Mad Skills by Walter Greatshell

better for all of us to be together right now.”
    Maddy smiled for the first time in a long, long time. “That’s great,” she said. “That’s really great.”

TEN
     
    SOLITAIRE
     
    IN the week after the party, everything settled down to a low hum. The first few days were blissfully free of obligation, and Maddy found that by sequestering herself within the four walls, she could dull her attention to the competing info-streams, more easily tune them out, or perhaps they just dried up of their own accord. Either way, she was at least able to savor the musty, all-U-can-eat banquet of the familiar. This house, her home, with all its deeply ingrained smells and textures, evoked a familiar history as sticky sweet as maple syrup.
    Maddy spent most of her time zoned out on the couch. She was not bored; in her mind, she surfed the curious patterns of megadigit prime numerals and plumbed discrepancies in the Standard Theory, eking and tweaking her own equations for a comprehensive Unified Field Solution that she mentally filed alongside solitaire on her list of pleasant ways to kill time.
    If other people were around, a lot of what she did was just playacting, performing the role of Maddy Grant, all-American girl, as she knew they expected her to be. But the more she did it, the more she realized how impossible it would be to inhabit this mythical Maddy, to actually will the silly creature into being. To become herself again.
    What had Maddy Grant been all about? Inspecting her room was like browsing a museum … or a mausoleum. It was all there. Physical vanity, mostly—she had been a typical teenager agonizing over every blemish. Self-conscious, self-loathing, even occasionally self-mutilating (although this mainly manifested itself in biting her nails too short), the girl was a bundle of postpubescent neuroses, some of which could be at least partially attributed to her parents’ divorce. The positive stuff was not much better: hanging out at the mall, obsessing about boys, and worshipping some inane pop star. Marina Sweet—Jesus. What a dip I was, Maddy thought, looking at all the Marina memorabilia.
    “We weren’t sure what to do with all this,” her mother said over her shoulder. “After what happened to Marina.”
    “Why? What happened to her?”
    Her mother shrank back. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry—I thought you’d remember. We told you. It happened so long ago …”
    “What? What, for God’s sake?”
    “Marina Sweet is dead. She died in a plane crash.”
    Maddy was startled, and shocked that she was startled—as if the news of some platinum-bobbed teen queen’s death should mean anything to her now.
    “Oh,” she said.
    “I’m sorry, baby.” Her mother took something down from a shelf in the closet: a box of magazine and newspaper articles. “I saved these for you in case you wanted them. It happened right after you and Ben went to her concert. At first I blamed her in some way for everything, but then I realized it wasn’t her fault.”
    Her mom handed her a clipping, and Maddy read it at a glance.
    POP SINGER SUFFERS BREAKDOWN
     
    Associated Press: Former teen sensation Marina Sweet is reportedly in seclusion today, following her sudden disappearance during a stage performance in Colorado. The remaining dates of her 12-state concert tour have been canceled.
    “Marina is suffering from exhaustion, pure and simple,” said her father and longtime manager, David Sweet. “She apologizes to her fans and looks forward to going back on the road as soon as possible. For the time being, she needs to rest and focus on writing the songs for her upcoming studio album. We ask that the press respect our family’s need for privacy during this period of recuperation. Thank you.”
    When asked where his daughter was recuperating, Mr. Sweet replied that it was a private psychiatric facility near the family’s home. He denied rumors that her collapse was due to substance abuse, saying only, “Marina treats