Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh

rollers down her arms and legs.
    “See?” Nathan said, almost purring. “It wasn’t really paradise yet.”
    “It is now, though.” She pointed an accusing finger at Nathan. “Don’t you dare come up with something else that’s missing.”
    Through the mesh floor, Veronika watched throngs of people gliding here and there through the Market District, creating fluid patterns, their silent movement leaving Veronika feeling peaceful, her mind temporarily silenced. The next time Veronika was down there in that crowd herself, she needed to remember what it looked like from up here.
    Nathan grunted, dismayed. “This guy insists I include a clip of him with his shirt off. How do you tell someone their shirtless torso is definitely not going to draw women.”
    “Let me see.”
    Nathan uncloaked the feed he was viewing, revealing a meter-high hologram of a ferret-faced guy tossing a bolo. He was so scrawny you could play his ribs like a xylophone.
    Veronika couldn’t suppress a bray of laughter. “Yeah, definitely not helping himself. He needs to be in a jacket and tie.”
    “That’s what I told him.”
    A text alert flashed in the corner of Veronika’s vision. She froze when she saw it was from her sister. “Abort. That’s all, I’m finished,” she told the massage drone as she reached for her neatly folded clothes. Something had to toss her out of paradise, didn’t it? God forbid she should have an hour of bliss.
    “What’s the matter?” Nathan asked, raising his head, but remaining on the table.
    Veronika eyed the message like it was a mine. What the fuck did Jilly want? Hadn’t the phrase
zero contact
been clear enough for Jilly? One of their parents must be sick, or dead. If that was it, would she attend the funeral? No. Death didn’t change anything. So why even open the message? What could be in it that wouldn’t cause her pain?
    Nathan stopped his drone and sat up. “What is it? You look like someone died.”
    “Someone may have,” she muttered. If she didn’t open it, she’d wonder and wonder until she had no choice but to open it just to break the cycle of guesses and speculation spinning in her head.
    So she opened it.
    It was an invitation to her nephew’s second birthday party, on the roof of her parents’ condo building. The attached message from Jilly was short and to the point.
Please come.
    Growling in anger, Veronika deleted it.
    “Come on,” Nathan said, waving his hand in a beckoning motion. “Let’s hear it.”
    “My sister invited me to her son’s birthday party.”
    “I didn’t know she had a son.”
    “Neither did I.” Although that was a lie. One weak andlonely night, Veronika had checked up on Jilly and Sander, hoping to discover they’d divorced. Not that she would take Sander back if they divorced, but it would have been comforting to discover they weren’t living happily together. Evidently they were.
    “What are you going to do?”
    Veronika gaped at him. “What do you mean, what am I going to do?”
    Nathan shrugged. “You have a choice: you can go, or not go. If you don’t go, you have another choice: tell Jilly you’re not going, or ignore the invitation.”
    “Thanks. I understand the basics of human social interaction.” All she’d asked is for Jilly to leave her the fuck alone. Evidently even that was too hard.
    “I think you should go,” Nathan said.
    Veronika’s hands balled into fists, totally on their own. “Are you insane?” She waited for a response, but Nathan just looked at her. “That should be
my
child.
I
should be planning a birthday party, not Jilly.”
    “Do you even want kids?”
    “Yes I want kids. Why would you think I wouldn’t want kids? I love kids.” She was shouting; she could hear she was shouting, but seemed unable to control the volume, just like she was unable to unclench her fists.
    Nathan held up his hands, like a boxer trying to stop the fight. “I’m not saying your sister is right and you’re wrong. She