Page 46 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
Obviously, Sawyer says.Not the point. But he’s giving up the best girl in the world for a giant question mark???
The tram howls into the tunnel, cool air blowing my hair over my eyes. Jazz is still talking, and Felix is furiously scrolling Twitter. Every few seconds, he groans. An automated voice croons, “Train arriving for all A, B, and C gates.”When the tram doors slide open, I follow Miller into the press of people.
I’m still looking at my phone when the train shudders to a start, and as I stumble sideways, Miller reaches for me. He opens his arm to hold me against his side, and as I move into my place there, I tuck my phone into my pocket and wrap my own arm around his waist. I can feel him breathing under my hand, the rise of his ribs through his T-shirt. We’ve stood like this a hundred times. This is what we do in public: Miller’s arm goes around my shoulders, we collapse the space between our bodies.
But now, in the close air of the train, Miller’s thumb brushes along my arm—up and down, up and down. Slowly, like in the insanity of this moment he’s keeping his own rhythm, slowing us to a manageable pace. I have one hand on my suitcase and another on Miller’s side; when the train lurches around a corner, he pulls me closer to keep me on my feet.
This is fake, I remind myself. All of it—the way he reached for me at the funeral, and how he steadied me with a palm on the small of my back in the security line, and even the way I felt that night in the hospital, like Miller was the best thing I had to hold on to—it’s not real. We’ve fabricated this. Every minute, every time we touch each other, we’re fabricating it.
But when I look up at him, he’s already looking down at me. And then he dips his chin and presses a kiss to my temple, and it feels like maybe the only good thing to have happened for the whole last week of my life.
It’s fake, I think. Even as I close my eyes, as I draw my first full breath since leaving home.It’s fake, it’s fake, it’s fake.
Jazz spends the entire flight drafting media responses, so it’s Felix who walks us through the itinerary.
“Filming starts at five tonight,” he says, leaning over the seats in front of Miller and me. He uses a pen to point at the paper he’s shoved in our faces. Right there at the top:Jimmy Fallon—The Tonight Show.“We need to hustle through baggage claim and book it downtown so we have enough time for hair and makeup.” Felix glances at Jazz, who’s mumbling to herself in the windowseat. “He may ask you about Josie and Hayes. Jazz will have statements ready, so just stick to the script.”
I glance at Miller, and together we nod.
“Tuesday’s press,” Felix says, moving his pen down the paper. “Vogueat ten, break for lunch,Peopleat two. Wednesday’sToday.”Upside down, he circlesThe Today Show. “The big kahuna. I want you rested and ready. No sneaky-sneaky from your hotel rooms, no roaming the city at night.” He raises his eyebrows, looks between us. “Got it?”
“I wouldn’t even know where to go,” Miller says. “So no problem.”
“If you were anyone else,” Felix tells him, “I’d think you were trying to pull one over on me.” Then he looks at me. “Ro?”
The truth is, a month ago, I probably would’ve snuck out. Ridden the subway to the end of the line at one in the morning, or eaten dollar-slice pizza by myself, or stayed up all night walking the city just to say I had. I’ve never left Colorado, or been on an airplane, or had independence in a brand-new place. But that daring person inside me has gone quiet lately—silenced by a different one whose limbs are too heavy with grief to carry her on some great nocturnal adventure. The whole world feels dimmer without Vera in it.
“Don’t worry about me,” I tell Felix. “I’ll be sleeping.”
He studies me, sympathy flickering across his face so sharply I have to look away. “All right,” he says. He clears his throat and turns back to the paper. “Another interview Thursday morning, then we fly home for Christmas. Any questions? We’ll go overeach appearance in detail before it happens, obviously.”
No questions, so with one last look at me, Felix drops back into his seat. Miller reaches into his backpack for a book, something for AP Lit that I’ve never heard of. He cracks it open, then extends a long arm up to the overhead light and clicks it on. A circle of warm light spills over his lap, flooding the pages.
“Miller,” I say, and he looks at me. His pointer finger is balanced on the top line of text, holding his place. The picture of him reading like this is familiar enough to knock me out. “What were the rest of your results?”
He blinks, reading light throwing the long shadows of his eyelashes over his cheeks. “My MASH results?”
I nod, and he closes the book. “What were yours?”
“Software developer,” I tell him. That’s the easy one. Around us, the plane hums. Jazz has her headphones in, and we’re speaking too softly for anyone else to hear us. “San Jose. No kids.”
Miller looks down at his hands, smooths the pad of his thumb along the cover of the book. I watch his chest rise and fall, the steadying breath he takes. “Professor,” he says, and then he looks up at me. “San Jose. Two kids.”
The words sit heavily between us. Miller’s face is like a closed door, holding something in that he doesn’t want me to see.
And as I look at him, it lands on me, certain as a sunrise: There is a flaw in the algorithm. Not just the mutant version XLR8’s tacked on without me, but the one I wrote in the first place. Partners will have the same children, but one may want three and one may want none and maybe, together, they’ll land in the middle.Same with the places they live. If they love each other, these will be conversations that MASH doesn’t get to hear. Because the survey only listens to each partner’s separate side of their shared story. The app doesn’t account for compromise.
“It’s overwhelming,” Miller says softly. “To think about it now.”
“Then why’d you take the survey?” It’s the same question I wanted the answer to all the way back in August, alone with Miller for the first time in almost three years. “You hate this stuff. Phones, and social media, and technology.”
He tips his head back until it hits the seat. Doesn’t take his eyes off mine. “Because you’re my oldest friend,” he says, simply. “Because you made it.”
27
It’s two when we land at JFK, which gives us exactly three hours before we go live onThe Tonight Show. There’s a driver waiting at baggage claim, wearing a suit and holding a sign that reads:Mo—MASH. It takes us a full hour to weave through Queens into Manhattan, and by the time we hit the tunnel under the East River, Felix is visibly sweating.
“We still gotta do wardrobe,” he mutters, checking the time on his phone. “And Ro, makeup.” He glances at me—my hair in a topknot, not a speck of makeup in sight. “Oh, Christ.”
