The Savage Girl - Alex Shakar [60]
“Look at that one, with the smirk on his face,” Ursula says.
She points out a tall young man with a long blond ponytail. His wide mouth is locked into a wry smile, with a twist at the corner.
“What’s he grinning about, anyway?” she asks.
Ursula looks at them, daring them to respond. No one does.
“The music,” she says, answering herself. “It’s the music. The smile is there to show the rest of them that he’s in on the joke.”
“ ‘The joke’?” Couch asks.
“The joke,” she repeats. “The joke that both the deejay who picked it out and the dancers dancing to it believe themselves to be more sophisticated than the tune. The smirking man smirks in order to show that he’s in on the joke, so he can indulge in the fun-loving-hitman fantasy without an overload of embarrassment.”
Sonja gazes wonderingly at the dancing man. Couch gazes with amusement at Ursula. Javier stares at the tabletop.
“He’s imagining himself to be a fun-loving hitman,” Ursula explains, “living in that fun-loving world of fun-loving hitmen and the bodacious babes they meet in the course of their killing various people and the wacky antics that ensue.”
Her three listeners venture no comments. Nor do they move.
“Happy homicide,” she says. “Harmonious hostility. That’s the paradessence of that little smirk, isn’t it?”
She directs the question at Javier, who shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Meanwhile Couch looks back and forth between the two of them, a roguish light in his eyes.
“What do you think of him?” Ursula asks Javier.
He clears his throat. “What do you mean?”
“Do you like him?”
“ ‘Like him’? In what way?”
“I hate him,” Ursula says, still smiling. “I want to wade through that idiotic mob and scratch that smirk off his face. Isn’t that funny?”
No one says anything.
“I sound like my mother,” she says lightly. “ ‘Wipe that smirk off your face!’ ” She passes a hand in front of her face, removing the smile, then staring at them blankly. “She always said that. And you know what? I could never do it. Ivy learned to do it on command, but not me. I could never get rid of that silly, guilty smile. And now Ivy doesn’t know how to smile, and I can’t stop! Even when I want to be frowning, crying, screaming, even!”
They all jump when she slams her palm on the table. She feels the smile creep back onto her face.
“I smirk and smirk and smirk,” she says, “and I feel just as stupid, powerless, and guilty every time.”
She stares at the dancing man.
“The whole city’s got this fucking smirk.”
She passes her hand over her face again, removing the smile.
“Excuse me. I’ve got to go talk to someone.”
She gets up and presses through the lounge crowd toward the door. Before leaving, she stops at the Plexiglas window for one last look at the ponytailed man, who dances with his wry smile in front of a video screen filled with computer-animated naked dancers in gas masks, while all around him people withdraw into their slashing-armed, carved-out spaces, and all around them all, green smoke pours down from golden vents in the ceiling.
Blackout
She finds Chas sitting in his darkened office. A small desk lamp in front of him glows meagerly, leaving a raccoon’s mask of shadow around his eyes, while behind him the latticework of city lights spreads out down the slope and blurs into a haze above the flatlands. She knew he’d be here. He’s been sleeping here every night since the presentation, finishing that trendbook Javier pertinaciously believes himself to be cowriting. He doesn’t seem particularly surprised to see her. He gestures for her to take a seat, and she has just enough presence of mind to remain standing. She hasn’t even thought about which allegation to begin with, but already a new one is crowding the others out.
“How’d you know I’d be at the Sarin Spa tonight, anyway?” she shouts. “Are you having me tailed or something? Are you tapping