Jonathan Lethem - The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye

Wendy didn’t speak, but her smile fell.

“I guess anyone they both had copies of, they had to choose whose version to bring,” said Caitlice, “because they wouldn’t want two of people, you know—”

“That was a one-time thing, a kink. I should be here with him , it was me and him that really had any kind of—”

“Don’t be defensive.” Cait turned out her pocket to reveal a ticket: green.

“You, we both—” Wendy giggled.

“I always liked her better.”

“Well, I’ll be.”

“It’s interesting, isn’t it, the way we all pride ourselves on going both ways, but it’s the mixed matches that go public while the same-same stuff stays under the table. It still makes us blush.”

Wendy put her hands on her hips, instantly convinced. “I know. Really. What closeted wimps we are. God, doesn’t that burn you up?”

“No, dear, it bums you up, like everything else. I just said it was interesting.”

“Oh!” Wendy put her wrist to her forehead, exaggeratedly. “You are just so superior. Hey, are you a plant?”

“What?”

“You’re with them , aren’t you?” Wendy poked Caitlice between her breasts. “You’re real, you’re with them, a plant, to facilitate the party.”

“No, no, no. I’m a sample, like you.”

“ Cait —”

“On my honor.”

Wendy pursed her lips. “Well, okay. Let’s go then.”

Arman Danzig stepped up from behind them, his cigarette in a long holder. “Go where, ladies? Is there somewhere to go?”

“We have to get to them , Cait,” said Wendy, ignoring him. “The real ones. Where the action is.”

Caitlice shook her head, and trembled slightly. “I want to be at the party. There are people to meet, people I haven’t seen in a long time.” She grabbed Arman’s elbow, though she didn’t like him. “Lovely, funny people in a ridiculous situation. I don’t need—”

“This is interesting,” said Arman.

“People not here is the situation,” said Wendy. “Including you. People not meeting, a total and complete lack of anything actually happening. The only way to be real is to affect them somehow—”

“No. You. I don’t need to do that. That’s for you.” Caitlice lightened suddenly, smiled, having convinced herself. “But I’ll sneak up and watch, later. I’d like to see you do it.”

“Think of it,” Wendy continued, inspired. “The only way to even know any of this happened would be to make such a splash, such a big dent in their evening that they’re so shaken they have to come and talk to you about it, I mean the real you. ‘Wendy listen I can’t get her to talk to me anymore because of what your copy and I did at the party’—he’d have to confess all about this sick little party—‘and I want you to go talk to her about it,’ and then I’d say, ‘Look dear my ticket was green I was never your guest at all.’ That would be something.”

“Yes, and if you did a good enough job you could have them both coming to you afterwards with confidences, pleading their individual cases,” mused Arman.

“Have we met?” said Wendy.

“I’m sorry,” said Caitlice. “Arman Danzig, Wendy Airhole.”

“And what color is your ticket?” said Wendy.

Arman’s lip twitched around the holder. “I believe that’s a personal question, Ms. Airhole.”

“I’ll show you mine—”

“What if I said I hadn’t bothered to wonder the color of yours?” said Arman. “Or check the color of mine.”

They were enchanted with one another.

“Look at what you’ve let slip,” said Wendy. “You’ve suggested you’d have to check to know — that they’ve both got copies of you. But can there really be that many of us?”

She turned to Caitlice, but Caitlice had tiptoed off.

“Don’t look now,” Arman stage-whispered, “but it’s our quarry.” He jabbed backwards over his shoulder with the holder. Their hosts were passing through the room.

“They’re mobbed,” said Wendy. “It’s disgusting.”

“Sycophants all. Harmless. Just — traffic. A hedge we must clamber over.”

Wendy liked him better and better. “Then let’s.”

Arman nodded and stepped sideways into the little crowd. “Oh, hello,” he said to Darth Gatsby, who stood on the fringe.

“Hello, Arman,” said Darth miserably.

“Are you having a wonderful time?” Arman asked, openly staring past Darth, at the hosts.

“Yes, of course,” Darth moaned.

Arman noted with approval that Wendy was inserting herself on the other side of the group, working her way into a conversation with Fran Krapp and Hella Winkie.

Arman nudged past Darth to where Candy Bale stood listening to her host expound.

“—wrinkles in the program,” he was saying. Candy wavered towards him, rapt. “There are side rooms in this space, for instance. You just have to find them. So if you start to notice that people you saw earlier aren’t around—”

“Like a game of sardines!” Candy blurted.

“Right,” he said.

Arman reached down and fondled Candy’s realistic buttock as he pushed between the two of them. She gave an exaggerated gasp and opened her mouth at Arman.

“Sardines indeed,” he sneered at her. “Or guppies.” He twitched his cigarette and performed a slight bow. “I’m sorry. Do go on with what you were saying.”

“Hello, Arman,” said their host.

“Hello. But please. Don’t let me interrupt. I am — we’re both, obviously, hanging on your words. What other ‘wrinkles’ are built into tonight’s program?”

“Well, I can’t go into it all, but you’ll find a few things revealing themselves over time anyway. But here, this is one trick nobody’s picked up on. If I stick my tongue in someone’s mouth”—at this he took Candy by the waist and put his mouth close to hers—“my drink or drug load is transferred.” He kissed her, and Arman watched as her eyes closed, then opened again, wide.

She staggered backwards as he released her.

“I’d had two drinks,” their host explained.

“But I’d already had two,” said Candy.

“That makes four, then, doesn’t it?”

“Oh,” said Candy. “—Hie—.”

“I see,” said Arman. “Could she return it, now? By putting her tongue in your mouth?”

“I shouldn’t tell you everything. But the second kiss of any kind doubles the load, and distributes it evenly. We’d then each be carrying four drinks, for instance.”

“So you share the intoxication of anyone you seriously take up with,” mused Arman. “No hope of sloughing yours off unless you kiss and run.” He stood on tiptoe and made an insinuating face at Wendy, who had worked into a group with her hostess.

“Here, Arman,” giggled Candy, lurching at him, mouth open. Putting his cigarette holder back in his mouth, Arman stepped deftly to one side and took her by the arm instead.

“Look,” he said, lifting her chin with a finger. He pointed at Darth Gatsby, who’d been squeezed out of their group and was standing looking wan. “Go. Fetch.”

Candy exploded towards Darth, and away from Arman.

“But now you’re sober,” Arman said to his host. “That can’t be any fun.”

“True enough. Join me?”

They moved towards the console together, and away from the crowd that ringed Wendy and her hostess. Arman caught a sly smile from Wendy as he turned away: they’d separated the hosts.

“So tell me,” said Arman, “what do you have planned for tonight? Is it true you want us all to pair up?”

“It’s a party. People can do what they want.”