The Variables

Everyone else from Lucy’s plane had stayed close to the landing site, and she could hear her mother calling for her to come back, but Lucy tuned her out and tried to focus on the sound of the waves. She let the roar of the ocean pour over her as she looked out at the tower of Kymberlin: her new home.

They had been the fourth plane to arrive. A caravan of helicopters transported them from the beach to Kymberlin. And when the helicopters landed them atop the north tower, they traveled down a glass elevator straight into the middle of a welcome party. Lucy was hyper-aware of everything; she wanted to take it all in so she could tell Grant later. The helipad had a singular entrance and exit, and the elevator went from the exposed roof straight down into a common area without stopping. It was visible and public. All of it. Every piece, every corner of Kymberlin was glass and windows and dangling crystal chandeliers.

When Lucy and her family exited the elevator, cheers erupted and several people rushed forward to welcome them home. Music pumped out into the open foyer and men in white suits raced around serving small plates of appetizers. Lucy stumbled backward and clutched her bag in front of her as a man passed by with food. She saw her mother look over to her father with a huge smile on her face, and he beamed at her, puffed up with pride.

The waiters were bringing them food they hadn’t had in a long time: caviar, aged cheeses, fresh fruit, and champagne. The music and the energy were warm and inviting, and even Lucy felt her defenses melting. It was a party. A party for the new arrivals. The light and the smiling faces caused Lucy to feel like she had arrived at some exotic resort—maybe the last two months had been a dream, maybe she awoke and her family was on their Seychelles vacation after all.

Then Lucy saw Teddy clutching Ethan’s hand, his face sca

Not long after, the na

Lucy wandered away from her family and tried to get a better feel for Kymberlin’s layout. She walked to the center of the common room and realized that it wrapped all the way around in a loop and the middle of the loop was hollow. The center of the tower was equipped with four elevators that ran vertically up the levels. She peered down and saw that the structure itself was comprised of twenty or more stories, each with its own open layout; some of the levels were labeled as shops, and one entire floor was a library, but Lucy couldn’t see beyond the first few floors down.

It reminded Lucy of a mall in downtown Portland; it was built straight up, maneuverable by a series of escalators, and if you stood on the top level and looked down, the shoppers moving around below appeared tiny and indistinguishable; little blobs of bustling people. She had heard about a man plummeting to his death off the top floor of the mall when she was very little, and the story stuck with her. Every time her mother took her to the mall, she would travel up the climbing escalators with a real and terrible sense of her own mortality.

Lucy realized with a growing pit in her stomach that it would not take much for someone to stand atop the guardrail and plunge down through the center of the tower of Kymberlin. The thought made Lucy queasy. She leaned and tried to see what lay at the bottom, but she felt a firm hand on her back before she could get a glance. She yelped and jumped back, afraid of reprimand and frightened by the sudden appearance of someone so close to her.

She turned and saw Cass’s dad standing next to her.

“It’s a long fall,” Claude told her, but without the warning tone she was anticipating.

“What’s at the bottom?” she asked.

“Like the floor of a glass-bottomed boat. Like you are walking on water.”

Lucy nodded. “It’s...”

“A stu

She saw the twinkle in Claude’s eye and she nodded again. “It reminds me of this mall back home.”

Claude flinched and drew a sharp breath through his teeth. The reference had offended him, and Lucy blushed. Comparing his masterpiece to a shopping mall.

“I always thought of it more as a piece of art.” He looked up and sca

She walked away from Claude, leaving him standing near the railing, and he watched her walk back toward her family. She surveyed the other people milling around with wan, tired smiles plastered on their faces. As more people arrived, everyone showed an exuberance of warmth and glee.

A man walked by carrying a platter with bubbling champagne, and Lucy swiped one swiftly. She sucked it down and deposited the empty glass on a nearby table. A different man walked by and Lucy swiped a second glass. But it was the third glass that drew Maxine’s attention, like she had a beacon in place for her daughter’s misbehavior. She stormed over, her eyes honed in on the glass in Lucy’s hand. Under her mother’s watchful stare, Lucy made a gallant show of grabbing a fourth glass and gulping the bubbly liquid down before Maxine took a swipe. She drank half the glass before her mother wrestled the alcohol away from her.

“Excuse me,” Maxine hissed. “Let’s not meddle with poor choices today.” She had Harper by the hand, and the child pulled her toward a chocolate fountain. “I’m serious,” she added, as if her tone hadn’t conveyed enough conviction. Then in a show of mental fortitude, Maxine, without breaking eye contact, finished Lucy’s glass of champagne and handed her daughter back the empty flute.

“Ha!” Lucy guffawed, a smooth and warm sensation spreading from her chest to her arms. She pointed at her mother, a wiggly index finger, and felt a surge of confidence. “We’re here. It’s a party...for us.” She hiccupped. And smiled. “Just because I did that doesn’t mean I’m drunk.”

“Remember that you live with me,” Maxine said, and she stumbled a few more feet at Harper’s behest. “Wise choices,” she reiterated before turning her back, shooting her daughter a scornful stare.

Lucy watched a tall member of the wait staff waltz by her, and she eyed another glass of champagne, but she let it disappear into the crowd. Standing tall, Lucy watched the crowd ebb and flow; there were faces that she recognized mixed with faces that she didn’t. The elevator dinged, the glass doors opened, and the crowd cheered as more people disembarked. Their hair was ratted and their clothes dingy, but each wore a smile as they walked out through the throngs of Kymberlin residents.

A young man, tall and blond, with a slender build and a high forehead, raised his glass in a toast, and those who had gathered clinked their glasses together in a salute. It was then Lucy noticed Huck and Gordy, huddled together near the edge of the room, watching the people with satisfied smiles. Huck leaned over and whispered something to his son, and Gordy nodded in the affirmative. Then the older man disappeared—slipping out through the partiers relatively u