Limetown

by Cote Smith

  When he woke up, he was in bed, fully clothed but under the covers. There was a girl next to him. Emile jumped up, ready to apologize, assuming the girl was a guest.

  “Tell me about your dreams,” she said. “Tell me everything you remember.”

  Emile rubbed his eyes. When he saw who it was, his neck grew hot. The valet. She laughed at him from the bed, at how startled or stupid he must’ve looked. Emile frowned.

  “It’s been four months,” he said, doing his best to act upset. And a part of him genuinely was angry. That he hadn’t seen her in such a long time. That she had caught him off guard, made him feel foolish.

  “Congratulations,” the valet said.

  “You said all I had to do was last one.”

  The valet slid off the bed and sat in one of the chairs by the window. “Claire. There. Mystery solved.”

  “Emile.”

  “Yes, I know. You’re Max’s big catch.” She tilted her head. “I heard the rumors, obviously. But I thought you looked like a tourist.”

  “A tourist?”

  “One of them.” She looked around the room. “I had the same job when I started here. But guests kept complaining about their things going missing.” Claire leaned in and whispered. “I blamed it on the ghosts.” She laughed. “Isn’t that terrible? But I couldn’t help myself. Even right now, I want to lock the door and open their suitcases, don’t you?”

  “Not really,” Emile said.

  “I guess you don’t need to, do you. From what I saw.”

  “What you saw.”

  “Max didn’t tell you? There are no secrets here.” She grinned at him and again Emile felt foolish. He imagined her watching him from behind the mirrored glass.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “This place is nothing but secrets.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as why they feel the need to spy on their employees.”

  Claire leaned back, crossed her ankles. “Good. What else?”

  “Well, there’s what we’re doing here. I mean, I get what I’m doing. I’m listening. To the percipients, their dreams. We want to know if they can really see the future. Right? If that’s something the mind can do.”

  “But you think there might be more,” Claire said. Emile did. He hadn’t told anyone. He hadn’t had anyone to tell. But the suspicious feeling he had when he and Jacob first arrived, when they met Vince—that feeling had never gone away. His suspicion grew each morning, when he woke his percipients, each morning without another word from Jacob. If Vince, if the Eldridge, knew of Emile’s gifts, why weren’t they interviewing him? Why wasn’t he part of some test? The longer he stayed, the more he believed that there was something Vince wasn’t telling him.

  “Well, what do you think?” Claire asked. “Can they?”

  “Can they what?”

  “Your percipients. Can they see the future?”

  Emile shrugged. He hadn’t thought so, not until that morning. He hadn’t had a good reason to. “It’s probably just a coincidence,” he said. He paused, thinking of Brenda. “But they believe they can. They feel . . . responsible.”

  “You care about them,” Claire said.

  “They’re people.”

  “They’re subjects. And in my experience it works best if you wall yourself off when you’re down there. Don’t let anything in.” Emile frowned. “I know, I know. I’m a monster. But trust me, it’ll make it easier in the long run. When Vince asks you to do something you don’t want to do.”

  She got up. Emile wasn’t trying to read her thoughts, but he could tell she was growing uncomfortable, that she had difficulty staying still for a long period of time. Maybe that was why she had been so hard to find.

  “You’re going to have another meeting with Vince,” Claire said. “He’ll congratulate you on your work today. He’ll tell you that in four months you’ve accomplished what took Max a year. Then, he’ll ask you to take the next step.”

  “What does that mean?” Emile said.

  “Do you want to stay here?”

  Emile didn’t answer right away. He’d stayed this long for Jacob, more than anything else. To give his brother the future he’d nearly surrendered when the two fled Lawrence. Though now, standing in the same room as Claire, his mind began to imagine a different future, a future of his own. In it he was agreeing to whatever Vince asked. He was in the basement, doing whatever they told him, thinking of who waited for him above.

  Claire snapped her fingers, breaking his daydream.

  “How do you know all this? What I’ve been doing. What I’ll do next.”

  Claire flashed her teeth. They were all perfect, Emile noticed, except her canines, which were a little too narrow, and a little too sharp, like they might cut you if you got too close. “Isn’t it obvious?” she said. “It was in my dream.”

  * * *

  His meeting with Vince was short, congratulatory, and unfolded exactly as Claire said it would. Emile thought about her as Vince outlined the new experiment. He would still be listening to dreams, but the Eldridge wanted to test a new hypothesis. These percipients, Vince explained, they think they can predict the future. They’ve all visited the World’s Fair and have the pins to prove it. And this belief is based on their dreams—things they have seen while asleep that later come true. But have you ever considered that the inverse might be true? That the percipients don’t read what is already written. That, in fact, they are not the readers, but the writers, the very authors of their future?

  Of course Emile hadn’t considered it. The idea was absurd. He said, “You’re saying that things happen because they dream them.”

  Vince raised his eyebrows, as if the idea wasn’t remotely far-fetched. “I’m saying we should consider it. While we have them here.”

  Emile would be working with Brenda exclusively, since she was the percipient who showed the most promise.

  That night, he walked the dark basement corridor until he reached Brenda’s room. The experiment would begin then. Emile had to talk to her before the dreams, not after. He slid open the window and saw her sleeping, as Vince had promised. Her body was curled up and facing the wall.

  “What if she’s awake?” he had asked.

  “She won’t be.”

  “You’ll give her something.”

  Emile entered the room and shut the door behind him. He stood over Brenda as she slept, her mouth open and brow furrowed. Even now she looked worried, like she was waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

  He crouched down. He leaned in, then hesitated. It felt wrong, what he was doing. Being there when Brenda was unconscious. Was she aware of this new experiment? He hadn’t thought to ask Vince, but he should have. But he put his wall up, as Claire suggested, and did as he was told.

  He put his mouth next to Brenda’s ear and began whispering the script Vince had given him. He paused between each line, as instructed, to allow enough time for the words to soak in.

  Your husband finds fortune.

  All debts are forgiven.

  He takes your daughter to the beach. Together, they pick the nicest house.

  It will be a surprise. This, they agree in secret.

  They rent the nicest car and drive to you, to this hotel.

  Brenda twitched in her sleep. Emile pulled his mouth away from her ear. She stirred, but did not wake. He considered stopping. But it felt good, what he was saying, the life he was inventing for Brenda. It was a life she would die to live. And for a moment—even though his dreams never came true, even though his gift was very different—he wondered how his script would read, if he were the one lying in the bed, sleeping. He thought of Jacob. Of Ginny and Austin. Of his mother. Of Claire. Was it really that bad, what he was doing, trying to create the perfect future? He leaned down to Brenda’s ear and whispered the dream she wanted to come true.

  You are waiting for them. There, on the stairs. The valet takes your husband’s keys. Your husband runs to you. Your daughter r
uns to you. You are so happy you can’t breathe.

  * * *

  Emile whispered into Brenda’s ear each night for two weeks. Each morning, he sat with her as he always had. “Tell me about your dreams,” he said. “Tell me everything you remember.”

  It was clear almost immediately that the experiment wasn’t working. The absurdity of the hypothesis grew with every day of failure, as did the pained expression on Brenda’s face. The drugs they gave her were messing her up, she complained. She felt tired all the time now. Worse, no longer did her dreams find her only at night. They hovered over her days too. “It never stops,” she said. “I can always see them, the men, the house, my family, even when I’m awake.”

  Emile tried to reassure her. He promised the experiment was nearly complete. But he had no way of knowing if that was true, and the more he tried to comfort her, the more obvious it became that he was merely assuaging his guilt for continuing to play his part. When he wasn’t working, when he wasn’t cleaning rooms and had nothing better to do, he found himself waiting on the front steps, hoping that Brenda’s husband would miraculously appear, daughter in tow.

  “How are things in the dream world?” Claire said. She’d found Emile on the steps, watching the mountains snuff out the sun. “Don’t worry,” she said, when Emile didn’t respond. “That wasn’t a question or anything.”

  Emile remained quiet. He tried to remember what he had felt when he saw Claire here and talked to her for the first time, nearly five months ago. He tried to remember the buzzing that electrified him when they were in the same room just a couple of weeks ago.

  “Her husband is not coming. You know that.” Emile nodded. “So why are you waiting?”

  “What else is there to do?” Emile asked. He sounded sadder than he intended. But he supposed he was feeling a little down. You couldn’t just whisper the perfect future into existence.

  The sun set for good. Finally, Claire stood up. She extended her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “And go where?”

  “Into town. We’ll catch a movie or something.” She wiggled her fingers at him. “Come on, movies are fun. I am fun.”

  She smiled at him again, with sharp teeth, holding her mouth open long enough for Emile to find her tiny imperfection. He took her hand, and when she squeezed his and pulled him up to her, he felt his entire body buzz back to life.

  * * *

  The theater was called the Southwind. Claire knew the usher, who let them in for free with a wink. Emile felt a pang of jealousy in his chest that he realized he had no right to feel, until he sat down next to Claire in the dark. The movie had already started. It was difficult for Emile to pick up what was going on. A man stood in a desert. A cowboy, perhaps, left by his posse to die. Though he wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat or a gun. And the boots he was wearing were like nothing Emile had ever seen.

  Claire leaned over and whispered in Emile’s ear. “He’s supposed to be on Mars. He’s a convict, framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Only in the future we sentence our criminals to Mars. It’s like the future’s Australia.” He turned to face her. They were almost nose-to-nose. She blushed. “What,” Claire said. “I like movies.”

  Emile paid little attention to the rest of the movie. He caught glimpses of scenes in between studying Claire, the way her foot twitched during the exciting scenes, the way her dark eyes refused to blink, as if afraid they would miss something. He took separate trips to the bathroom and the concession stand so he could brush against Claire’s legs. Meanwhile, the space cowboy was slowly going insane. There was nothing around him but an ocean of desolation. Everywhere he looked, desert and rock. Predictably, he began to see things. The faithful dog he’d left behind, ears pinned down when the man said good-bye. The last woman he’d loved, now a sand-blown ghost, one that beckoned him closer and closer to the boiling sun.

  When the film finally ended, Emile was disappointed. Not at the ending—the man died alone on Mars, calling his lover’s name—but that his time with Claire was nearly over. He pretended to be interested in the credits so they could spend a little longer in the dark. His spirits lifted when Claire suggested they take the long way back to the hotel. They walked around until they stumbled upon a small park. Emile wasn’t sure where they were exactly, nor did he care. In the center of the park was a white gazebo, but Emile and Claire chose to sit on a nearby bench, so they could see what the stars were up to.

  “What does it feel like?” Claire said. “What you do. With other people’s thoughts.”

  Emile looked away. No one had ever asked him directly before. An old man walked a small dog around the gazebo. He carried a camera with him, and whenever the dog stopped or did something the man thought noteworthy, he took a picture. Emile thought of the movie, the delirious space cowboy petting a rock and telling it to sit. Stay.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. We can head back.”

  “No,” Emile said, but he didn’t know what to say next. The closest he’d come to telling anyone about his gift was back in Kansas, with Austin. He tried to recall the excitement he felt on the walk to Lost 80 that night, the night he would end up leaving everything behind. He hadn’t realized how eager he had been to share what he could do with someone—someone he could trust, someone who would understand, someone who would listen. Someone who wasn’t his brother. But those boys had beaten Austin before he ever got the chance.

  “Emile?”

  “It’s . . . a feeling,” Emile said. “A sensation. Like a wave washing over you, only you’re still standing on the beach. You get wet without getting in the water.”

  Claire nodded. Her hands sat on her lap, and Emile wondered what kind of miracle it would take to make her hand move to his.

  “Then things start to come into focus. Images, thoughts or whatever. Sometimes I can see them clearly, as if I’m standing there with them as their father calls them a disappointment or their wife says she’s not in love anymore. Other times it’s more difficult. People are good at putting up walls, dams that keep the water from rushing out.”

  “You can’t see through them?”

  “Not easily,” Emile said. “Though I guess I don’t want to, either.” The few times he’d tried before, in high school, he’d only found things he didn’t want to see. He learned that what people hid, they hid for a reason.

  “Hmm,” Claire said. She put her hands in her jacket, and Emile chided himself for missing his chance. Claire tilted her head back, admiring the sky. “What about me?”

  “I don’t know,” Emile said. “I’ve never tried.”

  Claire faced him again. “Never? Why not?”

  “Because. That would be cheating.”

  “Cheating.”

  “Yes,” Emile said. “I wouldn’t have earned it.”

  This time it was Claire who looked away, though she did so with a slight smile. If Emile had looked inside her mind then, if he was able to, he knew he would have liked what he saw, the chain reacation that finally made her hand move to his. He had never met anyone like her.

  “What about now?” Claire asked.

  Emile leaned in and closed his eyes. His skin buzzed. He breathed deep. Her hair smelled like some flower he didn’t know the name of. The small dog barked in the distance. Emile shut it out, along with every thought surrounding the two of them. But he saw nothing. It was as if he had been plunged into complete darkness, one so dense even the stars could not punch through. He ran blind toward the ocean. Waves lapped around him. Not pushing him out, pulling him in, carrying him closer and closer to something that he supposed he wanted all along.

  * * *

  In the morning, Claire snuck out of Emile’s dorm before the residential assistant made his rounds. Coed cohabitation wasn’t frowned upon, but it wasn’t smiled upon either. Emile had the day off from the lab—the experiments weren’t working, Vince admitted; he needed to retool the script—but he was due to clean rooms in less than an hour. The day went by in
a blur, his thoughts occupied by Claire. He wondered what she was doing, what she was thinking, and it felt good to wonder those things, and to know that there was someone out there wondering the same things about him.

  And yet the day went by, taking the evening with it, and Emile saw no sign of Claire. Nor the next day, or the day after that. He told himself to be patient. Give her a week. In the meantime, he checked on Brenda, though after his night with Claire, he’d begun to feel sorrier for her than ever before. It became hard to look at her, to feel how sad she was, knowing that she had once had a daughter and a husband to share her life, knowing that she had once been so happy. Sometimes, when Emile was above ground, he pictured Brenda and the other percipients trapped below him.

  A week passed. No one had seen Claire. He felt another wave, not pushing him back or taking him in, but a heavy, sinking current that threatened to pull him under. He worried she had left. Aged out like Max. Gone to college like Jacob. Disappeared like his mother. He tried to imagine what the Eldridge would be like without her.

  It was another week before Vince gave him a new assignment.

  “You should be happy.”

  “For what.”

  “For all you’ve accomplished.”

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  “It may feel as if you’ve done little, but that’s the way of the world, isn’t it? Small steps before mighty leaps.”

  Emile sipped his coffee. They’d met in the dining room, and he watched every server who walked by, hoping for Claire.

  “You seem distracted,” Vince said.

  “Have you seen Claire?”

  Vince crossed his legs, folding his hands over his knee. “I’m sorry to say she doesn’t work here anymore.”

  Emile nearly dropped his mug.

  “People move on,” Vince said. “Max. Claire. Someday you might too.”

  “She wouldn’t just leave,” Emile said.