The Undesirable (Undesirable Series)

by Celi, S.

  Right?

  The blood drained from his face. “I’m sorry. Not what I meant. I meant in life, sometimes stuff happens we can’t explain.” He ran a hand though his hair. “Jesus, I am sorry.”

  “Sorry? You’re sorry?”

  He put a hand on his forehead. “God, I am so stupid. I shouldn’t have said that. I just—” He broke off as if helpless for what to say next.

  “My mom was a drunk. Everyone knew that. But it doesn’t make it okay that they shot her.” I glared at him, still angry.

  “It’s not. You’re right,” he whispered. “This is such a struggle for me. I’m not supposed to do all this. They told us at drill not to get involved, that we had to make sure we found out who in Harrison Corners is working for Canada, who is Harrison Corners is really an Undesirable.”

  I blinked, confused to no end. “So why help me?” I asked. “Why do all this for me?”

  “Well, I want you to make it through all this.” His voice warmed. “I want you there when things get better. I know they will. They’ve got to.” Fostino brushed my hair out of my face and his lips found mine once again.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  This time, no alarm from a Hologram Watch stopped us. Fostino kissed me deeply for a few moments, knocked what remained of the orange on the floor, and pulled me down so my back angled between the arm of the loveseat and the cushion. My left hand framed his face and held his chin to me as I returned every single caress. His lips tasted sensuous and it stirred the pit of my stomach. Irresistible. I wanted him.

  “Oh, wow,” I breathed. My heart quickened.

  “Oh, wow is right. It’s getting late, Char.” Fostino smiled and stood up. I wondered how many girls at school he kissed this way and how far he had gone with someone else. He held his right hand out to me.

  “Wait. What? You’re leaving?” I asked as I took his hand and stood up.

  Fostino molded his body to mine and cupped the nape of my neck. He fixed his eyes on mine. “Do you want me to?” He kept his voice soft.

  “No,” I admitted. The answer surprised me. I glanced from him to the Murphy bed and back again.

  Oh. My. God. Would we have sex?

  “Good,” he said in an even tone and leaned in to kiss me some more. So wonderful. So sensuous. So right.

  Before I knew it, Fostino pulled me to the unfolded bed. This time the kisses came with a force— he wanted something. He rolled me around on the bed so he lay on top of me. His lips brushed my forehead, my eyebrows, my left cheek, and the tip of my nose. I hung on to the collar of his shirt.

  While we kissed, my mind raced faster than a hamster on a cage’s treadmill. It happened very fast; it all seemed so alluring. I was like an alcoholic with the world’s best wine bottle open right in front of me. I wanted to go down this road. I wanted to submit to the moment and lose myself in the fantasy.

  Then I saw flashes of my mother.

  I remembered the men who floated in and out of her bedroom; I thought about the money they left on the table. I remembered the way they sometimes yelled drunken curse words at her. All of it swirled through my head with such force that when Fostino pushed the hem of my black dress to the top of my skinny thighs, I pulled away from his embrace and put my hand on his chest to stop him.

  “I can’t.” I shook my head.

  “You can’t.” He held his head arched above mine.

  “It’s too much,” I said, and he rolled off me. I bit my lip. “I won’t. Not like this. Not right now. I don’t know—”

  “Okay,” he said, and sat up. I listened for disappointment in his voice and thanked God when I didn’t hear it.

  “It’s so complicated.” I put my hand on my forehead, more embarrassed than I had ever been.

  “Try me.” Fostino reached over and cradled my neck.

  I focused on the popcorn ceiling and took a few breaths. I willed my blood not to boil. I forced my stomach to stop twisting in knots.

  “It’s stuff with my mother,” I admitted. “I just never… I never want to be like her.” Fostino still watched me. “She, well, she had so many men,” I stammered. “She made me sick. All the time. Everyone knows she got paid for—”

  “Sex?” he supplied and raised one gorgeous dark eyebrow.

  “Yes.” I flushed redder than a tomato. Fostino nodded and pursed his lips.

  God, how embarrassing.

  “I know you’re not your mother.” Fostino balanced his head on his left arm and looked into my eyes. “Can you trust me at least about that?” Fostino looked so handsome, so mysterious, so safe, and so dangerous all at once.

  “I trust you. I think,” I breathed. I traced my index finger along his jaw. “I want to trust you.”

  “Good,” he whispered before he leaned down and his lips found mine once more. One kiss turned into five, then ten, then twenty. Fostino’s hand slid to my side; his fingers skimmed over the black dress before they squeezed my hip as the moment deepened. His tongue circled as his lips pushed against mine, comforting and illicit. I knew I didn’t want to stop.

  Fostino pulled on one of the thick sleeves of the dress. I reached up through the small space between us and pulled open the first button of my dress. Past the point of caring about anything anymore, past the point of worrying what anything meant, I reached for the second button. That’s when Fostino pulled away.

  “No,” he said. He shook his head to emphasize his words. “We shouldn’t do this.” His eyes glinted a little. “Not after what you told me. I won’t do that to you.”

  I blinked twice, unable to hide my surprise and disappointment. “Okay.”

  Fostino held his body above me. His chest muscles stiffened. “I don’t want this to be random,” he said. “I don’t want this to mean nothing. Not this time. Not like this.” I held my eyes on his as I tried to process what he said. “I want you, but it’s more. I want to protect you. I want to make sure you survive. I want you to still be here when The War ends, whenever that might be.”

  “No one’s ever wanted to help me before. No one has ever really cared,” I admitted. I gulped. “No one.”

  “That’s terrible,” he said. “I’ll change that.” I took in his words. I’d never been this close to anyone. Then suddenly, exhaustion overwhelmed me. I yawned.

  “I need to go to sleep.” I didn’t care I hadn’t made it underneath the blanket on the bed.

  “You do need to sleep,” he said. “Me, too.” He stroked my hair with his right hand.

  “Mm mm.” Each muscle relaxed in my tight back. Fostino got up and flipped off the single fluorescent light anchored to the popcorn ceiling before he pulled one side of the blanket so it covered my legs. Moments later, sleep took over my body.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The incessant roar of the sewing machines made sure I didn’t fall asleep at my workstation. I looked at the clock.

  2:45 PM.

  Every day, these 12-hour work shifts seemed to grow longer and take longer to finish. I knew if the soldiers didn’t kill me, the sheer monotony of the work would.

  I focused on the huge portrait of Maxwell Cooper that hung on the wall at the end of my row. I stared at his face while I made another shirt and remembered President Mary Anne Phillips. I remembered the day the newscasters told us she’d been assassinated during a trip to Toronto she took to once again negotiate the status of the Keystone Pipeline and the Canadian tar sands. An anarchist disguised as a waiter shot her in cold blood at a dinner with the Canadian elite.

  I finally realized the gunman could not have been an anarchist, but one of Cooper’s supporters and probably someone from The Party. I didn’t remember a trial.

  Had there been one?

  3:00 PM.

  “Maxwell Cooper is our father. Maxwell Cooper is our leader.
Maxwell Cooper will take care of us,” droned the woman on the stool in the center of the room.

  The clench of the gears in my sewing machine brought me back to reality. I almost sewed my fingers into the fabric. I pulled at the strings, saved the shirt, and glanced around at the other women in the room.

  Had they ever stopped to think about all this? Ever thought about another life? Had they lost hope, like me? How long would they take this? How long would I take this?

  The soldiers paced back and forth around the room while my hands finished another shirt with a few deft movements of the sewing machine. I lost count of how many shirts I had already made, how many I had made for The War Effort in total.

  Not that I ever really cared.

  We all heard the unmistakable sound of boots on the stairwell a few minutes later. Heavy feet clanged and crashed their warning as the door to the far stairs flung open. The Colonel from the day of the massacre darkened the door. I gulped.

  “Stand up!” He shouted in that clipped accent of his. I shuddered in fear as his words crawled down my back.

  Without a word to each other, we put down our shirts, took our feet off the sewing machine pedals, and stood up from the long tables. The Colonel walked down the long center aisle of the room. He made eye contact with each one of us as he walked. His boots beat out a pace like two drums in my ears. He stopped at the other end of the aisle and removed his lambskin gloves. He pulled out his black leather-riding crop and swatted the wall to his left.

  “Ladies!” he screamed, and I saw his brown eyes glint with anger. “I know the work you’ve been doing. I know the effort you put in for The War.” In unison, a group of soldiers and Homeland Guard members marched in and then circled the perimeter of the room. They surrounded and faced us, but didn’t meet anyone’s eyes with their own.

  I prayed my emotion would not give me away as I searched for Fostino. I found him two tables ahead of me. I fixed my eyes on his face. The sight stunned me. His sad eyes clouded and darkened. His jaw looked as tight as a rubber band slingshot. His mouth held a hard line and his blank expression fell right in line with the others.

  What?

  “Many of you say you are devoted,” yelled the Colonel. “Many of you say you don’t want Canada to win The War.”

  I gulped again. My heart quickened in my chest.

  “But some here, even now, don’t believe! Some people in this very room are not honest!” The Colonel pulled a folded piece of paper from the inside jacket pocket on his left breast and flipped it open. He cleared his throat. “Worker OHHC- 435. Marcy Havishham,” he read off the paper. “Come up here.”

  Every woman in the room turned to a short, fat, red haired woman who sat two tables down from me on the left hand size of the room. Marcy’s plump face lost all trace of color and her eyes bulged. She crept up to the front of the room like a woman about to burn at the stake. My heart broke for her even though I had not talked to her very much.

  “You, 435, stand accused of sabotage!”

  What?

  Marcy’s fear spread all over her round face. Her eyes bulged and she shifted from one foot to another. “I didn… wha… I mean… I didn’t sabotage anything,” she stammered and all of us heard her voice break. Sweat pooled on her forehead.

  “Guards,” the Colonel shouted. “Bring the evidence.”

  A soldier from the back of the room stepped forward with a black nylon bag. Mirrored sunglasses covered his eyes and almost wrapped around his head. He marched up to the Colonel and handed him the bag. The Colonel unzipped it and pulled out a mess of tan fabric. He held out the pieces like slabs of rancid meat.

  “This.” He directed his words at Marcy. “Look at this. Tell me what this is!”

  As the fabric straightened out, we all saw the shirts in question. Some had sleeves sewn in the wrong places and oversized neck holes.

  A mess. But sabotage?

  “If you think for one second you’ll get away with this… you won’t.” He scolded Marcy in a voice so cold it scared me even more than any of his other screams. The Colonel waved the shirts in Marcy’s face. Then he turned to all of us. “Sabotage like this will not be tolerated!” he barked.

  A man from the line of soldiers closer to the front stepped forward and pulled a pair black handcuffs from the back of his uniform. Once he reached Marcy, he slapped them on her and snapped them shut with a loud clink.

  “I place you under arrest, OHHC-435,” the Colonel announced at that same moment.

  Marcy cried out in a loud voice and mumbled something. The emotion rolled down her face. Her body heaved with every sob. I blinked back tears of my own and hoped no one would notice. The same soldier with the handcuffs pulled on the chain linking Marcy’s hands together, marched her down the aisle, and forced her through the back door.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Six minutes after 10:00 PM, I heard a soft knock on the apartment door. I slid the chain back and opened it.

  “Hello,” Fostino whispered from the dark hallway.

  “Hi.” I gritted my teeth. Fostino stepped into the apartment. I made sure the hallway appeared deserted before I shut the door.

  “This is like a regular thing. I stop here almost every night.” He flopped down on the loveseat. I could only stare back at him.

  Didn’t he care about what happened today?

  “Don’t your parents wonder if you’re here? They have to,” I wondered aloud. My gut sensed the awkwardness ahead.

  “No. They’re distracted, like I told you,” he replied. “Everyone is. And I’m 19, Charlotte. You’re 18. We’re not kids anymore.” He shrugged.

  I shut the door, and then reached for the remote to turn down the volume on the state propaganda scrolling across the 4-D TV. A newscaster narrated video about the latest British general The Party killed. I didn’t take a place next to him. Instead, I sat in the wooden chair.

  Fostino frowned. “What? What’s going on?”

  “Does it not even matter to you what happened today?”

  “Oh, that.” He gulped. “Right. Well, I—“

  THAT? Did it mean so little to him? Really?

  I shook my head and glared at him. “I watched you today,” I said. “I saw you stand there, stone faced. You just watched it happen. Like it didn’t even matter to you an innocent person stood accused of… of… of whatever!” I pushed back on the wooden chair. Anger ran through my body in hot waves.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Fostino looked at the dusty wooden floor.

  I exploded. “I don’t know! It’s so horrible. Do you really think so many Undesirables hide in our town?”

  He shrugged and kept his eyes on the grooves in the floor.

  Oh my God. He did.

  “This is wrong. No freedom. No rights. No hope. This will never end until we all die. They’ll kill us all. Can’t you see?”

  He put one hand over his eyes. “Look, it’s not like I wanted to be there today. They made us go.” When he took his hand off his eyes, his face had paled. “I had to be there. I had no choice. Besides, like I said, we have to find the Undesirables.”

  “There’s no way Marcy was an Undesirable.”

  “You don’t know that,” he whispered.

  I threw up my hands. “Can’t you see what’s happening? They’re killing everyone. They’re killing anyone.”

  “There will be people alive at the end of all this. I know. And I plan for us to be two of them.”

  How could I be around someone who would think all this was okay?

  “Why? They made us slaves. What do we have to live for?” My words pushed through my teeth as fast as bullets.

  “I know you don’t want to work within the system,” he sighed. “But I don’t know any other way. Right now, I don’t. ”
/>   “Oh, my God.” I pinched my nose between my thumb and my forefinger. An ache formed in the front of my head. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you would be fine with this. I can’t believe The Party would be okay with this. My mom is dead. They murdered her and they would have killed others!”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Look. I’m not happy about it. It hurts me too. Don’t you see? But what do you want me do?” he asked. “This is the way things are right now.”

  “Well not for everyone,” I said in a soft voice. “What about the people who joined the SSR? What if we joined?”

  “No. No way.” Fostino fixed his eyes on me. They turned black and hard. “I can’t believe you would even talk like that.” His voice sounded firm.

  “Why not?” I demanded as I balanced my chin in my left hand. My words came out like arrows headed for a target. “Why not? Tell me. Now. You. Tell. Me. Now.”

  Fostino’s jaw flexed and he pointed out the window. “If you think what’s going on out there is bad, life with the SSR is worse. Much worse. Jesus, Charlotte. Why can’t you get it? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone— and for sure not on you.”

  I wanted to ask him to explain, but I did not. The weight of this conversation stifled me.

  “I know you really do care about me,” I admitted. It was the truth, but I also wanted to end the conversation. I just needed it to be over. I took another deep, steadying breath.

  Fostino nodded and stood up. He reached a hand out to me. Once I took it, he pulled me out of the wooden chair and into his arms.

  “I more than just care about you. I mean that.” He looked down at me; his eyes widened and searched mine. He pulled my face toward him and kissed my hair.

  “I’m falling in love with you,” he said after a long moment. “No — not falling — I do. I love you.”

  My face softened. My stomach twisted and burned. I pulled back and gazed back up to him. I saw in his eyes that he meant every word. I didn’t need to think about what I should say next. The words sat on the tip of my tongue.