Out

by Laura Preble

  I feel her staring at me as I leave, wondering if I’ve gone crazy or stayed sane, or if I even know what I’m doing, which I don’t. “Stay here,” I tell Andi, who stares at me, mouth hanging open. I dart out of the café and push past a knot of stupid kids. Carmen is already out the gate and walking quickly away.

  “Carmen,” I call. She stops. She doesn’t turn.

  I trot up to her. “What you said—”

  She still has her back to me. “I didn’t say anything,” she whispers. She keeps walking, but more slowly, so I follow. The voices in the café courtyard fade. When we’re out of range, she stops again, and turns to face me. Her cheeks are wet.

  I brush a tear from her cheek. “Why are you crying?”

  Her eyes. There is a world in them, some alien world that’s both paradise and death. Something stabs at me when I see the dampness on her cheek. Something breaks in me.

  She licks her lips and glances down at the swirling red-brown-gold leaves. “I don’t know why I said those things.” She checks my face for a reaction. “I was just talking. I didn’t mean anything.”

  “You think I’m going to tell someone.” I guess it makes sense; she doesn’t really know me. She’s just trusted me with her biggest secret…hell, her life. “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t ever.”

  She shakes her head as if she wants to believe me. “We can’t…there can’t be anything…” It’s as if the words in her mind are fighting to come out, but she’s shutting them down. “Forget that you met me.” She turns again and walks.

  I should let her go. I know she’s right.

  “Wait.”

  She stops. She stops. She feels the same way.

  I approach slowly. In my head, I know she’s right. I stand at her left shoulder, just behind her. “I just wanted to tell you….thank you.”

  She whirls around, her face a stormcloud. “Are you kidding?”

  “No.” It’s my turn to stare down at the leaves. “I know we can’t…do anything. But, I haven’t felt like this. Ever. I didn’t think I could.”

  The hardness in her face falls away, like a wax impression that melts and disappears. “What do we do?” she whispers.

  “Nothing.” I smile wanly. “That’s what we get. That’s what we do. But you can remember one thing: you woke me up, just for a minute. I’ll remember that.”

  “That’s not going to be enough,” she says.

  “It’s going to have to be.” I walk away, leaving her there alone on the sidewalk. I know that what I am is unacceptable. I can’t be a Perpendicular, and if I am one, I’ll change that. I have to change that. But I will remember that moment, feeling real…forever.

  When I get home, Warren and David are in the middle of a heated argument. I turn the brass door handle and hear, “You have no idea what you're doing!” but I can’t tell which one of them says it. Warren always tells me that old married couples start sounding like each other after a few years.

  The fight is happening in the piano room, which is usually reserved for company and important church meetings. Warren sits on the burgundy velvet chaise (sixteenth century, very expensive) and David stands against the marble fireplace as if posing for a magazine photo. I hate when they fight, but at this moment it distracts me from my own problem.

  “Oh, Chris,” Warren says, suddenly cheerful. “We were just talking about you.”

  “Really?” I feel oddly numb. On the way home, I was so worried that they’d be able to see that something was different about me, like the dirty secret would be revealed on my skin or in my scent. Now I realize that to them, I look exactly the same as I did this morning. They can’t tell that I’m some other person now, some freak of nature. I sit stiffly next to Warren, waiting.

  He pats my knee. “We were talking about this arrangement.” As Warren says the word “arrangement,” he glances over at David, disapprovingly. “David spoke with you about it. What do you think?”

  “It doesn't matter what he thinks,” David hisses, moving from his majestic perch near the mantle. “It has to happen. It's what's best.” He kneels down next to me, grabs my hand, and speaks intensely, playing the good father trying to talk some sense into his stubborn offspring. “Son, you're too young to understand what happens in the world. Some things just have to be done. Sacrifices have to be made. We all do things that aren't exactly what we want to do, but later, when we look back on it, those decisions lead to wonderful results.”

  I stare into my father’s eyes, unblinking. I've never looked into them before; I've always been too afraid. Our eyes are the same, jade green, flecked with dark spots at the center. It makes me feel incredibly sad.

  “Chris, are you listening to me?” David stands over me now, lips pursed tightly. “I'm telling you something very important, Chris. Are you listening?”

  “Yes, Dad. I’m listening.”

  I guess my subservient tone takes the wind out of his sails; he huffs back to his place at the mantle and frowns. “Good. Jim McFarland will be here this evening, and I want you to be nice to him. Just get to know him. I think you’ll find that he’s a very likeable person.”

  Warren clears his throat. “Of course, all personal decisions are up to you, Chris,” he says, trading pointed looks with David. “We would never force you into a relationship.”

  “No.” David says through gritted teeth. “We wouldn’t do that. But I want you to keep an open mind, Chris. He’s a well-connected man, and—”

  “I’ll be happy to spend some time with him,” I mumble at the floor.

  Warren leans toward me. “Are you sure?” He grabs my chin so I’m looking into his eyes. “Chris, you don’t have to.”

  At first it’s just a tickle in my nose, but then tears well up in my eyes, drip down my cheeks, and my mouth trembles trying to keep it all in. Sobbing, full on sobbing like a baby, there I sit on the Louis Quatorze couch, staining the velvet with perverted tears. I will not be that thing. I will not be that thing.

  Warren puts a beefy arm around my shoulder. “No, don’t cry. We can cancel tonight.”

  “We most certainly cannot cancel,” David says, although his tone is a little softer since he realizes I’m totally losing my mind. “Chris, why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know,” I mumble between sobs. I do know, though. I know and I can’t tell, and if I admit it, if I admit what I am, what Carmen did to me and how I feel about her, then there will be no way to pretend anymore. I have to keep it locked away. I have to make it be quiet. And it’s not fair. It feels so wrong. Why? Why did this all have to happen to me? “Excuse me,” I mutter, running for the stairs and the relative safety of my room.

  Jana’s door is open, but I don’t want her to see me crying, so I dash past. That doesn’t stop her, of course; seconds later, she barges into my room. “Hey, where’ve you been?” Flopping onto my bed, she stretches out. All I want is to be left alone. “They’ve been looking for you all afternoon. Big doings tonight.”

  “Yeah.” I ease into my desk chair, turn my back to her. Maybe the silence will give her a clue.

  I feel her watching me, and seconds tick by. “Are you okay?”

  Any answer I give her will result in teasing or worse, so I just keep quiet. I stare at the geode on my desk, counting the purple crystalline ridges inside the rough stone egg. I hear her get up from the bed, and then she’s kneeling next to me, staring up into my face like a dog waiting for a treat. “Seriously. What’s up?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I swivel away from her, still hiding my swollen face.

  She’s quick, though. She dodges around to the other side of the chair, grabs the arm, and swings me toward her. “Have you been crying?”

  The word ‘crying’ stabs at me, and more tears come. “Go away.” I put my head down on the desk, willing her to disappear.

  I hear her go to the door, close it softly, then turn the lock. Her breathing is close; her hand is on my shoulder. It can’t be compassion; she must be looking for a
n advantage, information she can use. I can’t give her anything.

  “Chris.” Her voice is different, softer. “Is it the McFarland thing?”

  The name causes a new round of sobs to heave up from my gut.

  “Did…did he tell you you had to marry that fucktard?” I can’t help it. When she says that word I have to laugh. I’m laughing and crying at the same time. She grabs my shoulder, eases my head up from the desk, turns me toward her, and pats my face. “Fucktard,” she says seriously.

  “Stop.”

  “Fucktard.” Now I’m laughing as hysterically as I was crying a minute ago. I’m so messed up. She grins and bounces back to the bed. “I knew I could get you to snap out of it. Now, let’s talk about what’s going on.”

  The laughing winds down, but I still don’t face her. “What is there to say? And why should I talk to you?”

  She’s silent for a moment. Then she says, “I’m not the person you think I am.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I grab a tissue from the box and blow my nose.

  “I mean, you think of me as your annoying older sister, which I am, but I know a lot about things that you don’t even understand.”

  I swivel the chair toward her. “Like what?”

  “Like…” She plucks at the blue-and-white quilt on my bed. “Like why you don’t want to get married. To any guy.”

  Shock freezes me. She followed me. She must have. Why? How could I not have seen her? If Jana overhead that whole conversation at the coffee house…she’d love to see me sent off somewhere for rehab. But she couldn’t prove it, right? Maybe if I really tried to act Parallel at the dinner tonight, maybe then if she told they wouldn’t believe her—

  “Chris?” She stares expectantly. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yeah.” I have to watch how I answer. I have to choose every word with absolute care. She might even be recording the conversation. “You don’t know anything about me, Jana. Why don’t you just leave me alone?”

  She laughs. Laughs. I want to slap her.

  “Chris, seriously. You’re so tragic. And everything is so obvious to everyone but you.”

  “What do you mean?” Cold stabs my heart.

  “I’ve known what you are for years. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

  I turn away, not sure how to respond. “You’re wrong.”

  She jumps up, grabs the chair and swings it toward her again. “You’re Perpendicular, Chris. Perpendicular. You like girls.”

  Then she starts laughing.

  Heavy footsteps on the stairs. Warren jiggles the doorknob. “Why is the door locked?”

  “We’re planning a surprise!” Jana almost sounds hysterical. Christ. “Can’t tell you yet.”

  He doesn’t leave right away; I can almost feel his confusion through the door. Jana and I have never been allies before, and in fact, we’re most often active enemy combatants. Just what I need…more suspicion. I jump up, unlock the door, and open it. “She’s just being a goof,” I say, waving toward my sister as if she’s mental.

  Warren studies my face; I can’t hide from him, and he knows something is desperately wrong. But I can’t tell him. I have to finish talking to Jana first, find out what she knows or what she’s guessing, find out how to make sure she doesn’t tell anyone. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks. “I am absolutely willing to call McFarland and Lainie Goldman myself and tell them to forget about tonight, no matter what David says.”

  “Lainie Goldman?” I say, too quickly. “Why is she coming?”

  “Anything political going on, she’s there. You know how she is. She wants a piece of McFarland too. I bet she’s kicking herself that she doesn’t have a son to offer up.” He grimaces. “Hey, don’t look so worried. She won’t muddy things up too much.”

  What I’m thinking has nothing to do with McFarland. If Lainie Goldman is coming…”Is she bringing that girl with her?”

  “Hmm?” Warren frowns at me. “What girl?”

  “Nobody. Somebody from the Perp League. Some girl from California.”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t keep up with you. Uh…yes, I believe she did say she was bringing a guest. Why?”

  “Nothing,” I say quickly. Too quickly? “No reason. She’s just…a California person.”

  “Ah.” Warren nods knowingly. Relief washes over me. “Right. Those Hollywood types. She probably fits right in with Lainie and her…taste.”Warren pats my hair, then pulls me in for a bear hug. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” I whisper. I want to tell him, I really do. But I can’t. “Be down in a minute.”

  He leaves with one glance back at me to be sure I’m not totally losing my mind.

  I turn to Jana angrily. “Why did you say that?” I ask.

  I close the door softly. She’s not leaving until I know what she knows. Oh, God, and Carmen might be coming to my house. “Why did you call me that?”

  She smiles, swings herself casually onto the bed again. “The part where I said you were Perpendicular?”

  “Shut up,” I hiss at her. It feels like she’s shouting, although I know she’s not. “Stop saying that.”

  She is suddenly quiet, and stares at me with solemn eyes. “Sit down a minute.” She pats the bed next to her. Reluctantly, I sit. “I’m not laughing at you. I just know what it’s like to pretend to be something you’re not.”

  “You’ve never pretended to be something you’re not. You’re a rebel, you get in trouble, you do what you want.”

  Jana nods slowly. “Remember in fifth grade, when they separated the boys and girls and had The Talk? About Perps and Parallels?”

  “You mean that stupid cartoon about the genes and chromosomes? Kind of. Why?”

  She glances at me. “They said that Perpendiculars had some defect in their genes, that they caused all society’s problems with unwanted pregnancies, abortions, crime, instability. That’s why they’re in the minority. Like, nature selected them out because they’re dangerous and cause all these problems.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I remember. ‘Conscious Continuation Makes for a Peaceful Nation.’ So?”

  “You’re not any more mentally unstable than anyone else. So…what if they’re wrong? What if Perpendiculars really aren’t causing all the problems, but they’re easy to target because there are fewer of them?” She licks her lips and inches closer. “And what if there are fewer of them because the Church and the government want them gone?”

  “That’s crazy. That would mean that everything we’ve ever believed is wrong. That all the people we know are murderers. That the Bible is wrong too. And the Constitution.” It’s too much to take in at once. “There must be reasons. I mean, if nature selects Perpendiculars out of the gene pool, isn’t that proof that there’s something wrong with them?” I stare at Jana, who shakes her head and smiles at me as if I’m an adorable puppy.

  “I’m not surprised that you don’t know anything about it. Everything is filtered, so nobody has the real information.” She paces to her window, stares out at the straw-yellow field. “They kill them, Chris. Torture them Parallel. The church owns the government. Church donors contribute almost 80 percent of the money to secular campaigns. And since the Anglicants are the Senate, and they contribute a lot to the Representatives, who do you think runs things, really?”

  “But you’re talking about people being thrown away, just locked up without anyone knowing where they are!” Even for Jana, this all sounds crazy. “Do you really think they could get away with that?”

  She stares at me, unblinking. “They get away with it every day, because nobody believes they can get away with it.” Jana sits on the edge of her bed, breathes heavily, and then says, “David is part of it. He knows. He knows what they do.”

  “I can’t believe that.” I sit on the floor at her feet. “I mean, he’s…he’s a jerk, but I can’t believe he’d allow torture.”

  She shakes her head again. “You don’t get it. To them, it’s not t
orture. It’s righteousness. They’re saving the world.”

  “By killing innocent people?”

  “By ridding the world of a plague.” She slides off the bed, sits next to me, runs her toes through the plush of the carpet. “If you don’t see Perpendiculars as human, it’s much easier to get rid of them. Like roaches. Then everything is nice and clean.”

  I still don’t want to believe her. “But if what you say is true, why hasn’t someone objected? Somebody must have noticed.”

  “The people who notice don’t stick around for very long. That’s why you don’t hear about it.” She gestures with her chin toward the window. “That’s why we stay so hidden. And why the Resistance has to win. People, good people, are dying simply because they are. What kind of God would want that?” She pauses, as if weighing a decision. “I want to show you something.”

  She grabs my hand and leads me soundlessly down the hall to her room. She locks her door, and motions for me to sit on her bed. I watch as she opens the biggest drawer in her ancient desk, pulls out a stack of heavy textbooks, yanks out what I guess is a false wooden drawer bottom, and then gingerly lifts out a parcel wrapped in brown paper, tied with fraying twine. “Here,” she says, handing the bundle to me.

  “What is this?” I touch it carefully, as if some rebel virus may jump off and infect my hand.

  “Read it.” She sits on the braided green rug at my feet, crosses her legs, and rests her head in her hands. “Now you know you can trust me.”

  I untie the twine, carefully unwrap the package, and see it’s just some old magazines. The one on top advertises the latest sex scandal between two Hollywood leading men. “Hilarious, Jana.” I throw it to the ground. Underneath it, there’s another much different magazine. The title is Liberation, and the subtitle is Writings of the Revolution.

  “Is this a political thing?” I ask, leafing through the first few pages. Jana jumps up, grabs the magazine out of my hand.

  “It's just what it says, idiot.” The old Jana’s back, biting my head off. At least it feels familiar. “Writings of the revolution.”

  “What revolution? Is this some history thing?”