The Evolution of Love

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  “I’m just surprised. I thought you were a lot older. And I don’t understand the haircut and shorts.”

  “Are you completely stupid?”

  “No, not completely.”

  “Maybe you didn’t see Binky in the dumpster.”

  Lily lay back in the dirt, looked up at the smoky sky and listened to the shushing sound of the wind, as if it were advising calm. Thirteen, not sixteen. Indefinite gender. Hostile and vulnerable. When someone in the city far below began screaming, Lily sat back up and said, “I did see him, Annie. Tell you what we’re going to do now.”

  Annie nodded hard. She might as well have saluted, so attentively did she wait for the plan.

  “My sister is at Lake Anza. I think. I hope. We’re going to go get her. Then we’re getting out of here.”

  “You and me together.”

  “I have a plane ticket for Omaha, Nebraska. Maybe I can get Tom to send another couple.” She couldn’t imagine showing up in Fair Oaks with this kid. If anyone had any better ideas along the way, she would be happy to entertain them. For now, this was the best plan she could fathom.

  Someone whooped. This was followed by a bark-roar that morphed into a low wail, rising to a high grunt.

  Annie scrambled to her feet. “The wolf!”

  “It’s not a wolf.”

  “Yes, it is. I saw a wolf here yesterday!”

  Lily stopped herself from scanning the surrounding chaparral. “No, you didn’t. There aren’t any wolves in Berkeley.”

  “I did. Black nose, scruffy coat—”

  “No, Annie.”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on. Grab the bike. Let’s go.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “Pack up the food.”

  When they reached the turnoff to Sal’s shed, Lily told Annie to wait. She ran up to the locked chain-link gate and weaved her fingers in the metal diamonds as she shouted, “Sal!”

  Sal stepped right out of the shed, as if she’d been waiting.

  “Come on,” Lily called up. “It’s time to leave.”

  Sal clumped down to the fence but didn’t unlock the gate. Strands of her thick auburn hair stuck to her damp face. Her mouth hung open and she breathed irregularly, like an animal in fear. She didn’t speak.

  “Open the gate,” Lily said and gently rattled the chain links.

  “I’m staying.”

  “The city is on fire. It’s bad. The sooner we leave the better. It’s only going to get harder.”

  Sal shook her head.

  “We’re going to pick up Vicky. Come with us. Give her another chance.”

  Sal’s tawny eyes flickered, but then she flipped her hair off the back of her neck. “She’s thirty-five years old. I’m almost forty. Radical personality change is unlikely.”

  “Maybe. But a small shift in the right direction could help a lot, right?”

  “I’m quite happy on my own.”

  “It’s already a hot day. If this wind picks up, the fires could sweep right up the hill. You won’t survive. Neither will they.”

  “They?”

  “I know why you’re here. Some of the hyenas are at large. I hear them whooping in the mornings. You have to let them go.”

  “The hyenas were airlifted out.”

  “Except for how many?”

  Sal looked up into the canopy of a live oak. She shook her head.

  “How many?”

  “Just two.”

  Lily looked around quickly, half expecting to see a couple of glistening snouts, four round fuzzy ears, four onyx eyes opaque with distrust, snarling black lips pulled back over inky gums and bone-crushing teeth. She jumped when Annie, who’d joined her at the fence, grabbed a handful of her T-shirt.

  “I told you so,” Annie said. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “They’re not wolves.” The last thing Lily needed at the moment was to be arguing with a thirteen-year-old. “Please just keep quiet, okay?”

  “Same dif. Wolves, hyenas.”

  “You’ve been trying to trap them,” Lily said to Sal.

  “No. They’re way too smart for that.”

  “Right. There’s nothing you can do for them. So come on with me.”

  “Us,” Annie said.

  “It’s my job to protect them. I was trapping rabbit to feed them.”

  “Was?”

  “I rarely see them anymore. They’re probably feeding on deer.”

  “So they don’t need you.”

  Sal crossed her arms. “I love them.”

  Lily couldn’t quite believe she was having an extended conversation about the safety of a couple of hyenas when her own life was at risk. “If the fire sweeps up here, they’ll die and so will you.”

  “I can’t leave them.”

  “They’ll be fine.”

  “It’s a male and a female.”

  “So?”

  “If they have pups, the entire course of evolution on the North American continent could be radically changed. For starters, they’d wipe out the deer in probably one generation.”

  Annie gasped.

  “You can’t control everything,” Lily said. “In fact, you can’t control anything. The hyenas were on this continent before us. So maybe they’re back. They have as much of a right to make a living as we do. Come on, Annie.” Lily turned her back on Sal.

  “Shouldn’t she be coming with us?” Annie said pointing at Sal.

  “Yes, she should be. But she’s a stubborn cow.”

  “Lily!” Sal shouted once she and Annie were back down on the fire trail.

  Lily turned and looked up at the wild woman gripping the chain-link fence.

  “Tell Vicky I love her.” An unmistakable husk of desire wrapped her voice.

  Lily waved a dismissing hand but knew she’d deliver the message. If ever she got a chance.

  37

  Vicky had a premonition. It came to her as a quick mental burst. The sensation unnerved her. At first she was interested only in the experience itself. What did it mean to feel strongly that something was about to happen? How was she supposed to read it? Was she supposed to just ride out the thing that was about to happen? Or should she try to take some sort of action?

  Whatever it was, it was undeniable. Something bad was about to happen, and it was going to be her fault. Only what? She needed to think.

  Yes, she’d better try to take action.

  So Vicky left the electronics bunker, hidden in the trees on the hillside above Lake Anza, and walked down to the camp. The kids sat at the picnic table eating sandwiches, and the adults pored over maps that Vicky had hand-drawn from electronic images. She climbed into the Eero Aarnio Bubble Chair, hanging from the live oak, and pushed off with her feet to swing and think.

  The day was terribly hot, and the inside of the bubble was like an oven, so she leaned forward, out the opening of the chair, letting her face feel the rush of air as she swung. Maybe later she’d have a swim in the lake.

  She’d made a mistake. She could admit that now. Travis was, as Lily had said, outside acceptable levels of mental health.

  But so what? She’d moved on from his plans to her own. The folks here at Lake Anza wanted to leave, and she was helping them put together an exit plan. She’d spent the last few days in the electronics bunker trying to strengthen the computers’ connection to the satellites. They worked only intermittently, but when they did, she researched resources for stranded earthquake victims, finding transportation and emergency housing, like way stations on the Underground Railroad, for their journey out. It had been slow and laborious, but she’d put together safe passage for her charges.

  Other than that, she’d tried to improve the camp ambiance with humor. No one much laughed at her jokes, which made her miss Sal, acutely.


  Still, her timing had been excellent. The new earthquake this morning jolted—ha, ha—everyone into action. The three remaining families were packing up their belongings and they’d soon be on their way. Then Vicky could figure out what to do with herself.

  Two men stepped into the camp clearing. She recognized them both. One was Travis’s guard, the guy who looked like Pluto. The other, unfortunately, was Paul.

  So here was the bad thing.

  At least she’d been right! Vicky loved being right.

  But now she needed to decide, quite quickly, on a course of action.

  She launched herself out of the bubble chair and flew a good ten feet, landing in front of the fire pit. She wrenched her ankle and startled the two men. Paul gaped. And Vicky made the mistake of laughing.

  38

  Annie needed to protect Lily. She was too skinny. Her complexion was so pale, with a hint of a rash, and her hair hung limp and lifeless. Besides, she didn’t even know what to be afraid of. She just did things.

  Choose love over fear, Binky liked to say. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Lily could get herself killed.

  Not on Annie’s watch.

  Binky had been killed because Annie was a big fat sissy. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Thinking she could wear girls’ clothes. No more. She was going to be a man. Grandma had been right about that much. If nothing else, Annie needed to be a man so she could protect Lily.

  Annie walked on the street side, keeping herself between the occasional cars and Lily. Sometimes she held out her hand, signaling to the drivers that they should give them more space on the side of the road.

  “Did you get enough to eat?” Annie asked.

  Lily gave her that surprised look she had, kind of permanently baffled, but Annie knew it wasn’t real. Lily sometimes acted confused when she actually wasn’t, even if she thought she was. Binky would have called that circular thinking. Whatever.

  “I have more peanut butter and bread.”

  “Thanks. I’m good for now.”

  She’d liked watching Lily eat the sandwiches, orange, and cookies. The food that she, Annie, had provided. Maybe at the lake she could catch some fish and they could cook it over a campfire. Soon the fruit would start ripening, too: blackberries and plums.

  They arrived at the lake a little before eight o’clock that morning. Annie had heard about Lake Anza, but she’d never been here before. The place looked haunted, all quiet and deserted, the water reflecting the flat, gray sky. You could smell smoke from the burning cities.

  “What’s that?” Annie asked, pointing at a large clear globe—it looked like a deep-sea capsule—bobbing against the reeds on the far side of the lake.

  Lily took off, running the length of the spillway. She waded into the lake without even taking off her sneakers. She parted the reeds to get to the floating plastic bubble, grabbed hold of an edge of the opening, and dragged it out of the water. Annie jogged, pushing the bicycle, to catch up. She found Lily trying to tip the bubble so that the water would drain out. Inside was a soaking wet metallic silver cushion, blackened by a bunch of cigarette burns. Lily let go of the bubble and ran up the hill, water squishing out of her sneakers.

  When Annie arrived at the clearing, breathing hard from pushing the bicycle up the hill, she found Lily crouched next to someone lying on the ground. A man and a woman stood next to a gnarly picnic table.

  “Come on, Winnie,” the man said. “We can leave now.”

  “Who did this?” Lily yelled.

  Annie set down the bike and came closer. Was this Vicky? A deep gash on her cheek gushed blood. Her eyes were swollen shut and one arm was bent all crazy, like it was broken. Annie watched her chest and saw movement, breath.

  “Take this,” the woman said, handing Lily a bloody rag. “I’ve been applying pressure. That’s all I know to do.”

  “I asked who did this!”

  Annie put a hand on Lily’s shoulder. She gripped hard, fighting back that feeling that her head was going to explode. She wanted to kill the person who did this.

  The man took Winnie’s arm and began pulling her away from the camp.

  “Wait!” Lily yelled at the couple’s retreating backs.

  The woman turned, but the man kept walking.

  “You have to tell me what happened.”

  The man whirled around angrily. “We have to go. We’ve done all we can for your sister.”

  “They wanted the key to the electronics bunker,” Winnie said in a pain-dulled voice. “Vicky told them no.”

  “Travis?”

  “He wasn’t here. But he calls the shots.”

  “He doesn’t believe in violence.” As if saying the words would make them true.

  “You’re delusional,” the man said to Lily. He checked the position of the sun, then took Winnie’s arm again. “Let’s go.”

  “Help me move her down to the lake before you go.”

  “You can’t move her. She’s broken.”

  “It’s the last thing I’ll ask of you.”

  “What are you going to—?” The man looked aghast, glancing at Vicky and then at the lake water, as if Lily planned on drowning her sister, as Annie’s grandma had done to that litter of kittens.

  “Please just help me.”

  Winnie put a hand on the man’s forearm. “A few more minutes isn’t going to change anything. Vicky did all that work to help us. We have her maps. The places to stay once we get east of the hills.”

  “Please,” Lily said.

  “Those thugs will be back any minute.” The man spoke impatiently.

  “I’m going to cradle her shoulders in my hands and let her head rest on my forearms,” Lily said. “Annie, you get her legs. You two get on either side and try to support her back and butt. We’re carrying her to the beginning of the spillway.”

  Everyone grunted, swore, sweat, and stumbled. Vicky cried out once, then lost consciousness again. They had to put her down twice. But they did it. They reached the end of the lake and set Vicky down next to the soggy bubble chair.

  Lily handed Annie the bloody rag, and she knew just what to do. She rinsed it out in the lake and then held it against Vicky’s gash, applying gentle pressure. Lily took a blue button-down shirt from her backpack and used it to loosely tie Vicky’s broken arm against her body.

  Then Lily pushed into the undergrowth next to the trail. Annie figured she had to pee, but a moment later she emerged dragging a kayak. Annie had heard how native people sometimes put elders in canoes and floated them out to their deaths.

  “What are you staring at?” Annie asked the couple who still stood on the spillway, watching. “I thought you were leaving.”

  “Since you’re still here,” Lily said, “help me lift her in.”

  As Lily worked her sister’s legs into the front cockpit, and the others supported her upper body, Vicky howled with pain. Which meant she was still alive.

  “Comfy?” Lily asked, shifting her sister’s body into as upright a position as possible on the plastic seat. Her neck cocked at a bad angle, but there was nothing they could do about that. Lily lodged the paddle in the back cockpit. Annie rinsed the cloth again.

  “So,” Lily said to the man and woman. “You’re coming with us?”

  “No!” They walked backward a few steps, eyes wild.

  “The city is on fire,” Lily told them. “You’ll do best by walking east from here.”

  The man took Winnie’s hand, and they hoofed their way across the spillway.

  Lily brushed Vicky’s bangs off her forehead. “I’m going to get you out of here.” Vicky’s lips twitched. It might have been a smile.

  “Hey, guess what,” Lily said. “I just saw Sal. She says to tell you she loves you.”

  It was a smile. Her mouth wrenched apart. Her swollen eyes blinked.

&
nbsp; Annie filled both of their water bottles, Lily lifted the stern handle, and they trekked along the spillway and across the Lake Anza parking lot. As they began climbing the hill up to Wildcat Canyon Road, Annie asked, “What if the thugs come back?”

  Lily didn’t answer.

  “I wish I had a gun.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I would kill them.”

  “No one is coming back.”

  “They will. They always do.”

  Lily set down the kayak and shook the ache out of her pulling arm.

  Annie waited, straddling the bike. She pushed the soles of both Air Jordans hard onto the pavement, trying to tamp down that feeling of wanting to stab someone. Sometimes the only thing she could see, as if it were imprinted on her pupils, was the picture of Binky’s naked body in the dumpster.

  Lily looked out at the lake. “You know what, Annie?”

  She shook her head. Binky said revenge was useless, a dead end.

  “You’re only thirteen years old and you already know a lot about who you want to be. You stand by your friends to the end. You left a home that didn’t fit. You walk for miles to get where you want to get. You’re fierce.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “And you know what those thugs have?”

  “I’m not fierce.”

  “They have a whole lot of fear. They don’t know what they want. They only have fake fierceness.”

  “They kill people.”

  Lily cocked her head one way and then another, as if killing people was neither here nor there. “So maybe they’ll come kill us today. We don’t know, do we? But there are a few things we do know. I got my sister here and she’s still breathing. We have your strong legs on a bicycle. We have a rolling kayak, and let me tell you, that’s pretty unique. We have your fierceness and my naïveté.”

  “What’s naïveté?”

  “A fresh path through known territory.”

  “Right,” Annie said. “We have each other, too.”

  Lily paused. “Yep. We do.”

  39

  The firs lining the road, their evergreen color and peppery scent, lifted Lily’s spirits. Smoke blanched the sky, as if the entire world were about to be sucked upward, but at least for this one moment, on this wooded road leading up from the lake, Vicky was alive and they had a way forward. Maybe courage was nothing more than one foot in front of another.