Blue Hearts of Mars (3 page)

“Oh my heavens,” she said, suddenly.

“What? Serious, I mean, I do. Sorry,” I said, drawing back like she’d bitten me. It felt like that. She just snapped at me. And I really didn’t want to see the show. I didn’t care, actually. It sounded completely boring and I thought she detected that in my tone.

“No,” she said, laughing and grabbing my arm. “Look.” She nodded toward the farthest door. OK, so the cafeteria is huge. Our school is huge too. There’s at least twenty thousand kids in it. And there are probably five cafeterias. Anything’s possible, that’s the point.

I had no idea what I was going to see when I looked toward where Mei was pointing. Honestly, Hemingway was the most distant celestial body from the small nebula that was my brain. I’d almost forgotten him.

So I looked and there he was. Standing in the doorway. All by himself. Looking as gorgeous as I recalled.

My stomach shot into my toes. My heart went towards the sun and I swallowed hard, pushing down the anticipation.

“Wow,” I said.

“He’s freaking gorgeous,” Mei said, her voice a whisper. “Where
has
he been all my life?”

We watched as Hemingway went through the serving line, got a tray of food, and strode to a table and sat down. I’m not exaggerating when I say he moved like poetry. He had an unfair advantage, though, being an android. I was as ungraceful as they come, being a human and all that.

But I could sit and watch him for hours.

“I know him,” I said to Mei. She was going to kill me for not telling her about him.

“What?” she said, turning and punching me in the arm before I even had the chance to explain. “You know him, batch?”

“Hey, no need for that, seriously, Mei. It’s not a big deal. He introduced himself a week or so ago when I was at the coffee bar. We sat and talked for a few hours after I got done with my shift.”

“Wow, what did he say? What’s he like? I mean, he looks like an angel. How could you even pay attention?”

I nodded. “Well, I mean, that was kind of hard because he has these eyes that you can just fall into forever. And I did. But, he left. And then I haven’t seen him since.”

“So you didn’t ravage him? I would have ravaged him,” she said, glancing back at him. He’d taken a seat and was eating by himself at a table in the middle of the room. Kids were walking around him, groups of them, and watching him was difficult. We kept getting glimpses of him there, by himself, as their moving bodies parted like curtains around windows.

“Please, I mean, I only sat at the coffee bar. Well, and we walked around the mall a bit, but all we did was talk. How would I have ravaged him?” I muttered, taking a bite of my salad. I didn’t really have an appetite by that point. Still, I ate. It was in front of me and sometimes I’m an external eater. Anyway, it wasn’t that I didn’t want to ravage him even though we sat at the coffee bar talking. I wanted to. But I certainly wasn’t going to tell Mei that.

“Find a way, that’s what I’m saying. You could have taken him in the back room. Or out into the city and hidden in an alley or something.”

“Fine, sure, I guess. But Mei,” I began, wondering if I should tell her or not. “I’m pretty sure he’s an android.” I made the decision in a split second. She should know. Maybe she’d change her tune.

“No way, no. Nuh uh! Him? It’s always the best-looking ones, isn’t it?” She sat back and slapped the table. Her brown, nearly black eyes flashed and she flipped her silky dark hair back and shook her head over and over. She was quite mad about it. Evidently.

“But he’s still gorgeous, right?” I prodded. Across the cafeteria, someone approached Hemingway and began talking to him. I felt a hot knife of jealousy all but slip between my ribs. I couldn’t see who it was. Their back was to me and the crowds thickened right when it happened. I saw him look up at whoever it was. He smiled and I felt my insides respond in a great knotting that made me stop eating completely. I sighed.

“Of course! Sure,” Mei said, but I could hear the doubt in her voice. “I mean, blue heart or man. Gorgeous is gorgeous. No doubt about it.”

I sighed again. “Well, I’m still going to be his friend, if he’s interested. That’s not weird, right?”

“Not at all! It’s not like we live in a bubble. I mean, we do, but we have to mingle with them. So, yeah, why not?”

“Do you ever wonder how many people are androids? It’s like, we only know of a few. But maybe there are more. Maybe we can’t tell with all of them.” I pushed my tray away and slumped onto my hand, propping my elbow on the table. Hemingway was getting up and leaving with whoever it was. As he walked out, I kept trying to get a glimpse of the person escorting him from the cafeteria. It was too far and the crowds were irritatingly heavy. I only saw him for a moment, but there was something in his face. Like frustration. Consternation. Or fear.

“No, why the crap would I wonder? We know who they are. Most of them. I mean, it’s not like I pay intense attention to who’s a blue heart and who’s not. Why would I?” She took a bite of an applange. The red skin split apart and the pulpy orange bits spilled out.

“Just curious. Have you heard that Dr. Craspo is?” I leaned close to whisper that. Who knew whether or not he was, and who had started the rumor? I didn’t want to be caught spreading it. Especially if it wasn’t true.

“Pfft,” she said through a mouthful of fruit. “I don’t even care. So that show is totally loaded in my room at home. You could come over on the weekend and we could have a marathon slumber party where you catch up to where I’m at.”

It sounded fun. Well, no it didn’t. It sounded like pure misery. I didn’t care about the show enough to waste an entire weekend watching it. Plus she was being a bit of a brat, not even engaging in conversation with me about truly interesting subjects, like who was a blue heart and who wasn’t. Didn’t she care that they were among us, blue hearts? Didn’t she care that we couldn’t always figure out who was an android, but that they looked beautiful and yet we were supposed to somehow deny any type of meaningful feelings we might foster for them? It was total crap.

And no one was asking “what the heck?” No one but me, apparently.

Friday night and I was at work.

As if that wasn’t crap enough for a seventeen-year-old like me, there was a huge dance going on in the plaza outside the coffee bar.

These dances happened every weekend, so it was nothing new that I stood thirty feet from the party and didn’t participate. It’s not like I would have gone to the dance even had I not been working. Mei was probably at home watching that dumb show or getting a massage and a mineral bath or something (she’s from a rich family and I am not). Who would I have gone with?

Work was fine. Really, it was. Between songs the bar got very busy. During songs one or two stragglers would come in, looking shy and cautious, or sweaty and out of breath, and they’d order a cold beverage of some sort. At that time I was a model of the perfect server.

But usually during songs, I stared into the massive crowd as everyone else moved in a great mob of bodies. I gazed on, forlornly, thinking of how crappy it was that I was working instead of having fun.

Though the place was fairly spotless, I wiped the counter down again with a put-upon sigh. Outside in the plaza, a huge hologram of the vocalist danced in the middle of the room over the largest Gram player I knew of, singing his guts out as the mass of people hopped around and moved to the beat.

To pass the time, I sang along to myself, imagining I was in a romantic comedy like you do when you have to escape to fantasy or else go mad. In this particular holo-film I was making up, the girl was a wallflower (what else?) even though she was gorgeous (not unlike me) and didn’t really know it because she was humble, like me (I blush when people compliment me. That’s humble, right?). And out of nowhere, the girl becomes the object of a beautiful man’s affection. He’s also secretly rich. He tries to win her love without making it too obvious, and she reforms him from being arrogant, but that undesirable trait was just a huge misunderstanding. Deep down he was always really incredibly kind and decent.

The song fit the story I made up. I did a little spin behind the large, vintage espresso-maker and then sashayed a bit, waving my cloth as I made up new moves and sang along quietly to myself.

Matt was in the back room, trying to shut out the music—he called it a headache, and an incessant racket, and said there’s absolutely no musicality to it—and so I was alone as I daydreamed and wobbled to and fro (my signature dance move). The only people that might see me were out in the mass of flesh dancing and reaching for the hologram singer, as though they could actually touch him.

Ever since I saw Hemingway in the cafeteria, there had been this little pearl of fire in my heart. It’d just been there. Alive. I found myself slightly scared of it. But it also got me really excited, as though something was about to happen. As though at any moment, I’d open a door and there would be a lotto guy with a humongous check for fifty trillion markkas, or I’d look up and there would be Hemingway, with a knee-melting grin on his face and I’d suddenly realize, I really didn’t care what happened. Let them imprison me. Let them take me away. Let them punish me.

I choose him.

The song outside ended and I stopped dancing, feeling a little pulse in my neck from the exertion—I don’t exercise much, so when I do, I really feel it. I did one last spin and slapped the counter at the far end of the bar with my cloth, going down into a deep lunge to do it. When I straightened, there was someone on the other side of the bar.

“Oh, hey, excuse me,” I said. Then I realized: it was Hemingway. “Oh, uh. Hey! How—how are you?”

He smiled. I felt that little pearl of a fire in my heart being stoked into a blaze. His eyes searched my face. “Retta,” he said, grinning as though he knew a secret about me. “Nice moves. I had no idea you were so gifted.”

I laughed uncomfortably. “Ah, ha ha. Sure.”

“Maybe we should go to a dance sometime.” He stepped toward the bar and dropped casually onto one of the stools.

“Where’ve you been?” I asked, ignoring his invitation. Not because I didn’t want to go with him to a dance—because I wasn’t sure he was serious or just making conversation.

“Busy, but I finally had time to come see you again,” he said and put his arms on the bar. I couldn’t help it—I noticed his fingers and remembered how I wanted to touch them or have them touch me. My face was suddenly on fire, so I hid behind the espresso machine and began making a drink.

“How about a cappuccino? With gobs of froth?” I offered.

“Why not?”

“Are you here for the dance?”

“No. I came just to see you.”

So forward. But my heart leapt in response. I smiled and couldn’t find an answer, so I concentrated on making his drink. I pulled levers and made steam and paid attention to how much milk to add. It’s an art, and I actually suck at it, but I have fun and the customers never complain. I pretend that’s because they’re just nice, but maybe it’s because they don’t really know the difference.

They probably do. Who am I kidding?

“I saw you at school,” I said, handing him his drink. He thanked me, still grinning, and took a sip without ever taking his eyes from mine.

He lowered the mug and wiped the foam from his mouth. “Really? Why didn’t you say anything?”

I shrugged. “You were far away. We were in the cafeteria. Stuff like that.”

He nodded as though he understood. “The elephant.”

“What?”

“The elephant in the room. Haven’t you heard that expression?”

“No.” I shook my head.

“It means there’s an enormous thing in the room with us, but we’re both pretending to not see it, and it’s silly because it’s as big as an elephant.”

“Right, right.” I nodded. “What are we ignoring?”

He leaned forward and took my hand, which was resting on the cold counter between us. “That I’m an android.”

I pulled my hand away reflexively. I didn’t want to actually, and once it was out of his hand, I regretted it. I couldn’t give it back to him, though, because that would look stupid. I tried laughing, but it just sounded hollow. A frown creased Hemingway’s perfect cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he said, haltingly. “I guess—I must have been reading things inaccurately. I thought—”

“No, no, it’s OK. Don’t apologize. It’s me, I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“Why?” His eyes found mine, and there was this appeal in them, this hope. I couldn’t crush it. Because I wanted to encourage it. I want to encourage him. For some stupid reason. And not just because he’s beautiful and his eyes swallow me like a black sun sucks in light—because, well, I don’t know yet. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe I need to find out what it is about him that makes my head spin.

I do, right? I mean, even though I tried to forget him, I never did. A week is a long time. Especially when you’ve only been alive for seventeen Earth years. “I—I like you.”

“Like?” he laughed. “OK. I’ll take that. It’s a place to start.”

“I know you’re an android,” I whispered. “But I don’t care.” What was I saying? I must be a complete idiot.