by CJ Hauser
So you have a job until they realize no one’s been running any social media for them.
I guess, Nolan said.
What are you going to do? Elsa said.
I have to figure out what I want to be doing, Nolan said. Then I can look for the right kind of new job.
I mean about money, Elsa said.
I have money.
How could you possibly have money.
Blood money.
Be serious.
My mom listed me as the beneficiary for her life insurance.
What about Ian?
Nolan shook his head. When he lost the Alabama gig, she changed the policy.
Elsa got out of bed and looked out the window. It was windy and the Gulf was choppy.
Do you think Dad had life insurance? Elsa asked, sounding almost wistful.
Nolan started laughing and did not stop until Elsa shouted at him that she was going to take a shower in the Lobby and did he want to come or not.
* * *
——————·
They walked in the water along the beach. Elsa picked up shells as the wind snatched at her hair and Nolan carried his sneakers. The morning was cool, and the water was warm, and broken shells and snails tumbled over Nolan’s feet.
You’re not really serious about this Mars thing, are you? Nolan said.
Elsa shrugged.
After James Peacock had learned the wrong things from her, after she had failed to decipher meaning in the patterns the truck headlights played against the vinyl siding as she fucked the bartender on the back porch, after Ian died, Elsa had recommitted herself to Mars.
The brochure for Origins said that the colonization mission was to ensure the survival of the human race, and yeah, that sounded stupid and dramatic but maybe it actually was that simple. Maybe it was that big.
Because if Mars Origins was part of saving the human race, then going was a decision that was clearly good. It was a choice she could make and be certain about.
Elsa felt the opposite of certain when it came to everything else in her life. Whatever inner thing guided normal people in their choices—a diviner’s stick in the ribs, a magnet of the hips, a compass of the skull—Elsa’s was broken. Nolan had been her first wrong choice, years ago, and as much as she’d have liked to pretend that she was different now, that it had been a stupid teenage mistake, there was too much other wrongness that came after. Dozens of dubious choices she’d made later that all seemed to bloom outward from that first moment. Dubious because Elsa was never sure what was the right choice and what was the wrong.
Was driving Dylan away the right choice or the wrong choice? Had she been empowered by having sex with whomever she chose on that porch—or was she a bad feminist giving her body cheaply? Her body, sprawled out in her adolescence and unclaimable ever again—wasn’t she supposed to practice self-love and self-care and accept her body no matter what it looked like? Or was she supposed to go to the gym every day and prove she could master it? Had she been helping James Peacock by telling him the truth about death or hurting him? Was teaching a valuable way to spend her time, or was she just hiding out from doing whatever hard work a good person would actually be doing to save this sorry planet?
Which was the right choice and which was the wrong choice?
Sometimes, it seemed to Elsa that the era of certainty was over. Past generations had seemed so sure of their goodness. The Greatest Generation fought the Nazis, for fuck’s sake. They had known this was a good thing. What must that have been like?
Her generation had Iraq and Afghanistan. Her generation had the internet. Her generation had globalization. What was the right thing and what was the wrong thing?
Mars was a clear moral choice, and if she made it, Elsa thought it might wash away all the smaller, less certainly good and obviously bad choices she had made in her lifetime. Maybe it would even neutralize her complicity in all the generational crimes she’d be on the hook for if she got old enough to see her students grown.
Mars could be a new era of certainty.
And at least if Elsa went to Mars, she wouldn’t have to stare down every forked decision yet to come in her life.
She didn’t need to explain herself to Nolan. Elsa pushed him in the shoulders, and Nolan stumbled in the surf. He caught his balance. She changed the subject.
She said, One of those journals is a field diary. It has proper entries.
Does he say anything about us?
Elsa almost pitied him. It’s about the ducks, Nolan.
Right. Of course.
He was writing about Duck Twelve again. He named it. The Paradise Duck.
Because?
His notes are insane. Because it seemed happy?
Nolan made his mouth a stiff line and said nothing.
Elsa knew how disappointed he was, but he was faking it admirably. It was a remarkable trick, the way Nolan now looked like a man. He carried his tall frame with a swinging confidence. He was handsome, and well put together. She imagined someone meeting him for the first time might suppose he was a kind of dandy. Confident, arrogant even. But it was a cover. Elsa knew Nolan was desperately sensitive and loving. That he could be easily swayed. That he brooded over small hurts, tending them like pets.
It occurred to Elsa that with Ian dead, and Keiko dead, she and Ingrid might be the only ones left who knew Nolan in this secret, softer way. The intimacy came with a responsibility, and as she considered this, she felt as if she’d lost a game of hot potato. Because being there for Nolan was not her job. It couldn’t be. After all, she’d been redacted from Nolan’s history a long time ago. Elsa’s whole life, she felt, was a series of events in which she’d been redacted from the lives of people she’d been tricked into loving. Kicked out of stories she’d been stupid enough to think were her own. Ian, Nolan, Dylan. But it didn’t matter now. This time, she was going to redact herself. From the planet, even.
The shoreline grew reedy, and there were foamy clusters of insect eggs clumping grasses together. Nolan tripped over a piece of driftwood.
How is a duck happy? he said.
How is anyone? Elsa said.
* * *
——————·
The Lobby was full of breakfast smells, but the main room was empty again. There was a sprawling oak reception desk at the back of the room, between the helixing staircases. Behind it were twenty feet of paneled mirror, speckled with rot.
Elsa approached the desk and leaned cross-armed on the counter between a set of princess telephones. Nolan followed. He picked up one of the receivers, listened, then pressed the phone to Elsa’s ear, covering her other with his palm. His hand was warm, and the hum of the dial tone surprised her. She closed her eyes to listen so she would not have to look at the two of them in the dappled expanse of mirror.
Hey, look, Nolan said. Elsa opened her eyes, and he was pointing. Just before the entrance to the men’s and women’s locker rooms was a sign that read: SAUNA.
You want to? Nolan said.
Hell yes, Elsa said.
They got towels from the locker rooms, and when they met inside the sauna, it was damp and hot. There was a basket of steaming rocks and benches and the deep smell of wet wood.
Nolan fingered the edge of Elsa’s towel, and Elsa recognized it as a dare.
Elsa was never the first to say no, and so she took the towel off and handed it to him. Nolan took off his own towel and tossed them onto the bench.
The Greys sat across the room from each other. This was different from how things had been in the dark.
Elsa watched Nolan and he watched her and each felt the other taking in the ways that time had changed them. How did fifteen years hang on a body?
They were daring each other to notice. Daring each other not to care.
Nolan’s eyes starte
d watering in the heat. He felt sweat running through his hairline, behind his ears, down his neck. His whole back was coursing. Nolan ran his fingers through his pubic hair, which was damp. His shins, when he rubbed them against each other, were slick.
Elsa leaned against the wall, the wide white insides of her legs flattened against the bench. Her bush was enormous and pale. Sweat beaded at her temples, but it did not run and instead seemed to hang there like embellishments around her eyes.
The Greys closed their eyes and tried to be still as the sauna did its work and the poison began leaching out of them.
Nolan tried to think about nothing, but Nolan had not been on the internet for three days. His phone didn’t work, and he knew there were things happening in the baseball world and he was not posting about them. He was sure he had emails from vendors and coworkers whose going unanswered was suspicious and would cause him trouble later, if he still had a job when he got back. Anything could happen on the mainland, and he wouldn’t know about it. A fire, a political coup, a celebrity gaffe—whatever. Though maybe if he didn’t know what was going on, it was not his problem. Maybe that’s why the Reversalists were so happy out here, living in a state of willful not-knowing. If they were happy. Nolan wasn’t sure about that. In truth, everyone they’d met seemed miserable. Had Ian been? Nolan was sure Janine was calling.
Elsa sighed, and it sounded as if she had never been so content.
I’m going to shower, Nolan said. Elsa kept her eyes closed. He stood up, wondering if she would open her eyes and look at him, but she didn’t. Not even when the boards creaked beneath his weight.
In the men’s locker room, there was a long bank of open showers along the wall. The tiles were white and blue and mosaicked into Mediterranean geometric patterns that reminded Nolan of waves. He imagined the kinds of guests the original Towneses must have anticipated hosting here. Rich family men who wanted to take saunas and leave their children at the pool. People so rich they could afford a beach hotel on a private island that ensured there would be no one to shame them for their excesses. The hot water tap screeched as Nolan turned it. Here was Nolan, lanky, sweaty, flecks of seaweed and sand kicked up along the backs of his legs, alone in the showers. Townes would have hated him here, and Nolan enjoyed this thought.
Nolan soaped himself all over. He soaped his balls. He soaped his feet. He scrubbed the back of his neck. He washed his hair until it squeaked when he ran his fingers through it, the way Ian had showed him meant it was clean when he was a boy. He soaped away three days of sweat and booze and sea salt. He thought about how he and Elsa had been naked together as children and how it was the same now. He tried not to think about her low-slung ass. How it hung like heavy fruit. Without him wishing it, his dick started to harden and arc. It had been three days without that too. He couldn’t do this here. But he reached down. He chose to think about Janine’s dancer’s body, but then he was thinking about how he and she together were so light the bed hardly bucked at all, no one getting any good momentum, and how Janine was always moving, never staying still, in a way Nolan guessed was sexy—maybe someone better would think it was sexy, but sometimes he wished she would just stay still so he could fuck her properly, and he felt bad for wishing this. He thought about a porn he’d seen once where a woman had been pinned down and tickled until she screamed. Laughing so hard it was violent. He thought about Gates’s legs.
He stroked his dick. He pressed his forehead against the cool tile wall. He pulled upward, tightening his grip, jerking off until he came against his stomach in several warm bursts and the water, forgivingly, washed it away.
He toweled himself dry and dressed. He should have brought fresh clothes. As soon as he’d got his shorts on, he felt dirty again. When he came out of the locker room, Nolan meant to seem bored and uninterested with Elsa, but she was already in a small group of people who were shouting, including Mitchell Townes.
* * *
——————·
From a distance, he saw the Reversalists tighten their circle around Elsa like one organism. They were all talking at once, Mitchell Townes trying to calm a Slavic-looking woman in swim shoes who seemed to be yelling at Elsa. She was waving around a pack of Virginia Slims, and Esther Stein was shaking her head at the trouble. An older black man who, Nolan realized giddily, must be Remy St. Gilles, seemed unfazed.
Nolan stepped between Elsa and the woman.
Don’t fucking yell at my sister, Nolan said to Mitchell, who had not been yelling at all.
They fell silent, taking in Nolan at his full height. Elsa’s light hair was darker for being wet. It lay against her shoulder and was soaking a spot through her t-shirt.
No one’s yelling, man, Mitchell said. Be cool.
She was yelling, Elsa said, pointing to the woman with the cigarettes. She wants to experiment on us, she told Nolan. The woman was in her mid-forties. She had thick brunette hair elaborately plaited down her back and wore a black t-shirt with a wolf on it. Her swim shoes were crusted with dried mud. She had a dozen tiny silver hoops pierced along the cartilage of her left ear.
Gwen, the woman said, offering her hand to Nolan. When he didn’t take it, she said, It’s a simple test and it just won’t take that long. Half an hour, tops. She pointed at Mitchell now. I specifically told you I needed to work with them as soon as they arrived before the island climate affected their olfactory range and you promised—
I promised I’d ask them, Gwen. He was pinching the bridge of his nose as if Gwen’s very presence was giving him a migraine. He wore a gray t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and pulled at the collar of it. So now here we are, asking.
Well, the answer is no, Elsa said. I don’t want anything to do with whatever it is you’re trying to prove out here.
Certainly not what she’s trying to prove, Remy said.
Gwen was the reproductive scientist who had suggested Mick and Jim might be a “sexual threat,” Nolan realized, and suddenly wanted very badly for Elsa and him to head back to their shack alone.
They’ve said no, Gwen, Mitchell said soothingly, as if to a small child. Your work is a vital part of the project and at the next intellectual trust meeting we’ll give it our full attention and see if we can’t make up for any data—
Gwen snorted. You just want to table anything you don’t agree with.
Your research is being considered very carefully, Gwen, and I’m sure it will be nominated to go out next submission cycle if it doesn’t get included in the Nature piece.
Blow me, Mitchell, Gwen said. She walked out through the rotating doors.
Mitchell laid a hand on Elsa’s arm. I’m very sorry about that, he said.
He looked at Elsa, and she wondered what it must feel like to be in charge in this way. To be in control of an island and everything on it and not worry about anything beyond its borders. Mitchell’s hand was warm and he was sure in his grip, and Elsa felt as if she wanted to lean into him, to relax into any kind of certainty at all.
Gwen is just very passionate about her work, Mitchell said.
We all are, Esther said. But you don’t see us running around like maniacs.
You don’t have to work with Gwen, Mitchell said, ignoring Esther, his hand still on Elsa’s arm. Just come see me before you leave, and bring any of your father’s research you find along with you.
But, with the papers, what if we want to— Elsa was going to say “keep them.” She hadn’t wanted them before. But now that someone else did, she was reluctant to give them up.
Well, thing is, it’s all part of the article for Nature we’re working on, Mitchell said. All research and material generated during residency at Leap’s is part of the institute’s intellectual trust. There is only communal work on the island.
It’s very important, dear, said Esther. You don’t want us to get the hook, do you?
Mitchell shot her a look. E
sther, don’t be dramatic.
We all know it, Mitchell, no use pretending, Esther said.
Agreed, said Remy St. Gilles.
Nolan turned to Remy St. Gilles.
Is your novel part of the intellectual trust? he asked. I mean, you’ll still publish it? Won’t you?
Remy St. Gilles studied Nolan through a pair of very expensive-looking tortoiseshell glasses, which surprised Nolan, because St. Gilles had never worn glasses in any of his author photos. St. Gilles wore leather sandals and a linen shirt with two pens in the pocket. Pens! Certainly the man was writing the last book. Nolan could not believe how close he was to the author of the Asterias series. St. Gilles’s close-cropped hair was gray at the temples; he must have been in his early seventies.
You don’t look much like Ian, St. Gilles said to Nolan. He spoke with a soft British accent. He turned to appraise Elsa. He said, In fact, neither of you look at all like him.
Nolan stepped closer to St. Gilles. He could hear blood rushing in his ears.
Nolan had spent a lifetime listening to this bullshit.
Nolan saw Ian in his own face. He knew he was there. But he had spent his whole childhood having people look at him and Ian strangely when they were out together without Keiko. His Asianness, Ian’s whiteness—people sometimes asked them if Nolan was adopted and it made him want to throttle them.
It crushed Nolan that, of all people, Remy St. Gilles, a man who’d invented a universe of possibilities Nolan loved, a man who could imagine sentient matriarchal insects on Mars, could fail to find Ian in Nolan’s face.
It made him furious.
Who asked you? Nolan said, stepping closer again. St. Gilles looked alarmed. But Nolan didn’t care. Let him feel alarmed.
Really, who the fuck asked you? Nolan said.
St. Gilles stood up straighter, visibly prickling.
Mitchell was still holding Elsa’s arm. She broke free from his grip and grabbed Nolan’s shoulder. He’s an idiot, she said. You look so much like Ian. Why you’re so hot to admit it I don’t know, but—