Page 60 of In What World

“Not sure we can consider this being back,” she says.

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

Even this challenge feels incorrect.

“You look nice,” I offer. She’s wearing a purple sundress with a matching sweater, and she’s got her hair wrapped up in a claw clip, still slightly damp, with a few stray pieces sticking to her neck.

“Thanks,” she says quietly. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her shift, pressing the dress’s fabric into the space between her thighs as she buries her hands there.

“You know, we could goanywhereright now,” I say, trying on my best Cilla Cove impression. “I know Dallas said we can’t break the universe, but maybe we should try? Personally, I’m setting my aim on destroying the evolution of generative AI. What about you?”

She smooths out the paper map the psychics printed for us since our phones don’t work in this reality. “Pretty sure we can only go right here.”

The map might as well show a dead end, and we’re currently careening toward it at full speed. “I’m sorry I tried to kiss you,” I force myself to say, embracing the fact that the brake line on this conversational vehicle has already been cut. “I didn’t mean to overcomplicate this for us.”

“It’s fine,” she replies.

Her indifference is worse than the crash I expect. I’ve knownCilla Cove to be many things, but I’ve never known her to lack spectacle.

“Is everything…okay?” I ask.

“It’s just strange to be back,” she offers. “It was easier to pretend I wasn’t in Garden Meadows when we were spending all our time in the school. But this is very much my hometown. There are things here I wanted to leave behind forever, and I can’t seem to escape them now.”

“Like what?”

When she doesn’t answer, my mind fills in the blank space.

Like me.

I’m the one from the tarot reading. I’m the person she has to let go of to heal, the one whose approval she’s convinced herself she can never get. The cycle she needs to break before she can make a meaningful partnership. Yet here I am, thinking of kissing her. Wanting more than I should.

“We’ll get out of here,” I assure her, grasping for a shred of dignity. I even use my teacher voice for this, the one I’ve designed to convey my confident authority. “This Dallas will tell us what we need to know. You’ll be able to go home to LA soon.”

“Good,” she says.

That’s it, then.

There will be no more wanting Cilla Cove. No more pretending at something like friendship. No matter what promise of more this life has shown us, it doesn’t change our actual reality. Cilla and I might not be rivals anymore, but wearestrangers playacting through worlds that don’t belong to us. And I’m no actor anymore.

20

Priscilla

The drag baris exactly as kitschy as I’d expect from somewhere that Dallas Winthrop would take up residency. The theme seems to be gay Americana. Lots of old-style art—familiar slogans done with a subversive twist. Gingham patterns everywhere the eye can see.

We’re here right on time for Dallas’s first show of the night. It’s been years since I’ve had the privilege of watching one of his performances, and the promise of that excitement isalmostenough to lift my mood.

Except the show doesn’t start on schedule. Dallas has always believed in holding the curtain for fifteen minutes. It allows for late arrivals, but it also builds tension. The art of expectation is Dallas’s favorite. That means fifteen minutes of drawn-out silence between Marlowe and me. Fifteen minutes of staring at all the art on the walls, pretending it’s more interesting than the woman across from me.

The lights inside the bar finally take pity on us, dimming to nearly dark as a disco ball lowers over the catwalk that splitsthe dining space. The bartender has a mic linked to the house speakers. When he picks it up, the whine of reverb forces us to cover our ears until it passes.

“You’re all in for a special treat this evening,” the bartender says. “Beamed down straight from the great galaxy beyond, we have the one and only Houston Wehava!”

The tinsel curtains at the back of the stage part, and out saunters Dallas’s drag alter ego.

Houston wears a platinum blond beehive wig with a model rocket poking out the top. She has on a silver minidress and sparkly tights, very 1960s, with an old red analog telephone glued to her torso. Her dark brown skin has been painted minty green, and there are dark green glitter tears trickling down her cheeks.