“Go to sleep, old man,” spits Nítuchí, his voice metallic and small, before I hear the choking sound of a phone line going dead.

“Mina?” my dad cries, sounding lost and alone. “Mina? Did you hear that?”

Those cries come straight from Mina’s chest, as if they’re the awful beating of her own electrical heart.

NONI

My skin prickles as the car pulls up to the red-light street address of the frittimitti bar, Dreamfry. We drove right past Daria’s house—night is its own fresh hell in her neck of the woods, even on a Sunday. Drunken businessmen and gawking tourists stumble past glassy-eyed women who look no older than Tai, gyrating in tiny plasticized getups in windows and on pixelated screens.

I tug on my shirtdress and edge through a crowded beer bar, down a narrow and slippery set of stairs, through one of those pink-beaded curtains that remind me of Britney Spears. I knock on the wood-paneled door with a cloud on it. Music swells on the other side; all I hear is a saxophone. My beating heart threatens to meet the root of my tongue. A woman with feathered lashes as long as a pinkie finger slides open a notch in the door and asks my name in a monotone.

“Manon,” I say. “I’m here for Hérrakí—”

She slides the notch shut and opens the door, welcoming me in, and I’m awash in pink light.

My jaw drops: It’s a jewel box of a place. A half-dozen plush aquamarine velvet-and-feather (!) seats line the bar, all full of trendy patrons in blunt haircuts coolly drinking cocktails and seducing each other, and three chefs stand behind the bar in crisp all-black uniforms, chopping ingredients on pristine wooden cutting boards, with high-tech air fryers behind them. My mouth waters; it smells like ginger dipping sauce and freshly chopped scallions. Pink silk tops the lamps, accounting for the glow, and an old jazz record plays—one I don’t recognize, but that makes me think of balmy nights in Marrakech. My attention is drawn upward, and I see a lavender field painted on the ceiling.

That’s when someone lurches up from a seat in the far edge of my vision to approach me.

Hérrakí.

I smell his soap or his scent or both intermingled, and I have to compose my facial muscles (Seriously? Recognizing his smell?) and remind myself not to act like a walking bag of hormones. He towers over me with this knowing grin, leaning in to kiss me on both cheeks, and I kiss him back—on the cheeks!—because what else are you going to do, and I feel this quickening. I hadn’t realized how tall he is. He’s so tall. Why does height matter? Why does smell matter? Chill out, I hear Tai say in my head.