In the front room, Gredel heard the sound of running water as she helped herself to a papaya fizz and, for lack of anything else to do, turned on the video wall.
There was a drama about the Fleet, except all the actors striving to put down the mutiny were Naxids. All their acting was in the way their beaded scales shifted color, and Gredel didn’t understand any of it. The Fleet setting reminded her of Caro’s academy appointment, and she moved to the data channel and looked up the requirements for the Cheng Ho Academy, which the Sulas bound for the military traditionally attended.
By the time Caro came padding out in her dressing gown, Gredel was full of information. “You’d better find a tailor,” she said. “Look at the uniforms you’ve got to get made.” The video wall paged through one picture after another. “Dress, undress,” Gredel itemized. “Ship coveralls, planetary fatigues, formal dinner dress, parade dress—just look at that hat! And Cheng Ho’s in a temperate zone, so you’ve got greatcoats and jackboots for winter, plus uniforms for any sport you decide to do, and a ton of other gear. Dinner settings—in case you give a formal dinner, your clan crest optional.”
Caro blinked at the screen as if she were having trouble focusing on it. “What are you talking about?” she said.
“When you go to Cheng Ho Academy. Do you know who Cheng Howas, by the way? I looked it up. He—”
“Stop babbling.” Gredel looked at Caro in surprise. Caro’s lips were set in a disdainful twist. “I’m not going to any stupid academy,” she said. “So just forget about all that, all right?”
Gredel stared at her. “But you have to,” she said. “It’s your career, the only one you’re allowed to have.”
Caro gave a little hiss of contempt. “What do I need a career for? I’m doing fine as I am.”
Since it was a hot day and Gredel hadn’t had a rest or a bath or a drink, she missed the warning signs that would have told her that Caro had more than a bottle of wine in the bath, that she’d taken something else as well—something that kinked and spiked her nerves and made her temper sizzle.
“Weplanned it,” Gredel insisted. “You’re going into the Fleet, and I’ll be your orderly. And we can both get off the planet and—”
“I don’t want to hear this useless crap!”Caro screamed. Her shriek was so loud that it stunned Gredel into silence and set her heart beating louder than Caro’s angry words. Caro advanced on her, green fury flashing from her eyes. “You think I’d go into the Fleet? The Fleet, just foryou? Who do you think you are? ”
Gredel sat on the sofa, and Caro stood over her, arms windmilling as if they were throwing rocks at her face. “You drag your ass all over this apartment!” she raged. “You—you wear my clothes! You’re in my bank accounts all the time—where’s my money, hey! My money!”
“I never took your money!” Gredel gasped. “Not a cent! I never—”
“Liar!” Caro’s hand lashed out, and the slap sounded louder than a gunshot.
Gredel looked up and stared at her, too overwhelmed to raise a hand to her stinging cheek.
“I see you everywhere—everywhere in my life!” Caro went on. “You tell me what to do, how much to spend—I don’t even have any friends anymore! They’re allyour friends!” She reached for the shopping bags that held their purchases and hurled them at Gredel. Gredel warded them off, but when they bounced to the floor, Caro picked them up and threw them again, so Gredel snatched them out of the air and let them pile in her lap, a crumpled heap of expensive tailored fabrics and hand-worked leather.
“Take your crap and get out of here!” Caro cried. She grabbed one of Gredel’s arms and hauled her off the sofa. Gredel clutched the packages to her with her other arm, but several spilled as Caro shoved her to the door. “I never want to see you again! Get out! Get out!Get out!”
The door slammed behind her. Gredel stood in the corridor with a package clutched to her breast as if it was a child. Inside the apartment she could hear Caro throwing things.
She didn’t know what to do. Her impulse was to open the door—she knew the codes—to reenter the apartment and try to calm Caro.
I didn’t take the money,she protested.I didn’t ask for anything.
Something hit the door hard enough so it jumped in its frame.
Not the Fleet. The thought seemed to steal the strength from her limbs. Her head spun.I have to stay here now. On Spannan, in the Fabs. I have to…
What about tomorrow?a part of her cringed. She and Caro had made plans to go to a new boutique in the morning. Were they going or not?
The absurdity of the question struck home, and sudden rage possessed her, rage at her own imbecility. She should have known better than to press Caro on the question, not when she was in this mood.
Gredel went to her mother’s apartment and put the packages away. Ava wasn’t home. Anger and despair battled in her mind. She called Lamey, and he sent someone to pick her up. Then she let him divert her for the rest of the evening.
In the morning she went to the Volta Apartments at the time she’d arranged with Caro. There was a traffic jam in the lobby. A family was moving into the building, and their belongings were piled onto several motorized carts, each with the Volta’s gilt blazon, waiting for elevators. Gredel greeted the doorman in her Peer voice, and he called her “Lady Sula” and put her alone into the next elevator.
She hesitated at the door to Caro’s apartment. She knew she was groveling, and knew as well that she didn’t deserve to grovel.
But this was her only hope. What choice did she have?
She knocked, and when there was no answer, knocked again. She heard a shuffling step inside, then Caro opened the door and blinked at her groggily through disordered strands of hair. She was dressed as Gredel had last seen her—bare feet, naked under her dressing gown.
“Why didn’t you just come in?” Caro said. She left the door open and withdrew into the apartment. Gredel followed, her heart pulsing sickly in her chest.
There was litter inside the door. Broken bottles, pillows, packages, and the shattered remains of porcelain cups, the cups with the Sula family crescents on them.
There were more bottles lying on tables, and Gredel recognized the juniper reek that oozed from Caro’s pores.
“I feel awful,” Caro said. “I had too much last night.”
Doesn’t she remember? Gredel wondered. Or is she just pretending?
Caro reached for the gin bottle, and the neck clattered against a tumbler as she poured herself two fingers’ worth. “Let me get myself together,” Caro said, and drank.
A thought struck Gredel with the force of revelation.
She’s just a drunk. Just another damn drunk.
Caro put the tumbler down, wiped her mouth, gave a hoarse laugh. “Now we can have some fun,” she said.
“Yes,” Gredel said. “Let’s go.”
She had begun to think it might never be fun again.
Perhaps it was then that she began to hate Caro, or perhaps the incident only released hatred and resentment she’d already felt, but had denied, for some time. Now, she could scarcely spend an hour with Caro without finding new fuel for anger. Caro’s carelessness made her clench her teeth, and her laughter grated on Gredel’s nerves. The empty days that Caro shared with Gredel, the pointless drifting from boutique to restaurant to club, now made Gredel want to shriek. Now, she resented tidying up after Caro, even as she did it. Caro’s surging moods, the sudden shifts from laughter to fury to sullen withdrawal, brought Gredel’s own temper near the breaking point. Even Caro’s affection and her impulsive generosity began to seem trying.Why is she making all this fuss over me? Gredel thought.What’s she after?
But Gredel managed to keep her thoughts to herself, and at times caught herself enjoying Caro’s company, caught herself in a moment of pure enjoyment or unfeigned laughter. And then she wondered how this could be genuine as well as the other, how the delight and the hatred could coexist in her skull.