It occurs to me that I probably won't be around to eat what we harvest today. I wonder what I'll eat in the Reservation. What if everything's different there? What if the food gets shipped in from outer space? I don't care for tomatoes in particular, but now I feel a strange sense of urgency, wondering if I'll see one again after Nathan takes me away.
We're not supposed to eat while we harvest. I can't imagine it will matter if I get into trouble now, if I pop the marble-sized fruit into my mouth, break its papery skin between my teeth, taste the tartness of it's flesh on my tongue. But I can't quite muster the nerve to do it. Adrienne is the rule-breaker. Nars is the impulsive one. I never get into trouble unless they're getting into trouble with me.
I lug my crate of tomatoes to one of the sealers. "Need a hand?" Nars says, but I shake my head. I can't look him in the eye. The yellow envelope is in my pocket, flat against my thigh. I tug at the hem of my shirt, afraid a yellow corner might peek out and give me away.
I wonder when Nathan will come. I feel like I've been waiting for him for hours, but it hasn't really been that long. Secretly, I'm hoping he won't show. But I've never been lucky.
Some people, most people, would call a yellow envelope luck, but not me. I've got Adrienne and Nars in the bunker. Finding them was my luck; leaving them feels like a very unlucky thing.
I had no friends before I came to the bunker. I thought I'd have friends forever, living here. I wish Nathan could take all of us away. But he only came for me.
I try to imagine myself living in the Reservation, standing alone in a plush, green field, pushing off fawn-tipped blades of grass. The nuns call the Reservation a green abyss, a deluge of sunshine. There is no ceiling there to catch the rain, or walls to field the ripe whip of the wind. That's what they say, anyway. It's what the Order tells them to tell us.
Nars doesn’t like to talk about the Reservation. He misses the outside more than any of us, I think. He was nine when Brant brought him here. Nine! He spent nine years living on the outside, longer than anyone. We all know he wishes he was still out there. For Nars, the bunker is a cage, but for me, it’s home.
From inside the green house, we can see a filtered version of the desert. I like to face the glass when I work, but Nars keeps his back turned to it, which is how we usually wind up working face-to-face.
It's warm in the green house. In the winter, when the bunker gets chilly, it's the best place to be. Sometimes, Adrienne sneaks us up here and we all snuggle together underneath one big blanket, surrounded by green plants, with the sharp glare of the moon on the pitched roof overhead.
It's too hot to do that now. I realize I might never sneak up here after hours again, that I might never feel the same excitement in my stomach, wondering if we'll get caught.
I want to tell Nars and Adrienne how much I'll miss it, and them. Especially them. But I don't. I don't want them to know that I'm leaving. Maybe there's a way to get out of it, or at least to hold it off. Maybe Nathan will let me stay here for one more year. I'll squeeze in every special thing that each season has to offer. I'll make every single second count.
"Did you hear about Cassidy's admirer?" Adrienne says. It's harder to pretend that yesterday was just a nightmare, that the ticket isn't real, that Nathan's just a figment of my imagination, when she saw him walk out of the cafeteria, when she asked Sister Nanette about him. When I spent the entire night awake with the sweat-stained yellow envelope balled up inside my fist.
Nars doesn't look at me. His brow folds up like batter. He's concentrating too hard on the vacuum-sealer. He's used it a hundred times, so I know he's just annoyed. Adrienne loves to annoy him.
"I heard he didn't stay very long," Nars says. I wonder who he heard that from. People talk about Adrienne and Nars all the time. They're always getting into trouble. People don't usually talk about me.
"Maybe he just wanted to see you in person," Adrienne says. "To make sure you're not a boar. I guess we'll know if you're pretty or not if he writes you a letter."
"Shut up, Adrienne," Nars says. He speaks English when he's around us. He spent a long time learning it when he first arrived, longer than it took me and Adrienne to learn French. "We all know she's pretty."
"That's the joke, dummy." Adrienne glares at him, but he's still glaring at the sealer.
"Well," he says after a few minutes, "what did he look like, Cass?"
Adrienne closes her eyes. "Dreamy," she says. She puts a hand to her forehead and pretends to faint.
I shrug. "He was tall, I guess," I say. "And he had, I don't know, facial hair."
"Scruff," Adrienne says.
"Yeah." I rub a finger over the smooth, round curve of my jaw. "He had a sunburn, too."
"Outsiders always have sunburns," Nars says. "We all had sunburns. Remember?"
And we all have sun spots now, little speckles here and there, even though our skin is fair. Nars has more freckles than anybody.
"In other words, he looked nothing like you," Adrienne says. Nars socks her in the shoulder and knocks her off balance. She lands on her backside with a yelp and then curses as an afterthought. Nars still won't look up, but I see him grin. I grin, too.
"That's not true," I say. I'm always smoothing their ruffled feathers. I wonder who will keep the peace when I'm gone. "His shoulders were sort of big like yours."
"He must work out," Nars says. Adrienne snorts.
The intercom buzzes and we all look at it, startled. No one's used the intercom in months. Sister Nanette's voice comes through.
"Cassidy, you have a visitor," she says.
Adrienne balks. Nars lifts his eyes up to meet mine and I feel guilty all of a sudden. He's good at making me feel that way, even when I haven't done anything wrong.
"Guess I am pretty,” I say. It sounds like a joke when I say it, but it feels like a bold-faced lie.
Chapter Six
I notice more about Nathan when I see him this time. He's bigger than Nars, I think, but it's hard to be sure. We sit in the same chairs we chose yesterday and his shadow dwarfs mine, making the planks of wood between us dark.
He's not pale like us. Nars had a point: most outsiders aren't. I look at my hands and they're white and flat. They're lighter than they usually are, set in the black pool of Nathan's shadow.
He's striking. Adrienne was right about that. His skin is full of color, red and bronze like he's wearing the sun. There's something vital about him. It makes my stomach skip. I tell myself that he's just like any other outsider, like anyone who’s ever paid Adrienne a visit, but I can't quite believe it. I can't decide why.
He's got an easy posture, but it's straight. Too straight, I think. It makes me notice the way I slouch. I sit up a little straighter. I fidget. He doesn't move, but his eyes move over me.
There's something about his gaze that makes me feel plain, like he can't find anything worth looking at. I'm embarrassed. Nobody's ever looked at me like that. I want to hit him for it. If he was Nars, I would. But I just lace my fingers together in my lap. I bunch up my knuckles until they're sore. I stare right back at him, but he doesn't seem to mind.
I want to tell him he's an ass, but I bite my tongue. He hasn't really done anything to make me say that, and besides, Sister Nanette is standing in the corner of the room. She's got ears like a bat, and they only hear ungodly things.
I look less like myself than I usually do. My shirt is tucked in. I've flattened the frizz on top of my hair with the palm of my hand. I haven't ever made myself presentable like this, not even for church. My boots are frequently untied and my shirt is often misbuttoned.
I know I've got the buttons right today; I inspected them twice after I left the green house. I'm not sure why I did that. Nathan is handsome, but I've seen handsome boys before. Nars is handsome and he's just a brother to me.
I shouldn't care what Nathan thinks. He's a stranger and probably a jerk. So why am I fighting the urge to check my button holes again, to make sure I haven't left one of them unoccu
pied? Why should it matter if Nathan sees me sloppy and misbuttoned, the way Adrienne and Nars see me every day? Why should it matter what he thinks of me?
I want Nathan to smile. A tension sits between us like a tight rein. It makes me anxious. I think a smile would give it some slack. But he keeps on frowning, so I frown, too. If he won't put on airs, then neither will I.
I wonder if Sister Nannette knows who Nathan is, if she knows why he's here. If she knows whether he's human or not. I wonder if she'll try to stop him when he takes me away.
I’m sure she won’t. The nuns are employed by the Order. They champion the Reservation. Their praise is as shiny as wax on the hood of an old-world classic car; it makes the Reservation gleam. But a part of me thinks she should mourn my leaving, the way a mother would. She’s the closest thing I’ve had to a mother these past eleven years.
There's other kids milling about in the cafeteria, reading and mending their clothes, looking at me when they think I won't notice. I'm not sure what bothers me more: the bunker kids sneaking glances or Nathan staring at me, head on.
"You don't look excited," Nathan says.
"I'm not," I say. "Do I really have to go?"
He hikes up a brow like no one's ever asked him that before. "I can see why you wouldn't want to leave...all of this." He looks at the bunker the same way he looked at me, like it's junk. I ball my hands up into fists.
"This is my home," I say.
"Not anymore," he says. "Let's go."
He starts to stand, but I reach for him. I don't mean to do it. "Go?" I say. "Now?"
He's halfway out of his chair and now I'm sure he's taller than me. "Now," he says.
"I haven't packed," I say. I'm stalling and I think he knows it.
"You don't need to pack," he says.
"I'm not ready."
"Too bad," he says. "Let's go."
I stand up, too. I take the crumpled envelope out of my pocket and try to push it into his hands. I don't want anyone in the cafeteria to see it, but I'm desperate for him to take it, to take it all back, to pretend he never came here, to pretend I don't exist. "Please don't take me away," I say. I've never liked to say please. With friends like Adrienne and Nars, I don't have to say it very often.
Nathan takes the envelope from me, probably because I'm shoving it against his knuckles like a nut. He smooths out the places where it's wrinkled. "You haven't even opened it," he says.
"Why should I?" I say. "I know what's inside."
He chews his cheek. It makes a dimple at the corner of his mouth. "I didn't choose you," he says. "The government did. You should know it wasn't me. I'm a transporter. I've had just as much choice about it as you."
He's speaking quietly now, like he's said something he shouldn't. I feel a piece of my heart chip off, like he's struck it with steal. He won't break the rules for me. Why should I expect him to? He doesn't even know me.
I sink back into my chair. Nathan walks around the table and takes a knee beside me. He's got a funny look on his face, like he wants to placate me, but he's not quite sure how to do it.
I fold my arms over my chest. "You don't have to treat me like a child," I say.
"I thought so, too," he says. I glare at him. He hands me the envelope. It's smooth now. I get a fraction of pleasure, stuffing it back into my pocket, hearing it crinkle.
"I'll come back tonight," he says. He checks his watch. "You've got eleven hours." He stands up. "Go say your goodbyes." And he leaves.
I watch him walk out. His stride is long and precise. I grind my teeth. I swallow till I think I've ingested all of my despair. I have to go, I realize. I have to go to the Reservation and he has to take me. But I won't crumple up like yellow paper. Not if I can help it.
Chapter Seven
I wonder how I'll say goodbye. I think about writing a letter to Adrienne and Nars. I even start to draft one out on paper. I spend an hour trying to think of the best words to say to them, and then I realize I've spent one of my last hours in the bunker with a piece of paper instead of with my friends.
I go back up to the green house.
Adrienne grins when I hoist myself out of the tube. "You were down there for a while," she says.
"Yeah," I say. She wiggles a brow. Nars mashes string beans together on a fresh sheet of plastic. "I went to the women's quarters for a little bit. By myself," I add.
"Oh," Adrienne says. She's disappointed.
"Come on, Adrienne," Nars says. "Cassidy doesn't even know this guy. She's not going to sneak him into a closet. She's not you."
"Bite me," Adrienne says.
"It's not like that, anyway," I say, so they'll both shut up. "It's something else. I..." I bite my lip. "He brought me something."
"He brought you something?" Nars's brow pinches together. I look at my shoes. "No," he says, almost under his breath. "Not you."
I hope he knows. I hope he'll say it for me. That will be better, I think, than me saying it out loud. Adrienne will take the news better if she can blame Nars for it and not me.
"What do you mean, it's not like that?" Adrienne says with some offense. "Look at you!" She throws an arm over my shoulder. "He's full of it," she says. "Good looking boys are always full of it. Right, Nars?" She nudges me with her shoulder. "Like he would know," she says.
"Shut up, Adrienne." Nars hasn't taken his eyes off of me. I feel my toes crinkling up inside my shoes. "Let's see it," he says.
"See what?"
I reach into my pocket and pull out the envelope. It feels like I'm pulling out some incriminating piece of evidence, like I'm showing my cards after a bluff, like having the envelope is my own fault, somehow.
"Goddamn it," Nars says. I feel Adrienne's arm stiffen up around my neck.
"What's that?" she says.
"Are you serious?" Nars says.
She glares at him. Then she plucks the envelope out of my hands. "Anyone can use a yellow envelope, Nars," she says. "The government doesn't own every yellow envelope in the world."
Her hands are trembling. I snake an arm around her waist. We've slept in the same bunk for over a decade. The shape her body makes when it's pressed up against mine is one of the most natural feelings in the world to me.
She tears open the seal, rolling her eyes and shaking her head and shrugging all at the same time, trying too hard to look like she's not taking any of this seriously.
She pulls out the ticket. It's plain, laminated, white. There's nothing on it but a bar code. We all look at each other.
"How do you know it's a ticket?" Adrienne says. "None of us even knows what a ticket is supposed to look like. Just that it comes in a yellow envelope. This could be anything."
"Christ, Adrienne." Nars presses a hand against his eyes, like he can't stand to look at her for one more second.
"Just stop it, Nars," she says.
"It's a ticket," I say. "He told me it was a ticket."
Adrienne's eyes are beet-red. I can almost feel the heat of them. I pull her into my arms. I press my forehead against hers.
There's tears on my cheeks, but they come from Adrienne, not me. I take a sharp breath and close my eyes. I won't cry. If I can help it, if I have any choice at all, I won't cry.
Nars is quiet. Adrienne is saying every curse word she knows over and over, but Nars says nothing. I look over Adrienne's shoulder and see the crown of his head disappearing down the ladder, into the darkness of the tube. "He's such a prick," Adrienne says.
"You both are," I say, and she grins. Her chest shakes with every sob.
"We're going to kill each other without you here," she says. Tears spill out of her eyes without reprieve, even when she laughs. We sit down in the middle of the green house together and just hold one another.
This is a better way to spend an hour, I think. But I don't feel better. I cross my arms over Adrienne's neck while she cries. I hold onto her and she holds onto me, and I think we both only feel worse.
Chapter Eight
There's othe
r people I want to say goodbye to, but none of them are as important as Adrienne and Nars. There's only so many places to search for someone in the bunker, so I'm baffled when Adrienne and I can't find him anywhere.
"You know he's not just upset because you're leaving," Adrienne says. "He's upset because he's not leaving."
"Well," I say, and shrug. I hadn't thought of that, but I know it's probably true.
"He'll miss you though," she says. She's dried up her tears by now. Inside, I feel raw, like I could start to cry at any moment, like there's the barest sliver of a dam keeping me from having a total meltdown.
"You'll both forget about me," I say. I know it's not true. I hope it's not true. I can't imagine that I'll ever forget about them.
When we enter the women's quarters, Nars is sitting on our bunk. This was the only place we didn't look for him.
"You're not allowed to be in here," Adrienne says.
"So?" Nars says, which is usually how Adrienne approaches obstacles. I wonder if I'll ever be gutsy again without her there pushing me to do something wrong.
"It's a special occasion, I guess," I say. I sit down next to Nars. He's sitting on my rack, my rack, the rack I've slept in for eleven years. The mattress dips a bit beneath the weight of us. It was a stiff, flat plank, the first time I ever laid down on top of it. Adrienne and I have made it soft. Who will sleep beside Adrienne now? Who will sleep beside me?
Nars puts an arm around my waist. I dip my head into the pocket his shoulder makes. He hugs me tighter against him, too tight, but I don't tell him so.
"Look at you," Adrienne says. "You finally got Cass into bed."
"Shut up, Adrienne," Nars says. I want to wriggle away from him. That's what I usually do when he's coming on too strong. But I let him be, just for today. I wonder if he knew I would.
"When do you leave?" he asks me.
"Nine o'clock," I say.
"Tonight?" they both say in unison. I nod.
"I was supposed to leave at ten this morning," I say. I think that might make them feel better. It sure doesn't make me feel any better, though.
Cargo (The Reservation Trilogy Book 1) Page 3