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’t seen her for over four months, though I’d heard that she’d gotten married to the famous, shy hacker and had started singing cabaret. I had been planning on dropping by one of her shows.

She was talking to the skydiver we’d met that time together at the nerd bar, the hacker, her new husband, standing on her other side. I looked closely at the hacker. Was he prey? Her hand was placed sweetly on his arm. Had she actually fallen in love? It was certainly possible. The one dependable thing about her was that she would change.

I had come up a few paces behind them with every intention of saying hello, but found myself pausing for a second to listen.

“I guess you’re too evolved for that, right?” the skydiver was saying. “You’ve evolved so far into the future?”

Leonarda looked at him. “I’m not evolved. I am the future. I’m, like, post-human.”

A moment later, out on the street again, for no discernible reason, I felt myself invaded by a strange sort of happiness.

The sensitized streetlamps going on one by one. I walked along. Sometimes the street names were placed on the corners of the buildings, sometimes not. A dog paused, arched its back. There was graffiti on the walls. “To choose is to age.” Who said that? Who cares? I pictured myself taking a right, then a left, then a right again.

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acknowledgments

I’m grateful to readers Mary Gordan, Jin Auh, Alfredo Grieco, Jane Brodie, Bliss Broyard, Wendy Gosselin, Aoibheann Sweeney and Sarah McGrath; to the following people for conversations that helped illuminate the book, Nadia Tomchyshyna, Mauricio Corbalán, Ryan Tracy, Silke Bayer, Fundación Start, Marisela La Grave, Heather Goodwind, Luis Pérez, Samuel Arrues; to Yaddo and the Dora Maar House for artistic sanctuary; and, above all, to Martín Sivak.

Also by Maxine Swann

Flower Children

Serious Girls