California: A Novel

by Edan Lepucki

  Peter had finally found the correct chords for the song he wanted to play, and the other side of the circle began singing along with him. Frida couldn’t place the song, though she thought it was a ballad from the last century, something her father might sing as he made dinner, humming everything but the chorus. As the voices rose, earnest and off-key, Betty leaned forward and whispered to the women in front of them, “I hear Rachel’s sleeping with Dave.”

  Frida could tell the women had heard Betty by the way they looked at each other. Sheryl had the cup and thermos now, and she snapped them together so forcefully that Lupe laughed.

  “Settle down, Miss Sensitive,” Lupe said. “It’s not as if he’s any good.”

  If Frida had been drinking anything, she would’ve choked on it.

  “Dave?” Frida said, without thinking.

  This time, Sheryl turned around. “Anika said you were cool.”

  “She is,” Anika said, still facing the fire.

  Betty put a hand on Frida’s knee. “We’re warm-blooded creatures.”

  “But Dave is so young,” Frida said. These women were old enough to be his mother, but she didn’t say that. She knew she sounded prudish already, and she didn’t want to be nudged out of this locker room too quickly. “I mean…good for Rachel.”

  Lupe laughed, turning around. “Sheryl, give her some of the milk.”

  Sheryl unscrewed the thermos slowly. “She doesn’t look thirsty to me.”

  “Oh, but I am,” Frida said.

  It was cow’s milk, heated to a foam. It smelled oddly sweet, like the postage stamps her grandfather had collected for nearly his whole life. He liked extinct things. He’d given Frida one for her eighth birthday, and she’d licked it as soon as she was alone in her room.

  “So there aren’t rules against it?” Frida asked Betty.

  “Not officially.” She smiled. “But you must have seen the whole drawer of Pills in the Bath.”

  Frida was surprised, but she knew she shouldn’t be. Micah didn’t want children here, and he’d make sure no accidents happened. Likely, the women were grateful to have access to birth control, certainly procured from Pines.

  “Otherwise, when it comes to love, we can do what we like,” Betty said. “As long as we’re discreet, that is.” She grinned. “And those who prefer to abstain pretend everyone prefers that.” She nodded at Anika.

  “I never said that!” Anika said. “It’s just my own personal choice.”

  “You’re our nun,” Betty said.

  “Ha,” Sheryl said. “You and Micah.”

  “My brother?” Frida said. “Really? He used to be such a dog.”

  “He’s too serious for all that now, I suppose,” Anika said.

  “The fact that he’s never been interested in sex made us like him,” Betty said. “He never touched us.”

  The women fell silent.

  “Who knows what happens on his treks off the Land,” Lupe said.

  “Micah leaves?” Frida said. “With August?”

  “Not often,” Betty answered. “Occasionally he needs to help August at Pines. They have to lug these big containers of soil. Sometimes cantaloupes or lettuce, whatever it is that we’re trading that month.”

  “I bet he just wants to get away from us,” Lupe said. “It can be pretty boring around here. Maybe he has a secret wife living in the woods.”

  The other women laughed.

  “Micah? Can you imagine him having a wife?” Sheryl said as she reached her hand out behind her. She wanted the cup back.

  Anika turned to grab the cup from Frida. “I hope you weren’t hoping for a top-secret meeting of the minds tonight. It’s just us ladies, gabbing.”

  “Sure, it is,” Frida said.

  “Micah should bring his secret wife here. It’s not like someone is going to try to steal her,” Lupe said. “No one goes after other people’s partners here. Monogamy is respected, rare as it is.”

  “She’s saying you don’t have to worry about your husband,” Betty said.

  Frida shook her head. “It didn’t even occur to me that I should.”

  Now all four women were looking at her closely, as if trying to gauge her truthfulness.

  “Not even his eye wanders,” Sheryl said, oraclelike.

  “I don’t know about that,” Frida said. “But he’s a good man.”

  “You don’t worry when he leaves you at night?” Anika asked.

  “He’s with some of the other men,” Frida said. She paused. “And at dawn he goes to see my brother. And, Lord, if they’re being amorous, I don’t want to know.”

  The women laughed, almost loudly enough to be heard over the singing voices. The song sounded melancholy now, the key too high for most, but still the singers tried to reach it.

  “The Vote’s coming up,” Anika said. She was looking at Sheryl.

  “I know,” Sheryl said. She turned to Frida. “Glad you could make it here tonight.”

  So Anika wanted Frida to get to know her friends, to prove to them that the new girl was cool. That she could fit in. That she was worth voting for.

  “I’m glad I could come,” she answered. She smiled. “If you keep me on the Land, I’ll let you sleep with my husband.” She winked at Anika.

  Sheryl snorted.

  “I thought you’d never offer!” Betty said, and they all laughed again. Frida felt the pride that being funny brought, and for the first time in days, she felt happy, and safe.

  The women left before the fire got too low, but Frida stayed. She wanted to listen to the singers for a little longer, she said. She promised Betty she’d return the shower curtain picnic blanket to the outdoor lounge. The night air, scraped clean by the rain, felt good on her face.

  Rachel showed up soon after the women left. Without the guitar to guide her, Rachel began to sing “This Little Light of Mine.”

  Her voice was deep and scratchy. She had been a smoker in her past, Frida could tell. She imagined Rachel twenty years earlier, Dave’s age: her hair long, lots of eye shadow maybe, definitely a run in her tights, drinking a lot, every night her lips stained purple with wine. Back then she wouldn’t have sung, unbidden, like she did now. Dave probably wouldn’t have liked her young. Hilda had once said that some women, the lucky ones, lost their youth but found something much better, something sexier, to replace it.

  Frida was still young, though, wasn’t she? She was sort of in between the younger men and the older women. That couldn’t have escaped notice. The women must wonder if she wanted children, now or ever. They must have considered her fertility. If they felt threatened by her youth, they didn’t show it.

  The next song was one she knew, and Frida decided, what the hell, she would sing along. She remembered the lyrics from day camp so long ago, when there was still money for that kind of thing. She wondered whether Micah had supplied it to the Land’s canon.

  Frida sang loudly and terribly, and she laughed with everyone else when Peter supplied the baritone echoes. She wanted this. She wanted to stay here. It was what she’d wanted when they arrived, when she had fallen into her brother’s arms, and when she met all these strangers, saw their buildings, ate their food. She had wanted to be part of a community, and, abracadabra, here it was. She’d felt so lucky. That feeling was coming back to her now.

  Once the fire died down and everyone began to disperse for bed, Frida’s secret surfaced in her thoughts once more, and she wasn’t sure what to feel. She was a fraud. She was a liar. Her friends were all following the rules of this place without complaint, and now here she was, an exception to those rules. It wasn’t right. If Frida thought Anika would be happy, she was crazy. Anika would come around to the idea, Frida was sure of it, but the longer the pregnancy was a secret, the worse it would be. Frida would look no better than Micah, who fed off secrets. She and Cal would be starting off here badly if they withheld this information.

  She tried not to think about it. She wanted to push the baby from her mind. Not now, not no
w.

  Already sounding like a mother, she thought.

  When Peter caught up with her on the way back to the Hotel, there was no use wasting time with a preamble. “I feel like people should know,” she said.

  “They will soon enough,” he said.

  He seemed so glad that she was pregnant, despite the complications that were sure to take over this place, at least for a little while.

  Frida smiled. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” She couldn’t help it.

  She was channeling Sandy Miller, she realized, triumphant before her chart of menstrual cycles, glory be the gift of children, excited for the bounty they would inherit. Because that’s what moms did, right? They chose to believe the future was good. To assume otherwise was to participate in a kind of despair.

  Peter squeezed her shoulder and told her to sleep well. “August will be back tomorrow,” he said, and she nodded. The Vote was upon them.

  * * *

  And here she was, a few nights later, sitting in the Church next to Cal, in the same pew they were always led to, right up front so that nearly everyone was behind them. The first time, she’d been too shocked to really take anything in; her brother was alive and here was a whole town of people just a two-day journey away from the Miller Estate. The first night, she couldn’t possibly have been bothered to notice that someone had carved the initials D.B.B. into the pew’s wooden seat or that the buzzing lights at the back of the room seemed to be saying uh-huh, uh-huh over and over again. Cal had initially found those lights to be obnoxious, but he didn’t seem to mind them now. He had nodded at a few people on their way in but had since fallen quiet. He squeezed Frida’s hand every now and again, and she squeezed his back.

  Betty had told her that housekeeping never cleaned the Church’s interior, but clearly someone had been in here to dust. The stage before them was clean and buffed, the metal piping around its edge smooth as the hem of a gown. There was nothing on the pulpit: no ballot box, no table with small slips of paper, no vat of ink to dip people’s thumbs into after they’d cast their vote.

  Then Frida remembered that it would all happen publicly. That’s all she knew.

  She hadn’t asked Micah or Anika, and it seemed odd to turn around and ask Rachel, who was sitting behind them. Dave was sitting elsewhere, of course. Rule 1: discretion.

  “Do you know how it’s going to work?” Frida whispered to Cal.

  “Everyone who wants us to stay will move to a designated corner of the Church,” Cal said. “Anyone who doesn’t will go stand on the opposite side.”

  Someone whistled, a piercing, two-fingered one, and Cal stopped talking. Micah walked onto the stage.

  “Let’s get started,” he said, and clapped his hands twice.

  Frida had expected her brother to say a few words about the Land’s philosophy, about how this was a significant moment in their history as a community. They hadn’t accepted any new members since he and the others had arrived a few years back, and that had to be on everyone’s minds. It wasn’t until Micah didn’t say any of this that Frida realized she’d been composing a speech for her brother in her head these last couple of days. She had imagined him describing Cal’s gifts as a farmer and carpenter and critical thinker. He would go on and on about Frida’s bread, about how well liked she was. He might say something about family. Frida is my sister, he would say, and leave it at that because everyone would understand how meaningful that was.

  Instead he held up his hand and said, “I’m confident that everyone has already made up their minds.” He paused, and Frida imagined everyone behind her nodding. “So here we go. If you’re in favor of Frida and Calvin moving to the Land permanently, to participate in our community, please move to the northeastern corner of the room.” He pointed to the back-left corner of the Church. To Frida and Cal he said, “Please remain seated, guys.” And then he jumped off the stage, presumably to make his own vote.

  “Don’t they want to debate it?” Frida whispered to Cal. “They don’t have questions or anything?” She felt so ignorant. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask these questions earlier.

  “A few took private meetings with Micah and Peter,” Cal said, “to voice their concerns.” His eyes remained on the stage, but Frida could tell he was listening closely, trying to discern the migration patterns of those in the pews behind them. “August’s been lobbying for us the past two days.”

  Cal was obviously confident they had everyone’s support, and after a few moments Frida felt him relax against her into the pew.

  “You’re acting as if there’s a screen in front of us,” she said. “Like we’re at the movies.”

  He smiled. “Pass the popcorn.”

  He must have pushed the baby out of his mind. That, or he truly believed that once they were accepted here they could not be forced out.

  From the corner of her eye, Frida could see that the people in the pew to their left were moving across the room. She turned her head, expecting seriousness on everyone’s face, but Peter was absently running his tongue over his teeth as he passed the last pews, and Fatima had gotten distracted by her thumbnail; she almost bumped into August, who was just ahead of her. Anika was smiling, for once.

  She could tell Cal didn’t want to look at the gathered group until everyone had finished voting and that he expected her to do the same. She didn’t care. She turned to watch the people crowd into the far back corner. They were a disheveled and unlikely bunch, huddled together as they were around the campfire. She’d been to it every night since the first time. Yesterday she’d brought cinnamon buns to pass around, and Sailor, a rare visitor to the festivities as far as she could tell, had joked, “Buttering us up for the Vote, lady?” before taking two. Everyone laughed, including Frida, but it had also made her uneasy. He was right. She had been deliberately campaigning, befriending anyone who looked her way. As if she were running for prom queen.

  More and more people had clotted into the northeast corner, and after a few minutes it appeared as though everyone had moved out of their pews. Only Frida and Cal remained seated.

  This was good, she told herself. She and Cal had been accepted. They were wanted.

  But even as relief passed over her, so did its inverse, its shadow. It was the same shame she’d felt flush with at the campfire. She just wanted them to like her, and there was something selfish about that, especially when they didn’t know about the baby. The baby was important; it was necessary information.

  Tell them.

  Was it crazy to imagine her baby, passing on this message? It was as if Frida had picked up a bottle that had washed onto shore. She had unfurled the scroll to find these instructions. Tell them.

  “They need to know,” Frida said to Cal.

  “They will,” he said. He was still facing straight ahead. She remembered what he’d said a few nights before. Wait and watch. He actually thought Micah would figure it out for them.

  But would he?

  “No,” Frida said. “Now.”

  She felt herself standing. Cal’s hand had grasped her own, he was trying to yank her back to the pew like a current pulling her underwater, but she shook him off.

  “Micah,” she said. Too quietly at first. The collective volume of the room had risen suddenly. Everyone had begun to talk to their neighbors; they were excited, Frida supposed, by the official change, by the obvious outcome of the Vote. The Land was growing! They could not be contained!

  “Frida,” Cal said. “Please.”

  She didn’t look down at him.

  “Micah,” she said again. She yelled it.

  This time, everyone heard her, and her brother emerged from the center of the crowd as if he’d been pushed forward.

  Everyone had stopped talking.

  “You okay, Frida?” Micah asked. “We usually hold an optional postvote analysis, if you want to contribute then.”

  “Let’s wait,” Cal said, but not to everyone, only to her.

  Frida sought out Anika’s face in
the crowd, but before she found her, she saw Betty and then Lupe. And Rachel. Had all these women been mothers? Her eyes passed over Smolin. Had he been a father? If these people had been parents once, they still were. That role could never be taken away.

  Her parents had grieved Micah’s death; their son was dead, but they were still his parents.

  “I’m pregnant,” Frida said. She said it loudly, she made sure of that, but she repeated herself, just to be sure. “I’m pregnant.”

  The lights huffed over the silence that Frida’s news had wrought. She looked immediately at Cal, who had let go of her hand. His eyes were on his lap.

  “Excuse me?” Micah let out a harsh and sudden laugh that startled those nearest him; it was as if he’d punctured a balloon with a needle. “Did you just say you’re pregnant?”

  His delivery was perfect.

  Peter stepped forward, with the same innocent, confused expression as Micah’s. Frida couldn’t help but be impressed with his acting, too. These guys were good.

  “I wanted to tell you all before,” Frida began. She realized she had no excuse that wouldn’t implicate Cal, who she’d promised was a good man. And she didn’t want to tell on her brother; if she did, the Land might not recover.

  Cal stood up. “I asked her not to,” he said. He had taken her hand again. “I thought it would make it easier. I wanted you to consider just us first, before anything else.”

  All at once, people began to murmur to one another. Frida felt them looking at her, as if scrutinizing her body for signs, for proof of her betrayal. She wanted to lay a hand across her belly, but she didn’t. That would be too much for them.