Love Minus Eighty (21 page)

Veronika nodded agreement. He was right—Winter’s final minutes were better spent with Rob, ironic as that was.

Finally, Rob nodded, though it was clear he didn’t like the fatalistic note in Nathan’s thinking. It was true, though. What could possibly change in four days, or ten, that would save Winter? Rob winning the lottery? A brilliant protest cooked up by Lorelei’s mother suddenly shifting public opinion? Sad as it was—and it was tragically sad—Winter was going into the ground.

Nathan stood. “Shit, I’m sorry, I have to get going.” He clapped Rob on the back. “You did everything you could, Cousin. You should feel proud—not many people in your shoes would have done what you’ve done.”

Rob’s breath was coming in shaky gasps. He may have nodded slightly to acknowledge Nathan’s words, Veronika couldn’t tell for sure.

“Well, have a good time.” Veronika managed a stiff smile. She was sure he was leaving to get ready to go out with
Lorelei. Nathan didn’t hear her; he was deep in conversation on his system as he strode out of the apartment, clearly nervous.

“I should get going as well,” Rob said.

“There’s no hurry. Stay as long as you like,” Veronika said.

Rob stood. “Thanks, but I have to go to work. The more I earn, the more time I have with Winter.” He headed for the door, then paused, shaking his head in wonder, smiling grimly. “Well, at least I won’t have to rush my last visit. My anonymous benefactor just deposited fifteen thousand dollars into my account.”

Veronika whooped, almost pointed out that Winter might get a few days’ reprieve for that kind of money, but decided not to.

A pulse on Veronika’s wrist reminded her that she had an appointment in five minutes. A new client who was willing to pay her fifty-percent-up-front fee to coach a face-to-face on short notice.

Lycan was still standing in the middle of the room, his fists under his armpits.

“Well, I’ve got a meeting I need to focus on,” Veronika said.

Lycan looked up. “So, I guess we’re not going on my top-secret outing?”

She’d forgotten all about it. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I really need to give this client my full attention.” The truth was, she didn’t really feel like going. She couldn’t shake her resentment at Lycan for being so unwilling to help. Veronika wondered if he would have offered anything at all if she hadn’t flat-out asked.

Lycan was still there, making no move to leave. Her hint that he should go hadn’t been particularly subtle; the guy really was socially clueless. Now her choices were to either
tell him directly that he had to go, or let him stay. He looked like an orphan, standing there. A big, dopey orphan.

“You can stay for a while if you’ve got nowhere else to go,” she said.

“Oh. Okay. I guess I’ll stick around. Have a good meeting.”

“If you want to play anything, feel free.” She uncloaked her interactive library and ducked into the bedroom. The wall shifted to expand the room as the bed submerged into the floor. She plopped into her trusty old flex-chair and pinged the client to let her know Veronika was waiting for access. This client was a persnickety one; she wouldn’t let Veronika have access to any of her personal data, said she just wanted real-time help with lines. It was a hell of a lot harder on Veronika when she had to jump in cold, with no context, no data on her client or her client’s companion. People just didn’t grasp that coaching was a science, and scientists worked with data.

The client pinged her back, authorizing Veronika to join them via cloaked screen. Veronika opened a screen.

Nathan was sitting across from her.

“It’s complicated. There’s a lot of Eastern philosophy involved,” her client was saying.

Lorelei. Her client was fucking Lorelei. That double bitch. Conniving attention whore.

There was a rap on her bedroom door. “Are you all right?” Lycan called in.

Veronika hadn’t even realized she’d shouted. “Fine. Go away.” Her heart was racing a thousand beats a minute. Her first inclination was to terminate, to leave Lorelei hanging. Though Lorelei wouldn’t be hanging—she had another coach who was probably feeding her lines at this very moment. So why had Lorelei sought out Veronika? Probably because Veronika knew Nathan better than Nathan did.

No, that wasn’t it, she realized. Or wasn’t all of it, anyway. Having Veronika as a dating coach was good theater. Although if Lorelei let her audience know Veronika was coaching her, Nathan would find out as well. Eight hundred viewers couldn’t keep a secret for three seconds.

Maybe she should uncloak her screen and show Nathan what Lorelei was up to. Surely he would be outraged.

Right. Nathan would ditch Lorelei the goddess in a fit of righteous indignation if he knew she was using his best friend as a coach. Outing Lorelei wasn’t a serious option anyway. Violating client confidentiality would be a serious breach of Veronika’s professional ethics. She could lose her job.

“So convince me,” Nathan was saying. He leaned back in his seat, waved a hand toward his chest. They were at Bluefin, a seafood restaurant with a glass ceiling under the Hudson River.

“All right.” Lorelei canted her head, as if she were thinking, though Veronika was sure she was just waiting for a line from her coach. “Every word counts in my life. None of them are lazy filler. I’ve committed myself to living a life others will find interesting enough to watch. I can’t lie around in disposable pajamas playing interactives.”

A rush of adrenaline shot through Veronika. Had Nathan told Veronika about catching her playing
Wings of Fire
? He wouldn’t. Not in front of hundreds of screens.

Nathan nodded, squinting like he was considering what she’d said. What her coach had said, actually. “I don’t disagree with that.” He leaned toward Lorelei, smiling. “So how do we make this moment worth watching?”

Jump in any time, Coach
, Lorelei subvocalized to her.

Veronika had forgotten Lorelei knew she was there. Now
was the time to tell Lorelei she was terminating the contract and refunding Lorelei’s advance, but…

There was a but there. What was it?

Lorelei had challenged her. If she terminated, she would be tucking tail and fleeing. She didn’t like to flee.

We could put on disposable pajamas and play an interactive
, Veronika suggested.

“We could put on disposable pajamas and play an interactive,” Lorelei said to Nathan, her delivery flawless.

Nathan laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “Not exactly what I had in mind, but I bet we could make it interesting.”

Well, what did
you
have in mind?
Veronika sent.

“Well, what did
you
have in mind?” Lorelei parroted. It was standard flirtation; nothing fancy, but Nathan would eat it up.

It occurred to Veronika that she could use her familiarity with Nathan to subtly turn him off. But what could possibly turn Nathan off to this woman? Her face was a little too long, her lips a bit too full, her eyes a centimeter too big for her face, but the quirks added up to a face that was not only beautiful but fascinating. Veronika hated her, absolutely hated every molecule that comprised her.

Maybe her best bet was to go in the opposite direction—knock Nathan’s socks off. Then when she pulled out after a few face-to-faces, Lorelei and her coach would seem stale. And if Nathan ever found out Veronika was the voice behind his first scintillating encounters with Lorelei, he’d look at Veronika with new eyes. Like Roxane with Cyrano.

She stayed for the entire meal, positioning her screen just over Lorelei’s head facing Nathan so she wouldn’t have to
see Lorelei, and could feel like she was the one sitting across from Nathan.

After a while she fell into a rhythm, and almost forgot Lorelei was there. Almost. It reminded her of those blissful few hours when Nathan had pretended to be her boyfriend for the benefit of her family, rekindling that heady mix of joy and longing.

When dinner ended, Veronika followed them out, trailed behind as they glided along Chan Avenue. They ended up walking along the Harlem River, the glowing colors of High Town reflecting off the water, creating a stained-glass tapestry.

“So did you ever walk here with Winter?” Lorelei asked. It was the first thing Lorelei had said in a couple of hours that didn’t come from Veronika, and Veronika sent a frown. Bringing up exes, especially dead ones, was not the way to end a face-to-face.

“Here?” Nathan said. He thought about it. “I think I do remember coming here with her. Why?”

“No reason. It’s just that she’s what connects us, if you think about it. You were seeing Winter and I was seeing Rob the day before the accident. There’s an interesting harmonic that we should be walking here.”

Correction: these weren’t Veronika’s words, they were her coach’s.
Interesting harmonics.
It was definitely a man, a man who read books about Carl Jung, but wasn’t smart enough to read books
by
Jung.

“It’s touching, what Rob is doing. Don’t you think?” Lorelei said.

“Rob’s not a better angel, he’s the best angel.” Nathan put his arm around Lorelei, drew her close in one deft, casual motion. “You know what amazes me most about him?”

“What?”

“He doesn’t even know it. He doesn’t know he’s a saint.”

Sometimes Veronika forgot that Nathan was a dating coach himself. He was good. Not as good as she, but very, very good. What a lovely thing to say. Lorelei’s screen count was soaring, and Veronika suspected that the path to Lorelei’s heart was through that screen count. If Nathan was good television, he’d get a second face-to-face, and soon he’d get into her indigo undies. Veronika would bet money they were indigo. Nathan had a head start to being good television, because the situation was so compelling. Lorelei had laid out the context for her dimmer viewers with that harmonics comment.

Maybe it was unfair to assume Nathan said what he said about Rob to improve his chances with Lorelei. Veronika was sure he genuinely believed it. She wondered if it unsettled him, if he compared himself to Rob and felt diminished by that comparison. It unsettled Veronika, but she was used to comparing herself to others and feeling diminished.

A soft rap on Veronika’s door startled her out of her zone. Veronika waved the door open. Lycan looked crestfallen; she’d gotten so sucked in she’d forgotten he was out there.

“I’m going to go home,” he said.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out,” Veronika said. “Can we go another time?”

Lycan managed a smile. “Yeah. Sure.” He turned to leave.

“Lycan?”

He paused.

“I still don’t get why you wouldn’t visit Winter.”

Lycan’s brow clenched. “I’m not talking to a dead person. I’m just not.” He left before she could reply, not that there was much to say after a pronouncement like that.

Lorelei and Nathan were saying good night on the corner
of Chan and Thirty-Ninth, which, Veronika quickly confirmed, was the midpoint between their apartments. Standard etiquette, though Veronika didn’t peg Lorelei as a traditionalist. Veronika blocked her screen so she wouldn’t see the kiss. Watching it would hurt way too much.

Then Nathan was off, and it was just Veronika, Lorelei, twenty-two hundred fifty-four viewers, and Lorelei’s invisible coach.

Well, that went swimmingly, don’t you think?
Veronika sent.

Lorelei was carrying on so many conversations at once that there was a delay before her reply.

Perfect. Can I count on you for our next face-to-face?

Veronika had planned to express her outrage at being blindsided when the face-to-face was over. She’d planned to say she’d only gone along because she was a consummate professional, that she was now terminating their professional relationship. If she agreed to work a second one, then she was complicit. If she didn’t, she would be on the outside, looking in.

If my schedule is open.

How would Nathan react, if he found out? Knowing Nathan, he’d be amused. Maybe flattered. It wasn’t as if she was spying on him; if she wanted to watch, she could join Lorelei’s throng. It was all public.

As they rose in the tube from the parking lot deep below the Cryomed facility, past floor after floor of underground crèches holding Cryomed’s non-bridesicle clientele, Veronika looked up at Rob and smiled her odd, square smile, obviously striving to be reassuring. Rob nodded. He was glad she’d offered to come. She was proving to be a good friend. Winter was their reason for becoming friends, but he hoped they’d remain friends after Winter was gone.

The thought caused his stomach to clench. Two days. How could a person’s existence or nonexistence be so clearly and coldly determined? Today, Winter existed; the day after tomorrow, she wouldn’t.

“You okay?” Veronika asked.

“Mm-hm. I’m okay.”

What do you say to someone, when
you
know this is the last time you’ll ever speak to
her
, but she doesn’t? There were things Rob wanted to say. He wanted to tell her that over the
months, his reason for coming had shifted. He wasn’t visiting out of guilt or obligation, he was visiting because being with her was worth every dollar, worth all the work and sacrifice. Could he say that? Would she suspect something was wrong?

“What are you going to talk about? Have you thought about it?” Veronika asked.

“I was just pondering that. I have a whole fourteen minutes, but I can’t use it to say good-bye, because I don’t want her to know what’s happening.” Was that the right thing? Until that moment, he’d been certain hiding the truth from her was the right thing to do. Now he felt uncertain. “I don’t, right?”

The tube came to a stop on the main floor. They stepped out.

“You don’t. If she had six months to live, maybe you could make a case for her right to know. But telling someone they have fourteen minutes to live? I think that would be cruel.” Veronika tsked. “And it’s not technically fourteen minutes
to live
, is it? She’s not technically alive.”

“Fourteen minutes
awake
. That’s how Cryomed phrases it, anyway. I keep expecting them to change their mind, to suddenly realize they can’t simply drag Winter out of that crèche. But they’re not going to change their mind, are they?”