Valerie had insisted on making a day of it in Catalina, but as they wandered the shops and had lunch, Naomi was too lost in her head to enjoy it properly. Her latest crop of a strain of hardy, fast-growing sweet potatoes was proving promising. She’d harvested and sliced them yesterday. Baked them into chips, sprinkled with oil, salt, and rosemary, chewing them slowly. They’d been good and grown entirely in soil that matched iron-rich soils on Cavendish.

They strolled along the beach, pausing at one of the breaks, their legs dangling above the water. Naomi’s scars were bared to the sunlight. The Casino squatted before them. Valerie passed her a tub of pistachio ice cream—her favourite, though of course it wasn’t made with anything resembling the real nut since the crops had failed. They sat in near-silence and took off their filter masks long enough to eat. The sugar and cold cream melted on Naomi’s tongue as she looked over the bay to the concrete sea wall. It did rather spoil the view.

“You nervous?” Naomi asked.

“Never,” Valerie said, sucking on her biodegradable spoon.

When they returned, hours later, the Catalina Casino was lit up from within like a jewel. Their dinner would be in the largest circular ballroom in the world. It had never been a place of gambling—the word technically meant “meeting place.” People had not even drunk alcohol on the premises until after World War II. Built in the 1920s by Wrigley, of chewing gum fame, it was all art deco opulence. Tiles over the grand, curved entranceways depicted underwater scenes. Naomi paused, staring up at the larger-than-life, stylised mermaid. Her red hair streamed upwards like the seaweed in currents. It was as if she floated in zero G. The siren held her hands out in welcome, hips hinged dramatically to one side, legs morphing mid-thigh from pale skin to blue scales. The mural was muted, pastel colours save for the bright pop of a seahorse or a trio of small fish swimming along the seabed.

Valerie swept forward, a vibrant dawn to Naomi’s more subdued midnight. Her bodice was red, segueing to orange at the waist and down to yellow and white at the hem. She wore red lipstick, her hair slicked back to a smooth cap. Her ears and neck were bare of jewels. She never saw the need to condense her wealth into hard rocks of carbon. She made rockets instead.

The ballroom was glorious, with its rose-hued walls, black and white cameos in relief above the windows lining the room beneath the scalloped ceiling and Tiffany chandeliers. They were the last to enter. Valerie loved to make an entrance.