}}}Jackie. 2032. Catalina Island, California.}}}}}}}}}
I’ve got a rule: one drink per hour when out in public. Of course, it can’t look like that. I’ve got a reputation to maintain as the eternal party girl.
There’s a big difference between the eternal party girl and the real drunk. The eternal party girl never does anything too embarrassing when she’s hammered, because she’s old-school classy; she doesn’t get hangovers because they’re ugly; she doesn’t throw up after she’s had one too many—she just farts out some pixie dust and bam! Sober as an NPR special.
It was fun and earnest at first, then I got too old for it. But now it’s part of “my story.” I had to switch to gin and tonics years ago. Now I alternate between those and regular tonic water—they’re both clear and bubbly, plus the quinine’s so overpowering, nobody could even smell the difference, if they went around smelling drinks for some reason.
There’s a metaphor for Hollywood in here somewhere.
I shouldn’t get too bitter at Hollywood. I can’t pretend it hasn’t been good to me. I’ve got money, fame—even respect from the art crowd when they, y’know, actually remember that I exist. It’s all I ever wanted, right?
Right.
There’s only one problem with that: Now I have it.
I’ve had it for a long time, and I can’t remember how to want other things. It’s been so long since anything made me truly happy. Oh, there have been moments here and there—some sunny days and massive nights—but it feels like it’s been a decade since anything really stuck.
And in the quiet times, I think about Kaitlyn.
Her bones scattered in some dark pit. No burial. No service. No grave. Nobody to even remember her name. Except for me. And I’m too much of a coward to even bring her up.
What if they asked questions?
Hey Jackie, this friend of yours sounds great. Whatever happened to her?
Oh, you know, she died fighting otherworldly monsters in the ruins of a gated community. Didn’t heed the HOA guidelines—painted her house pink, don’t you know—so of course the neighbors had to eat her face.
I hadn’t so much as spoken her name since that day at the sunken city, when Carey finally summited the cliffside path and shook his head. He didn’t even offer an explanation. By the time the tears cleared, so had Carey. I never saw the bastard again.
Ah, look at me: Becky flies me out to an island paradise, rents a whole private beach—even has the waiters sing “Happy Birthday, you slut” just to give me a laugh—and what do I do? I wander off, alone, to get all weepy about the past.
Still, just the thought of going back there and faking another laugh …
Flashing another practiced smile. Telling one of the same funny stories—“the one about the luchador! Do the one about the luchador and the van!”—it gives me heartburn.
But I am on a pristine and empty beach. I have a decent buzz—my head swimming but not spinning—and there’s cool, clean water. A moon like a spotlight.
Maybe I don’t have to go back.
Maybe I don’t ever have to go back. I could just slip into the water and keep swimming until I find somewhere I belong. And if that’s nowhere, well …
God, the papers would love it, wouldn’t they? I’d go from “quirky performer” to “screen icon” overnight. Wistful girls would hang posters of me on their bedroom walls, all emblazoned with smarmy quotes about “burning bright.”
Enough with the dark thoughts. The only good idea I’ve had all night was going for a swim, but like hell would I actually get this swimsuit wet. It costs as much as my car, and Silone would kill me.
I slipped out of it and let the ocean air prick goosebumps in my skin. I took a single step toward the water, and a star raged into life right in front of me.
My first, immediate thought was paparazzi in a helicopter, shining a spotlight to get their scandalous nudes. I was so annoyed with myself. Then I realized that the light wasn’t far away, or low over the water. It was only a few feet from me. Hovering above the sand.
No this was over no—
But it’s not that.
I don’t … think?
It looked like an angel: a ball of light so bright it’s like somebody punched a hole in the sky. But this one wasn’t white—not entirely. Shades of blue flickered in and out of it, danced around the edges, flipped and shifted to red. They went prismatic, and started flashing. It was almost playful. And what’s more: There was no sound at all. No awful noise like a million people screaming. In fact, the whole world went utterly quiet. I couldn’t even hear the ocean anymore.
An idea formed in my mind. It was Kaitlyn’s face, but not how I remembered it: just crude sketches of the important details, the rest washed out by time. It was really her: split ends and shy smile and everything.
“K?” I said, and the colors flared in response.
More ideas came surging in, complicated things far beyond words. There was comfort there, plus contentment, loss, pride, and guilt. But most of all, there was a giddy sense of awe.
Landscapes flashed through my mind: a barren field of green dust, three suns rising over a mountain range that absolutely dwarfed anything on Earth. An ocean made of mercury, silver storms and metal waves. A place where time fell like rain, in intermittent sheets, the world utterly frozen in the intervals between them.
The images went on for hours, or maybe they all happened at once and it took me hours to process them all.
At some point, I blinked away the tears and realized that the angel’s light had faded—I’d been staring at the moon instead. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and smiled at nothing. Or no: at everything.
I picked up a handful of pebbles and let them fall through my fingers. I ran my toes through the waves. I laughed at the trees. The cool sand pooled around my feet with every step like I was melting into the Earth itself. Eventually I made it back to the party. What few guests remained milled about in small groups, nursing old cocktails that were mostly melted ice. When they saw me, they all smiled and laughed with me, because we were perfect and ridiculous things, blazing through life like comets.
And also because I had forgotten my swimsuit back at the beach.
I guess that’s just more ammo for the eternal party girl myth.