"McHugh-VirtualLove" - читать интересную книгу автора (McHugh Maureen F)

He smiles, but he looks perplexed. And I'm thinking thinking, when was the last
time that I wore Kristiana? I don't wear her often. Almost never to the Salon. I
am almost tempted to ask if he is sure he saw her at the Salon. I could lie and
say I have never seen anyone like that here.

He bites his lips. "There is a quality about her, that you have . . ."

Like a rabbit in headlights I sit still and listen.

"These people are all alike, but there is something about her. She, she is . . .
beautiful. Like you."

"Thank you," I say. My foolishness, I am glad I can't blush. "Do you know the
people here?" I ask, and I start pointing them out, telling him about them.
Yellow Eyes and Greg, Lizabeth R. I'm just distracting him. And he smiles and
nods and makes the appropriate noises but when I point to someone I can feel his
eyes on me.

After a while I say, "I've got to meet some friends on another board, but it was
very nice talking with you. Maybe we'll meet again."

"Wait a minute," he says,"how can I get in touch with you?"

"It's a small world," I say, "we'll run into each other again."

Alicia saunters out, but I know I'm fleeing.

Back in the green room I pick up the ocher hair tie that puts on Kristiana,
grave Kristiana, how is she like Alicia?

Kristiana who rarely smiles, who moves slowly -- not because she is old but
because she is grave and deliberate. Alicia isn't like her at all.

Maybe it is just a coincidence. He is new, he's been ghosting. Or maybe it's a
gesture, maybe a slip, something of Alicia crossing over into Kristiana.

I put on Alicia. She is grave, too. I always thought she had a certain dignity,
but maybe there is no difference between Alicia's dignity and Kristiana's
deliberateness. And maybe Terese's stillness, maybe they are all the same.

No, Sulia is different, and Lilith the vamp with her fox hair, and Stork, who
swears like a truck-driver and drinks virtual scotch and plays poker.

Beautiful. He said they were both beautiful. Sulia is beautiful. Even Stork,
with her freckles and her broad bones, Stork is not really pretty, but I think
she is beautiful. They are all beautiful to me.

I take off Alicia and I'm invisible in the mirror. Open the door, ghosting
through the lobby to pick Madame Stael's, back up the elevator and ghosting,