Her colleagues left without her. All the Arkadians had changed their clothes, because the invitation had suggested evening dress and vintage gowns. They stuffed their jeans and T-shirts into backpacks or trunks of people’s cars, and trooped outside into the warm summer night.
—
Collin wondered where Daphne had gone, and then he thought, She’s way too cool for this. Leaving with the others, he thought the hellions betrayed their name, dressed up like a bunch of kids at prom. Even so, his heart beat faster as the group crossed parking lots and wove between construction sites to reach the ICA, glowing like a square-cut diamond on the water.
How strange, coming to a museum as an invited guest. Collin wore a used tux from Keezer’s in Central Square, and his black dress shoes echoed on wood planks so that arriving felt like boarding ship.
Arkadians had gathered on the deck outside with their guests. Scanning the crowd, Collin saw Akosh’s wife, Meta, in a sari of gold silk and Obi with a Russian graduate student dressed in a ballroom dancer’s plunging evening gown. There was Viktor, holding forth with his six-foot wife, Helen. There was Peter, with his amber eyes. But where was Nina? It took Collin a moment to recognize her, even as he kissed her. She was wearing a silvery-blue sheath, the lightest, smoothest fabric rippling over her body. A diamond clip was shining in her hair. “They’re just rhinestones,” she told Collin, but she looked so elegant, he only half believed her.
For a moment he felt like a stranger. He thought, No way; I don’t belong here with Nina and her uncle and her father. Martinis helped. He finished his first and had another. The evening shimmered; the warm summer night caressed him. When Nina introduced him to her stepmother, the museum levitated on the water.
Helen stared at Collin as she offered her cold hand.
Collin gazed back at the dark-eyed, dark-haired woman in her tight dress. Tall as she was, she wore stiletto heels. She enjoyed her height.
“Good evening,” Helen said in accented English.
“Where are you from?” Collin asked, a little louder than he’d intended.
“I come from Greece,” said Helen. Her voice was courtesy itself. Her eyes said, Who the hell are you?
Viktor told Collin, “Now you know what I mean when I say that I’m a Hellenized Jew.”
Collin smiled, pretending he knew what Viktor meant.
“Collin draws horses,” Peter was telling Helen.
“Oh, good,” she said.
“He’s better than good,” Viktor said. “He’s insanely great.” Showman, technocrat, Gatsby without tears, he told Collin, “Someday you’ll develop games for us.”
Helen warned, “My husband likes making promises.”
“Predictions!” Viktor corrected.
“They’re easier,” Peter pointed out.
Viktor waved all this away. Partly flattering, partly self-satirizing, he told Collin, “We’ll make you a star.”
“Don’t believe him,” Helen said. “Don’t trust anything he says.”
“You’re beautiful tonight,” Viktor told his wife.
Helen was not amused, but Viktor didn’t mind. He entertained himself. He was fierce and jovial, voracious and self-satisfied. Announcing UnderWorld’s release date in December, he had chosen an audacious path, accelerating development to the deadline. Peter had worried about rushing, cutting corners, cheapening the game. He had protested, “Don’t sacrifice the story for effects. Give us time to build the myth.” He’d made his case, but Viktor chose December anyway, high risk and high reward. OVID couldn’t wait. Arkadia’s rival, Urania, was building its own platform for gaming in the round.
Others called him ruthless, but disruption, quick reversals, and bold decisions spelled leadership for Nina’s father. By the same token, escapism and delusion were not problems but products in Viktor’s lexicon. He never doubted his profession the way some of his colleagues did. There were those at Arkadia who had trained as researchers—not just computer scientists, but biologists and physicists. There were those nostalgic for their old disciplines and their youthful goals. Once they had studied structures of living things, and pondered laws of the actual universe. Now they spoke wistfully of science as their homeland, and their old religion. Viktor was not among them. He had been and remained a scientist, investigating vision—fundamental questions of perception. Applying his research to gaming did not disappoint him. Consummate player, joyful inventor, he never apologized for the diversions he marketed. Not at EverCon, where players thanked him for bringing them together and granting them such pleasure and such power. Not after that morning’s symposium on role-playing as therapy for autism, not after the Q&A, where a gamer in a wheelchair told Viktor, In EverWhen I run, I swim, I fly.
“Am I glib?” Viktor asked Nina.
“Sometimes.”
“I thought so.” Viktor spoke with such satisfaction that she laughed and Collin laughed with her. Even Helen smiled. With few exceptions, Viktor captivated people. When he was happy the whole world glowed. That very moment the sky was deepening from lavender to violet. He might have cast that sunset over his shoulder; it would have been just like him.
Peter was one of the exceptions, and he kept quiet as he watched Nina and Collin basking in his older brother’s praise.
“The point is, you’ll go far,” Viktor told Collin.
“Promise or prediction?” Peter asked.
The question startled Collin, but Viktor was whispering to Nina. No one heard, but she was glowing with her father’s words.
She knew flattery came easily to Viktor. He didn’t just say what you wanted to hear. He said what you hardly dared to hope. Even so, he loved talent. He loved youth, and he appreciated art. Nina could have kissed him when he praised Collin.
She had been to parties at the ICA before. She had watched the waves framed by the glass window on the mezzanine, but when she stood with Collin, it was like holding the ocean in your hands, studying the weave up close, the warp and weft of water. The glass galleries seemed stranger, funnier, far more beautiful. A sofa sank under papier-mâché lovers. A woman in a video installation stood gazing out at shimmering water from her balcony. Collin sat on a marble bench, chaste white, funereal, carved with the words PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT. When he opened his arms for Nina, a guard hurried over. “Sir! I’m sorry—you can’t sit there!”
“See, that’s the big-picture stuff,” Collin told Nina. “Guards coming over and acting out the message of the piece! I would never think of that.”
They took the glass freight elevator to view a three-story paper pagoda from above. They ate oysters. They drank Champagne. They listened to the jazz trio and they danced together. She didn’t know the fox trot or salsa or tango, but Collin whispered instructions in her ear. “One, two, onetwo, one two onetwo. Look up. Just look at me.”
He had told her that his mother taught dancing, but Nina had always imagined him watching the class. Now she realized that he had learned as well.
He said, “I had to dance with all the girls who didn’t have a partner. I’d be the youngest one, and I was like a foot shorter, so I was staring straight at all these eighth-grade breasts.”
“Sh!”
“What? It was like the highlight of my childhood.”
She was laughing as he spun her out. “How do you think those girls felt?”
“You need more Champagne,” said Collin.
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“I think you do.”
They walked outside to the bar and got two glasses, but she didn’t drink from hers.
“Do you think there’s such a thing as too much fun?” He set his empty Champagne flute on the railing.
“Well, it depends…” she began.
“Okay, just by that answer I can tell you aren’t drunk enough.”
Already he was more at home than she was. He seemed born for music and Champagne and black-tie parties. He looked dangerously handsome, not tamed, but liberated in formal clothes.
/> He was leaning back against the railing and Nina was facing him. This was how Daphne saw them as she walked up the stairs to the deck. Her first thought was, Look at you, Collin, with your tuxedo and your girlfriend. Her second thought: You know I’m here but you’re pretending you can’t see me.
She had come only for a quick drink. That’s what she explained to everyone who asked. She was still wearing her black Arkadia sweatshirt with the ripped hood.
“What happened to you?” Tomas asked her at the bar.
She said, “I got held up at EverCon. I had to tear myself away.”
“It’s almost ten,” Peter pointed out.
She shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant, even as he studied her. “I wasn’t going to come at all.”
Drink in hand, Daphne made her way to the dessert table, where she surveyed lemon tarts the size of silver dollars, chocolate mousse in shot glasses, marzipan fruit, petits fours adorned with candied violets. Collecting one of each, she looked up to see Collin and Nina just ahead of her in line.
“Is that your dinner?” Collin asked, and he was not avoiding her. He was expansive, and a little drunk.
“Definitely.”
It was dark now, and they stood in candlelight. Collin with his princess at his side. All around them Arkadians were plucking petits fours like flowers. “Nina, this is Daphne.”
Daphne lifted her glass in greeting. “Hey.”
Nina was confused. She’d heard Daphne’s name. She was sure she’d met Daphne somewhere before—but Collin was the one who knew her, demanding playfully, “Where were you?”
“Working! Did you like our protesters?”
“What do you mean?”
Daphne smiled.
Nina said, “You hired them.”
“They got great coverage! They were on the news at six, and again at ten. Wait.” Daphne checked her phone. “They’re on now. Look.”
Nina watched Daphne and Collin exclaim over the unfolding newscast on the phone, and the whole evening began to change. She watched the two of them together, and their conversation, spoken and unspoken, seemed familiar. Collin had never mentioned Daphne, but she was not simply an acquaintance. She was his close friend.
Daphne was explaining, “I had to coordinate the protest, and then I did the giveaway at eight, but the worst was I got chased!” She rolled up her sleeve and showed off the purpling bruise on her wrist.
“Who did that?”
“A rabid fanboy ran me down. He had me cornered in a stairwell.” Daphne spoke ruefully, but her eyes were mischievous as Collin examined her. “And he was big. At least sixteen.”
“Why would he chase you?” Nina asked.
“You need ice.” Collin pressed his cold glass to Daphne’s wrist.
Surprised and hurt, Nina turned to look at him, although he was just being Collin: friendly, flirtatious, drinking too much.
“Occupational hazard,” Daphne said.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s like sometimes you get bitten. I feed new games to hungry kids.”
“Why do they bite?”
“Because they get wild.”
“Is that the plan?”
“No!” Daphne protested. “I just want them a little bit obsessed.”
Collin chided, “You can’t just tell people where to find you.”
He was so warm, so playful with Daphne, that Nina took a full step back. He didn’t even notice. His concern was all for Daphne as Nina walked away.
She drifted to the dessert table, then to the bar. The glass freight elevator descended gently, and all the music and all the art and all the laughter of the evening seemed to sink slowly, noiselessly. All of it seemed joyless now.
Idly she watched the waiters carrying their trays. Champagne flutes by the dozen. Chocolates decorated with gold leaf. Nina wanted nothing but to get away. She had nearly disappeared down the wood stairs when Collin caught up with her.
“Stop and tell me what’s wrong.”
She kept walking to the parking lot. “You have to ask. That’s what’s wrong.”
“Daphne offended you.”
“No, you did.”
“Why?”
“Because you were defending her!”
“She’s the one who got hurt.”
“Do you know that?” she demanded. “How do you know that? You aren’t thinking about that kid.”
“This isn’t like you,” he said.
“Really? How am I supposed to be?”
“I don’t know. I don’t go around telling people how they should be. I know how you are.”
“You don’t know anything.”
He looked into her hurt eyes. “You’re jealous.”
“Not true!”
Nina turned her back on him, unlocking her car. She slipped inside and slammed the door. Then she opened the door again because she’d caught her dress.
Collin said, “Wait—let me come with you.”
“No.”
She could be so lovely and so delighted with the world, and then she doubted everything. All he wanted was to see her happy, to make her laugh, but she had to find some catch. He could be moody, he had a temper, but hers had this weight, this crushing moral force. Nina wasn’t just angry—she had to drag in the whole universe. “Don’t be like this.”
What did that mean? Was she too serious? She couldn’t help it. She was serious the way she was left-handed, and she couldn’t change. She had been raised on lies and fairy tales, and she hated deception and excuses. She had grown up with games, and she craved truth.
He repeated, “Let me come with you.”
“No, stay. You want to.” She nearly caught his fingers as she closed the car door.
“You know what your problem is?” he called out as she started the engine.
“My problem is you,” she called back. “My problem is that I’m in love with you.”
He could hardly see when he got home that night. Body shaking, teeth chattering with fever, Aidan collapsed inside the door. His mother said, Oh, my God, what happened to you, even as she asked, Where have you been, what did you do? At first he couldn’t answer. He was throbbing with pain. He lay on the floor, and when his mother tried to help him up, he vomited. Oh, my God, his mother kept saying. I’m taking you in.
“No,” Aidan groaned.
“Diana!”
“I’m right here.” Diana hovered near the kitchen door. Whenever Aidan got sick, she had a sinking feeling she would be next.
“Get me the thermometer from my bathroom.”
Diana raced up the stairs.
“Don’t bite,” Kerry told Aidan. “Don’t break the glass.” A moment later, she turned around and told Diana, “Help me get him to the car.”
“Isn’t the doctor closed?”
“We aren’t going to the doctor’s office.”
He thrashed and fought as they tried to move him.
“Ow!” Diana turned to her mother. “He scratched me!”
“Come nicely or I’m calling an ambulance,” Kerry said.
Diana turned on Aidan. “What is wrong with you?”
They were trying to pull him through the front door, but he clung to the doorframe. “Let me go! Let go!” he screamed, and it took all their strength to hold him, even in his weakened state. He demanded, “Give me my sword.”
“Is he high?” his sister whispered. His eyes were glassy, his face dead white.
“Hold his arm back,” Kerry ordered. “His left arm. I’ve got his right.” Pinning his arms back, holding him on either side, they got him through the door, and all the time Kerry spoke to Aidan. Her voice was stern and quiet in his ear. “You’re sick. You’re delirious. You’re fighting a hundred and four fever and you might have a bacterial infection. I’m taking you to the ER.”
Step by step, she talked him down the stairs into the humid night. She never took her eyes off him, so he felt her gaze, even though he wouldn’t look at her. “Now we’re going to the car
,” she said, for Diana’s benefit as much as for Aidan’s. “We’re going to the car. I’m going to strap you in.”
He stopped fighting. They couldn’t tell whether he went limp from exhaustion or in protest, but they knew better than to let go. Half carrying him, they edged into the driveway.
“Get my purse,” Kerry told Diana.
Now Aidan cried out and tried to wrest himself away again.
Kerry pinned him against the old Subaru. Diana opened the passenger-side door, and he closed his eyes as Kerry strapped him in.
“Am I coming?” Diana asked.
“No, wait here.”
Kerry was already starting the car. She had to concentrate on Aidan. “You’ll be all right,” she told him as she reached over to adjust his seat, sliding and tilting so he could lie back.
She touched his burning forehead, and he couldn’t move his head away. His neck was like a superheated steel rod. He couldn’t bend; he couldn’t turn without bursting into flame.
You can do this, Kerry kept telling herself, as she drove through the night. You can do this. But when she began threading through the maze of Longwood’s labs and hospitals, Beth Israel, Joslin, Dana-Farber, she began to cry.
She pulled up in front of Children’s, her own hospital, and she got help with a wheelchair and rushed Aidan inside.
How many times had she met parents as they rushed in hyperventilating, sick with fear? Take a breath. Sit for just a second. Let me get you a cup of juice. Try to drink this. Just take a little sip. All those years, all the waking hours of her working life, Kerry had nursed other people’s children. Now she was the one wheeling her son past fish tanks and patient art, doves and rainbows, painted words: DREAM! HOPE! LOVE! She was the mother printing Aidan’s birth date, affirming no known allergies, as children’s cartoons laughed, wheezed, screamed. She was like everybody else who came in with a sick baby. The only difference was that Kerry didn’t have to wait.
“I’m taking you to see the doctors,” she told Aidan, unconsciously simplifying her language. “They’re going to look at you.”
He was unresponsive when the nurse spoke to him. He knew vaguely that he was in the hospital, but the voices were too loud, the walls too bright. Docile, he gave over his body, submitting to the doctors’ tests. He wasn’t trying to cooperate; he was too sick to object.