Darlings Chapter 1
The flight attendant seals the door and Marcy squeezes my hand. She doesn’t take her eyes off the tarmac. I know what she’s thinking: this will be the last time I see New York.
“It’s going to be alright,” I tell her.
Her voice is far away: “I’ll be dead before we land.”
I touch her chin and she looks at me, but her eyes are glossy.
“It will work this time,” I tell her, “things will turn in our favor.”
The engines fire on and whatever she said is drowned out. If the miracle drug doesn’t work, Marcy will be dead in two hours. If the miracle drug doesn’t work, I’ll be dead in three weeks. And who will be waiting for us when we land? More paparazzi?
I lean on her shoulder and smell her skin. She smells like smoke. My throat tenses and the anxiety rushes over me as I realize this really could be our last moments together. I squeeze her hand and know she’s thinking the same thing.
When we land, who will leave this plane?
In three-weeks I’ll be twenty-two and my time will be up. No Iris has made it past their expiration date.
I could be among friends right now. I could have stayed in Los Angeles and spent the last months with my family.
But I never would have met her. Marcy Darling. My Marcy. Marce behind doors. Darling in public. My mentor. My alpha. My friend. My obsession.
The only other living Iris.
The last of our kind.
We are Siberian tigers going extinct together at 600 miles an hour.
Take a picture. We won’t last long.
Just eight months ago, Marcy’s letter showed up in my P.O. box. I could never accept mail to my apartment—too many creepy Iris stalkers sending suicide notes and love letters.
I knew it was her as soon as I saw the Darlings’ logo: DⱭ. A capital D and its reflection. As recognizable as the Nike symbol. The handmade stationary was spritzed with Marcy’s perfume. It read:
Dear Fey,
The Darlings® request your presence at PS 111 in one week's time. Evening, 7:30. - DⱭ
I dropped out of college and broke the lease on my studio apartment. I was leaving Los Angeles, headed for a foreign city to spend my final days with the last members of my generation. Thinking back, I couldn’t tell you why I was so impulsive. I should have been planning my funeral. Making final arrangements. Writing a Will for all the shit I don’t have. It sounds stupid, but all I can think of is Marcy’s perfume. That lingering sweetness that would fade with time.
I didn’t come to New York to become famous. Obviously, I knew who Marcy was. She and her brother Day have been household names since their birth. Two mixed model babies with fatal diseases? Give those kids fashion lines! Give them TV spots and Instagram pages and agents and fans. So many fans. There were twenty children born with the Iris disease and the Darlings twins were undoubtedly the most famous. I never wanted fame.
My parents had intentionally kept me out of the lime light and I was okay with that. But when the cheerleader asks the mathlete to prom, he doesn’t think of an excuse.
“My clock is ticking,” Marcy says, stirring me from my thoughts, “do you wish things had been different?”
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Phase One
About eight months ago
Chapter 1
The landing wakes me up.
“Welcome to John F. Kennedy airport. The local time is 6:48pm and the temperature is a brisk 38 degrees with chance of snow. We’ll be pulling into the terminal shortly. Thank you for flying American.”
By the time I get to the taxi line, I’m exhausted. My cab driver’s name is Luis. The flash must have surprised him because he's squinting in his driver ID photo. I give him the address of PS 111 and shut my eyes. When I open them, we’ve arrived.
“Forty-five” he says.
“Where are we?”
“Alphabet city,” he said, “forty-five.”
I hand him my debit card and he points to the machine on the back of his seat. I swipe the card and nothing happens.
“It’s not working” I say.
“Machine’s broken? Cash only.”
“I don’t have cash.”
He sighs loudly and fumbles for something under the passenger seat. When his hand appears in the divider window, I see it’s his phone with a credit card swiper attached.
“I thought it was broken” I say.
He doesn’t respond. It asks me how much to charge to the card and I enter $55.00 as the amount.
“Receipt?” he asks, snatching the phone back.
“No.”
He eyes me in the rearview mirror. “Most tip 18% in cash.”
“I don’t have cash.”
He blows out his breath and I get out of the cab. In front of me stands a three-story redbrick building with a basketball court in the front yard and a huge cast iron gate. “P.S. 111” is written in yellow paint above the faded blue doors. At one point, it had been a public school. And by the look of it, not too long ago.
I get my bag out of the trunk and the cab drives away before I can close it. A light rain is falling and I hurry across the basketball court and up the steps. I give a hard knock. There’s no answer. It’s unlocked so I let myself in.
“Hello?” I call.
While the exterior of the school has been left the same, the inside is totally remodeled. It looks like a hotel lobby from the turn of the century. I recognize the architecture from my Intro to Art class. It’s early 20th century French. I couldn’t tell you the name of the architect, but I know the style is called Art Nouveau. The floor is dark mahogany and the walls are white with big Banksy murals. I have the same Girl with a Balloon in my dorm room. Except I’ve got a poster and this looks like the real thing. Did they hire Banksy? How can you hire Banksy?
Twisted gold Degas’ ballerina statues adorn the spiral staircase in the room’s center. There are eight black doors on one either side of the massive hall. Some of the doors have names: Franky, John, Jen, Jin-ho, Casey, Stefani, Brandon, Marcy, and Day. The rest are blank.
The door marked “Franky” opens and a girl steps out in Lululemon yoga pants and Ugg boots. She’s gamine, thin and boyish with black pixie hair. She isn’t wearing anything under her “we can be internet friends” tank top, though there isn’t much to cover.
Franky notices me and calls: “you’re early!” in a cute Southern twang.
I check my watch. It hasn’t been changed for New York time. “What time was I supposed to get here?”
“Y’all are here for tonight’s party?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her, “the message didn’t say.”
She purses her lips and crosses the hall. With the hall being so large, this takes a long awkward minute. When she finally reaches me, she leans in far too close and looks me up and down.
My heart pounds and I feel a little sick. Her hair is auburn and she has freckles on her nose. I try not to look uncomfortable. She stops her search when she sees my eyes.
“Hot damn,” she gasps, “you’re the last one, aren’t ya?”
Her eyes dart back and forth. I realize this is the first time I’ve met another Iris. It’s eerie seeing the signs in another person. Her eyes are brown and green. Do I really look like that?
I break the awkward silence by offering a hand, “I’m Fey.”
“Fey?” she laughs, “that’s a girl’s name. I have an Aunt Faye. Did your mom hate you?”
“It’s a nickname.”
“You kinda look like a girl,” she continues, “Do you like boys? What’s your full name?” she asks all at once, still looking from one eye to the other like they might change colors if she looks fast enough.
I nervously glance away and she giggles. Franky yells “Stef, c’mere and meet Aunt Faye.”
Another door opens and Stefani pokes her head out. “You invited your aunt?” she asks.
She’s in a black bikini, tall and thin. Her pale skin clashes with her shock of raven hair. She’s just as striking as Franky, albeit in a totally different way. Like they’d been designed by the same artists in different phases of his life.
“Hey,” I say, offering a hand. She, like Franky, doesn’t shake it.
“Who’s this? Party’s at 9” says Stefani.
I lower my hand and don’t meet their eye contact.
“He ain’t here for the party,” Franky answers for me, “he’s the guy.”
“Aunt Faye?” asks Stefani, putting a hand on her hip.
“I’m Fey,” I say, “just Fey.”
“What’s your full name?” repeats Franky.
“It’s worse than the nickname” I tell her, feeling my cheeks redden.
“Isn’t he pretty?” asks Franky, pinching my chin, “Like a girl, huh?”
“Can one of you explain what’s going on?” asks Stefani.
Franky ignores her. “Which one of your parents picked the name?”
“My dad, I think.”
“That explains it,” says Franky, matter-of-factly, “your parents are still together?”
“No.”
“That explains that.”
“Explains what?” asks Stefani.
“His name” laughs Franky.
“What’s his name?”
“Fey” I repeat angrily.
Stefani laughs. “That’s a girl’s name.”
Why are they so close? Neither of them care about personal space. Stefani leans so close I can feel her hot breath. She also has heterochromia. The same colors as Franky’s, but a little greener in the left eye.
“The hell?” she asks, staring into my eyes, “Those are fake.”
“Nope,” says Franky, “he’s the last Iris.”
“I remember him having a weird name, but come on… Fey?” Stefani laughs.
“I get it,” I say, “my name’s weird.”
Franky’s face lights up, “we’re making him uncomfortable. Want to go skinny dippin’ with us, Fey?”
A door opens and slams shut. The interruption saves me from answering Franky’s question. Casey’s shirtless in board shorts, tan and cut. I feel like a skeleton by comparison.
He sees his reflection in the marble ballerina statue and casually flexes a tricep. “We goin’ swimmin’ or what?”
When the girls don’t answer, he jogs over.
“Who’s this?” he asks, looking me up and down like an intruder.
“Fey” says Franky, “he’s the last Iris.”
“That right, guy?” He asks, shaking my hand a little too hard. “Casey,” he says and notices my bag. “These bitches didn’t even show the guy to his room? Stop pesterin’ him. C’mon, guy.”
I’m lead across the hall to the last door on the left. Casey tries the doorknob. “Shit” he says, “still locked. You’ll haveta talk to the head honcho.”
“Marcy?”
“Yup,” he says, brushing nothing off his abs.
I can’t help but stare at his flat stomach. How does that even happen?
“Never met her” I say.
He checks to see that we’re alone and says, “some advice, bro. She’s a steel trap. Nothin’ you can do with her.”
“Got it…” I say, “know where I can find her?”
“She and her bro are getting their NewEx done.”
“NewEx?”
“Ehh,” he tilts his head and considers an explanation, “better let them explain all the rules of the house. You can hang out in my room until they get back.”
“Thanks.”
We enter the suite labeled ‘Casey’. It looks like a train station depot inside. Exposed brick, wooden benches, even a chalkboard time table that never changes. He opens a door marked ‘to trains’ and the inside looks like an office. An old wooden desk sits in the corner with an oscillating metal fan. There’s a bed propped up on steamer trunks.
“Make yourself at home till’ they get back” he says, “then get the fuck out of my place.”
I set my bag down and look around. “Are you into trains or something?”
He shrugs. “To tell ya the truth, I got no clue why the twins made our rooms up like this.”
“Does everyone’s room look like a train station?”
“Nah,” says Casey, “everyone’s place looks different.”
“Pretty cool” I say.
He scratches his elbow. “Pretty cool” he repeats dully. “Time for me to get to the pool. Girls are waiting.”
“I’m gonna lay down for a bit” I tell him.
He’s already out the door. “Whatever.”
I flop onto the bed, not bothering to remove my jacket. A terrible thought surfaces before I fall asleep: what the fuck am I doing here?
My phone wakes me up from a dreamless nap. It’s mom. When she calls, her contact picture is Van Gogh’s self-portrait. Her favorite painting. I consider answering, but I’d have to explain the plane ticket charged to her credit card. I’ll have that conversation once I know what I’m doing here.
I let it go to voicemail. After a moment, the phone vibrates again and I get a notification saying I have 12 new voicemails. Ugh boy.
It's dark in the train station guest room. I feel my way back to the front door. I'm blinded by the bright lights of the hall. There are rows of tables and string lights and a full-size stage. The singer is in this white sleeveless dress and white Ray-Bans and she keeps flicking the mic. Whatever she’s saying is lost because it’s not on.
There's no sign of the Irises. Only staff members, dressed in white tie attire adjusting red pillows and adding bottles of champagne to ice filled buckets. The decadence is overwhelming. Little cocktail napkins with the Darlings’ logo. A gift basket at each seat. Wrapped inside the gold cellophane is a bottle of Hudson Valley vodka, cigarillos, and a custom iPhone: matte black with the Darlings’ logo where the Apple logo usually is.
"...with you in your worn-out jeans," booms the singer’s voice over the microphone, “ooh, oh. Jason, what’s up with the lights?”
The PA, this strung-out guy in a polo shirt, shrugs.
I sit on a couch near the stage and rub the sleep out of my eyes. There’s a champagne bucket at my feet and I check my reflection in the ice bucket--bloodshot eyes, messy hair. My shirt is wrinkled, pants are stained, shoes are worn out. I look homeless.
A voice startles me: “Sir?”
It belongs to a bald man in a tuxedo. He’s looking over his glasses at me.
"Your section is this way” he says.
He leads me to a roped-off area in the middle of the room. There are reserved signs for each table: Wired, People, PC Magazine, CNET. My section, labeled ‘VIP’, has the couches facing each other. A round love seat sits in the middle. Looking top-down, you'd see an eyeball.
The guests flood in. They try to talk over the music. They shake hands, exchange business cards, take pictures. Wired admires the Banksy murals. The New York Times are having trouble opening their champagne. YouTube takes a team selfie on their couch bed. When the song ends, the lights dim and a spotlight moves to the spiral staircase in the center of the hall. The Irises descend the staircase. They look unimpressed, bored even. Seven in all, they move gracefully to pose before the photographers. The camera flashes have a strobe light effect, putting their walk in slow motion.
The band performs "Bad Blood" and the crowd applauds. John, Casey, Jin-ho, and Brandon wear suits. GQ, fits-perfectly, damn-I-look-good suits. Even Brandon, the little person, looks extravagant in his tailored suit. He’s an unbelievable sight—a strong jaw, sculpted cheekbones and well-manicured scruff atop the body of a child.
Jen and Stefani wear cocktail dresses with high heels. Franky's in skinny jeans and a leather jacket. The girls are waifish, tall, ethereal. They float towards me on six inch stilettos, their graceful movement punctuated by camera flashes.
The Irises join the hobo kid, in the VIP section. I'm on the loveseat in the center of the eye and they don't seem to notice me until the houselights turn back on.
"You lost?" asks John. His Scottish accent is rough and I’ve got to concentrate to understand him.
“What?” I mutter.
"That's Fey," says Franky, “isn’t he pretty?”
John opens the champagne, sending the cork into the crowd. "He your joy boy?"
"No, no,” she says, “he's one of us."
Jen doesn’t look up from her phone. "No shit?"
"Haw haw" bellows John, picking me up off the seat. He gives me a squeeze and sets me down.
Jen comes to the loveseat and shoves me down. She straddles me and pries my eyelids open. Why do they keep doing this to me?
"Uh huh, I see,” she says eyeballing me, “you're the lucky boy with the blue and green peepers. He is pretty."
I pull away and blink. My throat tightens. Don’t have a panic attack right now. Don’t have a panic attack right now.
Jen looks over her shoulder at the group, beaming. I see a Tank Girl tattoo on her neck. "He’s so confident in his looks he thinks he doesn’t need to try” she laughs.
My stomach turns. "That’s not true. I just…"
She slaps me hard and gets off. "Who asked you?"
I touch the handprint on my face. Jen tousles my hair like I'm 5. I shoot her a look of pure hatred.
“This thing is Jen,” says Casey, kicking her in the butt, “and that big mofo is John.”
“I know,” I say, still rubbing the handprint. “I watched you coming out of the Dakota.”
"Hoity-toity fan boy” laughs John, “who don't you know here?"
"I know all of you," I say, looking around the group, "you're Jin-ho, Brandon…”
"Is he still talking?" asks Brandon kicking his feet over the edge of the couch.
Casey passes me the champagne and flashes a smirk at Brandon. “Did you say something, Tyrion?”
Brandon spits at Casey and misses. Jen looks revolted.
“Nasty little shit” she grumbles.
I look for a glass to pour the champagne into, but there isn’t one. The group watches to see what I'll do. I take a swig straight from the bottle. Casey takes the bottle back and drinks himself.
I notice Franky studying me, elbows on her knees, "how old are you Fey?"
I take another drink. "21."
She shakes her head. “No, I mean, how many months you got left?"
The question catches me by surprise. "About eight," I say quietly.
"Woo-wee," she hollers, "how ’bout that? Brandon's got four.”
“Could you not?” asks Brandon, grabbing the champagne bottle.
“Six for me," Franky continues, ignoring Brandon.
"Cut that out!" Brandon snaps. He holds the empty bottle up and a staff member takes it.
"About eight," says Franky in a little voice, "he’s the baby of the group."
I smile and feel my face redden. I wonder if Franky is like this with everyone. I look at the floor, hoping more champagne will come soon. The more I drink the easier it will be to stay grounded. I can’t have a panic attack in front of these guys. First impressions are everything. Isn’t that what they say?
“What do you think, Fey?” Franky asks, gesturing to the stage.
“Pretty cool. The cover band is a little random.”
Jen is talking to Franky and she’s trying to carry two conversations at once now. “Cover band?” she asks.
“The Taylor Swift cover band” I say, pointing at the singer.
Franky laughs, holding a finger up to Jen. “That is Taylor.”
I squint at the singer. “Seriously?”
“Uh huh. Marcy’s known her forever. They’re, like, BFF.”
The lights dim and an excitement stirs through the crowd. My mouth is still open as I watch Taylor lower the mic to watch.
“Here come the beautiful people” whispers Franky.
Photographers gather at the foot of the staircase, DSLRs in hand. The Darlings are coming. They wear their patented expressionless white masks and matching black pea coats. The band plays a slow rendition of “You Belong With me”. Marcy walks with the gait of a runway model, hands in pocket, quick confident steps down the stairs. Day has a very different, nonchalant stride. When they reach the bottom, the twins stop to pose. The crowd goes silent.
The song slows to a crawl and they remove their masks at the same time. Cameras flash, the music swells, the crowd goes berserk. This marks their first public appearance sans-masks. Their faces, as it was said in the Netflix documentary, were for the runway. Now they’re for everyone. The house lights go on and the party tries its best to resume.
Marcy and Day part the crowd and take their seats in the VIP section between John and Jen. I thought the other Iris girls were pretty, but Marcy is aggressively beautiful. She has a layered bob, her hair slightly wavy. Her lips are full and naturally a dark pink. She doesn’t wear makeup.
Doesn’t need to. Her skin, like Day’s, is a light mocha. Somewhere between ebony and perfectly tan. Her dress is simple and black and shows off her long legs. Ankles together, she leans forward to take her champagne glass. No drinking from the bottle for her.
Day drinks from a copper hip flask, savoring whatever it’s filled with. His head is shaved. His cheekbones are sharp. The twins have milky blue eyes, though each has a bright white ring around one. Marcy’s left eye; Day’s right.
Jen whispers something into Marcy's ear and she nods. A staff member brings Marcy the microphone and she stands to address the guests. The spotlight finds her and she looks directly into the light. I think she does that to make her eyes glitter.
The staff circles the VIP section with hors d’oeuvres and I take far too many and shove brie on toast into my mouth, entranced by the show.
"Don't you have somewhere better to be?" she asks.
Her audience laughs on cue. They do not have somewhere better to be.
I’ve never heard her voice before. She never did interviews and never spoke during fashion shows. It’s deeper than I imagined. Her inflections are sharp, syllables tight.
Marcy checks her watch, "in eleven minutes, the world will change and you will be at ground zero when it happens."
She drops the mic into the ice bucket and lights a cigarette. "Did you sign the contract?"
It takes me a second to realize she's talking to me. "Wha?” I choke through a mouth of champagne.
She smokes, watching me with a face expressionless as her mask. My mind races.
I swallow.
“Oh, yeah. The contract. Should I… get it?"
She doesn’t respond.
I excuse myself and hurry to Casey's room.
Great first impression, jackass. As if I didn’t already look like shit, I have to act like a child too. I curse myself for being such a beta loser. Not only do I show up to a white-tie gala in dirty skater shoes and a hoodie, I didn't even sign the contract. I need another drink.
In the safety of Casey’s room, I allow myself a mini panic attack. When I spot the wet bar in Casey’s suite, it begins to subside. I pocket a fifth of vodka and find the guest room in the dark and drink. Once I can breathe again, I get my phone from under the bed and turn on the flashlight. I get the crumpled contract from my bag and look for a pen. I find one on the guest room's desk and I sign the contract and put the bottle back.
I hear a voice booming from the hall: "10, 9," it counts, "8, 7..."
I run back outside, through the crowd.
"4, 3," counts the singer.
I make it to the couch and give Marcy the contract. She takes me by the arm.
"2, 1."
The guests turn to watch as Marcy pulls me up on the loveseat. We stand on the pupil of the VIP section's eyeball, lit by camera flashes, and Marcy raises my hand above my head, still holding the contract. Banners fall from the rafters. On them are written: "WE'RE LIVE".
They cheer and the singer quiets them with a raised fist. She reads from a notecard: “The 120,000 people who downloaded the alpha, as well as the rest of the world, now have full access to the Eff It List©. Hoorah. Hoorah.”
The Wired team already has their new phones out. I watch the crowd playing with the app, recording the banners, posting their first NewExs.
Marcy touches my chin. We’re the same height. Her eyes flash, glittering in the spotlight. "You came” she says, “I so hoped you would”.