Afterworlds

“You mean empty?” Darcy shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s not exactly a design choice. More of a money thing.”

“Ah, yes,” Oscar said. “I was a rent slave before I moved out to Hoboken. Had the best view of the Chrysler Building, but I had to suck my sheets for food.”

“Enough about your personal life, Oscar.” Johari patted his shoulder and asked Darcy, “How’s your writing adjusting to a new space?”

“I haven’t really tried yet.” Nan’s editorial letter still hadn’t arrived, making revisions impossible to begin, and the thought of starting on Untitled Patel without guidance was too terrifying. “Should I be worried?”

“Writing fairies can get grumpy in a new house,” Johari said. “Like cats. Mine pissed on the pillows every night for a week after I moved up to New York.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “Your writing fairies pissed on your pillows?”

Johari ignored him. “I’d be worried about those mirrors. I couldn’t write a single word if I had to watch myself at it.”

Darcy turned to the mirrored wall and regarded the three of them. Oscar and Johari both towered over her, making Darcy in her blue sundress look very young.

“Those are left over from when it was a dance studio. But if I take them down, it’ll be nothing but white.”

“Like every other apartment in New York,” Johari said sadly.

“I know!” Darcy said. Back in Philly, the rooms of her parents’ house each had a signature color—pale yellow for the kitchen, forest green in the dining area, and dark purple for Nisha’s bedroom walls, a leftover from her twelve-year-old goth phase. “What is it with all the white up here?”

“It’s gallery space,” Oscar said. “Neutral background for all the artists at work.”

“Pfft,” Johari said. “It’s boring.”

“I was in the hardware store yesterday,” Darcy said. “And they had a whole section of white paints. But instead of ‘white,’ they all had names like Linen, Chalk, and Washed Rice.”

Oscar laughed. “My walls are Dover, I think.”

“Picket Fence,” Johari admitted.

“Maybe I’ll keep the mirrors,” Darcy said.

“Good heavens! Are we all staring at ourselves?” It was Kiralee Taylor, whom Darcy hadn’t seen come in. Other people were working the intercom now, and even giving tours of the apartment to new arrivals. Moxie was making drinks, and Rhea collecting money for more beer and ice. The party had found its own momentum, its own heartbeat.

“Thanks for coming, Kiralee,” Darcy said. They kissed each other’s cheeks, like old friends.

“Lovely apartment. And what a handy wall of mirrors!”

“Dancers left it here,” Darcy said. “Johari thinks my reflection will keep me from writing.”

“One’s own face is rarely as distracting as the internet,” Kiralee said. “And you seem the industrious sort.”

Darcy smiled at the compliment, but a tremor of nerves passed through her. Imogen had forwarded the first draft of Afterworlds to Kiralee two weeks ago. Enough time for her to have read it by now.

Darcy searched for some clue in the older woman’s expression as to whether she had loved or hated it, or even started it at all. Was “industrious” some sort of damning faint praise?

“That said, I spent all day worrying about my face.” Kiralee turned to the mirrors to adjust her tie, a pulvinate double Windsor. “Bloody photo shoot this afternoon.”

“Ah, I hate authors’ photos,” Johari said. “I don’t see why my looks are relevant to the story!”

“Indeed.” Kiralee checked out her profile in the mirror. “I liked my old photo, but it’s getting a bit long in the tooth. Or, rather, I am.”

“And you are touching your face in it,” Oscar said.

Kiralee punched him, and Darcy looked at them questioningly.

“Beware, my dear.” Johari’s arm encircled Darcy. “When you get your author’s photo taken, be sure not to touch your face.”

“Why would I do that?”

“It’s a mystery, but quite common. You must have seen this one.” Oscar struck a brooding pose, his fist beneath his chin. “For the author whose brain is too heavy to stay up on its own.”

“Friend of mine got stuck with one of these for a whole trilogy.” Johari stroked her cheek thoughtfully. “Like he was coming up with amazing ideas right in front of the photographer!”

“Yikes.” Darcy turned to Kiralee. “You did that?”

“No, I went for the dreaded temple massage. It was a long time ago, and I had no wise elders to save me.”

Darcy tried to recall the back of Bunyip. “But I totally had a crush on that picture. You look so smart in it.”

“I look like a TV psychic.”

Darcy glanced across the room at Nan and Rhea. “Paradox won’t make me get an author’s photo, will they? I mean, lots of books don’t have them.”

“Pretty young thing like you?” Johari shook her head. “I should think it’s unavoidable.”

Darcy stared at herself in the mirror again, a familiar vulnerable feeling descending on her. Not only would her words be duplicated thousands of times for everyone to weigh and judge, but also her face.

She could see why it would be tempting to sneak a hand into the frame, just for a bit of protection.

Her phone pinged, and Darcy glanced down at it—Imogen.

“Pardon me, guys.” She spun away and crossed to an empty corner, raising the phone to her ear. “Where the hell are you, Gen?”

“I’m on your roof.”

“What? Why?”

“Someone buzzed me in, and I need to talk to you alone for a second. Come up.”

“Um, my party . . . ,” Darcy began, but as her eyes swept across the room, she saw Johari drawing Kiralee to the window, pointing out something below. Rhea was helping Moxie mix drinks, and Oscar was making faces in the mirror at Max.

The party could be left alone to find its own way, and Darcy still had a confession to make before Imogen met her high school friends.

“All right,” she said. “See you in a minute.”

* * *

Darcy hadn’t been up to the roof before. But on the sixth-floor landing she found a smaller, separate staircase leading up to a metal door that was wedged open with a piece of concrete.

As she stepped out, the tar roof squished a little beneath her feet, like a bouncy playground surface. It had been a hot day, and the tar was giving up its scent.

“Gen?”

“Over here.”

Imogen was sitting at the building’s edge, her legs dangling off the side. Darcy sat next to her and leaned forward to stare down at the street. A shimmer of vertigo traveled from her toes to her fingertips.

“Don’t fall,” Imogen said. “I like that dress.”

“If I decide to jump, I’ll change.” The words came out a little harshly.

“Look . . . sorry I was late.”

“Me too, Gen.” Darcy turned to her. “I spent all day shit-scared no one would come. My friends from Philly are late, and then you totally bailed!”

“It was a shitty thing to do.” Imogen swung her legs, staring out at the skyline. “But I wanted to finish your book.”

Darcy blinked. “What?”

“I’ve been putting off reading it, because I really like you. But then I realized that Oscar was here tonight and was going to ask me what I thought, and you might be standing there when I did. So I was like, f**k it, and started reading three hours ago. But yeah, my timing kind of sucked. I would have started sooner if I hadn’t been scared to.”

“Wait. Why were you scared?”

Imogen spread her hands. “Because what if it was crap? It would be really weird, me liking you this much if you were a shitty writer. I mean, would you want me to tell you if I thought it sucked? Or just politely never mention it? Because those would be your choices. I couldn’t lie about it.”

Darcy took a slow breath. The drop into space before them suddenly yawned, as if the roof were tipping, trying to spill her onto the street below.

“You didn’t think I could write?”

“I had no idea. You’re awesome, but a lot of awesome people can’t write their way out of a wet sack.”

“And . . . ?”

“And it makes things awkward! Everyone at Oscar’s parties always talks about writing, so I’m all polite and everything, but inside me there’s this tiny voice, like when you’re at a wedding and you know the whole thing is doomed, and you get paranoid that when the preacher asks if anyone knows any reason why this wedding shouldn’t happen, you’ll shout, ‘Marriage of fail!’ ”

“Let me try again,” Darcy said carefully. “You read my book, and . . . ?”

“Oh.” Imogen smiled, taking Darcy’s hand. “Well, I’m late, aren’t I?”

“Because . . . ?”

“Because I couldn’t stop. Because it was really f**king good.”

Darcy still felt dizzy. “And you wouldn’t be saying that right now if you hated it?”

“No.” Imogen’s voice was steady, undeceptive. “If it had sucked, I would have put it down and gotten here on time, and never mentioned it again.”

“And I never would have known.” A shudder went through Darcy, relief mixed with the rattle of fear, as if the shadow of some monstrous bird of prey had passed over her. “You know, Gen, you could have started with the part where you liked it.”

“Not liked. Loved.” Imogen squeezed Darcy’s hand. “I love Afterworlds.”

Darcy felt a smile prying at her annoyed expression. “Why did you have to tell me on the roof?”

“I wanted to right away.”

“Yeah, but you could have said it down there. I mean, feel free to make these thoughts public!”

“Even the part about liking you?”

Darcy blinked again, and for a second time said, “Wait. What?”

“I know this is a stupid way to tell you,” Imogen said, taking both of Darcy’s hands. “But it all got tangled up today, liking you and liking your book. So on the way over I decided to say both.”

The roof was tipping again. “You mean . . . you like like me?”

“Yeah, a lot. Of course, it’s possible you just regular like me, and if that’s the way it is I’m not going to storm off and stop being your friend. But you should know that I’m hot for you, and for your book, too.” Imogen was almost laughing, stumbling over her own words now. “I’m totally hot for Afterworlds.”

“That’s just weird.” Darcy felt a blush creeping behind her cheeks.

“No it isn’t. Your book is smart and beautiful. I want to have its sequels.”

Darcy laughed. “Really?”

“You take all the right stuff seriously. Like, Mindy’s backstory is brutally sad, and you never try to skim past it. And the way the terror of that first chapter never really fades out, Lizzie just learns to use it.”

“It’s her origin story,” Darcy said softly.

“Exactly.” Imogen took a strand of Darcy’s hair between her fingers. Their eyes stayed locked. “And it’s not just about the gnarly powers it gives her, it’s how other people see her differently. Like, when anyone thinks Lizzie’s still a kid, she’s all, ‘When’s the last time you survived machine guns, dude?’ And they have to respect her.”

Darcy didn’t answer. No one had said things like this about Afterworlds before. Those first letters of praise from Underbridge Literary and Paradox had been full of compliments, but nothing as specific as this. Being fathomed was even better than being flattered, it turned out. The words made her skin tingle and her lips burn.