My thumbs flitted across the rideshare app interface as I paced through my sparsely furnished apartment. I had lived here for two years, but still hadn’t gotten much decorating accomplished. Heck, my saggy college couch still dominated in the living room. I was too focused on work to make that a priority. But I’d acquired the best bed I could afford for my bedroom and some decent linens; I slept like hell, and wanted to squeeze every last minute of proper rest out of my nest. Sinking into a fluffy cloud with a white noise machine soundtrack was my idea of a good weekend. Add some ice cream and reality television, and I was set.
I wandered to my closet and stared down at the shirt I was wearing. I was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, but felt like I should make more of the effort I’d mentioned to Kara. Besides, the T-shirt had a stain on it. Ketchup, it looked like. I sniffed it. Might be soy sauce.
I dug around the rainbow sea of scrubs in my closet and found a violet silk halter top that I’d bought on a whim on my last vacation several years ago. It tied at my neck and below my bust, and a panel of ruffled fabric swept the waistband of my jeans. It was pretty wrinkled, but I put it on anyway, tying it closed and telling myself that I had to dress up every once in awhile, or I’d become permanently fused to my scrubs. It still fit, and that was what counted.
I stepped into a pair of comfortable sandals (who looks at feet, anyway?) and wandered into the bathroom to stare at my reflection critically in the mirror. The halter top was flattering on me; the draping emphasized my smallish bust, skimmed over my waist and showed off my sharp shoulders. I frowned when I saw my birthmark on my back shoulder. The size of two of my splayed hands linked together at the thumbs, it resembled a bird in outstretched in flight. I’d consulted with dermatologists and plastic surgeons, but nothing short of a skin graft was ever going to erase that from my body. I considered going back for my stained T-shirt, but decided against it. The halter was cute, and if we went dancing, I would get warm. In the dark, if anyone asked, I could lie and say it was some kind of cool tattoo. Right?
I stared at my reflection in the mirror and made a face. I dug around in a drawer for a crusty plum-colored lipstick and dabbed in on my lips. There. I looked better. Still a little pasty, though. I had a month of evening shifts to thank for that.
I rooted around in the drawer, where my treasure cache of beauty junk resided: some stretched out hair ties, a brush that hadn’t been cleaned in about a year, a bottle of expired sunblock, and a can of red hairspray from last Halloween. I shook it thoughtfully. On impulse, I uncapped it and sprayed a streak in my hair.
It didn’t work out as intended. I looked like I’d spray painted an uneven stripe in my hair. Like a red skunk or something. Grimacing, I tried to clean up the edges by widening the stripe. Muttering to myself, I kept messing with it until half my head was red. After that, I told myself that I had to continue or it would just look stupid. Stupider.
When I was finished, I drummed my fingers on my lower lip, smearing my lipstick. It was bold. Very, very bold. I wasn’t sure I wanted that kind of attention tonight. Maybe I still had time to wash it out, pin my hair up, and leave with wet hair...
The rideshare app dinged on my phone. My driver was here.
“Damn.”
I sighed, picking up my phone and swiping my keys from the kitchen table. Maybe, in the dark, it would look like I had a tattoo and I was a real redhead. I grabbed a jacket from a hook, a soft, draping wool jacket that I could retreat into if it got too chilly. I checked my pocket for my wallet.
I met the driver out in front of my building. I climbed into the backseat.
“Hi, Garnet. I’m Nora, your chauffeur for the evening,” my driver, a young woman with green hair and perfectly-winged eyeliner said. “I see you’re going to Silla’s?”
“Yes, please,” I said, settling back into the seat. I didn’t let the nape of my neck touch the upholstery; I wasn’t sure about the colorfastness of the spray.
“Cute hair,” the young woman said, popping her gum.
“Thanks.” My hand self-consciously slipped to my bun. “I wasn’t sure about it.”
“Red is amazing on you,” Nora nodded. She maneuvered them onto the freeway. “Are you meeting friends at Silla’s?”
“Yeah,” I said, watching the lights of the city spilling out around us like a jewel box. The hospital faded away, and the glassy skyscrapers of downtown came into view. Riverpointe was an old rust-belt city that had seen its ups and downs. Once upon a time, it had been a bootlegging town, cut through by two rivers at the city’s heart. Factories and docks along those rivers were now still, and the glass furnaces in the Glass District had been left to rust. But a vibrant arts scene had moved into its place, blocks of restored Victorian homes and art galleries slowly regenerating some areas of town. I had never given a whole lot of thought to the economy, as I was pretty sure that there would always be demand for people who worked with blood. And I counted on that demand to pay off my staggering student loans, which might get paid off by the time I was sixty. If I was lucky.
“You should be careful down there,” the driver said.
“Mm?” I said distractedly. I hadn’t been paying attention.
“At Silla’s. I mean, the Glass District is a little sketchy after dark.” Nora made a shifting motion with her hand that jingled her bracelets. “But there are some weird ones who hang out at Silla’s.”
“What kind of weird?” I asked. I automatically patted the pocket that contained my wallet.
“Well,” Nora said, her voice dropping a conspiratorial note. “There are your garden variety kinksters, so anything you’re looking for, you can find.”
“Yeah, no. I’m not up for anything.” I couldn’t imagine sharing my hard-won sleep with anything other than a pillow. I had priorities, and the sandman was my priority over any other men. “I just want to hang out. Dance, maybe. Forget about work for a while.”
“Watch your drink,” Nora said. “One of my friends went there, passed out, and then woke up in the trunk of a car.”
“Oh, no.” I leaned forward. “Is your friend okay?”
“Yeah. He managed to find the emergency release, got out at a stoplight, and ran for all he was worth. He really got lucky.”
“Sounds like it.” I frowned. I didn’t like thinking of Riverpointe as a dangerous city, but I was beginning to change my mind. I knew it was a hazard of my job to see the worst of things, but I didn’t much like hearing stories of abduction in my downtime. Heck, there were days when I didn’t even watch the news because work had been overwhelming. On those days, I crawled into bed and watched cartoons.
The car exited the freeway in a former industrial district near downtown. In decades past, Riverpointe had been the glass capital of North America, responsible for producing everything from milk bottles to electrical insulators. As plastic gradually eclipsed glass, the blast furnaces had been allowed to cool. A glass recycler was the current most significant glass industry in town, and there was a smattering of specialty makers, including a company that made windows and liquor bottles. Here, many of the side streets were still brick, and Nora drove slowly as the uneven surface rattled the car’s axles.
Nora stopped before a brick warehouse with a sign that scrawled “Silla’s” in pink neon on the front of the building. Half the brick of the building had been scorched black. I figured that this was one of the places that had been burned in the Glass Fire of 1932. A blast furnace lost containment, and there were stories of a river of molten glass that moved down the street. When I popped open the door, bits of glass dust glittered in between the bricks, embedded there forever. Strains of dance music echoed out to the street.