by Ashlee Price
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
More from Ashlee Price
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Copyright
Knocked Up By The Other Brother
By Ashlee Price
Chapter 1
Grace
Beneath my thumb, the silver needle digs into the layers of orange cotton and emerges a centimeter away. I pull it out, and with it the coarse black strand that runs through the edges of the fabric like a river under a series of bridges. I knot it once and then two more times before cutting off the thread with a razor blade. Then I put the needle down and turn the dress inside out so I can admire my finished work.
It’s a long-sleeved, ankle-length dress with a swan neck collar and a box-pleated skirt. The color reminds me of the marmalade my father loved to eat so much. He was the only man I ever knew who would rather have a spoonful of marmalade than a bar of chocolate.
Not that any of those are still available. Just like butter, or ice cream. Or birds, or butterflies. Or hot showers and washing machines.
No books. No movies. No malls. No beaches.
And worst of all, no fashion.
I lift the dress off the table and frown. If it were up to me, this dress would be made of glowing silk, not dull synthetic cotton. It would be tea-length, with a wrap or an asymmetrical skirt and a sheer black sash, maybe tulle, around the waist. I’d make the sleeves sheer, too, and embellish the collar with gold and black sequins, or pearls.
But no. Nothing is up to me anymore, and fashion is dead. So is my dream of being a fashion designer, the one dream I’ve ever had.
I let out a sigh as I set the dress down and run my fingers over the coarse fabric.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make you prettier.”
“Are you talking to the dress, Grace?”
My heart jumps at Elisa’s voice.
“No,” I lie as I carefully fold the dress.
“Maybe I should talk to the clothes I’m making, too,” she says as she stands beside me. “Maybe then I’d sew as well as you.”
“You sew just fine,” I tell her as I turn to her.
At a height of five feet and eight inches, Elisa towers over my petite frame. As a result, the sleeveless gray sheath dress she’s wearing looks better than mine even though both outfits are identical.
“Really?” She holds up her hands. “Then why do I have six bandaged fingers and you have none?”
I put the dress inside its box. “Because you keep getting lost in a daze?”
Elisa hoists herself onto the edge of the table. “How can I not? This place is so boring.”
“At least you’ve got a place here in the city.” I put the lid on the box. “Would you rather be out there, trying to survive on those pills every single day?”
“Yuck.” Elisa makes a face.
I, too, grimace at the memory of having tried them once before. The red pill is supposed to be a day’s nourishment—protein, sodium, sugar, iron etc.—and it tastes like metal, worse than the worst antibiotic I ever took as a kid. The blue pill is for hydration, a substitute for water, and it’s tasteless but it sticks to your throat like a ball of cobwebs before gradually melting away.
Ugh.
“I’m not complaining, you know,” Elisa goes on as she gets off the table and sits on her stool. “I just can’t help but miss my old life, the old world. Don’t you?”
I nod as I grab another roll of marmalade-colored fabric to begin work on another dress.
Not a day goes by that I don’t wish the Icebreaker never happened. Not a day passes that I don’t wonder what my life would be right now if it hadn’t.
But it did, seven years ago.
They call it the Icebreaker because, well, the ice literally broke—but also because the cataclysm started conversations all over the globe just like the icebreakers at parties. In particular, it was like that icebreaker for children about finding hidden objects, the one called Hot and Cold. Except in this case the cold came first.
I call it Rudy, because it reminds me of the radiator my family used to have in the basement that kept breaking down. My sister and I decided to name it Rudy. It would take hours for it to start heating the house, so long that you’d think the place would never get warm. When it finally did, the heat would only last for a few hours before Rudy shut down altogether.
With all the freezing cold, no one thought scorching heat would follow.
For almost four years, the planet was in a chiller. In the northern and southern hemispheres, it was freezing winter all year long, snowstorms raging every month. Around the equator, a chilly wind blew constantly. Plants died. Animals died. People died, including my younger sister, who’d always been sickly.
The people from the north and the south flocked to the equator. It got crowded, and nothing good ever comes from too many people being packed into one place. Wars broke out and more people died.
Then one day the temperature started to rise. It kept rising. Volcanoes started erupting, even those we’d thought were extinct. The earth quaked.
Of course, when there’s that much heat, there’s a meltdown. All the snow of the past years melted and the water rose. There was a great flood that destroyed nearly all that was left. When it finally receded after eight months, half of humanity had been wiped out.
I was lucky enough to make it into one of the few mountain shelters. There were hundreds of us there, and each day I wondered how long we would last. We took turns plugging the cracks, but more and more drops of water kept making their way inside. Eventually a portion of the shelter caved in. That was how my father died. My mother got sick, and she died too, just weeks before the Emergence, the day when humanity climbed out from under our rocky mountain refuges.
I run my fingers over my face to trace the scar that runs from the top of the bridge of my nose right between my eyes to the edge of my cheek.
I survived, but I’m not unscathed. This scar I got from a shard of glass during one of those earthquakes before the flood came, the biggest one. I was buried under rubble for two days before I was rescued, and while I lay trapped under broken furniture, I comforted myself with the thought that things couldn’t possibly get worse.
Yet they did.
This scar is neither the deepest nor the ugliest one I carry.
Suddenly, Elisa nudges my arm. “Who’s lost in a daze now?”
I frown and pick up my pair of scissors so I can get back to work.
Moments later, the doors open and Elisa hastily grabs her needle, pricking another finger in the process.
“Ow.” She slips her bleeding finger between her lips.
“Is something the matter, Ms. Ward?” Cecille, our supervisor, asks as her heavy footsteps approach our worktable.
“Nothing, Ms. Thomson,” Elisa answers as she removes her finger from her mouth and wipes it on her skirt before picking up her needle again.
Cecille places her stout fingers on the table with enough force to send a spool of thread spinning off the edge. “You know I don’t want blood on the clothes. Not on our customers’ and not on yours.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Elisa says as she picks up the spool. “I’ll clean mine later.”
“You better,” Cecille says. “And you better pick up your pace. That dress should have been finished an hour ago. If you don’t finish it by the end of today, I’ll…”
“I’ll help her,” I volunteer shakily.
Cecille draws a deep breath and looks at me. “Ms. Dawson, was I speaking to you?”
“No, ma’am,” I answer with my head bowed and my gaze back on the fabric I’m cutting. “I just thought I’d help her since I’m already done with the dresses I was supposed to work on for the week.”
She scoffs. “Well, maybe I should give you more work next time. But fine, help your friend out this time. If she doesn’t finish, I’ll fire both of you and kick you out of the city.”
With that, she turns on her heel and walks away. I glance over my shoulder and catch a glimpse of her wide hips and her red braid swaying just before she disappears out the door.
I close my eyes and let out a breath of relief.
“You didn’t have to do that, Grace,” Elisa tells me.
“It’s fine.” I grab a roll of blue fabric from her side of the table. “Like I said, I have time. Plus I’d rather work with this color.”
“Because it matches your eyes?”
“It does?” My eyebrows furrow as I stare at the textile. “I thought my eyes were more Aegean blue than midnight blue.”
“Ae—what?” Elisa’s eyebrows crease in turn.
“Never mind,” I tell her as I pick up my scissors and start cutting.
Elisa places her hand over mine. “Thank you.”
I smile at her. “No problem. Hey, I don’t want to lose the only friend I have.”
She grins and continues sewing. “Seriously, though, Cecille reminds me of my sixth grade homeroom teacher, except her hair was brown. Mrs. Parker, I think that was her name.” She leans closer to me and lowers her voice to a whisper. “She was overweight, too. And like Cecille, she acted like she constantly had PMS.”
I warily glance at the door just to make sure Cecille hasn’t returned.
“My friends and I all concluded it was probably just because she didn’t have a boyfriend,” Elisa goes on. “Sure enough, when I passed by the school two years after graduation, I barely recognized her because she was smiling at me, and then she told me she’d gotten married.”
I grin. “Good for her.”
“If only Cecille could get a boyfriend, too… but in these times, that’s impossible. I mean, I can’t even get a boyfriend. Then again, even before the Icebreaker, I couldn’t.”
I turn to her. “You’re kidding, right?”
How can someone as beautiful as her have been single?
“Nope.” She shakes her head. “You must have had a few, though. I can tell you must have been pretty before you got that scar. Not that you’re not pretty anymore. Just…”
“It’s fine,” I cut her off with a weak smile.
I’m used to the scar by now.
Elisa sighs. “I guess I miss dating, too. Or at least, trying to date. Now I’ll never have my chance.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Don’t say that. Even in these times, you can still find a boyfriend.”
“You think?” Her brown eyes glimmer with hope, then they narrow. “Wait. Do you have a boyfriend?”
I purse my lips.
Elisa gasps. “You do, don’t you?”
I shrug. “Sort of.”
I do, actually. I have for nearly two years now. It’s a secret, though, for various reasons.
Elisa puts down her needle and props her cheek on an elbow. “Who is he? What is he like? How did you meet? Have you two had sex?”
“Shh,” I scold her. “He’s great. That’s all I’m telling you.”
She pouts. “I thought I was your friend.”
I glance at the door. “I’ll tell you some other time.”
“Fine.” Elisa picks up her needle again and pushes it through the fabric. “You’re lucky, you know. You should get married. You’re fertile, aren’t you?”
I nod.
“Then you should get married and have children. God knows we don’t have enough of them now, either.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think I’m ready. Having children is a big responsibility, especially now, and I…”
“I’m not,” Elisa interrupts.
“What?” I throw her a puzzled look.
“I’m not fertile,” she says.
My jaw drops.
I know that the fertility rate as well as the birth rate has dropped since the Icebreaker. In fact, less than a hundred children have been born alive and healthy since then. There simply isn’t enough nourishment, and the environment just isn’t conducive for the propagation of the species, or so the scientists say. Many women have become sterile altogether. I didn’t know Elisa was one of them, though.
I touch her arm. “I’m sorry, Elisa.”
She shakes her head. “Maybe I was never worthy to have children.”
“Don’t say that,” I admonish her.
“Hey.” She looks into my eyes. “If you have a child, will you let me hold her or him? I’ve forgotten what a baby looks like.”
“Sure,” I promise her.
Just then, the door opens again. I glance over at it, expecting Cecille to be back. Instead, it’s Jean, one of the other supervisors.
“Grace Dawson?” she asks.
I get off my stool and turn around. “That’s me.”
“Come with me,” Jean instructs. “Mrs. Hartley would like to speak with you.”
I blink.
Sandra, the woman who owns the whole dress shop, wants to speak with me? Why?
I throw Elisa a questioning glance, but she just replies with a shrug.
“Come along.” Jean holds the door open wider.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
Okay. But hey, I didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe she’s going to give me a promotion or assign a special project to me?
“Good luck,” Elisa whispers.
I nod and walk towards the door.
As I follow Jean down the hall, I try to shake off the feeling that I’m a kid being called to the principal’s office.
Relax, Grace. You’ve done nothing wrong, so this can’t be bad news.
Even so, my gut can’t help but feel like it is.
The rubber soles of my boots scrape against the concrete as I walk behind Jean and then thud against the metal as we cross the bridge over the textile factory.
I glance down and catch a glimpse of a sheet of synthetic cotton being printed out. The burnt smell of it drifts up and I cover my nose.
Synthetic cotton. That and rubber are the only fabrics left now.
We go down another hall lined with doors just like the one I came from. Behind each one, I’m sure a pair of dressmakers are busy working to create dull, uncomfortable clothes, and I’m equally sure none of them are thrilled to be doing so. Like Elisa, they must have bandaged fingers and a litany of sighs. Like me, they must have aching backs and broken dreams.
We are all broken and lost and alone. We are slaves simply trying to survive in a world where there is hardly even any point to surviving.
Finally, we reach a different kind of door. Two doors, wooden but with a pane of stained glass on each.
Jean opens one and a chime sounds.
“I’ve brought Grace Dawson,” Jean announces.
The raven-haired woman wearing a high-necked teal blouse and silver eyeglasses lifts her head behind her desk at the far end of the room so that our eyes meet.
She crooks
a finger at me. “Come here.”
I step inside and the door closes behind me, Jean on the other side.
I take a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other on the carpeted floor. With each step, my heart pounds. My fingers go to my chest, right above where I have the pendant of my necklace hidden—a golden dove with a lone turquoise eye and my name engraved on the back. I used to fidget with it whenever I was nervous, and I am nervous now.
“Sit down,” Sandra tells me.
I take my seat on one of the wooden chairs in front of her desk.
Sandra looks at me from above the lens of her eyeglasses. “You’re Grace Dawson?”
I nod.
She pushes her glasses up her nose and leans back. “I’m sorry, but you can’t work here anymore.”
My jaw drops as my eyes pop out of their sockets. “What?”
“You’re no longer qualified to work here.”
“But why?” I ask as I try to comprehend the incomprehensible situation. “If this is about me trying to help Elisa…”
“Not it.” She shifts her attention to a sheet of paper on her desk.
“I can make better clothes if you wish, more clothes, and…”
“Ms. Dawson,” Sandra interrupts me as she takes off her glasses. “You can’t work here anymore, and I don’t have to explain why. I own this shop.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry.” She puts her glasses back on. “You do have an excellent record, so I’ll give you a full month’s clearance so you can stay in the city and get food for a month. You can keep your uniform as well. Just don’t show up here ever again.”
“I don’t understand.” I get on my feet. “You said yourself that I have an excellent record. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Like I said, I don’t owe you any explanation.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “Please don’t do this. I…”
“Everyone has problems, my dear.” Sandra clasps her hands on her desk. “Don’t make this more difficult than it already is.”
“Difficult? If this is difficult for you…”
“Fine. I’ll tell you why.” She exhales. “Belinda Gerwin didn’t like the clothes you made for her. You know who she is, don’t you?”
My gaze drops to the floor.
Yes. I know who she is. I know it very well.