“First snow of the year. Check it out.”
She was right—I could see the onset of gentle flakes drifting down across the building’s windows.
I stopped walking. “Makes it seem like it will be all cozy inside.”
“I doubt it,” she said. “Have you decided what we should do about Fay and Mooney?”
“No.”
“I’ve been thinking we should talk to Dhumavati.”
“What?”
“Tonight,” she said. “After the party.”
I shivered but didn’t take another step forward.
“Madeline,” she said, stopping beside me, “I don’t know what else we can do. They’re kids. If they went on the road and anything happened? I can’t stomach that responsibility.”
“But can we live with what will happen if they don’t go?”
“Maybe there’s a third option if we come clean with Dhumavati. She seems like their best bet. And ours.”
“Telling her is the same thing as telling Santangelo,” I said. “We know that.”
“Do we?” she asked. “I’ve been wondering whether it’s that black and white anymore—especially after today’s meeting.”
I thought about that. Deep down, I knew the only reason I’d agreed to keep Fay and Mooney’s secret was that I had no fucking idea what to do about it—how to help them, how to be the grown-up who could make it all okay. And Lulu was right, I couldn’t imagine the pair of them surviving on their own. They were children. Damaged children.
But wouldn’t Santangelo just compound that damage?
“Madeline,” Lulu continued, “why does Dhumavati want to take this leave of absence in the first place? I think it’s pretty obvious the woman’s wrestling with some rather profound doubts of her own.”
“I’m not sure the leave was Dhumavati’s idea. I get the feeling it’s more about Santangelo doubting her. Especially given his hints that she won’t be coming back.”
“So let’s ask her. We’ll start there. If she’s honest about that, maybe she really is a viable third option for Fay and Mooney.”
“What can she do about it, even if she wants to run interference with Santangelo?”
“More than we can,” said Lulu.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Madeline, come on. The idea of those two kids out on their own? No meds, no skills, no jobs—what the hell are they going to do? You can’t hide them in your apartment.”
“They trusted me,” I said. “I promised them I’d help. I just don’t know how.”
“Maybe they wanted you to tell someone. Maybe that’s the only kind of help you can give.”
“You believe that?”
“I don’t know what to believe. I just don’t think we can handle it alone, any more than they can. With Fay pregnant—”
“What if she wasn’t?” I asked.
“She is.”
“Lulu, there must be a Planned Parenthood somewhere nearby. We could get her there.”
“And then what?”
“We bring her back.”
“What good does that do?”
“The main thing is she wouldn’t be sent home. From what Mooney told me, she’s better off here than with her parents. That’s why the two of them want to run away—to keep Santangelo and her family from forcing her to have the baby.”
“I don’t know,” said Lulu.
“It’s a real third option,” I said. “If we work it right, no one else has to know.”
“They’d know she left campus.”
“So she’d get sent back to the Farm for a while. They’d corner her again. Whatever.”
“And the baby?”
“Given the meds Fay’s on, would it stand a chance of being born healthy? Especially since they’ve upped her dosage.”
“I still think we should tell Dhumavati.”
“We have to talk it over with Fay and Mooney first. Ask them what they want to do. If they agree to have us tell her, I’m all for it, but it’s gotta be their decision.”
“Madeline—”
“You’re going to say they’re just kids.”
“Because they are.”
“They’re both eighteen, Lulu. As of today they’re adults.”
She looked down at the cake in her hands. “In name only.”
“What else is there?”
“I wish to hell I knew,” she said. “But all right. Talk it over with them before we make any decisions.”
“Let’s get inside,” I said, starting toward the door of the Farm. “I’m freezing my ass off.”
“You should’ve worn pants.”
“I should’ve done a lot of things.”
The living room seemed bright and hot after our walk through the woods. There were ten kids on the Farm, with Tim and Gerald on duty to complete the party. I tossed my jacket on a chair by the kitchen door as Dhumavati led us inside to light the candles.
“All set?” asked Gerald as I held my lighter to that last tiny wick.
“Good to go,” I said. “Why don’t you dim the lights?”
Dhumavati held the door for him, and I headed forward with the blazing confection once he’d finished the task. She started singing “Happy Birthday,” and everyone joined in from the next room.
I walked carefully, trying to keep the candles lit. Lulu followed, holding the cake knife Dhumavati had brought down—along with ice cream and little hats for everyone to wear, printed with confetti-throwing teddy bears to match the paper plates.
Fay was at the head of the table, her head slightly bowed. I put the cake down in front of her.
“Make a wish, Fay!” someone called out from the back of the crowd.
She didn’t move, so I crouched down beside her.
“What do I wish for?” she asked me.
“Whatever would make you happy,” I said.
Fay closed her eyes and nodded, then blew so gently on the candles that the flames barely shifted. I added a gust of my own, keeping it up until the last one flickered and died.
“You did it,” I said, hoping she’d open her eyes to check. She didn’t.
Gerald snapped the lights back on, and Lulu stepped in with the cake knife as kids jostled into line, gripping their paper plates.
“We’ll serve the ice cream and punch in the kitchen,” said Dhumavati. “Come back there when you’ve gotten your cake.”
Mooney put two plates on the table next to Lulu—one for himself, one for Fay. “What kind of ice cream do you want?” he asked Fay. “Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said.
“I’ll get you both, then.”
Lulu put a slice of cake on each plate and then looked at his bandage. “You can’t carry two of those in one hand without getting them all mushy, Mooney,” she said. “Let me help.”
She passed me the knife and picked up both plates.
“We need to talk,” I whispered to Mooney before he followed Lulu away from the table. I couldn’t tell if he’d heard me.
Forchetti dropped his plate next to me. There was already frosting smeared on it.
“You’re getting seconds before everyone’s had firsts?” I asked.
“Give me a decent slice this time. Lulu was all stingy.”
“Go get some ice cream,” I said. “The birthday girl hasn’t even had cake yet.”
“Give him mine,” said Fay. “I don’t want it.”
“You heard her,” said Forchetti. “She doesn’t care.”
“ I care,” I said.
Forchetti flicked his plate closer to the cake. “Why are you always such a bitch?”
“Why are you always such an asshole?” I said. “You could at least try saying please.”
“ Please,” he whined, like he was auditioning for the part of Postnasal Drip in a really bad school play.
“And why are you back down here, anyway?” I asked. “You just got de-Farmed yesterday, didn’t you?”
“I got in a fight.
What’s the big deal?”
“Nothing,” I said.
I pinched the edge of his plate before slapping a thin slice of cake onto it, knowing he’d try to yank this ill-gotten bounty away.
I locked eyes with him and didn’t let go of the plate. “I’d like to hear a thank-you, Forchetti.”
He mumbled a buck’s worth of nasty in lieu of the word “thank.” I let him take the damn cake anyway. I served the last three kids in line much fatter slices than I’d given Forchetti, just out of spite.
Everyone else in the room was distracted, finally—eating cake, chatting, horsing around.
I pulled up a chair next to Fay. “We need to talk.”
“I know,” she said, “but this doesn’t seem like a good time.”
She seemed more alert now that no one was watching us.
“Maybe it’s the best time,” I said. “Nobody’s paying any attention.”
“Mooney has some stuff he wants to say, too, though. We were thinking maybe tomorrow, if you could come down during study hours again?”
I looked around the room. “Promise me you guys aren’t planning to take off?”
“Not now,” she said. “Don’t worry. We have something to ask you.”
“And I have an idea I want to run by both of you. I just want to make sure you’re okay about sitting tight until then.”
Fay glanced over my shoulder. “Dhumavati’s coming.”
I spoke a little louder. “How’s your homework going?”
“I’m almost caught up,” she said, acting all zoned out again. “I’ve been working really hard.”
Dhumavati pulled up a chair across the table from me. “Fay’s really been applying herself down here. I’m proud of her,” she said.
Fay touched Dhumavati’s hand. “That’s so nice of you to say.”
Lulu and Mooney came back. He put a plate down gently in front of Fay. “Here you go, a little bit of chocolate and vanilla.”
They sat down, and Lulu handed him his own plate.
She looked at me. “Aren’t you having any?”
I put the knife down on the cake plate next to the remaining wedge of frosted goodness. “That woodstove’s really hot,” I said. “I just want something to drink.”
The roaring fire had made the air so dry that Gerald had to keep ladling watery fruit punch from a faceted plastic bowl in the kitchen. I lost my cup twice. Kept setting it down only to have it disappear in the general chaos.
The conversational volume went up and up, everyone buzzed on sugar and the rare break from routine.
I went back to Gerald for a third serving of bug juice, asking him to load it with extra ice. He took my cup.
The cafeteria vats of chocolate and vanilla Frozen Treat were getting soupy.
“Why don’t I put these in the freezer?” I said.
“Great idea.”
When I returned, he handed me my cup. “I think I’m going to make this self-serve from now on. I don’t want to miss the party.”
Another thirsty gang of kids shoved one another through the doorway.
“Nick of time,” I said.
Outside the kitchen, Lulu was lining up chairs in the middle of the room. Dhumavati put a boom box on the table and plugged it in to a wall socket.
“Ready for the games portion?” she asked me and Gerald.
“I’d like to bow out,” I said, “at least for the first round.”
The air felt stuffy and close. I set my punch down on the arm of a sofa at a seemingly safe distance from the jollity, then started pulling off my sweater. As I was yanking it past my head, I heard someone step up next to me.
It was Mooney.
“Good thing Wiesner’s not around,” he said. “You with no sweater on.”
“We need to talk, okay?” I said. “Fay told me I should come down tomorrow, when you guys are doing homework.”
“Sounds good. You can pretend you’re going over some stuff from class with me. I’ll make sure Fay and I are both sitting at the big table.”
“And you’re not going to leave before then, right?” I asked.
“No way. Not unless you’ve told anyone else.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t.”
Time enough to ask them about Dhumavati tomorrow, when I came back.
“Cool,” he said. “And thank you for making sure Fay got to have such a nice birthday. You really made her happy, you and Lulu.”
Dhumavati started jollying the kids into a game of musical chairs. At first they were reluctant, but when she recruited Gerald into the action, the competition picked up. Tim landed in Gerald’s lap in the race for the final seat, and even the stragglers started to laugh and get into the spirit of the thing.
“First one knocked out has to be the DJ,” Dhumavati said, putting Tim in charge of the music.
Lulu bustled around the room, picking up sticky abandoned plates and forks to throw in a garbage bag she was dragging around.
Tim punched the stop button on the boom box, and the group surged for available chairs. Forchetti stumbled over Gerald and almost landed on the sofa next to me. I was too close to the game and the woodstove.
Standing up made me dizzy, and I’d broken out in a sweat from the heat of the fire. I reached to grab my sweater so I could blot my forehead with it.
Tim punched “play” while my face was covered, and the crowd shoved into me. I could’ve sworn there were a hundred people in the room. I dropped the sweater and turned back to get a sip of punch, but my cup was gone again.
Lulu was sliding her garbage bag around behind the sofa.
“Hey, did you take my juice?” I asked.
She picked up a brimming red cup from the little side table next to my sofa. Not where I thought I’d seen my cup last. “This it?”
“Must be,” I said, taking it from her so I could knock back the cold sugary liquid in one go, ice cubes bumping against my lip.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You’re really flushed.”
“It’s just so hot.” I reached for my wadded-up sweater again, mopping my face and neck with it.
Lulu pressed her wrist to my cheek. It felt cool and lovely.
“I need some air,” I said, standing up again. My chest felt tight, and everything looked all wobbly.
“Don’t go without your jacket,” said Lulu. “You’ll catch your death.”
“Just for a minute,” I said.
“Wait until I get this stuff in the garbage,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”
She started walking toward the kitchen, obviously thinking I’d stay put, but I had to get out right then. I couldn’t catch my breath, and my jaw felt sore and tight. I lurched for the door, making my way through the spinning crowd, all of them jostling again for too few chairs.
The music stopped, and I could hear them all laughing and shoving behind me as I burst outside into the blessed cold, panting with relief. The buzz of noise died away as the door swung shut behind me.
There was a moon rising up over the trees, and the ground’s dusting of snow looked all blue-white and sparkly in the watery light.
“Pretty,” I said, watching more flakes dance down.
I walked away from the building and turned my face up, closing my eyes in the hope that the snow would cool my still-burning cheeks, but the motion only made me dizzier.
I opened my eyes and took another step forward. The ground felt like it was moving. I swayed and then fell, landing hard on my hands and knees.
I stayed like that for a while, panting. The idea of getting back up off the ground seemed overwhelmingly difficult. I was tempted to lie down and press my face against the snow.
“Get up,” I said, but I couldn’t convince my body to make the effort. My voice sounded like it was coming from ten yards away.
I crawled toward the garden fence, hoping to pull myself back to my feet. Halfway there, I felt my stomach heave, and I started vomiting up an acrid-sweet mess of punch and cake and ice cream—h
ot and pink all over the ground—droplets melting the thin cover of snow with a hiss wherever they touched down.
I fought against the next wave of nausea to no avail. It just kept groaning up more, again and again, until I was emptied down to my boots.
I wanted to lie down but not in my own mess, so I kept crawling, making it almost all the way to the fence before I collapsed.
The snow felt good. Soft and velvety. Cool but warm.
I wanted to stay there forever.
After what seemed like a stretch of days, I raised my head a few inches—only then realizing that the ground wasn’t covered with snow at all but was instead teeming with millions of tiny white spiders. They were glassy and feral in the moonlight, and every moment saw more of them drifting down to earth through the night sky, plummeting faster and faster until they were piled so thick that everything went black.
I woke up in bed in the dark, curled into a ball with the covers half thrown off me, aching all over like I’d asked too much from each muscle in my body.
Everything hurt: neck, scalp, forearms, the arches of my feet. My face felt sticky, my mouth sour and raw. I turned my head, but all I could see was a line of light spilling inward from between a set of drawn curtains. Morning?
But that’s not where the window is in our bedroom. And we don’t have curtains.
I was cold, too. I reached for the covers, letting out a little yelp when the movement made everything hurt even more.
“Madeline?” said Lulu in the darkness. “Are you awake?”
“Think so,” I said, my voice all raspy.
She turned on a light, and I squinted against the glare.
“Hurts,” I said.
“The light?”
“Mmm.”
I tried opening my eyes. Lulu was wrapped in a blanket, sitting in a chair beside the window.
“Where?” I asked.
“Dhumavati’s guest room,” she said. “We carried you here last night.” She turned off the light but opened the curtains, revealing a window seat piled with a funky jumble of Moroccan-looking pillows. The mattress jiggled when she came over to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Ow,” I said. “Time is it?”
Lulu consulted her watch. “Just before eight. Dhumavati told me to keep you here, make sure you were okay.”
I took in the room’s contents: mismatched armchairs, a framed art nouveau poster of some buxom chick on a bicycle, a dark bureau topped by a ripply oval mirror, spent crumbs of incense on the paisley-shawled table beneath a large tanka portrait of Ganesh.
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