she knew I was thinking about him. She really didn’t like him, which was part of the reason I kept seeing him.
Mrs. Harris hadn’t read my mind, however. Beecher was at the foot of the bridge opposite us, waiting, like he wanted to catch me before the party. My heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t love or a crush. The way he looked at that moment worried me.
Bunnies surrounded him, too, but in darker colors like green and midnight blue, because these were supposed to be “boy” colors. His eyes were red. Had he been crying?
“Don’t jump, don’t jump,” the bunnies sang cheerfully to us both as Beecher drew up.
“Speth,” Beecher said. His face winced. Mrs. Harris grabbed my arm and pulled me away.
He closed the space between us, quick, and kissed me. I felt a sharp jolt. This wasn’t like his other kisses. My lips stung. My body tingled. I realized, with horror, that his eyes were being shocked for kissing with insufficient credit.
“Beecher Stokes!” Mrs. Harris warned.
My pastel bunnies and his dark ones mingled in the Ad, harmonizing, “Don’t jump, pleeeeezeey weeezeey.”
My cheek twitched. I put a hand there to feel the spasm. Warmth spread through my face. Somehow, my Cuff’s software knew I hadn’t kissed back. It really unnerved me to realize my Cuff had such weird access to my lips and intentions. How did it know? Suddenly this whole system seemed too, too real.
Beecher abruptly stalked off, head down, hands jammed in the pockets of his dumpy brown public domain longcoat. Black, gray and blood-red bunnies, glowing from the Ads at his feet, kept singing that he shouldn’t jump. But Beecher didn’t take advice from bunnies. That had been one of his jokes, back before he turned fifteen. I’d always thought it was really funny—until he mounted the rail and took a great leap into the traffic eighty feet below.
The bunnies stopped singing.
TWO SECONDS OF SCREAMING: $1.98
Once, I loved to talk. What did I say with all those words? It seems like nothing now. I honestly can’t remember much: a conversation with Nancee about how birds make it into the city, an argument with Sera Croate about my hair (she said I looked like a boy with it short, but the style was free), a discussion with Beecher about how I liked the feeling of certain words in my mouth.
Luscious, Effervescent, Surreptitious, Cruft. I wasn’t thinking about expressing myself. Beecher had warned me: “Expressive words cost more.” He’d said it as if I should already be careful. He looked down at his Cuff’s thin amber glow.
Beecher Stokes—sentence: Expressive words cost more: $31.96.
His face was all gloomy. He could have spent that money on kissing, or saying something nice. He could have told me how he felt—he could have asked me anything, or at least warned me about how it really felt to pay for every word. Maybe that’s what he was trying to do. That was our last conversation.
I raced to where he had jumped, then stopped myself short. I couldn’t look down. I shut my eyes tight. The leaden thump, screeching tires and clatter of twisted metal had spared me nothing. I reeled back and doubled over. What did he just do?
A shattering wail filled the air anyway—Beecher’s name as a question. My eyes stung with tears, burning the fresh overlays in my eyes. It took me a second to realize I wasn’t the one screaming. It was Saretha.
I let nothing escape, not a scream, not a gasp, not a breath of air. I had stopped breathing, like it wouldn’t be real until I drew breath.
The howling stopped. Saretha’s Cuff buzzed.
Her shriek was legally considered a primitive call for comfort, aid and/or sympathy. The charge was 99¢ per second. Mrs. Harris twisted a bony, aggrieved finger in her ear and shook her head. She picked up my left arm and looked at my Cuff in disgust, but then her sharp, disapproving face broke into a ghoulish smile.
“Speth,” she said, wide blue eyes piercing me, “there may be hope for you yet!”
There was no concern for Beecher in her. She exhibited no revulsion. She was simply pleased I had not made a sound.
I swallowed. I was breathing again. Long, panicked breaths passed in and out.
From below, an intense, white, molten light flickered. The NanoLion™ battery in Beecher’s Cuff had ruptured. And then I knew that he was truly gone.
Saretha looked at Mrs. Harris, wild-eyed. Mrs. Harris put on a look of concern and patted her shoulder three times, did the math on what it cost and calculated Saretha warranted two final pats. The government didn’t cover Mrs. Harris’s gestures. She had once quoted a statute to us about how gestures were an inexact means of communication.
“Personally, I find them coarse,” she had told us. “A poor use of funds.”
I could not look at the woman. I stared blankly up over the bridge’s rail, to the expanse where cars were slowing in the distance, backed up by the accident. Cars began to honk at the delay, a dollar per honk, even though the bright white glow of the ruptured battery told them there was nothing anyone could do.
They hated us, those wealthy people, driving the ring for pleasure. Beecher, whom I’d cared for—maybe not the way he’d wanted, and not as much as he’d cared for or needed me—he was dead, and all they felt was irritation at the inconvenience.
Around me, there were other noises. My party filled with gasps and cries, then trailed off into a timorous murmur.
Timorous, I wanted to say, but I did not speak it.
Cuffs buzzed like an insect swarm. Sam came running out of the crowd, his mouth open, his round, usually playful face squinting in confusion.
“Why?” he asked in a rasp, looking over the edge at a scene I could not bring myself to witness. How could I answer?
I pulled him back from the edge. I wanted to tell him what I knew, but it was too late. I looked at my Cuff. The clock had run out. I pinched my fingers closed and ran them across my mouth. The sign of the zippered lips was a rare gesture still in the public domain. It was meant to allow people without means a method to communicate their lowly state, so Affluents wouldn’t have to waste their time. I wasn’t really supposed to use it with people who weren’t wealthy.
Mrs. Harris winced. “This isn’t the proper circumstance.” Her tone was somewhere between compassionate and annoyed.
“What else is she supposed to do?” Sam asked, his face red with rising anger.
Mrs. Harris put a hand on Sam’s chest to settle him down. He batted it away.
“She is supposed to read her speech and have her party,” Mrs. Harris said, as if nothing else was possible.
“Mom doesn’t approve of that gesture,” Saretha said, a step behind, waving her hand vaguely in front of her lips.
Our mother felt like it was groveling. She used the word supplication, which cost $32 that day. Mom said the only reason the zippered lips gesture was free was so we could humiliate ourselves. I had never seen her do it, not even when we were broke, not even when she was supposed to. I suddenly felt like I had let her down.
I wanted to put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, but Mrs. Harris had warned me about comforting gestures. I bit the knuckle of my cuffed hand instead.
A low, strained chatter resounded from Falxo Park, first from the younger kids, then from everyone else, as they tried to work out who had jumped and why. I thought of Beecher, and I felt airless.
* * *
Mrs. Harris led me to the edge of the stage. Ads crawled blithely along the city wall behind, a blur to my wet eyes.
“The Placers did a fine job,” she said, gesturing to my product tables. Product