Page 76 of The Towering Sky
She was startled by the sight of a familiar figure in the crowd. It was Avery Fuller, walking hand in hand with that lankyGerman boyfriend of hers. They seemed to be returning from a weekend away, just in time for school. Calliope watched as Avery hugged her boyfriend; then they turned in opposite directions, each of them apparently going to a different lift line.
Calliope realized with a start that Avery was headed right toward her. She quickly arranged herself just so, as if she was on display—the iced coffee held casually in one hand, one leg folded over the other—and directed her profile toward the sunrise. She expected Avery to glide on past without speaking, or maybe even to say something snide.
What she didn’t anticipate was that Avery would pause. “May I?” she asked, gesturing to the neighboring seat.
Calliope gave an unconcerned shrug. She’d never been one to back down from a confrontation, or whatever this was. But behind her steely facade, her heart was hammering. She and Avery hadn’t exactly talked since last year, when Calliope had confronted her after the Dubai party, and told Avery that she knew about her and Atlas.
“Are you headed somewhere?” Avery asked, her printed faux-leather suitcase hovering uncertainly behind her. Her hair, which fell loose around her shoulders like in a shampoo advert, gave off a lively light. She looked expensive and cool in her simple white shirt and jeans, not at all creased or disordered, the way Calliope always appeared post-travel. Calliope resented her for it, a little.
“I just came here to think.” Perhaps it was the early hour, or the strangeness of Avery Fuller deciding to sit and chat with her for no apparent reason, but Calliope was feeling honest. “I actually like train stations. All these people going different places, hurrying toward destinations I’ll never know...” She trailed off. “It makes me feel calm when I’m agitated.”
Avery stared at her with naked curiosity. “It’s your Tiffany’s.”
“My what?”
“The place you go to feel calm,” Avery explained. “Haven’t you readBreakfast at Tiffany’s? Or seen the holo?”
“Never heard of it,” Calliope said dismissively.
To her surprise, Avery laughed. It was a clear, self-assured laugh, the kind of laugh that made you want to sit up straighter and join in.
Calliope cast a puzzled glance in Avery’s direction. “Where are you coming back from?” she ventured.
“I was in Oxford for my college interview. My boyfriend went with me. But I had to get back for this week....”
Oh, right. Calliope remembered that the inauguration ball was this weekend.
As the train station filled up, more and more people seemed to be noticing Avery’s presence. Calliope watched as the whispers gathered and spread, spiraling out like a hurricane with Avery at its epicenter. She saw the hard, impassive look that settled on Avery’s face, and came to a startling realization.
Avery Fuller didn’t enjoy being the center of attention.
“It must be liberating,” Avery said softly, as if reading her thoughts.
“What?”
“Getting to do what you want,bewho you want.” Avery shifted abruptly toward Calliope, her cheeks a soft pink. “What’s it like, traveling the world that way?”
Was Avery Fuller, the girl from the thousandth floor, actually asking her what it was like to be acon artist? “I’m sure you’ve traveled all over the world,” Calliope replied, disconcerted. “I mean, you just came back from a weekend in England.”
Avery waved that aside. “I’m traveling as myself, and usually with my parents. Which comes with its own set of expectations.What’s it like to become a new person whenever you go somewhere new?”
All of Calliope’s senses were on high alert. She had never,evertalked about this with anyone. It was so taboo it felt like blasphemy.
She wiped her palms on her jeans. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m just curious,” Avery said, and Calliope heard the edge beneath her words.Even Avery Fuller doesn’t always know her own mind, she thought wonderingly.Even Avery Fuller occasionally felt torn between two different paths, two different versions of herself.
Calliope cleared her throat, not wanting to get this wrong. “It is liberating sometimes, but also lonely. Every time I go somewhere new, I have to let go of whoever I was last time, and become the person that the situation calls for. I’m constantly pushing restart on myself.”
“Doesn’t anyone ever recognize you?”
Calliope looked up sharply, wondering if Brice had said something to Avery, but the question didn’t seem prompted by anything in particular.
“Sorry,” Avery breathed. “I guess what I mean is, what do you change about yourself? Just your accent?”
Calliope flashed suddenly to all those hours of practicing accents with her mom. She used to stand before Elise, her hands folded, like an actress at an audition.Tell me a story, Elise would command, and Calliope would launch into some inconsequential anecdote about what she’d eaten for breakfast or how she wanted to cut her hair.Toulouse!Elise would exclaim, and thenDublin! Lisbon!Each time she named a city, Calliope had to switch to that accent seamlessly, without breaking stride in her narrative.
“It’s the accent, sure. But it’s as much about confidence, and how you carry yourself. You, for instance, have the posture of a girl who’s used to being at the center of the spotlight, in every room you’ve ever been in. No offense,” she added quickly.
