Two days later, when I woke, I heard a tremendous cheer and slowly realized that I was in a hospital bed, in the middle of the dance floor, and that the place was packed with ten thousand watching my every twitch. I had never felt so vulnerable and exposed. I insisted that I be taken away. My house was quickly reconstructed, made quiet and dim. The silence felt good, so I told my choreographers, stylists, consultants, and trainers to leave me. I lay in bed and did nothing. One of the doctors, concerned about my low spirits, brought me a magazine. I remember paging through the thing, at first fascinated, since I had never seen one before. Gradually, though, I became discouraged and angry as I couldn't read a word or even recognize a single character.
I decided I had to read and begged for a tutor. Father refused because he wanted me to resume dancing as soon as I could, but when my body wouldn't respond to the healing drugs, he acquiesced, if only to shut me up.
All of the candidates came in party clothes—feathered shoes, fog bras, chrome nose-plates, gelatin shirts. I liked them all, then at the end of the second day, a woman with violet eyes came in a dark tailored suit, a shirt that matched her eyes, and black shoes with tiny grey stitches around the slender sole. I laughed since I had never seen anyone dressed so drearily. Maybe it was impish curiosity, but instead of telling her to go, I let her answer the interview questions like everyone else.
All the party people I knew were full of bombast, like Father. They shouted and swore, bragged and boasted. Joelene did none of that. Instead, she spoke softly, but with a fluid and powerful ease. At the time, I felt like I had discovered a new type of human. I hired her because she fascinated me, and I knew she would irritate Father.
Two years later, I could read and felt like I was becoming a person. Then she introduced me to Pure H and everything changed again.
Published every other month, the magazine is one-half meter square and printed on the most luscious and expensive paper made. It is a joy to touch and hold. But the most extraordinary thing about the magazine is that one anonymous person produces it. Although I'd heard speculation about who he might be, I preferred to enjoy his art without worrying about identity. He photographed every photo. He wrote all the copy. And each issue was a complex puzzle to be savored and deciphered.
I became grey. I began listening to the silence djs, like Love Emitting Diode, Huush, and zzz. I discovered my tailor, Mr. Cedar, and began wearing grey frocks, vests, and suits made of colorless moon and satellite wool. And by then Father and I had come to hate each other.
"Look at these creases," said Joelene, as she held up the gen-cotton shirt. Indeed, it was beautifully ironed. And at the bottom of the right tail was Isé–B's fanciful signature of wrinkles.
"Generous of him," I said, as I put out my right arm. While I loved it, it was small consolation for all that had happened.
"Patience." She added, "Miniature city flickers."
The photoR5 that accompanied that copy was of a translucent house at the edge of a dark, piney wood. A woman stands in a clearing. Her twisted hair is powdered a light grey, and her ball gown by H. Trow is a beautiful alpaca-silk and platinum draped creation that creates a perfect hourglass. Her face is young and fresh. Her eyes are tart, her lips, moist. Something about her posture—the way her back is arched, her legs bent—makes her look burdened with melancholy, perhaps even pain.
When I first saw the image, I thought a spotlight or some illumination was creating a halo around her, but as I studied the print I decided that it wasn't just light but flame. The delicate corona that surrounded her looked exactly like the nearly invisible flames of an alcohol fire, and I decided that the photoR5 was taken the split second before the heat began to singe her hair, skin, and eyes.
Behind her, beyond the translucent wall, stands a man in a black suit and black tie. Although the details are hazy, clearly he is facing toward her. But the way he holds his head both cocked to the right and angled too high, he appears at once blind and yet cognizant of her. At first I assumed he was her killer, but after careful study, decided he was her lover and that he too is dying. His right hand is the clue. His fingers are tense and gnarled in what seems like both grief and regret. On the floor beside him are several sharp dark shapes, like shards of a glass. He drank poison and dropped the glass as the toxins had not only immediately blinded him, but have begun to astringe his veins and muscles, moving from his extremities toward his heart.
When I had finally deciphered the photoR5, I sat and stared at it for a long time, frightened and disturbed. I discussed it with Joelene, and she explained that it was about the beautiful inevitability of entropy, the wilting of flowers, the browning of leaves, the cooling of cream coffees, the fading of color. Then I understood that I, too, appreciated these things. I sought them out and savored them. But as Joelene slipped the jacket over my shoulders, and I felt the servomotors create perfect folds and wrinkles as I moved, I knew I could never appreciate a world without Nora.
Three
Joelene and I rode back around the globe to the RiverGroup family compound in the speeding silver teardrop that was my limousine. For the first few minutes, I reviewed the post-date interviews, but soon, I switched off the screen and stared out the window at the scenery rushing by. But that motion reminded me of the Bee Train and of my last date with Nora, so I closed my eyes.
"Nora is at Slate Gardens," said Joelene. "For cold baths, mud, and mourning."
I refused to look at the photos or her family's publicity release. Joelene read part of it aloud, and it sounded like something a phalanx of lawyers had produced. I counted the word regrettably five times.
As the car exited the Loop, the super highway that only the upper echelon of the families could use, and we wound our way through the baking desert southwest, my feelings shifted from despair to anger. Of course it wasn't Mr. Gonzalez-Matsu, nor was it as Joelene had said, a terrible and inopportune breach. It was Father! It was his ineptitude, his incompetence, and his dreadful strategies. Like so much of what had gone wrong in my nineteen years, it was all his fault.
The access road began to rise above the garish city of Ros Begas, into the Rockies where a valley had been dug in a mountain and the RiverGroup compound had been built. Just as the car came to the top of the lip and started down, a ray of sunlight glinted off the huge glass dome that protected the buildings from the sun, the insects, and the carbon dioxide. Beneath stood the dozen mismatched buildings that made up our little city. Some were windowless warehouses with flat roofs. Several were covered with wooden shingles as if they were trying to be old-fashioned ski lodges. Around the edge were smaller office buildings. Most were glass; a few had metal skins, one was stone. Dead center, sat the black and gold, now abandoned, PartyHaus, with its wide stairs, Ionic columns, and crumbling friezes.
As the car slowed before the garage, I could see attendants, cooks, maids, and workers running toward us. Some were wailing and crying as if I were a coffin containing myself. They clustered around the car, and as I exited, I said, "Thank you. I'm fine. I'm fine, everyone."
Joelene jumped in front to shield me as a tall orange family satin with a golden visor subdued a maid who was tearing off her clothes to expose a complicated set of sharp-looking bands and wires across her chest and crotch. "I'm the one, Michael. It's me. I'm the one who really loves you!"
Years ago, when I danced, I told myself I enjoyed these hopeless displays, like the time an army of teenage girls, dressed in lanolin wools, marched up from the valley, surrounded the compound and demanded all my dancing outfits, toiletries, shaven hairs, and a week's worth of excretions. Now, all of it embarrassed me. As the woman was taken away, Joelene and I hurried in the other direction to my building.
Before my heart attack, my house had been rather like an enormous egg carton inside, with a dozen different rooms. The floors of each room were speaker heads and the place reverberated day and night with heavy bone-jarring thuds and squealing highs. Besides the music, each room was decorated with a theme
, like the blinding red light room and the dead lamb room. When I demanded to be taken from the PartyHaus to somewhere quiet and dim, the place had been gutted. Over time, I had decorated and now it had polished muslin walls, black iron floor tiles, and just a few upholstered pieces sat here and there. Two surveillance cameras, little more than black bugs, were mounted on the walls. And while they were there for my safety, I had positioned my bed, desk, and couch out of their range.
Once we were inside and Joelene had shut the cast-iron front door, I felt like I wanted to get in bed and bury myself beneath a hundred layers of wool. I started toward my bed only to jump back in surprise. My mother lay there.
She was a few years younger than father and had at least as much surgery, but seemed older. Her skin was dark and had a leathery quality. Last time I saw her, a year ago, her hair had been long, straight, and hung to her waist. This time it was frizzed like a giant tumble weed and dyed a hundred different colors. Her robe of a dress looked like something a cavewoman would wear. Made of a patchwork of small tanned pelts, I could see tiny rat claws here and there. The bones in her face were beautiful and proud, but now she looked like a former beauty queen who had been forced to fend for herself in the wilderness.
While I felt bad for her, and I had tried not to let Father's poisoned opinion influence me, I distrusted her. Every time I saw her, she wanted something. And not just that, but she always got shrill and hysterical like her generation.
"Thank goodness you're ok!" she said, as she leaped up and came toward me with open arms. "You have to leave," she said, as she hugged me. She smelled of barbecue smoke and soap. "Leave before it's too late."
"Mrs. Rivers-Zssne," said Joelene, pulling Mother's arms from me. "I don't believe you're authorized to be here today."
Mother stepped back and glared at my advisor with her wide, fearsome sage-colored eyes. "I am!"
"May I see your pass, please?"
"A mother needs a pass to come and hug her son! And to think that we were supposed to be the perfect family. What a lie it all was!"
"Regardless," said Joelene, smiling stiffly, "I must see your pass."
As embarrassed as I felt for my mother, my advisor was right—especially after a terrible security breach.
While glaring at me as if this were my doing, Mother pulled a card from her pouch. Somehow she'd been able to bend the hard plastic. After straightening the crease, Joelene checked her screens. "It was valid," she said. "It expired one hour ago."
"I spoke to his father," said Mother, trilling her fingers dismissively. "He said I could have a word with my poor, injured son."
Joelene handed back the pass. "No disrespect, but you did not speak directly to his father, and we are extremely busy. Additionally, I would advise you to hurry if you want to, wisely, avoid Mr. Rivers senior."
"If you don't mind!" bristled Mother. "A moment, please."
Joelene didn't blink. "If you're asking to be alone with Michael, I'm afraid that won't be possible."
I wanted to tell Joelene that it wasn't necessary, that I'd be fine, but I knew she wasn't going to budge. She probably felt responsible for the freeboot's bullets.
"It's okay," I told Mother, "we can talk. She's family."
Mother's face paled; her mouth shrunk to a dot. "Don't confuse family. She is not your family. She never will be. Your real family loves you. And they desperately need you," she said, her tone shifting into her familiar pleading. "They're waiting to meet you. They've been waiting for so long. It just breaks my heart." Mother covered her face and began to sob. "I'm so sorry for everything! I'm so sorry!"
"I feel fine." I held out my hands with their tiny scars for her to see. "I'm healthy." I thought that was the answer to the question she hadn't asked.
Mother wiped her face, glared at Joelene, and hugged me again. I put my arms around her and, up close, I could see that a multitude of tiny metal and glass charms had been woven into her rainbow hair: birds, hearts, aphids, cars, sunglasses, phalluses, and what looked like a tiny caribou stared back at me.
"You really must leave," she said, sniffing. "It's not good here. It's all about the wrong things, and your father uses everyone and anyone he can. Look what's happened to you." She took my left hand in hers and rubbed my palm with her thumbs.
"It was a random breach. I'm perfectly fine." The words came off my tongue too easily and I regretted that I was, after two minutes, trying to appease her so she'd leave.
"Come with me," she whispered. "Come be part of Tanoshi No Wah."
"Ma'am," said Joelene, stiffly, "please."
"We live honestly, and we're not ashamed," continued Mother. "We show ourselves. And I'd love for you to see who you really are."
"Please," said Joelene, raising her voice.
"The families and their laws are pollution to the human spirit. They're all hypocrites! We're trying to do what's right."
"Mrs. Rivers, we're late for an appointment!"
"Think about it, Michael. You're not part of this anymore. You've changed from the beast you were. Change a little more, and you'll see what I mean. Come with me."
I couldn't imagine her life in the slubs, eating grilled rats, living in tents. In the shows, she sang, stripped nude, and ate fire, I'd heard. "I found someone." I said, not sure if she knew of Nora. "I'm in love."
She shook her head frantically, but one of the charms in her hair spun around and hit her on the nose. "Trust me," she said, grimacing and rubbing the spot. "There's nothing to love in the families. They're evil and ruthless. They're all dead lumps of stolen flesh! Come with me. You need to find your real family."
By now, Joelene's face turned red. "Mrs. Rivers, I'm warning you!"
"Please, Michael!" She put her hands on my shoulders. "It's time you came home. They're waiting. They adore you. And you'd make such a lovely addition. You could dance with us."
That was the worse thing she could have suggested. "Mother," I said, squirming away. "You know I don't dance anymore."
"Fine!" she said, angrily. "Don't dance!"
"It's time for you to go," said Joelene.
Mother combed her hair from her face and regained her composure. "I always thought you would be a poet. A lovely poet. But you don't have to do anything in the show. You could be my assistant. Wouldn't that be nice? You could hold my clothes while I strip."
"Mother!" I said, flummoxed. "I don't want to perform. I don't want you doing it either!"
"Mrs. Rivers," said Joelene, wedging herself between us. "Leave now, or I'll be forced to call security."
"Michael, come and find out who you are."
"That's it!" Joelene pushed mother backward. "You must go now."
"How dare you touch me! You're just like all of them. You're sucking his blood. You're just using his talent and fame!" Mother had that crazy look in her eyes. A second later she clenched her fists and lunged at Joelene as if to pummel her. Joelene was stronger and knew the fighting arts. In one second, she had Mother in a headlock and called the satins.
"Let go of me, you bitch!" screamed Mother. "Let Michael come with me and find out the truth!"
"Mother!" I said, wishing she wouldn't be like this. "I know the truth."
"Let go!" she said, thrashing in Joelene's grip. "Let go or I'll bite."
Two especially tall, satin beasts, with angular but impassive faces, rushed in and grabbed her. One held her arms; the other, her legs, and they carried her out as if they were dealing with so much meat.
"Get these things off of me!" she shrieked.
"Joelene's only trying to protect me," I said, as they came to the door.
"Your father is a mutation!" she screamed. "Ask him what that means! Ask him!"
The door slammed shut.
Plopping onto my grey wool couch, I slumped forward and told myself that I hated her. Every time I saw her, she wound up screaming and ranting. I had the worst parents. They were loud, obnoxious, selfish, and awful.
Joelene sat beside me and stroked m
y shoulder. "Eventually," she said, "we will talk with her. She is a good person. It's circumstance."
"I don't want to see her ever again."
Joelene's hand slid off my back. "Judith Rivers-Zssne," she pronounced Mother's name slowly as if she were going to define the words, "has led a difficult life. As have all the women who have been with your father. I know she loves you, but she expected too much from her marriage and . . . " After she glanced at me gently, she said, "She probably thought you would save her."
"Me?" I asked, as if it were absurd. "From what?"
"Unhappiness," she said, staring into space. Her eyes found mine. With a shrug, she added, "Years ago, your mother tried to fight the system. She petitioned the families to let her change her identity. Of course, they refused, as that's wholly illegal—tantamount to treason. Since then, she's done the best she can."
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