And all of them, Paulo has noticed, noticed first, are wearing white.
This is nothing that Paulo has ever seen before, but he’s fairly certain that he has not happened upon a surprise white party in the middle of the park. Frowning, he lifts his cell phone and snaps a photo. It makes a faint shutter-sound because he hasn’t bothered to turn off that option in the settings. At the sound, all of the people around the rock fall silent, and turn to look at him.
Paulo tenses. As casually as he can, however, he puts the phone in his pants pocket, and pulls a cigarette from his jacket pocket. He taps it twice before putting it between his lips. Old habit. Then, as twenty sets of eyes stare unblinking at him, Paulo pulls out his lighter and takes a good, deep drag. Folds his arms casually, the cigarette held between two fingers. Lets the smoke trickle from his nostrils slowly. It drifts up in clouds in front of his face.
Their eyes unfocus. Some of them frown and dart glances around, as if they’ve lost something and can’t remember what. When Paulo backs away, around the trail-bend and out of their sight, they do not follow. After a moment, he hears their automatic, directionless chatter resume.
Paulo leaves quickly. The park is big and the walk is long, but Paulo does not slow his pace until he’s at least a block outside of Inwood Hill’s boundaries. Then, and only then, does he check the photo that he just took.
It’s the scene he saw, eerie enough on its own—but every person’s face is distorted as if the digital photo is an old Polaroid that’s been heat-warped here and there. And although it’s not clear in some cases, Paulo notes an additional distortion just behind each person’s head, or near their shoulders. Indistinct, just a warping of the air, but consistent; he can see it on most of them. Something is there that he cannot see. Yet.
He goes into a tiny, poorly lit ancient restaurant whose staff are clearly all related. There he sits down and orders something at random. He’s not hungry, but there is power in what he’s doing, and he feels the need to bolster his defenses. This is not his city. He is more vulnerable here than he’s used to.
Then, while he nibbles on some of the best pernil he’s ever had, he texts the distorted photo to the international number. He adds, It’s boroughs. There will be five of them. And I’m going to need your help.
CHAPTER FOUR
Boogie-Down Bronca and the Bathroom Stall of Doom
Bronca shoves open the bathroom door. “Hey. Becky.”
The tall Asian woman working on her eye makeup at the mirror sighs and does not turn. “You know I hate it when you call me that.”
“I’mma call you whatever I want right now.” Bronca goes over to stand beside her at the mirror, and does not miss the sudden tension in the other woman’s shoulders. “Relax, I’m not here to kick your ass that way. We’re gonna do this civilized. I’ll use my words to tell you to fuck off, and you’re going to find somewhere to fuck off to, at least for a few days. I don’t want to look at your stupid face for a while.”
The woman turns, scowling. “If we’re going to be civilized, then you can use my actual name. Yijing.”
“I don’t know, I thought we were being all familiar with each other. You know how like my name has a PhD after it but you always forget to call me ‘Doctor’?” Bronca gets in the other woman’s face and points a finger at her nose. “You submitted that grant application, most of which I wrote, without my name on it. How fucking dare—”
“I did,” Yijing interrupts, even though they’ve got rules about that, interrupting women is sexist bullshit, but Yijing is bullshit, so Bronca isn’t exactly surprised. Yijing folds her arms. “I thought hard about whether to include you, Bronca, but the fact remains that you’re not doing any new work, and—”
Incredulous, Bronca turns and flings a hand toward the bathroom’s back wall. Rioting over its surface is an abstract profusion of colors and shapes, photorealistic in places and airily watercoloresque in others. The signature in the bottom corner: a heavily stylized graffitiesque curlicue reading Da Bronca.
Yijing grimaces. “I mean that you aren’t showing anywhere, Bronca. The galleries—”
“I got a gallery, you dumb-ass, not even two miles from here!”
“Yeah, and that’s the problem!” Exasperated, Yijing abandons her attempt to stay cool, raising her own voice. That’s good. Bronca’s seen Yijing get into it with other staffers and her various boyfriends on occasion; she’s louder than Bronca, with the kind of voice that can crack glass. Bronca respects honest rage, however ugly it might get. “You’re too local. The committee could give us a bigger grant, but to get it, we have to have broader reach. A Manhattan gallery.”
Bronca curses, turning away to begin pacing. “Manhattan galleries don’t want real art. They want inoffensive stuff from some upstate kid who went to NYU and majored in art just to rebel against her parents.” With this, she grins fiercely at Yijing.
“You can try to make this about me, but that doesn’t change the basic fucking point, Bronca.” Yijing shakes her head, with just enough real pity in the gesture to infuriate Bronca. “Your work isn’t relevant enough. You’re not speaking to people outside this borough. And even though you like to brag about that PhD, you teach at a community college! I don’t have a problem with that—this job doesn’t leave enough time for academia, too—but you know that’s not how grant committees think.”
Bronca stares for a moment, too stricken to really register how hurt she’s feeling. Not relevant? But it’s old habit to lash back. “What, you sleep with the grant committee chair?”
“Oh, fuck you, Bronca—” And then Yijing slips into Mandarin, and her voice rises an octave and several decibels to well and truly curse her out.
Fine, though. Bronca squares up. She doesn’t know enough Munsee to really go toe-to-non-English-toe with Yijing, but she’s picked up a few of the worst bits over the years. “Matantoowiineeng uch kpaam! Kalumpiil! Kiss my ‘irrelevant’ Lenape ass!”
The bathroom door bangs open again, and both Bronca and Yijing jump. It’s Jess, the director of the experimental theater program, glaring at them both. “You know we can hear you, right? People down the block can hear you.”
Yijing shakes her head, throws Bronca a last reproachful look, and then circles around Jess to leave. Bronca leans against one of the sinks, folding her arms and setting her jaw. Jess watches Yijing go, then shakes her head and cocks an eyebrow skeptically at Bronca’s posture. “Tell me you aren’t sulking. You’re like sixty.”
“Sulking is petulant, pointless anger. Mine is righteous.” And she’s actually nearly seventy, but nobody needs to be reminded of that.
“Uh-huh.” Jess shakes her head. “Never thought I’d hear you going in for slut-shaming, though.”
Bronca flinches. Oh fuck, she did, didn’t she? But she is angry—righteously, petulantly angry—and it’s making her fall back on old bad habits. Like getting defensive when she knows she’s in the wrong. “Bitch has bad taste. I could see it if she fucked men who were worth something.”