Zara Lisbon - Fake Plastic World

I dream Im back at school. The first day of eleventh grade. Riley and Abbie and Maddie are there wearing tracksuits from Juicys newest line, and Im wearing nothing because Ive decided I dont need clothes if all Im doing is going to school. But standing there in the hallway with everyone staring, I cant believe how stupid I am: I voluntarily waived my right to clothing and now I have to go the whole day naked. I try to cover myself with my handsI have no other optionsbut my hands start shrinking. They shrink until theyre the size of kitten paws. Then they pop off and walk away. I run to the end of the hallway where my locker is and frantically try to work the combination lock using only the bloody nubs where my hands used to be. I try my birth date, 2-2-01, over and over again, but that isnt it. When I try Eva-Kates instead, 6-13-00, the lock opens with a startling clang. Before I look, I already know whats in my locker. Instead of the spare dress I hoped to find, its Eva-Kates body, folded up, her skin purple blue and shriveled, slipping off her shoulders to expose bone.

Eva-Kate, I breathe. The hallway fades slowly away until its only her and me in an endless black void.

Her eyes snap open. Theyre red, blood vessels swollen and breaking apart. When she opens her mouth, it too is red. I understand that shes been biting her lips to a pulp with the tiny white razor blades where her teeth should be.

You did this, she coos, look at what you did.

On the morning of July nineteenth, I woke in a puddle of my own sweat to the thwacking sound of a fist against my door. The sheets stuck to my skin. I was back in my own bed, Princess Leia at my feet, birds chirping outside my window as if everything were fine, as if Id never met Eva-Kate Kelly and shed never been found dead, floating in the canal outside her Venice home. As if I could get up and find her across the bridge, alive and well and day drunk. My head ached. I couldnt believe it had only been the day before when detectives had showed up at my room at the Ace Hotel and told me that she was gone. I missed her.

Justine? My moms voice was strained on the other side of my door. Justine, are you up?

I sank back into the sweaty sheets as the memory of yesterday slowly pieced itself together in my addled brain.

Detectives Trevor Sato and John Rayner said I wasnt required by law to come to the station, but if I wanted to help them find out what had happened to my friend, it was in everyones best interest that I go with them. I did want to find out and I did want to help. What I didnt want was to wallow alone in this dread, hot and slippery and deep purple red like the inside of a throat swallowing me whole. So I went. Teeth chattering, head spinning, free-falling.

The room they pulled me into was sterile and cold. I held Princess Leia close to keep warm.

The walls were a diluted green color, but everything elsethe table, the chairs, the floors, the ceilingwas made up of different textured metals, some brushed, some polished, some corrugated, all of it more than a little bit neglected. On a steel rod suspended from the ceiling hung a single light bulb housed within a steel cone, like something youd put on a dog after surgery. And the air-conditioning was cranked up to unreasonable heights. I hadnt thought to put a bra on before being whisked into the cop car and so my nipples pressed like pushpins against my cotton T-shirt. From my chair I looked up at Detective Sato to see if he noticed. He didnt. Or he was good at pretending not to notice. Or he noticed but didnt care.

He sat across from me with his arms crossed and his elbows resting on the table. He cleared his throat, looked at the clock above my head, looked at his notepad, looked at me. With his strong jaw and dimpled chin, he reminded me of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Those muscles and that palpable arrogance. I tried to guess at what he was thinking, but his eyes were steel doors slammed shut, blocking me out. Not knowing made me sweat a little, even trapped in the frigid AC as I was. The blissfully numbed-out summer had made me forget how uneasy I became when I couldnt get a read on somebody. When I couldnt tell what they thought of me. I really hated that.

So, I built up the courage to ask, are you going to, uh, ask me questions or

Not quite yet, he said before I was finished. Soon.

The door swung open and in came Detective Rayner. Tall, balding with some white hair slicked back, narrow-rimmed glasses resting in front of blue eyes with a grandfatherly glint. He held steaming coffee in a Styrofoam cup. The cup was tiny, almost in a funny way, and made me think of the Titanic exhibit my parents took me to when I was just four or five. To demonstrate the unimaginable pressure that exists four hundred miles below sea level, they displayed a regular-sized Styrofoam cupsix inches tall or soand next to it the same cup after having spent time at the bottom of the ocean. That second cup was hardly bigger than a thimble. This terrified me. Something about the covert power of water and what it could do to a thingto meif it had the chance, really knew how to keep me up at night. Seeing the cup in Rayners wrinkled hand brought the chill back.

I imagined Eva-Kate floating in that dirty canal water, drowned. I imagined her wading out up to her ankles, probably drunk. Maybe she tripped. Maybe somebody pushed her. I tried hard not to imagine that final moment, the one where she knew it was over.

Would you like something to drink, Justine? Rayner asked. Water? Sprite?

Could I I heard my own voice, thin and webby. Could I have some coffee? Please. If possible. Id slept plenty, but that didnt keep me from feeling exhausted. For as long as I could remember, sleep had never done much for me at all. When people spoke of being refreshed after an amazing nights sleep, it sounded at best like a foreign language, at worst like a horrible lie. I carry with me a long list of envies, but theres nobody I envy more than those who can wake up feeling ready for the day.

Coffee, huh? He stood behind Sato. Arent you a little too young for coffee?

No I dont think so. Im sixteen.

Coffee stunts your growth, you know that?

In Europe they let their kids drink coffee, I offered.

Sato laughed.

Sure, he said. If they do it in Europe, surely it cant be that bad.

Rayner walked back to the door and pulled it open a crack. Luanne? he called out. Would you be a dear and get us a cup of coffee?

Cream or sugar? a voice called back, husky but sweet. Rayner looked to me for the answer.

Black, please.

Neither, he told her. Thanks, Luanne. He shut the door and took a seat next to Sato.

Black coffee? asked Sato. Youre pretty tough.

Sorry?

To take coffee without cream or sugar. Thats bitter stuff. Strong. Most grown men dont even drink it that way.