Part 3 (2/2)
”This is the best I've felt since...” Tally didn't say his name. She looked up into the sky, which was a glorious blue. A perfect sky. They hadn't gotten started until late afternoon. Above, a few high clouds were already showing hints of pink, even though sunset was hours off.
”Yeah,” Shay agreed. ”Me too. I was getting sick of hanging out alone.”
”So how long you got?”
Shay answered instantly. ”Two months and twenty-six days.”
Tally was stunned for a moment. ”Are you sure?”
”'Course I'm sure.”
Tally felt a big, slow smile roll across her face, and she fell back onto the gra.s.s, laughing. ”You've got to be kidding. We've got the same birthday!”
”No way.”
”Yeah, way. It's perfect. We'll both turn pretty together!”
Shay was silent for a moment. ”Yeah, I guess.”
”September ninth, right?”
Shay nodded.
”That is so cool. I mean, I don't think I could stand to lose another friend. You know? We don't have to worry about one of us abandoning the other. Not for a single day.”
Shay sat up straight, her smile gone. ”I wouldn't do that, anyway.”
Tally blinked. ”I didn't say you would, but...”
”But what?”
”But when you turn, you go over to New Pretty Town.”
”So? Pretties are allowed to come back over here, you know. Or write.”
Tally snorted. ”But they don't.”
”I would.” Shay looked out over the river at the spires of the party towers, placing a thumbnail firmly between her teeth.
”So would I, Shay. I'd come see you.”
”Are you sure?”
”Yeah. Really.”
Shay shrugged, and lay back down to stare up at the clouds. ”Okay. But you're not the first person to make that promise, you know.”
”Yeah, I do know.”
They were silent for a moment. Clouds rolled slowly across the sun, and the air grew cool. Tally thought of Peris, and tried to remember the way he used to look back when he was Nose. Somehow, she couldn't recall his ugly face anymore. As if those few minutes of seeing him pretty had wiped out a lifetime of memories. All she could see now was pretty Peris, those eyes, that smile.
”I wonder why they never come back,” Shay said. ”Just to visit.”
Tally swallowed. ”Because we're so ugly, Skinny, that's why.”
Facing the Future
”Here's option two.” Tally touched her interface ring, and the wallscreen changed.
This Tally was sleek, with ultrahigh cheekbones, deep green catlike eyes, and a wide mouth that curled into a knowing smile.
”That's, uh, pretty different.”
”Yeah. I doubt it's even legal.” Tally tweaked the eye-shape parameters, pulling the arch of the eyebrows down almost to normal. Some cities allowed exotic operations-for new pretties only-but the authorities here were notoriously conservative. She doubted a doctor would give this morpho a second glance, but it was fun to push the software to its limits. ”You think I look too scary?”
”No. You look like a real p.u.s.s.ycat.” Shay giggled. ”Unfortunately, I mean that in the literal, dead-mouse-eating sense.”
”Okay, moving right along.”
The next Tally was a much more standard morphological model, with almond-shaped brown eyes, straight black hair with long bangs, the dark lips set to maximum fullness.
”Pretty generic, Tally.”
”Oh, come on! I worked on this one for a long time. I think I'd look great this way. There's a whole Cleopatra thing going on.”
”You know,” Shay said, ”I read that the real Cleopatra wasn't even that great-looking. She seduced everyone with how clever she was.”
”Yeah, right. And you've seen a picture of her?”
”They didn't have cameras back then, Squint.”
”Duh. So how do you know she was ugly?”
”Because that's what historians wrote at the time.”
Tally shrugged. ”She was probably a cla.s.sic pretty and they didn't even know it. Back then, they had weird ideas about beauty. They didn't know about biology.”
”Lucky them.” Shay stared out the window.
”So, if you think all my faces are so c.r.a.ppy, why don't you show me some of yours?” Tally cleared the wallscreen and leaned back on the bed.
”I can't.”
”You can dish it out, but you can't take it, huh?”
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