“I want my future wife to usher in this landmark day!” he calls out, and there is a roar of approval as I come forward, blushing, feigning surprise.
This has all been rehearsed, of course. He plays his role. And I am very careful to play mine, too.
The scissors, manufactured for show, are dull, and I have trouble getting the blades through the ribbon. After a few seconds, my palms begin to sweat. I can feel Fred’s impatience behind his smile, can feel the weighted stare of his associates and committee members, all of them watching me from a small, cordoned-off area next to the pack of journalists.
Snip. At last I work the scissors through the ribbon, and the ribbon flutters to the ground, and everyone cheers in front of the high, smooth concrete wall. The barbed wire at its top glistens in the sun, like metal teeth.
Afterward, we adjourn to the basement of a local church for a small reception. People snack on brownies and cheese squares off paper napkins, and sit in folding chairs, balancing plastic cups of soda on their laps.
This, too—the informality, the neighborhood feel, the church basement with its clean white walls and the faint smell of turpentine—was carefully planned.
Fred receives congratulations and answers questions about policy and planned changes. My mother is glowing, happier than I have ever seen her, and when she catches my eye across the room, she winks. It occurs to me that this is what she has wanted for me—for us—all my life.
I drift through the crowd, smiling, making polite conversation when I am needed. Underneath the laughter and chatter, I am pursued by a snake-hiss of sound, a name that follows me everywhere.
Prettier than Cassie . . .
Not as slender as Cassie . . .
Cassie, Cassie, Cassie . . .
Fred is in a great mood as we drive home. He loosens his tie and unbuttons his collar, rolls up his sleeves to the elbow, and opens the windows so the breeze sweeps into the car, blowing his hair across his face.
Already he looks more like his father. His face is red—it was hot in the church—and for a second I can’t help but imagine what it will be like after we are married, and how soon he will want to get started on having babies. I close my eyes and visualize the bay, let the image of Fred on top of me break apart on its waves.
“They were eating it up,” Fred says excitedly. “I threw out a couple hints—here and there—about Finch and the Department of Energy, and you could just tell everyone was going ape shit.”
All of a sudden, I can no longer keep the question down: “What happened to Cassandra?”
His smile falters. “Were you even listening?”
“I was. They were eating it up. Going ape shit.” He winces a little when I say the word shit, even though I’m only parroting his words back to him. “But you reminded me—I’ve been meaning to ask. You never told me what happened to her.”
Now the smile is completely gone. He turns toward the window. The afternoon sunshine stripes his face in alternating patterns of light and shadow. “What makes you think something happened?”
I keep my voice light. “I just meant—I wanted to know why you got divorced.”
He swivels quickly to look at me, eyes narrow, as though hoping to catch the lie on my face. I keep my face neutral. He relaxes a little.
“Irreconcilable differences.” The smile returns. “They must have made a mistake when they evaluated her. She wasn’t right for me at all.”
We stare at each other, both of us smiling, doing our duty, keeping our respective secrets.
“You know one of the things I like best about you?” he asks, reaching for my arm.
“What?”
He jerks me suddenly close to him. Surprised, I cry out. He pinches the soft skin on the inside of my elbow, sending a sharp zip of pain down my arm. Tears prick my eyes, and I inhale deeply, willing them back.
“That you don’t ask too many questions,” he says, and then pushes me away from him roughly. “Cassie asked too many questions.”
Then he leans back, and we drive the rest of the way in silence.
Late afternoon used to be my favorite time of day—mine, and Lena’s. Is it still?
I don’t know. My feelings, my old preferences, are just out of reach—not eradicated completely, as they should have been, but like shadows, burning away whenever I try to focus on them.
I don’t ask questions.
I just go.
The ride to Deering Highlands already feels easier. Thankfully, I don’t encounter anyone. I deposit the supplies of food and gasoline in the underground cellar that Grace showed me.
Afterward, I make for Preble Street, where Lena’s uncle used to have his little corner grocery store. As I suspected, it is now closed and shuttered. Metal grates have been drawn over its windows; beyond the latticed steel, I see graffiti scrawls across the glass, now indecipherable, faded by rain and weather. The awning, a royal blue, is torn up and half-dismantled. One thin, spindly metal support, like the jointed leg of a spider, has come free of the fabric and swings pendulum-like in the wind. A small placard fixed to one of the metal grates says COMING SOON! BEE’S SALON AND BARBER.
The city no doubt forced him to close his doors, or the customers stopped coming, worried that they would be guilty by association. Lena’s mother, Lena’s uncle William, and now Lena . . .
Too much bad blood. Too much disease.
No wonder they’re hiding in the Deering Highlands. No wonder Willow is hiding there as well. I wonder whether it was by choice—or whether they were coerced, threatened, or even bribed to leave a better neighborhood.
I don’t know what possesses me to go around back, to the narrow alley and the small blue door that used to lead to the storeroom. Lena and I used to hang out here together when she was stocking shelves after school.
The sun slants hard over the sloped roofs of the buildings around me, skipping right over the alley, which is dark and cool. Flies buzz around a Dumpster, droning and then colliding with the metal. I climb off my bike and lean it against one of the beige concrete walls. The sounds from the street—people shouting to one another, the occasional rumble of a bus—already seem distant.
I step toward the blue door, which is streaked with pigeon shit. Just for a moment, time seems to fold in two, and I imagine that Lena will fling open the door for me, as she always did. I’ll grab a seat on one of the crates of baby formula or canned green beans, and we’ll split a bag of chips and a soda stolen from stock, and we’ll talk about . . .
What?
What did we talk about then?
School, I guess. The other girls in our class, and track meets, and the concert series in the park and who was invited to whose birthday party, and things we wanted to do together.
Never boys. Lena wouldn’t. She was far too careful.
Until, one day, she wasn’t.
That day I remember perfectly. I was still in shock because of the raids the night before: the blood and the violence, the chorus of shouting and screaming. Earlier that morning, I had thrown up my breakfast.
I remember Lena’s expression when he knocked on the door: eyes wild, terrified, body stiff; and how Alex had looked at her when she finally let him into the storeroom. I remember exactly what he was wearing, too, and the mess of his hair, the sneakers with their blue-tinged laces. His right shoe was untied. He didn’t notice.
He didn’t notice anything but Lena.
I remember the hot flash that stabbed through me. Jealousy.
I reach out for the door handle, suck in a deep breath, and pull. It’s locked, of course. I don’t know what I was expecting, and why I feel so disappointed. It would be locked. Beyond it, the dust will be settling on the shelves.
This is the past: It drifts, it gathers. If you are not careful, it will bury you. This is half the reason for the cure: It clean-sweeps; it makes the past, and all its pain, distant, like the barest impression on sparkling glass.
But the cure works differently for everybody; and it does not work perfectly for all.
I’m resolved to help Lena’s family. Their store was taken away and their apartment reclaimed, and for that I am partly responsible. I was the one who encouraged her to go to her first illegal party; I was the one who always egged her on, asking her about the Wilds, talking about leaving Portland.
And I was also the one who helped Lena escape. I got the note to Alex informing him she had been caught and that her procedural date had been changed. If it weren’t for me, Lena would have been cured. She might be sitting in one of her courses at the University of Portland, or walking the streets of the Old Port with her pair. The Stop-N-Save would still be open, and the house on Cumberland would be occupied.
But the guilt goes even deeper than that. It, too, is dust: Layers and layers of it have accumulated.
Because if it weren’t for me, Lena and Alex would never have been caught at all.
I told on them.
I was jealous.
God forgive me, for I have sinned.
Lena
I wake up to motion and noise. Julian is gone.
The sun is high, the sky cloudless, and the day still. I kick off the blankets and sit up, blinking hard. My mouth tastes like dust.
Raven is kneeling nearby, feeding twigs, one at a time, to one of the campfires. She glances up at me. “Welcome to the land of the living. Sleep well?”
“What time is it?” I ask.
“After noon.” She straightens up. “We’re about to head down to the river.”
“I’ll come with you.” Water: That’s what I need. I need to wash and drink. My whole body feels like it’s coated in grime.
“Come on, then,” she says.
Pippa is sitting at the edge of her camp, talking with an unfamiliar woman.
“From the resistance,” Raven explains when she sees me looking, and my heart does a funny stutter in my chest. My mother is with the resistance. It’s possible the stranger knows her. “She’s a week late. She was coming from New Haven with supplies but got waylaid by patrols.”
I swallow. I’m afraid to ask the stranger for news. I’m terrified I’ll once again be disappointed.
“Do you think Pippa’s going to leave Waterbury?” I ask.
Raven shrugs. “We’ll see.”
“Where will we go?” I ask her.
She shoots me a small smile, reaches out and touches my elbow. “Hey. Don’t worry so much, okay? That’s my job.”
I feel a rush of affection for her. Things between us have not been the same since I found out that she and Tack used me—and Julian—for the movement. But I would be lost without her. We all would be.
Tack, Hunter, Bram, and Julian are standing together, holding makeshift buckets and containers of various sizes. They have obviously been waiting for Raven. I don’t know where Coral and Alex are. I don’t see Lu, either.
“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Hunter says. He has obviously slept well. He looks a hundred times better than he did yesterday, and he isn’t coughing anymore.
“Let’s get this party started,” Raven says.
We leave the relative safety of Pippa’s camp and push into the jostle of people, through the maze of patched-together shelters and makeshift tents. I try not to breathe too deeply. It stinks of unwashed bodies and—even worse—of bathroom smells. The air is thick with flies and gnats. I can’t wait to wade into the water, to wash away the smells and the dirt. In the distance, I can just make out the dark thread of the river, winding along the south side of the camp. Not too much farther now.