that note. It scared me to have the words exist.
I sent none of the emails, but retained them (all but number twelve) in my Drafts folder as proof of my suffering should future anthropologists ever haphazardly stumble upon my laptop and develop an interest in the life of Hazel Hayes.
It was because of that anger I didn’t phone him. It was because of that anger I didn’t tell him about you. I was paralyzed by it. And in the midst of that paralysis I found out,finally, the truth about what I’d seen first-hand without knowing it. I found out about the Fury.
For forty-eight hours or so after my meeting with Kovacs, I had forgotten about anything but Karl—I had even managed to push the subway incident and the news report about the woman in the hair salon to a remote corner of my mind—and I had quit logging into my social networking sites. I was worried about what I might post. Finally I emerged from my rage long enough to log into my computer and check if, in the two days I’d ignored the site, I might have suddenly become popular—and that’s when Larissa began to instant-message me. She popped up immediately.
I was reminded that I hadn’t spoken to Larissa in weeks—not since she drove me to the airport for my flight to New York. You there? she wrote.
I typed that I was.
Then: Cut off all my hair popped up on my screen. It’s terrible …
I didn’t understand. What was the big deal? She’d cut it short before. I wrote back: Sienna Miller circa Factory Girl or Nicole Kidman circa Birth ? LOL .
I thought I was being smart to come up with those hair/movie references off the top of my head, but Larissa didn’t respond right away. When she did, she simply typed: The plague .
I sat for a second with that piece of information. I couldn’t tell if Larissa was going to say more. On the phone she usuallytalked nonstop, which made sense since most of the time her only conversational outlet was a two-year-old. But the icon onscreen didn’t appear to be moving.
What plague? I asked reluctantly.
What are you on? It’s everywhere … There was a pause as Larissa broke the line with a hard return, then continued, People hysterical here. Totally .
There was another pause and then:
Two attacks in Toronto, one in Ottawa …
Her letters filled the screen, ellipses marking how quickly she was typing, an indicator there would be more to come. So I sat and waited, not sure I believed what she was saying.
More in the UK, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden …
They’re talking pandemic …
Oh, and Latvia!
Everyone keeps going to hospital …
Jay insisted I get rid of my blonde …
So I did …
But nothing we can do about Dev .
They say infants are more sceptible .
Susceptible! She corrected her spelling.
He is pretty dark but we are so worried .
They still haven’t said if boys can be affected, or just girls & women .
I peered at the letters like they were some code I’d found on a scrap of paper on the street.
Thank god you are safe—brunette already! she typed.
You there? she typed.
She may have had to type it a couple of times. I rememberthe heat that engulfed me as I stared at her messages. What are you talking about? I finally wrote.
Then she wrote, Oh god, Haze, turn on your TV .
I hadn’t turned the thing on since taking room 305. Hibernating from reality, I had not wanted to see any news. Now I flipped from channel to channel until a news anchor finally filled the screen. She had hair like Hillary Clinton’s, though she was half Hillary’s age.
“Tell me, Ted,” the woman said to a man off-screen, “as far as experts can tell, is the disease affecting blond and bleach-blond males?”
The next shot featured a man in a suit on the Brooklyn Bridge, its trademark steel wires visible in the shot, the illuminated Manhattan skyline behind him. “Amanda, are you there?” he asked. He had puffy, serious eyes.
The anchor repeated her question, and the view switched to split-screen windows
I sent none of the emails, but retained them (all but number twelve) in my Drafts folder as proof of my suffering should future anthropologists ever haphazardly stumble upon my laptop and develop an interest in the life of Hazel Hayes.
It was because of that anger I didn’t phone him. It was because of that anger I didn’t tell him about you. I was paralyzed by it. And in the midst of that paralysis I found out,finally, the truth about what I’d seen first-hand without knowing it. I found out about the Fury.
For forty-eight hours or so after my meeting with Kovacs, I had forgotten about anything but Karl—I had even managed to push the subway incident and the news report about the woman in the hair salon to a remote corner of my mind—and I had quit logging into my social networking sites. I was worried about what I might post. Finally I emerged from my rage long enough to log into my computer and check if, in the two days I’d ignored the site, I might have suddenly become popular—and that’s when Larissa began to instant-message me. She popped up immediately.
I was reminded that I hadn’t spoken to Larissa in weeks—not since she drove me to the airport for my flight to New York. You there? she wrote.
I typed that I was.
Then: Cut off all my hair popped up on my screen. It’s terrible …
I didn’t understand. What was the big deal? She’d cut it short before. I wrote back: Sienna Miller circa Factory Girl or Nicole Kidman circa Birth ? LOL .
I thought I was being smart to come up with those hair/movie references off the top of my head, but Larissa didn’t respond right away. When she did, she simply typed: The plague .
I sat for a second with that piece of information. I couldn’t tell if Larissa was going to say more. On the phone she usuallytalked nonstop, which made sense since most of the time her only conversational outlet was a two-year-old. But the icon onscreen didn’t appear to be moving.
What plague? I asked reluctantly.
What are you on? It’s everywhere … There was a pause as Larissa broke the line with a hard return, then continued, People hysterical here. Totally .
There was another pause and then:
Two attacks in Toronto, one in Ottawa …
Her letters filled the screen, ellipses marking how quickly she was typing, an indicator there would be more to come. So I sat and waited, not sure I believed what she was saying.
More in the UK, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden …
They’re talking pandemic …
Oh, and Latvia!
Everyone keeps going to hospital …
Jay insisted I get rid of my blonde …
So I did …
But nothing we can do about Dev .
They say infants are more sceptible .
Susceptible! She corrected her spelling.
He is pretty dark but we are so worried .
They still haven’t said if boys can be affected, or just girls & women .
I peered at the letters like they were some code I’d found on a scrap of paper on the street.
Thank god you are safe—brunette already! she typed.
You there? she typed.
She may have had to type it a couple of times. I rememberthe heat that engulfed me as I stared at her messages. What are you talking about? I finally wrote.
Then she wrote, Oh god, Haze, turn on your TV .
I hadn’t turned the thing on since taking room 305. Hibernating from reality, I had not wanted to see any news. Now I flipped from channel to channel until a news anchor finally filled the screen. She had hair like Hillary Clinton’s, though she was half Hillary’s age.
“Tell me, Ted,” the woman said to a man off-screen, “as far as experts can tell, is the disease affecting blond and bleach-blond males?”
The next shot featured a man in a suit on the Brooklyn Bridge, its trademark steel wires visible in the shot, the illuminated Manhattan skyline behind him. “Amanda, are you there?” he asked. He had puffy, serious eyes.
The anchor repeated her question, and the view switched to split-screen windows
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