This World We Live In ls-3

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  Alex read the write-up of Sexton. Then he reached over and kissed me. “We’ll go tomorrow,” he said.

  “It’s Saturday,” I said. “Wait until Tuesday.”

  “I hate waiting,” he said. “If we wait much longer, Julie won’t make it.”

  “It’s just a cough,” I said.

  “There’s no such thing as just a cough,” he said.

  I held him and we kissed again.

  “You’ll come with us,” he said. There was no question in his voice, just the assurance that I would.

  “Alex, I don’t know,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “You have to. Now that it’s real, that Julie has a place to go, I can make plans for us.”

  “I’m not a Catholic,” I said. “I can’t convert for you.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” he said. “I don’t love you for what you believe. I love you in spite of what you believe.”

  “I believe in family,” I said. “And so do you.”

  He nodded. “I thought the passes were the only thing I had of value. But you’re what I value. I’ll give Lisa two of the passes, for her and Gabriel. Julie can live with them in the safe town. Hal and you and I will live outside of town. Charlie, too, if he wants. They’re bound to need workers, people to farm and clean and keep the town running. Miranda, we can do it.”

  I thought about it as much as I could think with Alex’s body so close to mine. I knew the journey would be hard, but it would be harder a month from now, a year from now, whenever the food ran out and we’d have to leave here. And I wouldn’t have Alex.

  If I left now, Mom would still have Jon and Matt and Syl. She couldn’t object if I went with Dad. Even if she did object, she couldn’t stop me.

  “Yes,” I said. “Oh, Alex, yes.”

  July 9

  It was one thing to tell Alex that I would go with him. It was a whole other thing to tell Mom.

  I knew I had to. I couldn’t vanish. I’d asked Alex to hold off telling Dad and Lisa until today, but once they knew, they’d come over to talk about plans.

  It would be even worse if Julie told Jon and Jon told Mom before I had.

  But it was Sunday, and Mom politely declined when Syl asked if she wanted to join them for their prayer service. I declined just as politely. Mom and I stood at the door and watched as Syl and Matt and Jon walked over to Dad’s. I was alone now with Mom. I had no choice.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” I said.

  I could see Mom calculate how bad it was going to be. But she didn’t say anything, just gestured for me to sit by her side.

  “Alex has some papers,” I said. “Three passes into a safe town.”

  “What’s a safe town?” Mom asked.

  “They’re towns that still work,” I said. “The government set them up. They have electricity, I guess. Hospitals, schools. They’re for important people to live in. People with connections.”

  “How did Alex get the passes?” she asked. “Does his family have connections?”

  “What difference does it make?” I said. “He has them.”

  “It makes a lot of difference,” Mom said. “Because the next thing you’re going to tell me is you’re going off with him and Julie and the three of you will be fine and happy and I shouldn’t worry because you’ll be in a safe town, whatever that is. But if Alex stole the passes or worse, then I want to know.”

  “I don’t know how he got them,” I said. “But I know Alex. He would never have stolen them.”

  “All right,” Mom said. “Somehow these passes fell into his lap. It’s a miracle. Why hasn’t he taken Julie there already? What was all the business about the convent if there’s this lovely safe town waiting for them?”

  “He didn’t know where one was,” I said. “They keep them hidden. I found out for him.”

  “And how did you find out?” Mom asked.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I said. “I found out. I told him. He and Julie and I will be leaving day after tomorrow. We’re going to spend the rest of our lives together. Mom, he’s giving up everything for me.”

  “You’re the one who’s giving everything up,” Mom said. “You’re giving up your home, your family.”

  “No,” I said. “That’s what you don’t understand, Mom. Alex is giving two of the passes to Lisa, for her and Gabriel. He’ll let Julie live with them, and he and Dad and I will live together nearby. That’s what he’s giving up, Mom. Those passes are worth a lot. Alex could trade them for whatever he wants. But what he wants is me.”

  “And where is this paradise on Earth?” Mom asked. “Where you’ll live just outside someplace with hospitals and schools.”

  “Tennessee,” I said. “Sexton University, in McKinley, Tennessee. Alex says we’re sure to get work there. You can’t stop me, Mom, any more than you could stop Matt from falling in love. I’m going. I’ll be with Dad. I’ll be all right.”

  “You’re not doing this to be with your father,” Mom said. “At least be honest about that.”

  “I’m more honest than you ever were,” I said. “When you kept me from going with Dad last summer.”

  “I had to make that decision for you,” Mom said. “You weren’t old enough to decide for yourself.”

  “I’m old enough now,” I said. “And I’ve decided.”

  “Does your father know?” Mom asked.

  “Alex is telling him today,” I said.

  “Well, he’ll be happy,” Mom said. “A safe place for Lisa and the baby. Will Charlie go with you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I hope so.”

  “I hope so, too,” Mom said. “Because you’re going to need all the help you can get, Miranda, when this blows up. You think you’re grown up but you’re not. You have no idea what love is. What you feel for Alex, it’s pity and desire, not love. Not the kind of love two people build a life on.”

  “Maybe that’s what love is now,” I said. “Pity. Desire. Maybe I’m one of the lucky ones because I still have feelings. I don’t know. I just know I can’t bear the thought of losing Alex. This is my chance, maybe my only chance, to love somebody. I can’t worry about what we’ll build a life on. We have today. If we’re lucky, we’ll have tomorrow.”

  “What if you don’t stay in Tennessee?” Mom asked. “How will I know where you are?”

  “We’ll let Alex’s brother know,” I said. “Carlos Morales. He’s in the Marines, stationed in Texas. Alex can give you all his information.”

  “There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?” she asked. “You have no doubts?”

  I had a thousand doubts, a million doubts. “I love Alex,” I said. “He loves me. I’m going with him.”

  “But not until Tuesday,” Mom said. “If you do change your mind, it will be all right. Alex will understand and so will your father. Promise me you’ll think about it between now and then. I love you, Miranda, and I want what’s best for you. Think about what you’ll be giving up if you go. Think about it hard.”

  “I have thought about it,” I said. “And I promise you I’ll think about it more. But, Mom, I’m going. I know what I’ll be giving up if I go. But I also know what I’ll be giving up if I stay.”

  Mom took my hand. “This wasn’t how things were supposed to be,” she said. “You should be in high school, your future ahead of you. Not this.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be this way for Alex, either,” I said. “Or Matt. Or Jon. You have to fight for happiness, Mom. Maybe it didn’t used to be that way, but it is now. I’m not going to settle for sadness. That’s not what you want for me, not really.”

  “I want to protect you,” Mom said. “I want to know you’re safe, that you’ll be all right.”

  “Just love me,” I said. “Love me and let me go.”

  Chapter 17

  July 10

  I thought I knew what fear was. I thought, For the past year I’ve lived every day afraid; I must understand fear.

  I understood n
othing.

  Last night was horrible. Matt yelled at me, told me that Alex wasn’t good enough for me, that I was disloyal and stupid. Then he and Syl got into a screaming match in their room, so loud we could all hear it downstairs.

  Jon didn’t yell, at least not at me. He and Mom had a huge fight. He wanted to go with us and Mom wouldn’t let him. It was so bad she sent me over to Dad’s to bring him back to tell Jon he’d be better off staying home.

  Even Charlie got in the act. He came over to talk things out with me.

  “I’m glad you’re going with us,” he said. “It makes Hal so happy, and Hal’s the best friend I’ve ever had. But don’t count too much on Alex. He’s a great boy, Miranda, a wonderful boy, but that’s what he is, a boy. A boy who’s been given so much responsibility, he thinks he must be a man.”

  That was last night. And awful as it was, I’d give up everything to go back to it.

  Matt and Dad went out this morning to chop wood and spend their last day together. Syl hid in her room; Jon, in his. Mom and I cleaned downstairs, carefully staying in different rooms as we dusted and scrubbed.

  Alex and Julie came over around ten. “Julie would like to make the food run with Jon,” Alex said. “Is that all right with you, Mrs. Evans?”

  Mom nodded. She went to the staircase and hollered to Jon to come down. He did, each step taking longer than the step before.

  “Julie wants to go to town with you,” Mom said. “For the food run. All right?”

  Jon shrugged.

  Julie took that for a yes. “Let’s go,” she said. Jon followed as she left the house.

  “I’d like to go out with Miranda if you don’t mind, Mrs. Evans,” Alex said. “I’d like to look for bikes or maybe even a car.”

  “It looks like it might rain,” Mom said.

  “She’ll be fine,” Alex said. “I’ll look out for her.”

  “I’ll get my jacket,” I said. I ran to the closet and got it, giving Mom a peck on the cheek when I returned. “Mom, don’t worry. I won’t melt.”

  “All right,” Mom said. “I won’t worry.”

  When we got outside, I realized I wouldn’t need my jacket. It was very muggy and close to 70 degrees. There was the smell of thunderstorms in the air. I hoped tomorrow would be better. It would be easier for Mom if I didn’t leave under stormy skies.

  “We need more bikes,” Alex said. “You and I can share one to start out with, and one for Julie and Lisa and Gabriel to share, and one each for Charlie and Hal. I figure we can take one bike from your family, so we’ll need three more.”

  “We only have four bikes,” I said. “Those are for Mom and Matt and Syl and Jon.”

  “Your mother won’t need one,” Alex said. “She never leaves the house.”

  “She will someday,” I said. “When she has to.”

  “She’ll get a bike then,” Alex said. “In the meantime you’ll need a bike a lot more than she does.”

  I wanted to ask Alex if we were doing the right thing, but I knew asking him meant I thought we weren’t. He must have sensed what I was feeling because he grabbed me and we kissed.

  “I want you so much,” he said, and then he laughed. “I used to think I wanted things, school, success, food. That was nothing compared to how much I want you.”

  “You have me,” I said.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said, so I kissed him to prove it. And when I did, my million doubts flew away.

  “Come on,” he said, taking my hand. “Let’s see what we can find.”

  We hiked over to the Seven Pines development, a mile or so away. We stopped more often than I could count, to kiss, to hold each other, to marvel that we really existed. I had lied to Mom. I did melt, over and over again.

  It took an hour of searching and hugging and kissing before we found two bikes. “Let’s ride them back,” I suggested. “And go out again to look some more.”

  “Good idea,” Alex said, kissing me again. “We’ll look for two bikes so your mother can keep yours.”

  We began the short ride back to my house. We rode side by side, but even so Alex felt too far away from me. I thought, I’m choosing to spend the rest of my life with this boy and I hardly know him. But I wasn’t scared anymore, just excited and impatient for the next part of my life to begin.

  We’d gotten back to Howell Bridge Road, maybe a quarter mile from home, when the wind picked up, howling so hard it knocked me off my bike. Alex got off his bike to help me up, but I pulled him down instead, and we kissed.

  What a dumb word that is, “kiss.” I’ve kissed my grandparents, my brothers, my friends, my teddy bears. I’ve kissed other boys.

  This kiss wasn’t that. This kiss was two bodies desperately wanting to become one.

  “Do you still want to marry me?” I asked him. “In the eyes of God and the Church?”

  “Does that mean you will?” he asked.

  I nodded. We held on to each other, loved each other, for what should have been the rest of our lives.

  But then hail started to fall, little pellets of ice at first, more and more of them, growing in size and danger.

  “We’ve got to get home,” Alex said as he pulled me up from the road and helped me get on my bike.

  It’s been a year since I’ve seen blue sky, and I thought I knew every different gradation of gray, but the sky had a new and terrifying tone, almost a greenish tint. We rode frantically down the hill, both of us falling as our wheels hit ice. Thunder was growing louder and closer to flashes of lightning.

  And then I saw the twister. I couldn’t tell how far away it was, just that it was moving fast toward us, toward our home.

  I yelled to Alex, who looked as I gestured. We rode even faster then, trying to outrace death. But as we reached my house, he didn’t turn off onto the driveway. Instead he yelled something at me and kept on biking, faster than I knew he could, faster than I knew anybody could.

  In a flash I understood everything. He was biking toward Julie and Jon, to warn them, to save them. And he’d shouted to me to get his missal.

  I had only seconds to decide. Do I go back home, warn Mom and Syl, and ride out the tornado in the cellar with them, or do I go to Dad’s, warn Lisa and Charlie, and do the one thing Alex had asked of me?

  I turned away from home, rode to Dad’s, jumped off my bike, and pounded frantically on their back door.

  Charlie opened it.

  “Tornado!” I screamed. “Go to the cellar!”

  I didn’t stay in the kitchen long enough to make sure he understood, that he warned Lisa and led her and the baby to safety. I trusted him to do that, as Alex trusted me.

  Instead I ran to the parlor and looked frantically for the missal. I went through a pile of textbooks, but it wasn’t there. I felt all the furniture, to see if it was stuffed under cushions, but it didn’t seem to be. I got on the floor, searching under the chairs and sofas. I have no idea how long I looked, maybe a minute, maybe more. But then I caught a glimpse of something in his neatly folded pile of clothes. I flung the clothes until I found the missal.

  I raced back toward the kitchen, but I could tell from the terrifying sound, the way the house was beginning to shake, that there wasn’t enough time to get to the cellar. Instead I ran into the little storage closet under the stairwell, clutching the missal tightly, as though it could keep me from harm.

  When we were kids, we were forbidden to go in that closet. It was the perfect size to hide in, and we’d always been tempted. But now I was grown up, and the closet was too small for me to stand. I curled up in a ball, making myself as small as possible, so the tornado couldn’t find me.

  All around me I could sense the house collapsing, and I felt like a sparrow being sucked into an airplane engine. The sound was ungodly. But the stairwell held, and the tornado passed, and I was still alive.

  I pushed against the stairwell door, but it wouldn’t open. I pushed harder, shoving my shoulder against it, but nothing happened. I twisted my torso
so my entire chest faced the door, and I rammed my body into the door, pushing, pushing, pushing, but the door stayed shut. There was too much debris piled against it.

  I was stuck in the closet, in a tiny space under the staircase. I’d survived the tornado, but now I was buried alive. If no one found me, I’d suffocate.

  “Help!” I screamed. “Help!”

  “Miranda? Where are you? Are you all right?”

  The voice was muffled, as though it was a long way away. Then I realized it was Charlie, calling to me from the cellar.

  “I’m in the stairwell closet,” I yelled. “I can’t get the door open. Are you all right? Lisa? The baby?”

  “We’re fine,” Charlie shouted. “Keep still, Miranda. Don’t talk anymore. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I shook from relief. Charlie would save me. Death would be cheated, one more time.

  But Charlie didn’t come. I heard thuds from the cellar and a noise I couldn’t identify, and then Lisa screamed.

  I knew yelling would use up needed air, but I couldn’t help myself. “What happened?” I shouted. “Lisa?”

  Lisa didn’t answer. She just screamed, “No! Charlie, no!”

  “Charlie!” I shouted. “Charlie, answer me!”

  But there was no answer, just the sound of Lisa and Gabriel wailing as though they’d lost their best friend.

  I was too stunned to cry. Something had happened. I couldn’t be sure what, but whatever it was, Charlie hadn’t been able to get the cellar door open. He and Lisa and Gabriel were as trapped as I was. They had more room, so they wouldn’t suffocate, but unless someone came and got us out, they would die, just as I would, only their deaths would take longer.

  Assuming Charlie hadn’t already died.

  It was then, only then, that I realized everybody might have died. I hadn’t warned Mom or Syl. Mom could have been in the sunroom, Syl in her bedroom, when the tornado struck. Matt and Dad were outside chopping wood. And there was no way of knowing where Jon and Julie were, if Alex had gotten to them in time, and if it would have made any difference if he had.