Clair rarely dreamed, but when she did, it was memorable.
Her sleep was interrupted by a nagging flash that brought her out of deep unconsciousness in stages. Only slowly did she become aware that someone was calling her and that they were doing so through her most intimate and private channel, reserved solely for Libby.
“What?” she said, fumbling with her night-darkened lens interfaces. Behind the dark shutters of her eyelids, she imagined crises unnumbered. “Libby, what is it?”
“You called me,” came the reply. Libby sounded shockingly bright and breezy. There was no sign in her voice of migraine or fatigue. “I’m calling you back. There’s no drama.”
“Are you sure?” She checked the time. “It’s the middle of the night. I was asleep.”
“Well, I’ve been sleeping all day, and I’m tired of doing nothing. Lying around is a waste of the New Improved Me, right?”
“Let me see you,” said Clair, pulling herself up in bed onto her elbows and blinking the sleep from her eyes.
“Why?”
“Because I want to.” The last dregs of the dream disappeared, leaving a lingering sense of alarm.
“You want proof. That’s what you mean,” said Libby in a sharp tone. “Life is good, Clair. I’m beautiful. You’re not going to make me feel bad, no matter what you say.”
Libby appeared in a window in Clair’s vision like a translucent ghost. She was dressed in a tight-fitting white top and had styled her blond hair in a wave. Her complexion was impeccable. Clair could see nothing but clear white skin from hairline to jaw and a smile that was as sharp as her tone.
The birthmark certainly appeared to be gone . . . but appearances could be deceiving. Libby was touching up her lips in pink, and her eyeliner was blue, so there was definitely makeup in play. Could she have found a new shade that did the job more effectively than the last one? Would she really lie about such a thing just to save face?
“I don’t want to make you feel bad,” Clair said, wondering why Libby would even suggest such a thing.
“You may not want to, but that’s what you do. You talk about me behind my back, you think I’m crazy—”
“That’s not what I think—”
“You want to swoop in and solve all my problems. Well, I’m not your project, Clair. I have everything under control. It’s time you realized it and let me be who I am.”
Clair blinked back a sudden sting of tears. Was that really how Libby saw her? Interfering and controlling? Not helping or finishing, as Zep had put it? Libby had never said anything to indicate that she thought this way, not in all their long years together.
“That’s not what I mean to do, Libby. Honest. I love who you are. You don’t need to change anything or do anything for me to think you’re the best.”
“But you won’t let me change. That’s the problem.” Libby was fussing with her appearance as she talked, either ignoring or not noticing Clair’s attempts to make her look back at her. “You don’t believe in Improvement.”
“Well . . . it is a little hard to accept. . . .”
“Basically, you’re calling me a liar.”
“I’m not calling you anything, Libby!” Clair’s sense of hurt flared into frustration. Why was Libby trying to pick a fight with her in the middle of the night? Was it the Zep situation or another weird mood? “I’m just . . . just worried about you, that’s all.”
“Don’t be. I feel fine. Just look at me. I look fine, right?”
She pirouetted for Clair’s benefit, and Clair agreed that she did look good. It was hard to equate this Libby with the grainy figure she had glimpsed that morning. But what did that mean? Improvement either worked as promised or it was dangerous: those were the two choices Libby and Dylan Linwood were forcing on her. That it did nothing at all was a possibility that seemed to have evaporated over the course of the day, leaving her feeling stranded in the middle.
“Are you going to the ball?” Clair asked, trying to change the subject.
“That ended ages ago. No, I’m going to Zep’s.”
Clair made her face a mask, feeling as though she’d been punched in the guts. He was supposed to call, she thought.
“Well, have fun,” she managed to get out, although it felt like hauling heavy rocks out of her chest.
“Oh, I will. And I’ll think of you while I’m doing it.”
“What?”
“You could use a little fun in your life, Clair. Maybe you should try it. See what happens. You might be pleasantly surprised.”
“Are we still talking about . . . ?”
“Improvement, of course. Look what it’s done for me. Instead of lying there being critical, why not do something to better yourself? What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid,” Clair said.
“Yes, you are. You’re afraid of being beautiful like me. You think I did the wrong thing, and now you’re trying to steal what belongs to me.”
Libby’s pale face stared directly at Clair, just for an instant, in naked challenge.
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Clair said. “That’s not what I think. . . . It’s confusing. . . .”
“I bet it is,” said Libby. “Instead of trying to fix my life, why don’t you concentrate on the mess you call your own?”
The window closed while Clair floundered, lost for something to say. For a moment, there were no words at all, just a seething roar in her ears. She could only stare into space while she tried to decide what she felt most: anger, guilt, jealousy, or grief. Was this the end of her friendship with Libby?
She fell onto the bed and ground the heels of her hands into her eyes, willing herself not to cry. She wanted to call back right away and apologize—but what for, exactly? For having a connection with Zep that didn’t include Libby? For not believing in Improvement? For trying to help?
She wasn’t going to apologize, she promised herself. And it wasn’t about Zep or anything obviously superficial and in the moment. If it had really been about a single kiss, maybe Clair would have let Libby have her time in the crisis spotlight, safe in the knowledge that it would blow over soon enough. She could live with that for the sake of eventual peace. It was what Libby had said about being Clair’s project that stung the most. Like it wasn’t just as often the other way around—Libby trying to drag her off to things Clair wasn’t interested in, safe in the knowledge that Clair would either enjoy it or make things work out when they didn’t. That was why they worked as friends when they were so patently different from each other—and now Libby didn’t want it to be that way anymore. She wanted to break the central dynamic of their friendship, which was that it went both ways.
Clair could hear her own breathing echoing back to her from the confines of her room. It was fast, as though she had been running.
The story Clair had told Jesse earlier that day came back to her now. Food poisoning thanks to bad chicken had kept her out of school for a week. Her friends had sent her get-well messages through the Air, but that hadn’t been enough for Libby. She had brought around a pot of congee that she said was an old family recipe—fabbed a generation ago and perfect, Libby said, for settling a bad stomach. It had made Clair feel better, but not just because of the rice broth. Because Libby had known that Clair felt in need of more comfort than the Air could provide, and Libby had been there for her. She had felt, in that moment, that Libby would always be there, whenever Clair needed her.