by Proehl, Bob
“Watch him show up with a ring,” says Carrie.
“Fuck off.”
“Christmas eve? The snow falling on the barbed wire and gun turrets?” says Carrie. “That’s some romantic shit right there. I’d marry him.”
“Are we even allowed to get married?” Hayden asks. “Have they made it illegal yet?”
“Probably,” Carrie says. “It’s not like we get any news in here.”
There’s a one-page weekly newsletter Bryce circulates, but it’s only camp goings-on. Tonight’s pageant. Movie night in the commissary. “Accidental” deaths. Topaz Lake is an Internet dead zone, and they’re cut off from the Hive. No one knows anything about the outside.
“You tell Miquel what’s happening?” Hayden asks.
“Of course,” says Carrie, looking away. One thing hasn’t changed since they were snatched off North Avenue: Carrie doesn’t talk to Miquel about work.
“You think we’re going to pull this off?”
“Of course,” Carrie says.
She misses being able to disappear when she lies.
* * *
—
The pageant is the biggest social event since Topaz started. Everyone is here, or close enough to everyone that anyone who isn’t can say he or she was and be believed. The kids arrive early and are handed over to Miquel’s care. Carrie’s mix of pride and worry about Miquel isn’t unlike what the parents must feel. It’s a point of concern that sometimes she thinks of him as delicate. She’s coming to understand it as a symptom of caring. Fear is a by-product, a terror at the object of caring’s potential loss or destruction. It demonstrates not so much that Miquel could break but that Carrie could, shattered by the loss of him.
Bryce finds Carrie in the lobby of the community center, staring at the door that Miquel and the kids disappear through. “It’s a great turnout,” he says. “He must be excited.”
“Nervous,” Carrie says.
“Him or you?”
“Both.”
“It’s nice to see everybody here,” he says.
“It means they’re starting to accept,” says Carrie. “They’re making it into real life.”
“Some of us have been here a year,” Bryce says. “You can’t fight all the time.”
“I can,” Carrie says.
Bryce smiles at her. “That’s my girl.” This is the way they take care of each other. Each guards the other against complacency, against sleep. They keep the other’s anger stoked.
Carrie spots Hayden on the other side of the crowd. For all the noise they make about hating children, Hayden served as a musical director for the pageant, even writing a couple of nondenominational winter-themed songs. They’re thanked in the program and everything. They wouldn’t have missed this. All this is becoming normal; people are finding ways to live like this. They make sense of the nonsensical because a year is made up of days and the days are made of hours and small units of time have to be endured and survived. Carrie’s worry, one she and Bryce share, is that the goals will become subsumed in the day-to-day. Once they realize they can find joy within misery, they’ll forget the misery is there.
The lights go down, and the stage lights come up. A flurry of children crosses the stage, dressed as snowflakes. They sing one of Hayden’s songs, a bouncing number about blizzards. Carrie catches the look on Hayden’s face as they sing. They’re in wonder.
A heavyset teenage girl Carrie knows from the commissary steps to the center of the stage. She looks around nervously at the crowd. Silence hangs around her, bright as the spotlight. Miquel rushes out and pretends to adjust the microphone stand. He puts a hand on the girl’s shoulder and whispers something to her, then darts off the stage. The girl takes a deep breath. She looks at Hayden in the crowd, who gives the girl a thumbs-up and then quickly tucks her hand away. The girl nods at the accompanist, who starts in, laying down thick, slow chords. It’s a departure for Hayden, whose songs are usually kinetic and shifting, but it works immediately. Carrie feels the weight of the song before the lyrics begin. The girl sways behind the mic stand, her eyes closed. The room is fading away, leaving her by herself with the song. Her voice is strong and big, the kind that fills a room. Carrie wishes she’d step away from the mic. She doesn’t need it.
The lyrics are strange and playful, a riddle game. A list of contradictions and possibilities. The song builds toward an answer, lifts into a major key, but before it can resolve, the lights sputter and die, leaving the room dark. The inhibitor lights in this section stay on, their pale green glow coming through the high windows. Carrie starts the count in her head, knowing that Bryce and Hayden are doing the same thing. She wishes that this didn’t have to happen right now, that the girl could have finished her song first. Sometimes minutes need to be sacrificed for the sake of years.
After a pause, the accompanist continues, tentative. In the dark, he watches the singer to see if she’s shaken, if she’ll continue. He sustains the chord that brings in the chorus, and the singer comes in, a half beat behind. Without amplification or light, the song continues, the singer invisible. The song is the only thing, and each person in the room is alone with it. The singer is giving them the resolution they want, but Carrie’s mind is somewhere else. Her count climbs, approaching a full minute. It’s more than they hoped for. At eighty seconds, the lights flicker back to life. The singer’s voice becomes shockingly loud, and she draws away from the mic. It’s beautiful, but the momentary spell cast in the dark is broken.
“Was that enough time?” Bryce whispers under the applause.
“We’ll see,” Carrie says.
The back doors of the hall burst open, and guards come pouring in, rifles drawn. Some of the guards think the people here should be liquidated. They’re keeping tigers in cages, pretending they’re tame. The kids on stage flinch as weapons are pointed at them, aware of themselves as targets. At the piano, the accompanist starts playing “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime,” bouncing B-flat chords. Mister Benavidez kicks him in the side, knocking him off the piano bench. Shouting profanity and threats, they force people to the ground, shove them to the exits. They separate parents from children, break couples apart. Carrie doesn’t bother to look for Miquel in the scrum. They’ve been through this before. Later, they’ll reassemble. They’ll be okay, if a little more broken. She has to believe this. For now at least, she needs it.
* * *
—
Carrie lies in bed with Miquel long enough to doze off herself, skimming the surface of sleep like a bird. She wakes quickly, worried she’s missed her opportunity. Mister Wentworth, the guard on this sector on Thursday nights, passes Hall H at 11:20, then again at 11:50. In between, when he’s at the apogee of his orbit, there’s an open path to the laundry. This assumes that patrols aren’t doubled tonight. Carrie untwines herself from Miquel and hurries out into the cold without a jacket.
Hayden’s waiting inside the laundry, scowling at their cigarette. The lights in the room are always on, and Carrie can see every hair she and Miquel missed sweeping up this morning, clinging to the wet tiles.
“They got Rafa,” says Hayden. “Guzman says they beat him up pretty bad.”
“Fuck,” Carrie says, taking the cigarette. We’ll get him out, she thinks. We’re going to get them all out. “Did Siu send the message?”
“He thinks so,” Hayden says. “He told people, but he can’t be sure it was anyone who could do anything for us.” They picked Siu because he claimed he was a ninja when it came to Hivecraft. They needed to get the location and conditions of the camp out to somebody in the very limited time the inhibitor lights on the northeast quad went down, after Rafa disabled the generators. It got complicated because none of them knew where they were. Siu said he’d be able to locate himself from inside the Hive. Triangulate, he said. It rang of bullshit, but it was what they had. A month of planning
to send out one broadcast that may not have been received. It cost them Rafa. It alerted the guards to a crack in security that now would be shut. If it didn’t work, they’d have to come up with something else. In the year they’ve been here, they haven’t come up with anything else.
“We wait,” says Carrie. She wants to be the kind of princess who rescues herself, but she’s done all she can. She’s leaped out into the dark, hoping there will be arms to catch her.
Avi watches as Shen pushes through the crowd of protesters in front of Bishop, Emmeline and Viola trailing in his wake. Avi can’t see them, but he knows they’re there. The protesters are here every day, sometimes a handful, sometimes a mob. Emmeline says the handful are the most dangerous. People dedicated enough to show up every day are the most likely to run at you, get in your face. Bishop students never leave the building alone. We travel in packs, for safety, Emmeline told him.
Once Shen’s through the crowd, Emmeline and Viola emerge from behind him. Emmeline’s wearing a new winter coat, slim and dark. Kay must have bought it for her. It makes him miss the puffy purple coat that made her look like some sort of confection. Emmeline spots Avi but keeps a steady pace. She wants to blend back into the city once she’s through, to distance herself from Bishop so she won’t be accosted. When they get near him, he falls into step along with them, waiting for Emmeline to signal that it’s okay to hug her. It happens as they turn the corner onto 59th and find a doorway they can step into. Emmeline squeezes him tight.
“You’re never in New York anymore,” she says.
“It’s hard getting around these days,” Avi says. He hasn’t talked with Emmeline about his break with the Bishop Academy, how it means he can no longer call up Kimani and appear in New York in an instant. Why he’s never the one to escort her out of the building, protect her from the crowds.
“Last week there were lots of them,” she says. “Miss Zavala came out front with us and pushed the crowd apart, like the Red Sea.” She laughs nervously, because she’s leaving out the part where one of the protesters threw a brick into the gap the teacher created and hit Vernon Lister, a second-year telekinetic, in the head. The cut took nine stitches at Mount Sinai. Avi had seen the police report. The cops dispersed the crowd but didn’t make any arrests. There was a bigger crowd the next day.
He never told Emmeline about the detention site, and his e-mails and phone calls to the Bishop staff went unanswered. Louis Hoffman cut him off after that late-night visit. The site was wiped clean by the time he got back there. No sign anyone had been in the warehouse in months. The Trib said they wouldn’t run with what he had, and the Reader said they’d put someone “from the community” on it. To the best of his knowledge, they hadn’t. It’s been over a year, and nothing about it has seen print.
The only person who listened to him was Kay, when he called on Christmas to share Louis’s advice that they get Emmeline out of the country.
“Do you think those people at that school can keep her safe?” she asked. She said things like those people and that school even as she spent her days arguing their personhood in court. Avi thought about the kid who got shot right in front of the academy on Public Day. He knew there was little Bishop or his staff could do to protect Emmeline. But they could, he and Kay. Her in the courts and him in the press, working together even though they were apart.
“Yes,” he said.
They had the same conversation after Kevin Bishop died. Avi was in Revere, covering the barricade standoff from the outside. Kay was in Boston, trying to get the National Guard pulled back by judge’s order. They met up in a bar in Logan Airport after the barricade had been bulldozed, the motions denied, and the stories filed. They both looked like shit and felt defeated. There was an intimacy in letting themselves be seen like that, a veneer of resolve and hope that they cast off only in front of each other. It was like their marriage, the safety in being naked without fear of judgment.
“Should we go?” she asked, staring blankly into her second glass of wine. “Should we just fucking go?” The powerful thing was that if he said yes, they’d leave together. The three of them could be a family again, elsewhere. All Avi had to do was give up.
“We can’t,” he said. He put his hand on hers, and she let it stay. It occurred to him that he should stand up, step around the table, and hold her. Then they called boarding for her flight to Cheyenne. She dropped twenty dollars on the table and was gone.
“You want to have lunch with us?” Emmeline asks Viola.
“I’m going to MoMA,” Viola says. “Now that I’m out, might as well do something normal.” Fourteen to Emmeline’s twelve, Viola is striding awkwardly into adolescence. She’s rail-skinny and newly tall, unaccustomed to the body she finds herself in, and her freckled cheeks are flurried with acne. None of this has diminished her bright demeanor, the positivity that radiates off her. “I’ll text you when I’m heading back. We can walk back in together.” She hugs Emmeline, a show of solidarity, and splices herself into pedestrian traffic.
“What’re you in the mood for, Leener?” Avi asks as they walk.
Emmeline shrugs. “Let’s go far away,” she says. “So far that I can’t see the academy anymore.”
“You having a tough time?”
“It feels like it’s my whole world,” she says.
They take the 6 downtown. “There’s a burger place Mom likes,” says Emmeline. Kay’s in Wyoming, advising the prosecution in Gillette for the trial of the men who killed the Guthridge family. She and Avi spoke about it on the phone for an hour the other day. They’ve been talking more lately, a fact he tries to avoid giving too much weight to.
“I wish we could get the venue moved to somewhere more civilized,” Kay said. “I’m the only black person in this town.”
“It’s not like it’s a race issue,” said Avi.
“It’s got to play like one,” Kay said. “Half the cases I win are by analogy to race. Once the jury is looking at what these people are, it’s a lost cause.”
“What are they?” Avi asked. Kay didn’t answer, and for a second Avi expected her to hang up. She’s still having trouble with all this. She manages to keep her feelings hidden from Emmeline, which he’s grateful for. Through practice, careful wording, Kay never makes their daughter feel like an alien.
The restaurant is crowded and noisy, tile walls and floors reflecting the conversations of every lunchgoer back into the room, remixing them into a din. It’s the kind of place Kay tended to hate, preferring dark and quiet on the rare occasions they went out. Coming here is part of her “dealing” with Emmeline. Quiet moments carry the potential for revelation. Best to avoid them, hide in noise and crowds. Avi once asked Kay if she knew what Emmeline’s ability was. His tone was ambiguous, leaving open the possibility that he already knew.
“It’s never come up,” Kay said, and changed the subject.
When the waiter comes, Emmeline knows exactly what she wants: the bacon cheddar burger, medium, no mayo, no onions, and a ginger ale. Put on the spot, Avi orders the same and a beer. He immediately regrets the latter, but he’s relieved when it arrives.
“Their fries are really good,” Emmeline says, shouting to be heard. Avi nods and sips his beer. He examines Emmeline’s face for signs that she’s turning into a teenager, but it’s not as easy as it was with her roommate. He thinks of her so often that her appearance is fluid, keeping up with who she is right now. Viola moves through time in jumps, changing drastically between their encounters. Emmeline always looks like Emmeline to him. Someday it won’t be true. He’ll look at her and be unconvinced she ever was his little girl. He’ll look at her, and there will be something about her he doesn’t recognize. It hasn’t happened yet, but he can feel the day coming.
“How are things at school?” he says. “You learning anything?”
Emmeline shrugs. “Usual stuff,” she says. “History and math.”
“That’s it?” asks Avi. “What about stuff with your ability?”
He’s come to understand that she’s not going to tell him what it is she can do. She must know. Every other kid her age at Bishop seems to know exactly what his or her ability is. His hope is that if he talks about it as if he already knows, she’ll let something drop. Kay won’t talk with her about it, and Avi thinks he can give Emmeline the safe space to open up.
Emmeline toys with the bracelet on her right wrist. She’s worn it every time Avi’s seen her for the last year or so. It’s strange-looking, African design maybe. He assumes it was a gift from Kay, although Kay’s never been much for jewelry. Catching him watching, Emmeline puts her hands under the table.
“That stuff, too,” she says. “Mostly it’s regular high school stuff. I like my art class.”
Avi’s not interested in her art classes. His reporter brain overrides his dad brain, needling him to ask Emmeline for details about her ability and how she’s training to use it. He has questions he wants answered about the Hive and how the school has changed since Bishop died. He wants to know if she’s heard about anybody going missing. But she’s looking at him with her pale blue eyes, not an interview subject but his daughter who used to spend hours on the floor of her room drawing, who asked for paints and colored pencils at the ages most girls ask for expensive dolls.
“You should show me some of what you’re working on,” he says.
“I’ve got a lot of it hanging in my room,” Emmeline says. “You should come up and see.” Avi’s face must give away the impossibility of this, and with Emmeline there’s always the question of what she knows even when she can’t possibly know it. “I can send you some pictures. I could even mail you a couple. Are you living back in the old house?”
Avi forgets that Emmeline doesn’t know where he lives. Why would she? Sometimes he feels like he doesn’t know. He’s not sure when he’ll be back there next. The neighbors are on permanent alert to pick up the mail, and there’s someone paid to make sure the lawn doesn’t grow to feral heights.