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“Everyone keeps saying that.” Diego gri
Beneath the bright mask of her makeup Maria gave him a dark look that suggested that was exactly what she thought.
“Share mine,” Eliana said, handing Diego her El Pato and then leaning over to kiss him on the mouth. It reminded him why he put up with her idiot friends.
“You two are awful,” Maria said.
“Not any more awful than what’s going on out there.” Diego took a sip. He hadn’t had one of these in a long time, even though Sebastian always drank them when they were down at the Florencia.
Maria patted her hair coquettishly. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve been waiting in here for the last forty-five minutes. They showed the departure.” She nodded at the television set sitting on the edge of the bar. It cast an arc of blue light across the floor. Black-and-white footage of the party at the docks flashed across the screen.
“How was it?” Eliana asked.
“Same as last year.” Maria tossed back the last of her drink. “I’m ready for the parade.”
“You’re always ready for the parade,” Diego said. He couldn’t help himself.
Maria scowled at him. He laughed, took another drink. Then Eliana leaned across the table and started giggling with Maria over something or other, and Diego turned to the television. He’d gone down to the docks on Last Night a couple years back with a girl who’d since found a way to the mainland. He remembered handing her his coat as the dock gate groaned open and the ship slid away from Hope City, billowing steam and cold late-autumn air. It was an old cruise ship left over from when Hope City was an amusement park, and it had all the stupid ornamentation of anything associated with the park, the brass detailing and the word “Welcome!” carved into the side in looping, old-fashioned script.
Fu
“Hey, we’re going out to the parade.” Eliana brushed her fingers over Diego’s shoulder. He looked up at her, and with the glitter and the television light she seemed to glow.
“Ready if you are,” Diego said.
The three of them stepped out into the street.
The fires had climbed higher out of the barrels, licking at the brilliant, steaming night. The parade flowed past. Bodies danced and undulated in the waterfall of glitter.
Maria pulled a package of fireworks out of her purse. “Managed to get some this year,” she said.
“Don’t tell Eliana,” Diego said. “She’ll rat you out.”
“I told you, I’m not a cop!”
Diego laughed. Maria handed them each a bundle of fireworks. For most people, anything larger than the handheld kind was impossible to get, although Diego could probably scrounge some up if he wanted. Working for Mr. Cabrera, being taken under his wing the way Diego had, it definitely had its perks.
The city kept some fireworks tucked away, though, since they usually shot them off from the bow of the ship during its departure. That was part of the festival, the display erupting over the open ocean, color and light blossoming against the black of the night sky.
Inside a domed city, fireworks were just explosives. It didn’t matter how much they lit up the night. The handheld ones couldn’t do any damage unless you got too many too close to one of the fires, and even then the fireworks really only sparked and flared and maybe burned your hand. But that hint of danger was still there, which was why people like Maria went looking for them as Last Night approached.
Maria struck a match, and her fireworks flared all at once in a dazzling burst of light. She held them aloft, sparks trailing along the ground, and sang along to the music pouring out of the speakers fixed to the telephone poles. The city had switched over to British bands now, the Rolling Stones and the Animals and the Beatles. By the time Maria’s fireworks had burned away, she’d been swept into the crush of the parade. Thank God.
“We’re not seeing her again,” Diego said. “Not until sometime tomorrow, anyway.”
Eliana laughed. “She’ll be fine. You should be nicer to her, though. She’s had a hard year.”
“I’ll be nicer to her when she’s nicer to me.”
Eliana looped her arm in his. “She doesn’t approve of you.”
“Tough shit.” Diego kissed the top of Eliana’s head. “Come on. Let’s go find a place to light these.” Diego grabbed Eliana’s hand and pulled her up close to the buildings, a safe distance from the parade coursing through the streets. They skittered along the dirty sidewalk, dodging bystanders and drunks and amorous couples, their hands always linked. Diego felt a creep of Last Night giddiness, as much as he didn’t want to admit it. When he glanced back at Eliana, his body lurched with desire. Her skin was sheened with sweat in the balmy heat, her hair curled into wild ringlets.
This was how he used to imagine the mainland, this heat.
They spilled into one of the narrow gaps between two tenement buildings. Someone had stretched strings of electric bulbs between the windows, and they dotted overhead like stars, which Diego had only seen a handful of times in real life, during rare autumn trips out on the shipping boats for Mr. Cabrera. He wondered if Eliana had seen the stars at all. Maybe someday he’d show them to her. It might be nice, taking her out on a spring boat in the early morning. Romantic, you know. A chance at a normal life.
Diego pulled out his lighter and touched the flame to the end of their fireworks. A flare of sulfur, a flash of white light, a trail of sparks. He lunged at Eliana, and she leapt back, shrieking. He handed her a pair of her own fireworks, and they chased each other up and down the alley like children until the light sputtered out, and then they were back on the street, swept up in the tide of the parade. Diego didn’t try to crawl out this time. The heat and the light and Eliana had gone to his head.
The parade didn’t follow a specific path, only flowed through the smokestack district, picking up momentum as the night wore on. People threw paper flowers and scraps of brightly colored cloth from the balconies—and glitter, of course, that constant cascade of glitter. The parade twisted and curved at random intervals until it came to the edge of the amusement park, the old center of the city, where it turned sharply, veering off in the direction of the docks. The clock tower bonged twelve times, the sound vibrating deep in Diego’s bones. He grabbed hold of Eliana’s hand, their palms both slippery with sweat. She nuzzled against him. She smelled of vermouth and unwashed skin and the mingled scents of a hundred different perfumes, and Diego wanted to fall into her and forget about the city and about Mr. Cabrera and about his stupid fucking job.
And then the floodlights went out.
It was instantaneous, not the gradual darkening that fell across the city at around seven thirty every night except tonight, Last Night, when the lights were never turned off. The parade halted and became a group of people, drunk and confused. Voices rose up in an unintelligible murmur.
“What’s going on?” Eliana said. Her voice was nearby. Diego thought he heard a tinge of fear. He drew her in close, pressing his arm across her chest.
“I don’t know,” he answered, sca
Every single electric light in the city was out. Not just the dome lights. The streetlamps, too, and the lights in the windows. The fires were still burning, though. Long, liquid shadows moved across the crowd. Firelight caught in the windows of the nearby buildings.
“Holy shit,” he said. “The power’s out.”