The Age Atomic

EPILOGUE

She took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and sipped it, enjoying the tickle of bubbles against her nose. Glass half-drained, she kept it high, and peered over the rim at the man on the other side of the room. The man raised an eyebrow, his mouth twitching into a smirk. Then he turned away.

The band struck up again, and soon people were back on the dance floor.

“You’ve been looking at him all night.”

She lowered the glass and turned her back on the room and her attention to the vast window that formed nearly the whole of the wall. She took a step forward and pressed one gloved hand to the glass. Manhattan stretched out before her, the lights of the city kissing the invisible horizon in every direction. If she squinted, just a little, the lights fuzzed and spun, turning into the whirly stars of the Milky Way, bathing her in their magical blue light, the light of…

“Seriously,” said her friend, sipping from her own champagne. “You can’t keep this up all night.”

She smiled. “I can keep this up forever.”

“If you don’t do something soon, I’ll do it for you.”

She blinked, and the city returned. She turned away from the window and watched the patrons of the Cloud Club drink and talk and dance.

“He looks nice.”

“Yes, he does,” she said. Then she frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

She shrugged. “I’ve seen him somewhere before, that’s all.” She searched the room. “Where is he?”

Her friend smiled and slid sideways, back towards the window.

“Excuse me.”

She turned. He was there, smiling at her, his eyes big and brown. His hair was dark, slicked back, one escaped lick flicking across his forehead. She decided she liked that.

The man bowed and glanced at her friend, who smiled before burying her face in her glass. “May I have this dance?”

She laughed, glancing at her friend, who nodded furiously. She turned back to the man and held out her arm.

“I’m charmed, Mr…”

“Fortuna. Kane Fortuna.”

“Evelyn McHale.” She took his arm.

“Ms McHale,” he said, “the night is ours.”

The pair weaved their way to the middle of the room, joining the mass of dancing couples.

Outside, New York sparkled, the lights of the city like jewels on velvet, like the stars in the sky, their light the light of the gap between the universes, the light of the end of the world.

And in the Cloud Club, the music played on and the couples danced, and danced, and danced.