California: A Novel

by Edan Lepucki

  Peter, who was sitting in the pew across from Cal and August’s, shifted his body so that his legs blocked the aisle. “We do things for a reason.”

  “I’m the last black man on earth—or at least around here.”

  “They should make an action movie about you,” Cal replied.

  This time, everyone laughed.

  “There’s more to it than that,” Peter said. “People treat August special not just because of how he looks but because of who he is. He’s very talented at getting people to open up to him.”

  “Amen to that,” Micah said.

  August shook his head, but Cal could tell he was pleased.

  “I still don’t like that you were in my house.”

  “Yours? That house used to belong to Sandy and Bo,” August said.

  “They’re dead. I’m not.”

  Micah sighed. “We had to make sure no one else had been there since you and Frida left. And, besides, we were curious.”

  “You never invited me inside,” August added.

  That was true. Why hadn’t they?

  Micah pushed himself off the stage. “Cal, we’re happy you’re here. I mean, it’s crazy.”

  “It’s unprecedented,” Sailor said.

  “No other outsiders have been allowed in for a long time, you understand?” Peter said. “Sailor’s right, it is unprecedented.”

  Sailor smiled.

  “Do you think the others will want us to stay?” Cal said.

  “I’ve taken it upon myself to, you know, ask around.” Micah paused. “Everyone’s supportive, but I’m considering delaying the Vote until everyone has had a chance to get to know you. I want everyone certain.”

  “What if we don’t want to stay?”

  Micah raised an eyebrow. “What if you don’t want to, you mean?”

  “You can’t expect me to just accept this place blindly.”

  “I know you have a lot of questions,” Micah said. “We’ll answer them in due time.”

  No one spoke for a moment.

  “We’d like you to come to our meetings,” Peter said.

  August and Sailor were silent.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re really smart,” Micah replied. “Plus”—his voice grew soft—“you’re my brother-in-law.”

  Cal looked back at his duffel bag. The handles were scrunched narrow where August, and then Sailor, and then Peter, had carried it.

  “I don’t know.”

  “There’s time,” Peter said.

  “Nothing but time out here,” August said.

  “What about Frida?” Cal asked.

  “What about her?”

  “This is a boys’ club, I gather.”

  “I suppose that’s one way to look at it. We’re the ones charged with keeping the Land safe—we’re the most physically capable. And mentally, too.” He paused. “If you want in, you need to follow our rules, keep our discussions private.”

  Cal nodded. “Sure, okay.”

  “He’s serious, Cal,” Peter said. “Don’t tell anyone what we talk about.”

  This speech, Cal realized, was directed at Sailor as well.

  “No spousal privilege,” Micah said.

  “You don’t want Frida to know what we discuss?”

  Peter shook his head. “Only who’s present. The others have learned not to ask.”

  “It’s no big deal, Cal,” August said. “Most of it will be summarized during the Big Meeting later on.”

  “‘Most of it’?” He couldn’t help himself.

  “Cal,” Micah said. He stepped forward and put out his hand.

  August and Sailor were watching them, waiting.

  Cal hesitated.

  “What is it, California?” Micah had put his hand down.

  “Things will really change,” Cal began, “and in just a few months.”

  “They’re changing already,” Micah said. He crossed his arms.

  Cal nodded. “It won’t just be the two of us anymore.”

  “Yeah, there will actually be others around,” Micah said. “Imagine that.” His eyes were hard, but there was also a blankness there. He didn’t get it.

  “Didn’t August tell you?” Cal said.

  Everyone looked at August, who had put his sunglasses back on. “Tell them what?”

  “That Frida’s pregnant.”

  No one said anything. Someone walked by outside, dragging what sounded like a shovel along the dirt. Scrape…scrape.

  “Is that right?” Peter said. His eyes were on Micah.

  Scrape…scrape.

  Micah didn’t say anything. Sailor, for once, wasn’t talking.

  Cal waited, brushing his hand along the seat of the pew. His fingers came up dusty.

  He had let himself be so stupid. Micah had said he was smart, but he wasn’t. He was an idiot. He’d assumed that Frida had told August she was pregnant, and that August had told Micah, and that when Micah invited them to stay on the Land, he was inviting three people, not two.

  But, of course, Frida hadn’t mentioned the pregnancy to August. She hadn’t told him about her baby, but about her baby brother.

  “In her defense,” August explained, “she was high as a kite when she told me about Mikey and his suicide.” He smiled. “I gave her a Vicodin.”

  “Ah, Frida,” Micah said, and snorted. “She always loved getting fucked up.”

  Cal was hardly paying attention. Frida had lied to him, and now these men knew it. He looked like an ass, keeping a secret without even knowing he was doing so.

  “How far along is she?” Peter asked him.

  Cal admitted he didn’t know. “Not very far.” He paused. “But she’s happy about it, and so am I.”

  Again, no one said anything.

  Cal stood up, the words get out, get out ringing in his mind. He was so upset with Frida, with her betrayal, he needed to be alone. “I have to go,” he mumbled.

  Without looking at Sailor, Peter said, “Help him with his bag.”

  Cal stepped across the aisle to retrieve it. Sailor grabbed one of the handles, and they both carried it out of the Church.

  The bag was heavy. What possessions did August think they needed? Cal and Sailor carried the duffel toward the Hotel, where Cal expected they’d haul it onto the bed and unzip it—to find what, exactly? Cinder blocks and sneakers, maybe; a heartless joke, and here he’d been, despite his protests, lusting briefly for his gray sweatshirt and his khaki shorts that Frida had mended beautifully a few months back, so that they felt almost new. There was no way August knew what things they’d been longing for.

  It was a short walk, but the main street felt endless when your arms hurt; Cal had learned this recently, carrying all those damn bricks. Apparently, the two wheelbarrows were in use elsewhere on the Land. “It’s meditative to carry the bricks with our hands,” someone from his team had claimed. From then on, no one had complained. It felt like such a Plank thing, to take one’s sweet time constructing something new and to value the hours ticking by. Cal had been annoyed; it fetishized the inefficient.

  When he and Sailor finally got to the room, they dropped the bag on the floor. Sailor lingered in the doorway.

  “I doubt you need my help unpacking.”

  “I guess not. There’s no place to put things, anyway.”

  Sailor didn’t move.

  “Congratulations, man.”

  “Oh, thanks.” Cal paused. “Should you be saying that?”

  “There’s no protocol for this kind of thing.”

  Cal waited. Sailor wanted to talk; Cal knew it. He wanted to introduce this world to an outsider, and if Cal waited long enough, Sailor might tell him everything.

  “No one’s had a baby here for a long time,” Sailor said. “I’ve never seen it happen.”

  “And that doesn’t seem weird to you?”

  He shrugged. “This life—it’s my second education.”

  “What was your first?”

  Sailor held up h
is fist and knocked at the air.

  Cal’s voice caught in his throat. “You’re a Planker.”

  “Last class. Well, would’ve been. Everything shut down after my first semester.”

  Shut down. Cal saw the farmhouse, and the fields, and the stove in the room of some lucky second-year, gone cold.

  “How’d you get here?” he asked.

  “I guess you could say there was a recruiter of sorts. Dave, Burke, and I agreed to come. There were a few others from the year above. Who wouldn’t be interested in ghost-town living? We were told we’d come out here to tame the Wild West.”

  “Where’s your family?”

  “In Wilmington.”

  “North Carolina?”

  Sailor nodded. “Or they were. Hurricanes, you know.”

  “My parents were in Cleveland. Years ago. The snowstorms.”

  They were silent.

  “How come there are no families here?” Cal asked.

  “We believe in containment, you know that,” Sailor replied. “We’ve got limited resources.” He stood up straighter. “Plus, there isn’t medicine if they got sick or enough food for them to eat…and what about providing them with an education?”

  “But you’ll die out.”

  “Us and the whole world.” Sailor wasn’t smiling. “The Land isn’t against growth, Cal. We just choose who gets to join us.”

  “Oh, please. What about human nature? What about the desire to procreate?”

  Sailor shrugged. “I’m not ready to be a parent, and in this world, I wouldn’t want to be. Not ever. Micah says if we don’t have examples of fatherhood to follow, we won’t seek out that path. I think he’s right.”

  “And the women?”

  Sailor shrugged. “I’m not the person to ask.”

  Cal sat on the bed.

  “I should go,” Sailor said. “Leave you to your stuff.”

  “One more thing,” Cal said. “Did the recruiter who came to Plank say anything about the Group?”

  “I can’t answer that question,” he said, the color leaving his face.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Group, it’s not really part of the Land.” He stepped backward. “Well, it is.” He was almost out the door now. “But it’s not that simple.”

  “Sailor, wait,” Cal said. “What did the recruiter tell you?”

  “Only what we wanted to hear.” He paused. “That we had a purpose.”

  And with that, Sailor turned around and was gone.

  August had packed Cal’s shorts and Frida’s favorite blue dress. Their quilt, sewn by Frida’s grandmother. A handful of Cal’s bandannas. A few pairs of underwear. Cal didn’t like to think of August going through their things, but thank goodness he had, because Cal had been craving another pair of socks and his second pair of boots and his pillow. They were all here.

  August’s ability to pick the right possessions felt like a seduction. It implied that he and the others could anticipate their needs, could guess what would bring them comfort and happiness. This delivery of possessions said, We understand you.

  Maybe they did.

  Cal pulled out Frida’s blue cable-knit sweater and brought it to his face. The wool made his throat tickle. August had never seen Frida wear this, even Cal hadn’t; she only used it as a pillow when she couldn’t sleep. Somehow August had known she’d feel relieved, seeing it here.

  It was the same as Micah knowing that Cal would feel flattered, honored, even, to be asked to join them each morning, to make important decisions. You’re really smart, he’d said. You’re my brother-in-law.

  Micah wanted him to believe that their morning meetings were special but harmless. That they discussed who got what jobs and what repairs were needed right away and what members might be on the verge of dispute and need intervention. Village-elder-type work.

  Their meetings probably did include such quotidian concerns, but there had to be more. Why else would he be asked to keep them a secret from Frida? How did the Land get all its coveted objects, for instance? Just yesterday, Frida had mentioned that she’d seen garlic powder in the kitchen, not due to expire for another year. And what was August looking for on his routes? The nature of his surveillance had to be central to their meetings.

  If he joined them, he’d find out.

  Cal swept his hand along the bottom of the bag and hit something hard. He didn’t recognize it. He felt along its strange surface and felt wire, too. He pulled it out.

  Frida’s abacus. It was one of her artifacts, stored under the cots, where the turkey baster must have been hiding all along.

  Why pack her abacus? If August had known of the child, Cal might have read its inclusion as a kind and hopeful gesture. Now it struck him as wrong, threatening even. It meant August had searched every corner of their house, that he’d left nothing unexamined. He must have been there for a few nights: like Goldilocks, he’d slept in their bed, eaten their food, tried everything on for size. He had seen the world as they did, or he’d tried to, though this wasn’t about empathy but scrutiny and territory. He wanted Cal and Frida to know that.

  Sailor had blanched when Cal asked him about the Group. No way this was an idyllic ghost-town kibbutz.

  A place that banned children had to have a streak of insidiousness at its center.

  These men were up to something.

  13

  In the dark, Frida held the sweater to her cheek. It itched and made her eyes water, her throat tighten, but maybe that was the point. She’d been nineteen when her father had given it to her, explaining it had magical properties. He was wearing it the night he met Frida’s mother, and when the old Mercedes broke down for good on the 405. “This thing kept me from having a panic attack,” he said as he held out the ratty sweater for her to take. Now that she was old enough to appreciate it, he said, he wanted her to have it. “You’ve got a job, right?” He’d rolled his shoulders back and forth, and shook out his neck, like he was getting ready for a boxing match. “Adult problems are just around the bend.”

  But tonight, the sweater wasn’t working. Her eyes were open, and even her blood felt awake.

  Cal was snoring next to her. He’d fallen asleep soon after telling her what had happened earlier that day, as if confessing had exhausted him. No wonder Micah and the others—Peter, August, even Sailor—had acted strangely at dinner. They knew about the baby. She and Cal might not be able to stay.

  There were rules, apparently.

  “And if we have to leave,” Cal had whispered, before turning over in bed, “we’ll never be able to come back.” Frida tried not to hear the relief in his voice.

  He told her he wasn’t angry at her for lying to him, but she knew he was. At dinner he hadn’t poured her a mug of tea as he usually did, and once it was just the two of them alone in their room he’d answered her questions curtly, hardly looking at her. He’d snuffed out the candle before she was even in bed.

  She had apologized more than once because it didn’t seem like he’d really forgiven her. He wasn’t ready to accept what she’d done, and she got that. So she didn’t push it. It was easier this way.

  Cal thought she was sorry for misleading him—and she was—but she was also apologizing for the thoughts that had whiplashed through her mind as he explained what had happened in the Church. She didn’t want the baby anymore. Just like that, she gave up that future. She was ashamed by how easily she let it go.

  It’s not even a baby yet, she told herself now. It was an embryo. It was a ball of cells.

  She remembered something Toni had asked her, on one of their runs. Toni and Micah had been dating for four months by then. “When do you think life begins?” This would’ve been a weird question from anyone else, but not from Toni, who loved to muse and pontificate. Shallowness in conversation made her impatient. She had no use for small talk.

  “There’s a reason they call it small,” she liked to say.

  Toni had asked her this question as they jogged around
the dirt track of the Silver Lake Reservoir. To get there meant a rough and sometimes dangerous bike ride, but it was worth it: it was one of the only tracks left in the city, and it was clean and wide, even if the reservoir itself was filled with debris instead of water. The homeless, rising in number, often used it as a toilet, and people said corpses were buried under all that trash: the rusted-out shopping carts and car parts, the gutted desktop computers, and the hundreds of plastic bags, porous with holes, swollen with brown rainwater, hanging from orphaned tree branches.

  Cal didn’t like her going, worried it was too dangerous, but she insisted it was fine. If Frida squinted her eyes toward the hills that overlooked the Reservoir, she could transport herself to a neighborhood that had once been beautiful, insufferably so, the wrecked houses above her transformed again to million-dollar bungalows of yore, painted in sage, avocado, pumice. She was good at editing the frame.

  “Did you just ask me when life begins?” Frida remembered saying to Toni.

  “Sure did,” Toni said.

  Frida could see her friend’s tattered sneakers, hitting the dust of the track.

  “I think it begins with consciousness,” Toni continued. “The fetal brain really doesn’t develop until the final months.”

  Frida hadn’t had an opinion back then. But now, what did she think? She wanted to say she agreed with Toni.

  “A person isn’t a person until it can use its lungs,” she had told Frida. “And those also don’t develop until the final trimester.”

  “How do you know so much about this?”

  Toni’s voice was breathy from the run. “It’s my job. In the Group. I read up on issues. I’m one of the researchers.”

  From Toni, Frida had learned a lot more about the Communities than she’d ever be able to discern from gossip sites. Toni was the one to tell her that Community members were encouraged to have one or two children, and if they wanted more, they needed a permit, which was pricey. “Because of the pull on resources,” Toni explained. But if a couple couldn’t have children at all, their status was threatened. “Calabasas, for instance, and Purell up north, really see parenting as the key role for every adult member of society,” Toni said. “Some Communities are way more family focused than others, though.”