Blue Raspberry

by Elizabeth Broadbent

Auden tossed his sigils at a valet-bot which nearly toppled trying to catch them. “Watch it!” he shouted. “Those are worth more than your slamming parts!”

“God, it’s so trashy to yell at bots,” Cecily told him as we passed through the autodoor and paused before the airlock.

“Then you drive next time.” Auden’s mouth twisted. “Oh, wait. You wrecked your sol-car and Daddy hasn’t bought you another yet.”

 I walked into Triptix without speaking. It had been a year since Lyons died. Maybe Auden was too drunked up to remember or maybe he was drunked up cos he did. “Can I help you?” a welcome-bot asked.

“Breckenridge, party of I don’t slamming know.” I settled my darkglasses on top of my head. Their iridescent lens looked good in my new black spikes. No one had mentioned them yet and it worried me. Baylor and Zane might not like them. I shouldn’t have cared but I couldn’t help it. 

“Right this way, please.” It led us through dimmed neon to a table in the back. Zane stared at a glassful of ice; Baylor played with a plastic stirring stick. Neither said hello.

“Hey, Baylor, hey, Zane.” Cecily’s floating cupchair swayed as she settled. “Can you be less morose? It’s like someone died.”

Baylor raised her violet eyes. “Go to hell.”

Of course she remembered. I slouched next to Zane and stole his vape. Blue raspberry — it was in but I hated sugar-sweet smoke. “Raspberries never came in blue,” my great-great gram’s generative holo said once. “I don’t know what this nonsense is about blue raspberries. O brave new world, that has such berries in it!”

Auden flopped down. “Tighten up, Baylor. God.

“Lyons died a year ago today.”

He dug through his bag like Baylor hadn’t spoken, like she didn’t exist in his universe and neither had her twin, then pulled out a pink vape.

“Lemonade is last week,” Zane said. “It’s blue raspberry now.”

 “Don’t any of you remember it’s a year?” Baylor scanned our faces. “Knox, you do.”

I curled close to Zane, and Baylor yanked her darkglasses down as a waiter rolled up. Holo menus popped in front of us.

“Bourbon and Coke, hold the Coke,” I told it.

Auden glared like a bot would care. “Scotch on the rocks and a blue raspberry vape.”

“Gin. Ice.” Zane shoved his glass away. “Get this thing out of here.”

The girls ordered and the waiter left.

“Knox, you saw us in the sol-car,” Baylor said. “You remember.”

Neon slipped slowly from pink to blue to green. “Yeah,” I said, and slid my hand into my pocket. Healthcare had given my twin little round pain-pills. I threw down two.

“Gimme one of those.” Auden held out a hand.

“You don’t even know what I took.”

“I don’t give a —”

“You care about Lyons, or you wouldn’t want one of those pills.” Baylor flipped her white-blonde hair back. I patted my spikes. I shouldn’t’ve come.

 “Look, it’s ultra-morose, okay? But . . .” Cecily pressed her sparkly pink lips together. Floor-to-ceiling columns held jellyfish trailing long, pale tentacles. Sometimes their fat bubble-tops drew in, then plumped out. They weren’t real. Neon glowed through them and their columns shone blue raspberry.

“It’s sucky.” Zane tried to touch Baylor’s hand. She jerked away.

“You were there, too,” she said. “You were riding with Knox. You got out with him when he stopped.”

Zane pressed against me. I clung to Killian Jones singing an oldie-old and tried not to think about Lyons’s Aqua Vispree jumping that barricade on I-76, about Zane shouting or Lyons slumping sideways or blood splattering Baylor’s face like freckles.

“This was his fav song,” Baylor said. “Remember that? ‘Life on Mars’? Auden, you had Keanu play it for him.”

Cecily picked at a chipped nail. “I don’t wanna sound like this but you’re being kinda rude.”

 Baylor tilted from her cupchair and stalked out. The airlock swished behind her. No one spoke until a bot appeared with our drinks and Auden’s vape.

“Well, it was rude.” Cecily crossed her arms. “I wanted to bum around and maybe find a party, not hear Baylor’s total mood-kill.”

Zane picked up his gin. He seemed to examine it in the neon. “We haven’t seen Keanu in forever.”

Jellyfish rose and fell. Maybe they were blacklit. “We haven’t seen Keanu cos she and Hollis threw the slamming party,” I said.

“Knox, don’t be morose.” Auden glared at me like he’d glared at that bot.

“That’s not morose.” I drained my bourbon. “How’s this for morose? Lyons was dead in that sol-car and Baylor said, ‘You should never see inside someone you love.’”

“No one wants to hear it.” Auden blew smoke in my face. “Read the room.”

I blinked into his blue raspberry cloud. “You’re mad you told Lyons not to be un perdito about it. We were all ultra-drunked up but he was practically suborbital, and you’re mad you said Gladwyne wasn’t far from Manayunk so don’t go all ridic —”

He shoved his chair back. “I will pop your aristobratic ass so far into next week —”

“You slamming try it.” I stood. “See how good it feels. See if it brings him back.”

A holo flickered up. “Can I get you something, fren?”

I stepped through it as I pushed past the tables and the jellyfish and the neon. I’d seen inside Lyons, too. He was pink and red like something from a slashfilm. I couldn’t stop looking anyway. Emergency couldn’t pull him out fast enough. They might’ve downloaded him into a SimMe otherwise and maybe that would’ve been better. A SimMe wouldn’t have been Lyons, but it would’ve looked like him and kept all his memories. We could have pretended he never died.

Baylor was waiting for her Vispree. When I drew my darkglasses down, everything became gray and white and night-bright. “Can I hang until your sol-car comes?” I asked.

She toed the sidewalk in her new Klunys. “If you want.”

“Sorry about Lyons.” I sounded like I was blaming myself. Maybe I was. I hadn’t stopped him.

“They act like it never happened, you know? Auden’s the worst.”

I didn’t say that Auden wouldn’t hang for almost three months afterward. I didn’t say that when he wasn’t drunked up he was flying on something. I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything.

Baylor tapped her foot. She’d ruin her Klunys if she kept it up. I tried not to look at her thighs. “They just wanna hit another party.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “Here.” I gave her Zane’s vape. “My great-great gram says raspberries never came in blue but it doesn’t matter.”

“They never came in blue?”

“My gram says no, but you know how those older generative holos get.”

She blew a perfect smoke ring and passed back the vape. “If Lyons had been sick or something it would be different,” she said, and my stomach jumped. Healthcare said my twin would be fine. They said sometimes people got sick and they would fix her. I held tight to it so she could hold on, too.

Baylor was still talking. “No one wants to remember they either said he was okay or they didn’t stop him.”

I could’ve stopped him. I could’ve said, “We’re slamming drunked up, tell Hollis or Keanu we’re passing out here.” I could’ve cuddled between Zane and Baylor. Lyons would’ve called the biggest bed for him and Auden.

Baylor could’ve stopped him, too. Baylor could’ve refused to get in his Vispree and Lyons wouldn’t’ve driven, no matter what Auden said.

I breathed in blue raspberry and exhaled a slow, smooth sigh. “Remember how jealous Auden and Lyons got when the other slammed a girl?”

“That party at Grey’s place in Radnor? Auden was all sulked-out and we knew Lyons had some girl upstairs. I said, ‘Auden, just go up there. Do you really think he’d consider you an interruption?’ He got all red and stuttery and finally ran away.” Baylor’s small smile only lasted a moment.

“Why didn’t they just say they were together?” I asked. “They basically were.”

I couldn’t see her eyes behind her darkglasses. Baylor’s sol-car was taking forever, but valet service at Triptix sucked. “Lyons got drunked up enough to tell Auden he was in love with him? Auden said he was too godslamming scared to admit it, and could they finally slamming say they were baes?” That smile flickered again. “You know how Auden talks. They were ridic happy. It was right before we left Hollis and Keanu’s.”

I nearly choked. Baylor handed me Zane’s vape. I sucked down smoke and concentrated on that sick-sweet taste that never existed. Her hand slipped into mine.

I didn’t let go until a valet-bot brought her Vispree. Baylor kissed my cheek. “Laters, I guess.” She ducked into her sol-car, but leaned out before she hit the door button. “Oh, Knox, I didn’t tell you,” she said. “I like your hair.” Baylor drove away, and wind ruffled my new spikes.

A six-year staff writer for Scary Mommy with pieces published in The Washington Post and Insider, Elizabeth Broadbent has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, NPR’s All Things Considered, and BBC World News. Her short stories have appeared, among other places, in Tales to Terrify, Penumbric, Tree & Stone, and The Cafe Irreal; her novella, Naked & Famous, publishes with EJL Editions in summer 2023, and her poetry chapbook, Wrapped in a Burning Flag, comes out in winter of 2024. She lives in Edgar Allan Poe’s city with her three sons, two dogs, patient husband, and too many David Bowie records.