheeks puffed with a sigh, her blue eyes narrowing with frustration. “Elodie, I can’t figure out how to make this damn thing work!” Gwen’s shout carried from the kitchen, up the stairs, and slammed into Elodie’s closed door. “Come help your mother!”

Damn was as close as Gwen came to cursing, and without fail technological updates pushed her to that point.

“Gwendolyn.” Determination hardened Elodie’s tone and forced her to call her mother by her complete first name. “I won’t be living with you forever,” she yelled from her room. “You’re going to have to learn how to do this without me rushing in to save you. Plus, you have Holly. Ask her for a tutorial.”

For as long as Elodie could remember she’d been telling her mother that she’d have to figure out new tech features on her own, but I won’t live with you forever had always seemed so far away. Then Elodie had been matched to Rhett, and now she was engaged. She’d be married in a few months, and was sure Rhett would not agree to them living in separate homes once they were wed. But living by herself for a little while would give her a chance to finish Death by Violet without being chastised for wearing comfy pants. Elodie shook away the thought, and, for the second time that day, reminded herself that there was no point in thinking about something that would never happen.

Another shout from downstairs. “I apparently did not do a very good job raising you if you won’t just come down here and help your mother figure this out.”

With a sigh, Elodie slid her book into her bag and pushed herself out of bed. Repeatedly referring to herself as your mother was another one of Gwen’s annoyed tells.

“Be right there.” Elodie ended the call.

The ears on her fuzzy bunny slippers flopped side to side as she descended the stairs. She hadn’t grown that much since her thirteenth birthday, when her father had surprised her with the slippers and an e-vid from the Key announcing that she’d be entering the Long-Term Care Unit’s nursing program. Even though the rest of her wardrobe had matured, and her mother continued to make comments about them, Elodie had kept the slippers. They were a memory wrapped in fuzzy pink fluff, and she wasn’t in the habit of throwing away memories.

The staircase opened to the kitchen, where Gwen impatiently drummed her fingers as she leaned against the rectangular island in the middle of the vast space. Elodie had to admit that the new flooring did look nice, or expensive, as one of Gwen’s friends had commented. And, according to her mother, expensive was the best compliment one could receive.

“Oh, Elodie.” Gwen stopped drumming and pressed her palms against her cheeks. “I would have insisted you stay at work and get yourself checked out if I’d known you weren’t feeling well.”

Elodie hid her hands in the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “I feel fine.”

“Well.” Gwen eyed her as she worried the high lace collar of her dress between her fingers. “I wish you would look a bit more,” Gwen fluffed the air, “put together. What if someone were to stop by unannounced?”

Elodie glanced down at her bunnies partially swallowed by her schlumpy gray pant legs. “I don’t think that’s something we have to worry about.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Let’s go to the living room so I can use the holoscreen. It’ll be easier than trying to walk you through your comlink.”

Elodie slid across the slick new marble floor till it ended at the living room threshold, where the pristine gray porcelain picked up, yawning into the expertly decorated living space. The flooring looked like wood—dreary, storm cloud–colored wood, but wood nonetheless—however, it wasn’t. It fit their house. It fit with her mother, dressed up as one thing, but something else altogether.

Text from Astrid Fujimoto.

Elodie faced her mother as the gray text screen materialized:

Been thinking about Mohawk Man.

Elodie pressed her sleeve against her mouth to hide her smile as she replied.

AND . . .

With a strained chuckle, Gwen batted the air. “I suppose what’s done is done.” Pink cheeked and wide eyed, she stared at Elodie expectantly.

Elodie hugged her stomach. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Gwen threw her arms into the air. “Surprise!” Her perpetual overpreparedness strangled the excitement from the word.

“There’s my girl!” Rhett popped up from behind the kitchen island, arms shooting out like the points of a star.

“Rhett?” Elodie’s stomach knotted. He’d been there the entire time, listening as her mother went on about her father and the dress and the comlink—all pretty typical for Gwen, but Astrid had been the only other person who’d heard this side of her mother. And even that was almost too much embarrassment for Elodie to handle. “Wh-What are you doing here?”

He leaned against the island, his tight white tee and closely cut white-blond hair blending almost perfectly with the row of cabinets that stretched down the wall behind him like teeth. “You said you wanted to see each other more. So here I am. You happy?”

What would you do if you weren’t already matched?

Elodie froze, guilt consuming her as her mother and fiancé stood on the other side of the block letters etched into her vision.

Gwen’s heels clapped against the floor as she hopped. “Oh, Rhett, dear, she’s excited. You just caught her off guard is all.”

Like, would you want to see him again? Meet up with him in VR?

Sweat popped against Elodie’s forehead and she shook her head and refocused, “From our talk earlier, you . . .” She picked at a stray thread hanging from the cuff of her sweatshirt. “I thought you were fine with the way things were.”

With an annoyed grunt, Rhett folded his arms across his chest. “Look, El, I can go.” The hard angles of his jaw, his thick, trunk-like neck, and the commanding timbre of his voice made him seem much older than his twenty-one years.

Flapping her arms like a crazed goose, Gwen scooted behind him. From her gestures, anyone else would’ve thought she needed medical assistance, but Elodie understood her mother’s panicked waving. And Gwen was right. Elodie was being difficult yet again, which her mother understood would chase Rhett away. And no one, Elodie included, wanted Rhett to submit a request to have their match terminated. She’d be viewed as defective, and no one would want her then. Although, at times, that sounded divine.

“You’re the one who wanted us to spend more time together,” Rhett continued. “But if you don’t want to hang out with your own fiancé . . .”

Or what about in the real? Would you want to talk to him again in real life????????

Elodie clutched her shoulders. Embarrassment licked hot streaks against her neck. “No, sorry. You did throw me off a little. I didn’t—I just didn’t expect to see you.” She glanced down at her bunnies. The hopeless gray of the tile matched her mood. “I’ll go get changed.”

She headed for the stairs, pausing as Rhett said, “Where we’re going is pretty casual.”

Her mother clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “No place is that casual, Rhett, dear.”

Blood surged to Elodie’s cheeks.

Rhett scratched his smooth face, hiding his chuckle. “El, you, uh, might want to think about dumping those silly kid slippers while you’re up there.”

“My thought exactly.” Gwen melted into a barstool uncomfortably close to the young soldier. “You know, you are so good for my Elodie. So wise and mature. And going places.” She turned her ray of manipulation back on Elodie. “Don’t I always say that Rhett here is going places in his career?” Her eyelids fluttered as she glanced up at him. “And that’s really the most important thing.”

Every year Elodie watched the bots make cotton candy at the upcoming Key Corp Rose Festival. Rainbows of fabric from nothing but sugar. She’d learned early on that it had to be protected or it would dissolve in on itself, turning the fluffy cloud into a hard, crusted lump.

Elodie balled her hands into fists inside the sleeves of her sweatshirt, bits of her disintegrating with each comment. She understood cotton candy more than anyone could know.

Is that a yes??????

Elodie’s throat dried. She couldn’t do both things. She couldn’t talk about Mohawk and be with Rhett. There wasn’t enough space in her brain—in this house. She would crack and bleed her guilty feelings all over her mother’s new marble.

Fiiiiine. Don’t answer

Hope you’re knee deep in VR adventure.

(Maybe with Mr. Mohawk?)

“You know, El, just today I received a personal call from Director Holbrook asking me to take care of the Eos threat.” Rhett feigned casualness and rested his elbows against the island.

“And with how ill he is? Oh, you must really be in his favor!” Gwen swooned so aggressively, Elodie thought her mother might fall out of her chair and burst into the hundreds of pieces of plastic that made up her forty-year-old, newly adolescent appearance. And Elodie wouldn’t even offer to sweep it up. “You’re going to his funeral, yes, Rhett? This is what I’m thinking of wearing.” Gwen hopped out of the chair and struck a pose before her heeled feet touched the floor. “Although, our Elodie has implied that it is a titch too fancy for such an occasion.”

Elodie’s groan was swallowed by the black hole of her mother’s ego.

Rhett flashed his bleached smile. “You look stunning, Mrs. Benavidez. There’s no way you can be too fancy for this funeral. He’s the director, not a random nobody.”

“Oh, Rhett.” Gwen blushed, playfully clutching the strand of pearls against the dress’s high collar. “Ms. Benavidez, please.”

Elodie stiffened. “Mom! You’re married.”

Gwen waved dismissively. “Now, tell me. What do you think I should do with my hair?” She patted the blond waves piled on top of her head.

Elodie’s toes dug into the warm fluff of her slippers. “I’ll go up and change now.” A smile burned across her lips. “I’ll be back in a few.”

“We don’t need a narrated account of your comings and goings, Elodie, honestly.” Gwen tittered to her captive audience of one, more than to Elodie. “Just because your wedding is coming up doesn’t mean it’s all about you all the time.”

Pieces of Elodie seemed to flake away as she ascended the stairs. If she could’ve mustered the energy, she would have stomped her way up. But she was drained, too busy diverting fuel to make a new and tougher skin.