Page 10 of Inferno
‘Um, I suppose,’ I reasoned. ‘But in a wider context? No. Not at all.’
‘So, Emily went on this cruise a couple of years ago,’ she continued. ‘She likes to flaunt how mega-rich she is now – if there was a cruise ship made of gold, she’d be on it. Anyway, at one point on the cruise, which I can only imagine was all kinds of boring, she got to go out and see the dolphins close up. There was a group of them on this little speedboat and they were riding along and the dolphins got so excited they started chasing the boat. After a while, they came level with the boat and were jumping out of the water at the same speed. Emily was loving it, snapping photos and flooding her Instagram while she stood as close to the side as she could. All her captions were like “OMG best day ever”, “Ahh, this one is definitely smiling at me. I think he fancies me!” and “Free Willy LOL”, which is annoying because Willy was a freaking orca and you know I hate when old people overuse text abbreviations.’
Millie paused to assess my reaction.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘So… this is all still very vague…’
‘Well, you won’t believe what happened next,’ she said,shaking her head. ‘One of the dolphins overshot the mark. He jumped out of the water and ended up headbutting her in the face. He knocked her clean out.’
‘What?’
Millie’s eyes went impossibly large. ‘Yeah.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘That is really not how I saw that ending.’
‘So,’ she said, stepping back from me and lacing her fingers in front of her. ‘What are your thoughts?’
‘Was the dolphin OK?’
‘Yeah, he went right back on swimming.’ She grinned, before adding, ‘She had to get a second nose job, though.’
‘Right,’ I said, still trying to figure out the point of the story. I never was that good with metaphors in English class, but this one seemed particularly obscure. ‘And the reason you told me this story is because…’
‘Because, Soph, life is unpredictable. One minute you’re sipping champagne on a boat deck and laughing about how rich you are and the next minute you’re getting hit in the face by a dolphin. Shit happens, OK? No matter where you are or what you’re doing, you are still susceptible to the uncertainty of life. You can’t just roll yourself up in bubble wrap and close off the rest of the world. Mypointis that you need to get off your ass and come back outside before we lose the tail end of this summer and get sucked into the oblivion that is senior year.’
‘Well,’ I said, feeling very much like I had just had my ass handed to me. ‘I can’t really argue with that.’
‘No you cannot. The Dolphin Philosophy always prevails.’ She raised her palm in the air. ‘Now let’s get you back to normal, OK? Up top.’
I high-fived her and she grabbed my wrist. ‘Hey, where did this bandage come from? Did you cut yourself?’
Oh, yeah. That.‘Accidentally…’ I hedged. ‘I sort of fell asleep with Luca’s switchblade in my hand.’
‘As you do,’ she deadpanned, moving her suspicious gaze from my hand to my face. ‘You really need to get rid of that.’
‘I will,’ I lied. The thought of relinquishing it brought an uncomfortable twinge to the base of my spine. It was in my pocket even then, resting heavy and sure against my thigh. I liked it. I needed it.
‘The sooner we get you out of this house the better. Tomorrow night, OK? How does bowling sound?’
‘Like fresh hell.’ I withdrew my hand and pulled the sleeve of my shirt over it. ‘I’d rather take a dolphin to the face.’
‘You should be so lucky,’ she retorted. ‘The movies, then?’
‘Only if we can watch that one with the robot who falls in love with the human who made him.’
‘Sophie,’ she whined. ‘You know I can’t relate to non-human love stories. That’s whyThe Princess and the Frog wasso problematic for me. They spend way too much time as frogs.’
‘Mil, if I’m going to re-enter society, I’ll be damned if it’s not to the backdrop of a futuristic romance that transcends both scientific engineering and biology to conquer impossible odds for true love.’
‘Fine,’ she conceded, with an eye-roll. ‘I’ll suffer this one for you.’
‘Oh, cheer up. It’ll be fun.’ I patted her on the arm, trying to force some enthusiasm. ‘Smize.’
CHAPTER SIXTHE GIRL WITH PURPLE HAIR
Millie drove us to the movie theatre in her new car, a second-hand Toyota Matrix she had been drooling over and saving for all summer. Despite the fact we almost crashed at several intersections, and she had absolutely no respect for the speed limit, we made it in one piece. I got out, feeling marginally strengthened by the fact that fate must be back on my side.
Friday night wasn’t exactly the best time to go to the movies. The whole place was wedged with people and every time someone brushed against me, I jumped a little. I did my best to loosen up, but it was hard to let go completely without scoping out our surroundings every couple of minutes.
