Glimmering (10 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Hand
Everywhere he looked there were video screens showcasing various Agrippa acts. It took him a moment to find the door, cobalt glass with AGRIPPA MUSIC spelled out in shifting holographic letters. Behind it a young man sat monitoring phone calls.
“Hi!” he called cheerily as Trip entered. Silvery plasmer implants hid his eyes, but he didn’t wear a mask, and his smile seemed genuine. “You must be Trip Marlowe! Come on in, come on in!” He adjusted his body mic and announced, “Nellie? Your date’s here,” then gestured at a chair. “Sit down, honey, she’ll be right with you.”
Trip’s heart sank when Nellie Candry stepped into the reception area, alone. “Aren’t you sweet to ask Marzie out!” she said, then laughed. She wasn’t wearing a mask today, or heavy makeup. Beneath a sheen of light foundation her scars had the silvery roughness of beech bark; the cicatrices left by petra virus gleamed like lacquer. “Hey, don’t worry—she’s upstairs, waiting for you. Did you think you were going to be stuck with
me
?”
me
?”
“He should be so lucky!” the receptionist cried as Nellie pulled Trip through another door.
“So. The Museum of Natural History.” Nellie grinned as they padded down a hall carpeted with thick spongy black rubber, the second life of a hundred old steel radials. “Is that where you nice Xian boys go on a first date?”
Trip tried to smile. “Yeah, I guess. I’ve never been, actually. I wanted to see the planetarium.”
Nellie laughed again; it made the vertical gashes on her cheeks move in a strange way, as though they were composed of a different material than the rest of her face. “The planetarium! God, that’s great! Real James Dean, huh?” Trip looked at her blankly. “You know,
Rebel Without a Cause
? Oh shit, never mind. They never finished the renovation there, you knew that, right? Here we are.”
Rebel Without a Cause
? Oh shit, never mind. They never finished the renovation there, you knew that, right? Here we are.”
They turned a corner, and she took him by the arm.
“Listen,” she said in a lower voice. They stood in a softly lit alcove before a set of black glass doors with
Nellie Candry
etched in gold script. “I just want you to know this is a
really nice thing
you’re doing. It really means
a lot
to Marz. She’s had a hard time in the last year or so, coming from a war zone, you know? She and I are still getting used to each other, and she hasn’t really made any friends at the Brearley School yet. So it’s a pretty big deal that someone like you would take her somewhere. She’s just a kid, you know?”
Nellie Candry
etched in gold script. “I just want you to know this is a
really nice thing
you’re doing. It really means
a lot
to Marz. She’s had a hard time in the last year or so, coming from a war zone, you know? She and I are still getting used to each other, and she hasn’t really made any friends at the Brearley School yet. So it’s a pretty big deal that someone like you would take her somewhere. She’s just a kid, you know?”
A flutter of panic in Trip’s chest: how old
was
she, anyway?
was
she, anyway?
Nellie rattled on. “But I figured, well, we’re nice guys, right?” She cocked her head and gazed at him with those disconcertingly lovely eyes. “Us Christians. I mean Xians. You especially. I mean, I probably
wouldn’t
let her go out with that guy from Slag Hammadi, you know?”
wouldn’t
let her go out with that guy from Slag Hammadi, you know?”
Trip blushed, but already Nellie was steering him through the black doors and into her office. There were posters tacked to the walls, rollaway stands holding video monitors and VCRs and, surprisingly, piles of old-fashioned silver film canisters. In one corner leaned some kind of staff, topped with a grotesque wooden mask and deer’s antlers.
“My secret life,” Nellie confessed. She paused to rub a strip of acetate between her fingers. “I started out as a maker of documentary films. Then I got sick—”
She grimaced. Trip looked away from her scarred face, to her hands, and noticed that she wore a dull gold ring like Marzana’s. “—though actually, I’ve got another film project I’m working on now. This A&R stuff, it’s just a day job, you know? Not that I don’t take it
seriously
,” she added, grinning. “Okay, Marzie! Company!”
seriously
,” she added, grinning. “Okay, Marzie! Company!”
Nellie edged past Trip and slid behind a tiny banana yellow desk strewn with IT discs and promotional gadgets: Viconix dispensers, crucifix penlights, body gloves. Atop her telephone perched a snowy owl mask. “Here he is. Now, if you guys can hang here for just a minute—”
“Hey,” said Trip, trying to keep his voice from breaking. “Marz. Hi.”
Marz lifted her head and peered out from between the arms of the chair in front of Nellie’s desk.
“Hi,” she whispered.
A fringe of corn-silk hair hung across her eyes. She wore very tight, white jodhpurs, a fuzzy lavender sweater, and a hugely oversize raincoat of transparent pink vinyl that made a crunching sound when she moved. Her feet were clad in pink plastic mules with bunnies on them.
Trip shook his head. It was the end of March, and freezing outside.
“Aren’t you going to be cold?”
Marz shot him a disdainful look. “
No.
”
No.
”
Nellie laughed. “What’d I tell you?” She pointed a finger at Trip and smiled triumphantly. “You’ll take better care of her than me—
I
told her to wear that coat.”
I
told her to wear that coat.”
He sat uneasily, staring at the blond girl. Nellie was asking him questions—had he ever made an IT recording? Had he ever been to New York before? Had he ever done drugs? IZE?
This last was odd enough that Trip looked away, startled. “Drugs? Jeez,
no
.”
no
.”
“Never?” Nellie tilted her head, her eyes unreadable: was he being tested? She picked up several 8xl0s, black-and-white photos of blank-faced people standing in line, and fanned herself with them. “A lot of people don’t really think of IZE as a
drug
, you know. I mean, they practically had FDA approval before—”
drug
, you know. I mean, they practically had FDA approval before—”
Her hand waved disdainfully at the wall with its square of dark protective glass. Outside the glimmering could be glimpsed only as arabesques of black and gray moving above the skyscrapers. “—before all
this
came down.”
this
came down.”
Trip hunched his shoulders. He wanted to leave. This woman was acting fucking
bizarre
. “Uh, yeah. I guess. But I don’t do drugs. I mean, I’m not just saying that. I never,
ever
did anything. My father was an alcoholic and he, like, killed himself. I signed a pledge when I was in sixth grade, and I’ve kept it.”
bizarre
. “Uh, yeah. I guess. But I don’t do drugs. I mean, I’m not just saying that. I never,
ever
did anything. My father was an alcoholic and he, like, killed himself. I signed a pledge when I was in sixth grade, and I’ve kept it.”
Nellie smiled. “Of course. I read that somewhere, or no—I saw you on
Midnight
, that’s it. Well, that’s great, Trip, really!” Her eyes grew soft as she leaned across the desk, smoothing the photos and setting them aside. “’Cause a lot of these bands, they’re just cashing in on the whole Xian phenomenon, just riding the wave—but you feel like the real thing to me. I think you’re just going to get bigger and bigger, Trip. I think you’re going to be
huge
.”
Midnight
, that’s it. Well, that’s great, Trip, really!” Her eyes grew soft as she leaned across the desk, smoothing the photos and setting them aside. “’Cause a lot of these bands, they’re just cashing in on the whole Xian phenomenon, just riding the wave—but you feel like the real thing to me. I think you’re just going to get bigger and bigger, Trip. I think you’re going to be
huge
.”
He nodded, forcing himself to smile; then let his glance ride back to Marz. She stared at him, eyes narrowed, and very slowly licked her upper lip.
The phone rang. “Okay!” crowed Nellie, cradling the receiver in her palm. “Off you go, kiddies. Marz—be good—”
They left. Even with her head down and eyes blanketed by her hair, Marz managed to navigate the Pyramid lobby with enviable ease. At her side Trip tried desperately to think of something to say. He did remember to let her go first into the limo, the driver holding the door open for them.
“The museum?” she asked. Trip nodded, and they were off.
The limo let them off in front of the planetarium’s unfinished new entrance, hidden behind plywood and rusted scaffolding. Trip told the driver to come back in three hours. Then he scrambled out behind Marz, stepping on her raincoat so that she lurched forward against the curb.
“Oh—hey, I’m sorry, I—”
He tried to grab her arm but came up with a crackling handful of vinyl. As the car pulled away he found himself staring down at her small pale face, nestled in its bright pink wrappings like a marzipan sweet.
“It’s okay,” she said, and headed toward the entrance. For a moment he stared, stunned by the sight of the girl’s gumdrop coat flapping around her white-clad legs. Then he hurried after her.
He paid for their tickets, and they stood in line for the first show of the day. The planetarium complex seemed not so much unfinished as partially excavated from an archaeological dig. There were yawning pits crisscrossed by boards and metal catwalks, monolithic objects—kiosks, dioramas, monitors, IT booths—strewn seemingly at random throughout the cavernous space, and a fine layer of sawdust and grit overall. Trip felt as though he were lurching around inside of someone else’s movie, doing simple things—buying tickets, waiting behind the worn brass stanchions—without actually sensing the two slips of paper in his hand or the rough velvet rope beneath his fingers. He had never been on his own like this before, not in a city. Was it okay to pay with a fifty-dollar bill instead of a credit card? What would happen if he took off his heavy old pea coat? Should he give Marz her own ticket, or hold them both? There were only a handful of other people waiting to get in, an annoyingly convivial family whose masks identified them as part of TeamAmericon! and a small school group wearing uniforms and wrist monitors, desert boots and tiny ID implants that glowed on the backs of their hands.
“So.” He coughed nervously. “You ever been here before?”
Marz shook her head. “No.” She stared hungrily at the school group. Trip watched her face, the way her tongue flicked out to lick her lower lip and her strange violet eyes as she watched the children elbow each other and snigger at their cabal of chaperones. Her expression was sad yet intense; after a minute she looked up at him.
“I used to wear one of those monitors.” She leaned back so that her arm stuck out from its plastic wrapping, displaying a wrist so thin Trip marveled that anything could have remained there without sliding off. “When Nellie first brought me over. But I was allergic.” She traced a circle where the flesh still held a grayish shadow, like the stain left by a cheap metal bracelet. “See?”
Trip nodded, reached with a tentative finger to stroke the smooth soft skin inside her wrist, then to touch the simple gold band on her ring finger. “Did it hurt?”
“No.” She glanced at the schoolchildren. The line started to move, the children arranging themselves in an orderly row alongside their teachers. “I wish I still had it.”
Trip handed their tickets to a solemn usher, and they went inside. The huge dimly lit space reminded him of a cathedral he had visited once, barely occupied and chilly as this place was and with the same whisper of ambient music and rustling papers. It smelled faintly of vanilla and balsam disinfectant. He took Marz’s hand and led her to the far side of the room, where no one else was sitting, and they took their seats in a middle row. The program started, an energetically produced but intrinsically dull explication of the atmospheric effects that produced the glimmering and which now seemed to be giving birth to still more and stranger celestial events. There was a protracted discussion of millennial cults and prophecies through the ages. Trip yawned and scrunched way down in his seat. Beside him Marz did the same, her raincoat popping explosively.
“I better take it off.” She giggled. “Before they throw me out. That happened once, you know.”
She dropped the raincoat over the row of seats in front of them. In the middle of the room the aged Zeiss planetarium moved up and down like an avid mantis, a huge ungainly mechanism covered with round lenses and bulging optics. Overhead the dome with its spectral colors faded to a night sky, and a woman’s recorded voice began intoning the names of constellations.
“
Aquarius
,” she said. “
The Water Bearer.
”
Aquarius
,” she said. “
The Water Bearer.
”
Trip stared at the false sky. He had not seen so many stars since he was a boy in Maine. Everywhere else he had traveled, the sky had been either poisoned by the glimmering or given a sickly yellowish cast by crime lights and glowing smog. Here inside the planetarium it was as though he were back on Moody’s Island. Suddenly he felt homesick. Even the chill bite of air conditioning made him think of home; though he had always hated it there, the rancid smell from the fish-processing plant and the buckled floor of the grimy little Half-Moon trailer where he lived with his grandmother.
“It’s so cold,” a voice came in his ear, so soft it might have been his own thought. A small, very cold hand plopped on top of his. Not moving, not curling its fingers around his, just lying there as though it had fallen from the sky. He could feel her ring, the slender band of gold like a chip of ice against his knuckle. Glancing sideways he saw the girl gazing at the dome, her mouth slightly open. She turned and looked at
him
, not saying anything, not moving her hand. Just staring at him with those strange shadowed eyes, and smiling.
him
, not saying anything, not moving her hand. Just staring at him with those strange shadowed eyes, and smiling.
Afterward Trip recalled that moment and knew it for the one in which his life was cleaved in two. Sitting there in the make-believe night, with make-believe peepers crying and make-believe stars, and the warm sweet dusty scent of the girl beside him with her face upturned. The Zeiss whirred and spun. Stars washed across her cheeks as the astronomer spoke their names. Algol in Perseus, Regulus in Leo, the winter sky tumbling into spring and Corona Borealis rising to shine upon her brow with such brilliance that he had to look away. When he glanced up again she was staring at him. The pixie light gave a strange luster to her skin, as though it were made of some brittle nacreous material that would splinter into dust if he were to touch it. But all he wanted to
do
was touch it. His lips were parted, and he was breathing hard, his heart pounding, hands unsteady, until suddenly he leaned over, crushing her arm into the seat rest as he kissed her. Her mouth so small and hot it was like some warm liquid spilling into his, her fine hair like pollen filling his nostrils until he had to draw back, sneezing. Before he could catch his breath she was tugging at his hands, pulling him gently but irresistibly toward her. He kissed her everywhere, not just her mouth but the fine soft flesh of her cheeks and chin and jaw, her throat, with its pulse beating like a trapped bird, and the rough, gnawed tips of her fingers. He could hear her gasp and feel her heart knocking in her chest; smelled her, a hot pungent scent like the inside of a winter barn. But for all that she did not stir, not once she had pulled him to her. He closed his arms about her—he almost felt they could have circled her twice, she was so small and thin—but she did not embrace him. When he kissed her, her mouth parted, he could taste her fluid sweetness like melted chocolate. But her lips and tongue did not move. Her hand did not stir where it lay upon her thigh, with the golden ring winking softly in the darkness. Trip had never kissed a girl before. In a horrified rush of embarrassment, he realized he must be doing it wrong. Abruptly he pulled away from her.
do
was touch it. His lips were parted, and he was breathing hard, his heart pounding, hands unsteady, until suddenly he leaned over, crushing her arm into the seat rest as he kissed her. Her mouth so small and hot it was like some warm liquid spilling into his, her fine hair like pollen filling his nostrils until he had to draw back, sneezing. Before he could catch his breath she was tugging at his hands, pulling him gently but irresistibly toward her. He kissed her everywhere, not just her mouth but the fine soft flesh of her cheeks and chin and jaw, her throat, with its pulse beating like a trapped bird, and the rough, gnawed tips of her fingers. He could hear her gasp and feel her heart knocking in her chest; smelled her, a hot pungent scent like the inside of a winter barn. But for all that she did not stir, not once she had pulled him to her. He closed his arms about her—he almost felt they could have circled her twice, she was so small and thin—but she did not embrace him. When he kissed her, her mouth parted, he could taste her fluid sweetness like melted chocolate. But her lips and tongue did not move. Her hand did not stir where it lay upon her thigh, with the golden ring winking softly in the darkness. Trip had never kissed a girl before. In a horrified rush of embarrassment, he realized he must be doing it wrong. Abruptly he pulled away from her.
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