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“You don’tthinkyou like surprises? Does that mean you’re not certain about it the way you are about the no-wife thing?” She scooped Miso from her cage and slipped the weasel into the neck hole of the bunny suit.
“No, I’m not certain, but I’m not enjoying the not-knowing right now. You’re going to let that weasel climb around inside your clothes?”
“She’s in a sling, see?” She unzipped the top of the onesie, revealing a baby carrier or a sling of some sort that was not unlike the hammock in Miso’s cage.
“It would be a more accurate reenactment if she was loose, but we don’t wanteverythingto be exactly the same.Trust me.”
I looked at her, waiting for her to elaborate.
She gave me a nervous laugh, then nodded toward the door. “Let’s go.”
TWENTY
TRISTAN
Somehow I felt both more at ease and more unsettled since Morgan had arrived. Standing side-by-side in the otherwise empty elevator tipped the scales toward the latter. My muscles twitched at our closeness, at the uncomfortable uncertainty of the situation that was to come.
Why didn’t we want everything to be the same as it had been whenever we’d lived this scenario before?
“I like your shirt,” she said as the doors opened.
“Thank you.”
We stepped out into the lobby, and I felt the wobble that always happened after the descent, like we were still plummeting. Perhaps it was an omen of what was to come.
“I didn’t know you liked Deep Purple,” Morgan said.
Confusion prickled through my brain.
“The shirt is gray….” Unless it wasn’t. Was I color blind?
Morgan smiled wide. “That would be funny if it was a joke. Is it? I can’t always tell with you.” Her expression faltered. “It’s not. Okay, sorry. Deep Purple is a band, and that’s one of their album covers.”
I looked back down at the pattern with fresh eyes. “It looks like a circle.”
“It’s a crystal ball for telling fortunes. See the stuff floating around in there like the DP logo?”
I shrugged. It still looked mostly like a circle to me, cracked and faded, and indicating nothing. Much like my brain. I sighed.
“We’ll listen to the album later, and then we’ll know if you like it,” Morgan said.
I looked forward to it.
On our walk down the city streets, a few people gave Morgan and her costume strange looks, but most didn’t give her a second glance. I didn’t know if I’d ever lived anywhere else, but I knew for certain that their lack of concern was something I loved about this city—almost no one intruded into anyone else’s business. They were all too busy focusing on their own problems.
“Tell me something about your day,” Morgan said.
“I went to the library.”
“Did you learn anything?”
“I like libraries.”
“Well that’s something. Libraries are great. Books are great.”
She didn’t ask if I’d learned anything about who I was or where I’d come from, instead letting my lack of words speak for themselves. I appreciated that.
Within a few minutes, we reached the carnival.
