Alone (3 page)

SO THIS IS AMERICA
, TATIANA THOUGHT
as she sat alone in her giant, empty apartment. No mother, no friends, a boy who kissed her but still loved someone else, and no parties to take her mind off her problems. If this was the great USA, she'd just as soon get back on the airplane and make the thirteen-hour flight back home. At least there she had a life.

She sighed, wandered into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator. This country.
What kind of people name a food “La Yogurt”?
Did they think they were going to fool anyone into thinking the French sat around eating strawberry-banana goo? Realizing she wasn't hungry, she slammed the door shut and continued her circuit of the apartment.

Maybe she could get a dog to keep her company. But that would never work.
People picked up their dogs' droppings in this city.
She sighed again and flicked on the radio in the living room, letting the ambient music of the dance-mix
deejay fill the room. Twirling the volume dial up high, she noticed that her fingernails looked pathetically raggedy.

“You are going down the tubes,” she scolded herself. Then she inspected her hands closely. Dry skin, and about a centimeter of cuticle showing.

Tatiana knew her mother had just gotten a fancy nail kit. She'd probably be annoyed at her for breaking it in, but that was her problem. If she was going to desert her daughter like this, she deserved to lose an emery board or two.

Tatiana entered her mother's ornate, marble bathroom and looked around. The bathrobe hanging behind the door made her heart lurch—she missed Natasha horribly and didn't understand why these “translating emergencies” and special projects always called her away. Wasn't there anyone else who could do the job for the UN? Someone who didn't have a daughter? Tatiana opened the twin doors of the vanity under the sink and began digging through the bottles, boxes, and tubes piled up underneath.

“Mother, you're single-handedly keeping Sephora in business,” she grumbled. “Ah!” she yelped, finally reaching a zippered black pouch.

She sat on the cool tiles and unzipped the patent leather, expecting nothing more than a buffer and some scissors. But something fluttered out and landed on the frilly yellow rug.

Tatiana picked it up and felt a wave of heat radiate from her heart. What was the English word for this feeling?

“Oh, gross,” she said aloud.

It was a greeting card. With hearts and angels and flowers. Inside—Tatiana couldn't help opening it—was a note scrawled in masculine handwriting.

Natasha, I can't wait until you join me in the islands. The few days we'll be separated will be torture. Thank you for coming into my life. Tom
.

Gross? This was worse than gross. It made her want to vomit.

She was used to Natasha dating. That was normal. And anyway, nobody ever really touched her mother, not in her heart. But this sentimental missive—from Gaia's father—was more than she could bear.

Perhaps she was misinterpreting the note. She read it a second time. And a third. She turned it upside down and sideways, but there was nothing to misinterpret—Tom had it bad for her mother.

So what did this mean for Tatiana? In a wildest, worst-case scenario, it meant Gaia wasn't going to be just a temporary irritation. As long as their parents were together, Tatiana and Gaia would be forced to hang around together, too. Any vacation she took—even back home to Russia, to finally see her family and friends again—would include the two of them, too.

Thirteen hours on a plane with Gaia?
Ach.

Or maybe the two of them would only vacation alone—as they were apparently doing right now, Tatiana realized with a rush of fury. Last minute emergency, indeed: Natasha had lied to her—lied to her own daughter's face—and made her worry, when all the time she was carousing on a tropical island with the father of the worst girl in the entire world.

Argh!
Tatiana wanted to rip the card in two. She was poised to do just that when an even more horrible thought produced
an image that flashed across her consciousness with all the power and brightness of a nuclear strike:
What if they get married?

Tatiana imagined the wedding: her mother in ivory lace, Tom in a dark suit, herself in an elegant blue Shelli Segal dress. . . and Gaia in combat boots and a flannel shirt.

Ugh! Gaia as a stepsister!

Tatiana was about to rip the note in two, knowing her mother would kill her and just not caring, when she froze.
What was. . .

The music in the living room kept up its steady pounding. But there was some other noise, too. Something like a window thumping closed after having been thumped open?

For a moment she thought her mother was home and would walk in and see all her toiletries on the
floor and Tatiana in the middle of them, with the evidence of her snooping right there in her hands. That gave her a moment of high-level anxiety. Then she realized that if her mother had come in the front door, she would have heard the alarm activate. If someone was in the apartment, he had come in through a window. Attempting to arrive undetected.

A burglar, perhaps. Or worse. .
.

She swallowed hard and raced down to the living room, feeling icy cold with fear. She felt a rush of relief as she saw the windows were all safely shut.

Then she saw it.

The vase from the windowsill.

Someone had kicked it to the floor. . . on their way in through the window.

Sure enough, the window was completely unlocked. Tatiana touched it with trembling fingers, then turned her back to it, flattening herself against the glass as she realized:

She might have started out the evening alone in this apartment.

But
someone was in here with her now.

What
is it that Humphrey Bogart says in
Casablanca
? “Of all the gin joints in all the world, why'd she have to walk into mine?”

That's how I feel about Heather. Of all the overprivileged teenage girls in all the private high schools in this city, why did Loki have to pick her to be his victim?

I know I'm supposed to do my job without emotion. I'm a hired gun, and I should have no more conscience than that lead-filled hunk of metal.

But Heather? I can't see this happening to her.

Loki told me to woo her into participating in his scheme, and I did—at first. But as I get to know this girl better, my empty, seductive words actually begin to fill with meaning. I wasn't lying when I told her she had something in her that others don't. She's not like those friends of hers. There's something dark inside her,
some part of her that waffles back and forth between giving in to the easy, shallow way out—and really living her life on a deeper level.

I think if she were left alone and given time, she'd turn into an amazing woman.

I think she's more beautiful than she'll ever realize.

I think she's got the kind of mind that makes her endlessly fascinating.

I think I'm falling in love with her.

Jesus. If Loki ever found out what was going on inside my heart right now, I wouldn't just get fired. I'd be dead meat. Total and complete worm food.

But I can't help it. Heather's an amazing girl, and I'm not going to let him get to her. I'll stop trying to convince her to be part of this experiment; I'll keep her away from him, maybe get her out of town for a while, convince him that she's all wrong for his master plan.

The truth is, I don't know
what the real effect of this experiment will be—nobody does. She's the first human subject. He could shoot her up and her eyeballs could explode or her bones could melt or something.

I watched him try it out on an entire petting zoo full of fluffy creatures, with varying levels of success.

I think if she'd seen what happened to the monkey, she wouldn't be so eager to try this out.

But let's say the injection works—physically. Let's say this phobosan stuff enters her bloodstream, changing her DNA so that she has no fear. And her head doesn't fly off in the process. She's totally unprepared for a new life.

Not to sound all Oprah, but she's totally ill equipped to face this brave new Heather. It's like putting her behind the wheel of a Mack truck and expecting her to drive it cross-country.

And here's the pathetic part: I'm worried how she'll feel about
me. I know how I feel about her—I know nothing could shake the love I feel. I know I feel better, more like myself, when she's around, plain and simple. She seems to be into me, but what if that's just another manifestation of her fear? Just like her friends, her clothes, and all of her other status symbols. What if I'm just a security blanket? Then she won't need me after she gets the injection.

I've just developed a conscience, and its first order of business is to keep Heather safe.

Stroll.
Amble, traipse, step out. Stride, pace, hoof it
. Or if you're feeling down,
trudge. Plod, shamble, shuffle.

Waddle. Slink. Tiptoe
.

I think my personal favorite is
saunter.
I don't think people really saunter anymore. Maybe I should revive the lost art of sauntering.

However you decide to say it—whatever word you pull out of the thesaurus—apparently Ed Fargo
can
walk if he wants to. I can put my feet to the pavement, sans crutches, and perambulate from West Fourth Street to Battery Park if I so choose. And the only reason I haven't done it so far?

Women.

Most specifically two women, the lovely and troubled Gaia and the lovely and foreign Tatiana. While one's been running away, the other's been chasing me down, and I've been so busy being stuck in the middle, I forgot about myself.

Well, that's over with.

When I kissed Tatiana, it was like—I mean, I'm a guy. It was great! She's pretty, she thinks I'm a rock star, and she's fun to be with. I should have made out with her for hours and forgotten all about Gaia and her random acts of cruelty.

Except I can't forget Gaia. From the moment I first saw her—from the four-wheeled prison I sat in for two years—I just adored that scowling, crabby face. I fell for her like a sack of cement. Becoming her best friend was a welcome challenge, and she's the most important person in my life. Full of energy and completely mysterious.

And I had her. I had her right there in my bed, I slept next to her in what seems now like some kind of enchanted subconscious fantasy somehow sprung to life, and in the space of time it took me to hobble downstairs to grab some chow, she vanished like Madonna's American accent.

That messed with my head. And much as I'd like to drown my sorrows in a pool of Tatiana, I've got other fish to fry.

It's time to take a break from the fairer sex and concentrate on these two useless bowling pins I'm supposed to be using as legs. Apparently I've been knocked off my feet. I've got to get myself up and running.