Out

by Laura Preble

  Maybe Andi’s right; but is there any way I can just go back to what I was? Maybe tonight…maybe I can tell her that we shouldn’t see each other.

  Even as I think it, I know it’s not true. I know I don’t want to forget about her, or forget about who I am. I’m scared. But I’ve never felt so right in my life. How can that be wrong? Just being me?

  The coffee shop is busy, as usual. Since we’re on break, a lot of kids are there even though it’s early.

  “Hey, Chris.” Joe Peralti waves at me. He has an arm around Robbie Barthon. They’ve bullied me since I can remember.

  “Hey,” I call out cautiously as I park my bike against the wall. “What’s up?”

  Joe salutes me with a cup of coffee. “We’re talking about you, queen. Robb has a friend he wants to fix you up with.”

  My stomach sinks. This has happened since eighth grade…people are always trying to find me a date.

  Robb nods. “Yeah, he’s into books and stuff, like you. Academic League. Interested?”

  “Uh…no. I’m too busy. Thanks, though.” I try to walk past them and into the shop.

  “That’s right. I heard your dad already has somebody picked out for you, huh?”

  “What?”

  They laugh as if they share a secret. Robb says, “My mom told me that David’s got some big hook-up for you, some upwardly mobile dude who’s going to make your dreams come true.” Joe whispers in Robb’s ear and they laugh as if it’s the funniest joke ever told.

  As I walk by, Robb whispers, just loud enough for me to hear it, “Perp.”

  “What did you say?” I turn, anger bubbling up inside.

  Joe snaps his fingers. “Oh, oh, oh. I think you angered the queen, Robb.”

  I don’t even think about it. I pick up a glass of water and dump it on Robb’s head. Then I grab my bike and pedal like a madman before they can react.

  Perp. Yeah, kids have been calling me that all my life. That’s not even the worst of the names. My legs are working the pedals automatically, and with each downward push, I’m pretending to smash the faces of Robb and Joe and all the other asses who’ve teased me my whole life.

  Turns out they were right, I guess. Great.

  Without planning it, I end up back at the place where I carved the Parallel sign. I check to be sure no one has followed me, prop the bike against the sturdy tree, and dig through the rocks and dirt until I find the magazine I buried.

  I pull my coat around me tighter, frame the magazine with my sleeves to hide the cover. I flip to the index, and something catches my eye: Why They Hate Us, written by K.P. I flip to page 30, and read: We threaten the way of life. We threaten the power structure. Basically, we are terrorists.

  Terrorists. I don’t feel like a terrorist. I’ve never wanted to strap bombs to my chest or hijack an airplane.

  If Perpendiculars were given the same rights as Parallels, we’d be competing for the same jobs, the same wealth, the same housing. But that’s not the real reason they hate us. They hate us because we are not them.

  Not them. The anger is still bubbling inside of me. How am I so different? Why am I not them? I’m still the same Chris I was yesterday, aren’t I?

  Staring into the clear morning sky, I wonder if God knows what’s going on down here.

  Chapter 7

  At about sunset, I finally go home. There’s no way around it. I can’t really go anywhere else.

  Hoping to escape to my room unnoticed, I go in through the kitchen, but David’s sitting there like a lion waiting to pounce. “Chris,” he says briskly.

  “Hi, David.” I get a glass of water and drink it so I don’t have to talk, at least for a second.

  “Could you sit down? I'd like to talk to you.”

  Uh oh. Well, I guess it was inevitable.

  I scrape a chair out from the table and slump into it.

  “I was really unhappy about how you treated Jim last night.”

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble, weaving my fingers into intricate patterns so I don’t have to look him in the eye.

  “What happened?” He pauses. “Look at me.”

  He’s staring with that preacher stare, the one that makes people confess. “Dad…I just don’t think I’m ready.” How can you argue with that?

  Instead of yelling, he covers my fidgety fingers with his own perfectly manicured hand. The Anglicant ring, the burnished gold inlaid with Parallel crosses of diamonds, glints on his finger. “I want what’s best for you, son.”

  “What if McFarland is not what’s best for me?” I ask softly.

  He sighs. I’m gearing up for a smack, a lecture, a thunderous tirade, but instead, he withdraws his hand and his eyes well up with tears. “All I’ve ever wanted for you was to be happy. Truly.” He wipes at his eyes. He’s actually crying. Is this a trick? “When I was your age, my mothers took me on a trip to Europe. They have much loser morals than we do, you know, and they allow…well, lots of things. Drug use. Prostitution. Perpendicular marriage.”

  I bristle at this; there’s no way he could know, is there? No. Don’t sweat. Don’t panic. He doesn’t know. He can’t.

  “I saw first hand what that does to society. It was a sinful place full of decadence and decay. When people stop following the laws of the church, when they stop honoring their parents, things begin to slip, to erode.”

  “Dad, I understand that, but—”

  “Wait. Let me finish. My mothers brought me back after the trip, and I was fourteen. They arranged a marriage with Warren’s family, and although we didn’t marry until we were of age, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Other than you and your sister.” He stands up, comes over to me, and hugs me. “I am so proud of you. I don’t tell you enough, but I am. Please, let me do this for you. I do know what’s best, I promise. This is God’s plan for you, I know it in my heart. Will you trust me?”

  Leaning against his chest, I desperately want to answer yes. I want to tell him that I will follow God’s will, and that I will do everything he tells me to do. But it sticks in my throat. All I can manage is a guttural sound that he takes as agreement.

  “Good.” He kisses the top of my head, and I feel my eyes getting damp. “I love you.”

  “Love you too, Dad.” I hug him, but it’s hollow, painful. He’d probably kill me if he knew what I really was.

  The rest of the day is like suspended animation; I feel like I'm floating from room to room, wrapped in cotton, watching stupid TV, not reading a book, trying to take a nap. Finally it's supper time. After last night’s high-intensity spread, tonight is leftovers. I fix a turkey sandwich as Warren nibbles on the pork roast and Jana sips canned soup from a big blue Starbucks cappuccino mug. David is nowhere to be seen, which is fine with me.

  The idea of meeting with Carmen seems even more wicked and dangerous. I watch the clock; she didn’t say a specific time, so I guess I should head out as soon as I can. “I’m going out to do some stargazing,” I say casually. Warren nods; he’s reading a book. Jana just grins at me across the table as she slurps soup.

  I shrug into my coat and slip out the back door. The church basement is lit up; David must have a meeting. There are a few cars in the parking lot, but I don’t recognize any of them. I scurry away into the darkness, hoping no one sees me.

  I pick my way across the field behind our house, back the way we came yesterday, until I come to the path leading to the tree. Treading softly, I inch toward it, searching the dark for the bright oval of her face. She’s not there yet.

  I sit and lean into the tree trunk, listen to the wind rustling mostly bare branches now. The lights from the house and the church are far away, just golden smudges in the dark.

  After about ten minutes, I hear someone walking toward me, stumbling on the path. “Hello?” I call tentatively.

  “Chris.” It’s her. Breathless, she shuffles to the tree, and falls into my arms, laughing softly. “I am not a good wilderness explorer. I almost couldn’t find this tree.” For
some reason, I find that adorable.

  She pulls me close, around to the dark side of the tree. “How was your day?”

  “Let’s talk about you instead.” I pull her down and we’re sitting huddled against the trunk. “My day sucked.”

  “Mine did too. Lainie had me doing all this paperwork for the Perpendicular League.” She shakes her head, disgusted. “I am so sick of pretending. And I’m becoming bitter. I mean, why do people like Lainie get to have everything they want while we have to hide? It’s not fair.”

  “David told me today that he went to Europe, where Perpendiculars can marry. He says that people like us would ruin the country.”

  In the dim light, I see her face turn hard. She turns and kisses me passionately on the mouth, and that ridiculous high feeling courses through my blood again. “When people like us have to hide and pretend, this country is weak and ruined already.”

  “What do you mean?” I’m conscious of her skin on mine, of a slight friction that both tickles and tortures. “What do you mean, the country is ruined?”

  She turns her head away from me. “Oh, Chris.” She sighs with such sorrow in her voice that I want to fold her into my arms and melt into the tree. A diamond tear glistens in the moonlight. “I know in my soul that I love you. What kind of place, what kind of people would ever say that love, any kind of love, would ruin a country?”

  So clear. So wise. How can we be the same age? She’s amazing, the way she thinks. And she’s right. Why haven’t I ever thought of it that way before? I want to touch every inch of her, to memorize it, but just as I reach her breasts, she stops me, and brushes the dampness from her face. “I can’t stay long,” she whispers. “I told Lainie I was going for a ride, but she needed me back pretty quickly. It’ll take me a while to bike back over there. I wanted to tell you that…I wondered if we could meet again tomorrow. I’ll make sure we have more time.”

  “More time?” I stroke her hair. “We don’t have any more time. We can’t meet anymore. Dad is dead set on matching me with McFarland, and this…I can’t.” Even as I parrot the words I’d decided to say, I know they’re a lie. If I don’t see her again, I’ll die. At that moment, no punishment they could dish up would matter. I see it. I feel it.

  “I have to go,” she says, pulling herself up by a tree branch. “But I have to see you tomorrow. I have to tell you something.”

  “I thought we said we weren’t—”

  “I know. We did. But...” She stands toe-to-toe with me, her chin tilted defiantly toward me. “I just learned about something new. I need to tell you about it, and after I tell you, I’ll do whatever you decide.”

  “Something new? What—”

  She puts a finger to my lips. It tingles where she touches me. “Tomorrow. Promise. And after that if you decide we should forget, I will.”

  I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But I will. “Same tree tomorrow?”

  “Same tree, same time,” she says. I hear the smile in her voice as she snuggles against my chest once more before she has to go.

  The next morning, Jana ambles into the kitchen, which is weird since she never wakes up before noon. Today, though, she’s ready to go. “Hey, Warren. Any more coffee?”

  He makes a disgusted face. “All out, I’m afraid. I don’t know where it all went. Seems like we had plenty yesterday.”

  “Hmmm.” My sister traces the back of a kitchen chair with her finger. “I could run and get some more.”

  Warren eyes her suspiciously. “You’re offering to do an errand? What do you want?”

  Jana pouts. “Aw, I can’t offer to do something nice for my favorite dad?” She gives him a big hug. What a poser.

  “Well, okay.” He digs into his pocket and pulls out his wallet, hands her a twenty.

  She smiles sweetly. “Can we take your car? Chris needs some more red pens anyway. For school.” Warren frowns and glances at me. I nod mutely.

  Warren hands her the keys. “Oh, and maybe you could put some gas in it for me? Here's the gas card.” He also hands her a rectangle of green plastic.

  “C'mon,” Jana says to me.

  I just stare at her. “We have to go right now?”

  “Yes we do. Warren can’t be without his coffee.” Jana grabs my arm and pulls, drags me through the door, and then closes it silently behind her.

  “What the hell?” I shake myself free. “The coffee’s not going anywhere. Did you have to break my arm?”

  Jana unlocks Warren’s mammoth Escalade, shaking her head as if I’m the dumbest idiot on planet Earth. “Get in.”

  Before my seatbelt is even fastened, she’s pulling out onto the main road. “What is going on?” I ask again.

  Jana flicks the wipers on to clear off the morning dew. “Jesus, you are dense. You better get smarter if you plan to survive any of this.”

  “Survive what? The trip to the store?”

  She flips on the radio, violently punches a button, and some loud alt punk music spews out of the speakers. Guess that means I’ll have to find out when we get wherever we’re going.

  We drive in silence for another thirty minutes, until finally Jana stops the car in front of a cluster of maples and thick underbrush.

  “Where are we?”

  She jumps out of the car, and through the open door says, “Get out and help me. I don't want anybody to see where we're going.”

  Okay, there’s nothing around here but bushes and trees. No store. Not even a porta-potty. “What are you talking about?”

  Jana starts clearing away large sticks and clumps of brush. “Push some of these bushes out of the way so we can get the car in.”

  More confused than ever, I help her sweep away branches that had already been cut, but had been made to look like natural growth. “It's a secret entrance.”

  “Genius,” Jana answers. “There. We can get in. After we do, you have to jump out and camouflage the entrance again. Quietly.” She swings into the driver's seat and eases the huge car soundlessly between thick clusters of trees, the headlights two fingers of illumination cutting through the thick underbrush. I try to tuck the bushes and logs back to where they look natural, but it ends up looking like a lobotomized bird has mated with its own nest. Guess I’m not quite super spy material.

  Jana parks about fifty feet in; you can’t see the car from the road, and probably not from above either. I skirt around the secret entrance, pick my way through some saplings and trip on some roots, and find her smoking a cigarette.

  “I guess we weren’t really going to the store, huh?” I ask. She takes a long drag, blowing smoke from her red-bow lips. “You really shouldn’t smoke.”

  “I'm guessing it's pretty low on the list of stuff I'm not supposed to do, don't you?”

  “I guess.” I lean next to her against a rough-barked tree. “So...”

  “We just wait.” Jana perks up, as if listening for something, then eases against the tree again. “Someone will be here to pick us up.”

  I know she’s not joking, but it doesn’t seem real. “What do you mean?”

  “I'm pretty new to it. Best if somebody with more experience tells you. But—” She stops abruptly, grabs me, and pulls me behind a tree. A crunch of boots on leaves comes closer and closer, and then a male voice says, “Jana?”

  “Here,” she says, stepping away from the tree.

  Unless he had spoken, I wouldn’t have seen him. Dressed in green clothes that blend with the forest, his brown beanie blends into the olive-brown paint smeared all over his face. He grabs Jana, sweeps her off the ground, and she drops her cigarette, giggling. They kiss, embrace, and my face feels hot, like I’m watching something private and forbidden. When she draws back, her face is streaked in places too.

  Jana smiles as she strokes the boy's painted face. “This is Ben.”

  “Hey, Chris,” Ben says, extending his hand. My sister, the Perp. Her boyfriend. My brain sort of locks up.

  Ben laughs, ice-blue eyes crinkling at the edges. �
��Yeah, it takes some getting used to. I fought it as long as I could. But when I met your sister...” He gazes at her lovingly. “Well, I knew it was meant to be, so what was I gonna do? Fight fate?” His smile fades as something buzzes in his pocket. “Damn, we're late. C'mon.”

  He turns noiselessly and strikes out onto a footpath, Jana tethered to his left hand. “Hold my other hand,” she tells me. “Follow me and make sure you don’t fall down.” Her face doesn’t look like her. I realize I’ve never seen her smile that way, ever.

  I have no concept of how long it takes to hike the woods. Does Warren know where we are? Does anybody? Panic starts to rise up in my stomach. I’m not the sneaky, secret-meeting-in-the-woods kind of person. I’m sure this is a huge mistake. I’m about to tell Jana that we should just go back, when Ben stops in front of a large hill surrounded by trees. “Hey, Chris, give us a minute, huh?” He draws Jana off a few feet, leaving me alone with my paranoia.

  Sounds like they’re arguing. Voices rise and fall, Jana sounds pissed. Whatever it is seems to be settled, and they walk back to me. Jana still looks upset, but says nothing.

  A door carved into the mound of earth opens, spilling blue-white electric light onto the dirt. Two men duck under the low jamb, and step out. “Come in,” one says.

  Secret hideout in the dirt hill. Right. Every cell in my body is telling me not to go in there, but I follow. And inside there’s... a big steel garden shed. There’s also a surveillance set-up, a compact generator that’s virtually silent, and some communications equipment straight out of a high concept police drama. Two men sit at a small folding table on the gray linoleum floor; Jana, still grasping Ben’s hand, stands against a bank of machines.

  “Chris,” the tallest man says, gesturing to his folding chair as if it’s an overstuffed recliner. “Welcome to the Underground. I'm Magnus Karrell. We're really happy you came.”

  The other man, gray hair tucked under a blue wool cap, speaks up. “You're probably wondering why we've brought you here today...”