Page 10 of The Red Woman on Mars

The women around her were reading aloud their letters and laughing. Vivian picked hers up and tore it open. Ren. He’d written her a poem. Vivian refreshed her mailbox again.

When Delilah returned, clad in a lavender dress that sparkled against her alabaster skin, Vivian was still sitting at the console. “What’s wrong?” her sister asked.

“Nothing.”

Delilah leaned over Vivian’s shoulder to check her own mailbox. Also empty. “They’re fine, Viv. Dad’s probably making a scrap metal trade right now. And you know Mom has an extra-large pot of brown stew bubbling away, ready to sell. They got on okay for thirty years before they met you—they don’t need you mothering them.”

“I don’t mother them.”

“You do. You have ever since we got to the camp.”

“Well, somebody had to take care of them. And you.”

When they’d first arrived at Sumter, her father had moved like a walking corpse. In all the time she’d grown up in their comfortable home by the ocean, he’d never let on how much debt he’d taken on to keep their lifestyle afloat, even as the rising sea level made it impossible to sell their house.

And then the storm hit.

Vivian cast around for a change of subject. “Did you get many letters?”

“So many. I’mverypopular.”

“I don’t understand this place. Our role here is confusing.”

Delilah playfully shoved Vivian’s arm. “You’re here to find a husband and have his tall Martian babies. And you know what I believe? We’re going to both marry for love.”

Vivian snorted. “In sixty days?”

“Yes! Is that so hard to believe?”

I’m not falling in love, Vivian thought. But to her sister, she only said, “Sweet baby sister, if any of us falls in love, it will be you.”

“He’s here, Delilah!” Shiloh shouted from the window.

Delilah fluffed her blond ringlets and moved to open the outer door. “Mr. Hayes.” She wobbled an exaggerated curtsey.

“Ah, Miss Bowen,” Caspian said from the doorway. “I trust you received my invitation?”

“I did. And I would love topromenadewith you.” She opened her eyes very wide and blinked up at him.

“Has anyone ever told you, Miss Bowen, that your eyes are the exact shade of blue of a Martian sunset?”

Delilah ducked her head. “No.” And then she smiled. “But I’ve only been on Mars for two days. I haven’t seen a sunset yet.”

“We must remedy this. I shall take you to my terraforming facility outside the domes. There, the view is unobstructed.”

“What’s it like?”

“Like a miracle,” Caspian whispered. “When the stars come out, they blanket the navy sky by the thousands, and the horizon is lit with glowing violet light.”

“Wow,” Delilah breathed.

Caspian’s lips were parted as he gazed down upon her. Someone giggled, breaking the spell.

“Excellent,” he said briskly. Touching a hand to his top hat, he murmured, “Ladies,” and held open the door for Delilah.

Luz came to stand beside Vivian against the wall. “Everyone is acting so fucking stupid—like we don’t know what can happen when one side has all the control. You’d think the girls would have learned something in the camps instead of falling happily into this fake-ass fairy tale.”

Vivian couldn’t help but feel a bit proud that Luz put her in a different category from her sister and the other younger women. She wanted the sophisticated, worldly Luz to see her as a peer, despite their age gap. “Delilah told me she wants to fall in love.” She stepped into the kitchen and looked through the window above the sink where she could see Delilah and Caspian beginning their walk.