ChapterOne
The decision-makingpart of the human brain is said not to fully develop until a person is twenty-five years old. This may explain why Raven Coleman, at nineteen, bought a one-way ticket to Paris to follow a guy she’d just met and fallen for at a music festival.
The relationship was a bust, as one can expect of something built on a foundation of booze and vibes. However, she still left the City of Love with pictures that needed cropping but were suitable for her social media feed. She also had the memories of visiting crowded landmarks, eating butter-laden pastries, and being entertained by bronze living statues who, despite provocation from tourists, did not break their poses.
It was those painted street performers Raven currently imitated, almost eight years later, as she stood stock-still holding a tray of hors d’oeuvres.
“Gruyère and crab palmiers,” Raven said to the guests reaching for the offerings.
It was a perfect summer evening for a garden party, but it was undercut by a general strangeness. As if everything was computer-generated.
A jazz band played lively music, but people weren’t dancing. It was also unlikely that anyone would get drunk or laugh louder than the clink of their cocktail glasses. And when she told a lady, “Oh my God, I love your earrings,” she apparently disrupted a simulation that required she be as charming as an insentient hologram. Her tendency to chat and flirt would not be rewarded here.
Once her tray was bare enough to warrant a refill, Raven crossed the lawn, passing a water fountain to a set of stone steps that led her into a galley kitchen bustling with the people responsible for making the party run smoothly.
Distinct voices were lost in the chaos, but the chef’s cut through. “If I ask for something sautéed, why in God’s name would you give it to me fried?”
Raven took a minute to massage a knot in her shoulder and confirm with other servers that the partygoer in burgundy shorts was indeed a creep. After a swig of water, she was ready with a fresh tray of food to serve.
Tail ends of conversations and harsh perfume followed her about the garden, and when summoned by a guest with a glance, she quickened her steps to deliver. “Grilled oysters with lime and ginger,” she would tell them, and she repeated this routine until another blip in the simulation changed the course of the evening.
A man tripped.
Perhaps on a raised stone or the toe of his fancy loafer. Regardless, the result was the same: the man reeled forward with his eyes bugged out and hands searching for leverage. To save the tray and herself from going down, Raven swung her body sharply out of reach. But in doing so, she transferred all that momentum to an unsuspecting woman, bumping her right into the basin of the water fountain.
Chatter and music came to an off-key halt as everyone turned to gape at the lady splashing in the shallow water.
Raven knew her fate even before the woman screamed and pointed at her.
“Off with her head!” the shrill noise seemed to demand, and minutes later, she was standing in front of her boss.
“I’ve got to let you go for today,” he said.
He looked sorry about it too. Not likely for her sake; rather, being one waitress down would disrupt the flow of service.
As she was quickly ushered to gather her belongings, she mouthed, “It’s okay, it’s fine,” to the other servers, who looked on as if she were actually being led to a guillotine. And maybe she’d feel that way too if her weekly horoscope hadn’t forewarned a shake-up in her working relationships.
A stone-faced security guard was the final checkpoint before Raven could exit the mansion, and while he searched her purse with the finesse of a burrowing mole, she said, “I’d have taken the chardonnay, but the bottles wouldn’t fit in there.”
The man slowly raised his head, pinning his eyes on Raven.
“Oh, not that face,” she said, laughing nervously. “I was kidding.”
Eventually, she was permitted to leave the home and trek to the front gate. Having arrived as a passenger in a carpool, Raven was left to text the most reliable person on her phone to pick her up.
By the time she got to the end of the driveway, four meteorological seasons later, her best friend, Gwen, was waiting.
“Why do rich people like phallic-shaped hedges so much?” her friend asked once Raven entered the car. She was studying the oblong greenery surrounding them.
“There’s a psychosexual explanation, for sure,” Raven said. “But I want to go my entire life not knowing those details.”
“So what happened?” Gwen asked as she got them out of the ritzy neighborhood. “I thought this gig was supposed to end much later.”
“I got fired.”
“No, stop. Ray,” Gwen said, briefly averting her eyes from the road to Raven.
She was a schoolteacher by trade, so straitlaced on principle. Getting fired was unimaginable to her.
