Page 19 of The Dazzling Heights
What a great first day it was shaping up to be. Rylin leaned back in her chair and took an enormous sip of the overpriced Martian water, because why the hell not.
LEDA
“WHERE’S MOM?” LEDAhesitated in the doorway of her family’s dining room, keeping the toes of her boots lined up with the ivory carpet of the hall. Her dad was sitting at the table alone, tapping his fingers absentmindedly on its ultramodern glass surface as he read something on his contacts.
He glanced up. “Hey, Leda. I think she’s running a little late.”
“Dad, what dates do we have the Barbados house in January?” Jamie asked without preamble as he sat down. Leda cautiously ventured inside and pulled out the chair across from him. The table had no legs: it floated unsupported in the air, the ultimate centerpiece of their home’s spare, minimalist décor. Leda thought it was tacky and impersonal, but then, it was fitting that their apartment should feel more like a hotel than a home. A home would imply that the people who lived there actually cared about one another.
Matt Cole cleared his throat. “Actually, we released the Barbados time-share.”
“What?” Leda was stunned. They’d had the time-share in Barbados for ages: a sprawling, serene house atop a hill, with a tiny cobblestone path directly to the beach. Leda had always loved how relaxed her parents were there, as though they became the best, purest versions of themselves, freed of the grime of New York.
“We thought we’d take a year off, maybe do something new,” her dad explained, but Leda wasn’t buying it. She wondered if he’d lost a lot of money recently. Maybe he’d spent too much on Calvadour scarves for his teenage mistress, she thought resentfully, thinking of the exorbitant present he’d given Eris before she died.
“That sucks. I wanted to see if I could bring friends,” Jamie said, and shrugged. “I’m starving. Can we eat?” Typical Jamie; he was never really bothered by anything for very long.
“Let’s wait for Mom,” Leda said quickly, but her dad was already pushing a discreet touch-screen pad at the center of the table. Their chef, Tiffany, appeared, pushing a wide cart laden with dishes.
“Mom said to start without her. She’s held up in a meeting,” their dad explained. Leda pursed her lips and reached for the bowl of pasta without comment. She saw that it was her favorite, a kale-noodle penne with crumbled soy protein and phenerols. Her mom had totally picked this menu to cheer Leda up. A stubborn, contrary part of her was determined not to like it.
“How was school, Leda?” her dad asked. That was his version of parenting: asking scripted questions that he’d gotten from someHow to Talk to Your Teenage Daughterbook. Leda wondered if they shelved that one next toHow to Hide Your Teenage Mistress.
“Fine,” she said curtly, and started to take a bite of the penne, only to put down her fork with a clatter. “Although, there was a new girl at school today. Isn’t that weird, that she was able to start mid-semester like that?”
“I think I saw her,” Jamie chimed in, for once. “The scholarship student?”
Leda glanced at him in surprise. Jamie usually never noticed anything, unless you could smoke it or drink it or had given it to him as a present. Then again, Rylinwaspretty, if you could look past her disrespectful attitude.
“Exactly. She moved here from thetwentieth floor,” Leda said dramatically, wrinkling her nose at the thought. “Can you imagine?”
“Sort of like how you felt, when we moved here from midTower,” her father said, which shocked Leda into silence.
“No, not at all like me,” she countered after a moment. She didn’t appreciate being compared to an arrogant lowlier. “This girl is rude and insulting. She thinks the rules don’t apply to her.”
Jamie burst out laughing. “Look who’s talking. Leda, you’veneverthought rules apply to you!”
Matt Cole tried to stay impartial, but amusement danced across his features. “Leda, I think you should give this girl the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure she had a tough first day, starting at a new school in the middle of the year. Especially as a scholarship student.”
This was her opening. “You’re right,” Leda said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “And I imagine it’s been extra hard on her, because she won Eris’s scholarship, and of course we all miss Erissomuch.”
Silence settled over the room. Leda’s family knew she’d been on the roof, of course; they’d picked her up from the police station that morning after everyone provided their witness statements, and had reviewed it with their lawyer in excruciating detail. Eris’s death was one of those things they seemed to have collectively decided not to talk about. As if all their family’s dirty little secrets could be wrapped up and buried, just the way Eris herself had been, and then they would disappear.
Leda watched her dad’s face closely. Looking for what, she wasn’t quite sure. An acknowledgment of his relationship with Eris, she supposed.
She saw it right away. He flinched at Leda’s words, just barely, but it was enough. She quickly looked down.
Leda had expected to feel pleased at seeing the proof, right there on her dad’s face—yet all she wanted, suddenly, was to cry.
For the rest of the meal she pushed her food around, letting her dad and Jamie talk about lacrosse and some great save Jamie had made and whether or not the school would hire a new coach next year. As soon as she could, she mumbled an excuse and escaped down the hall to her bedroom.
A knock sounded at her door. “Leda?”
“What?” she snapped, wiping at her eyes. Didn’t her dad understand that she had no desire to see him?
He tentatively pushed the door open. “Can we talk?”
She swiveled her desk chair around but stayed where she was, her legs crisscrossed beneath her.
