California: A Novel

by Edan Lepucki

  “What changed?” Frida asked.

  “Bo had seen something,” August said. “He told Peter he didn’t want him coming around anymore, that he was confusing Jane and Garrett. I guess it was Sandy who finally interrupted Bo and called Peter a traitor.”

  “For what?” Cal asked. “What had Bo seen?”

  “He’d taken to exploring by himself, way beyond the familiar territories,” August said. “He’d seen a Pirate.”

  Frida shook her head. “But I thought the Pirates were gone, that you guys fixed that problem?”

  “I wish it had been that easy,” August said. “They still roam the wilder areas. They don’t come anywhere near the Land or the settlers I’m in contact with, and they definitely stay away from Pines.” He gripped the seatback that faced Cal and Frida. “They hold no real threat to us anymore, and there’s a reason for that.”

  “So if they aren’t a threat, why does it matter that Bo saw one?” Frida said.

  “It matters because the Pirate wasn’t alone,” August said. “He was with your brother. Doing a trade, I’m guessing. Bo said they were smiling like old friends, though I’m sure that’s Bo embellishing. Micah views his relationship with the Pirates as purely business—believe me, there isn’t a kinship there. They’re afraid of him, and they also depend on him, for supplies. A year or two ago, Micah killed one of their men. The kid was talking back, swaggering. Micah did it just to make sure they knew who was boss.”

  Cal waited for Frida to say something, but she was silent, staring at the mottled whirl of the seat upholstery in front of them.

  “Let me guess,” Cal said, “none of the original settlers on the Land know about this business relationship.”

  “Only Peter.”

  “Why does my brother trade with them?” Frida asked. “If he’s not afraid to kill one, why not just get rid of them all and get rid of the problem?”

  “The Pirates have their uses,” August said. “They keep new settlers from coming in, for one, and they see stuff well beyond the territory I travel. Plus, if Micah were to totally eradicate them, he might be out of a job.”

  Cal didn’t say anything. He remembered what Micah had said about the Pirates attacking Pines someday.

  “So Bo found out about my brother’s relationship with the Pirates,” Frida said.

  August nodded. “The Millers told Peter they were thinking of coming back to the Land to tell everyone. They thought people deserved to know. That had freaked Peter out. He’d be in trouble, too, seeing as he’d been aware of Micah’s dealings all along. He told Bo and Sandy they better stay put, that Micah was working with the Pirates for everyone’s benefit. The Millers were having none of it. After all the horror the Pirates had inflicted on the Land, what Micah was doing was unforgivable.”

  “And then Peter ran home and told my brother all this,” Frida said.

  “You have to understand,” August said. “When we went to see the Millers, Micah’s main goal was to make sure they never came to the Land. If they did, they’d topple everything we’d worked for. He wanted them out of their house and out of our territory. He didn’t see the benefit of protecting them anymore, and I didn’t either. I’m not denying that. They were too much of a threat.”

  “What happened?” Frida asked.

  August took off his sunglasses so that he could look right at Frida. His eyes were gentle for a moment. “They weren’t cooperative.”

  “What does that mean?” Cal asked.

  “It means they wouldn’t leave, and Micah did what he had to do.” August put his sunglasses back on. “Bo was strong, but not against two men, and not with his family watching. He didn’t put up much of a fight because Sandy and the kids were there, and we hadn’t touched them. Finally, he agreed to follow us outside.” August paused. “Micah had brought the poison with him. I had no idea he had it. He wanted Bo to take it, and when Bo refused, there was a struggle. Micah held him down.” He stopped speaking again, and Cal leaned forward. “To find signs of suffocation, you’d have to be looking for them.”

  “Jesus,” Cal said.

  “Afterward, Micah threw up right by the cart. He wiped his mouth and told me to wait with the mare while he went inside.”

  “Sandy didn’t try to escape with the kids?” Cal asked.

  “I thought she would have. I was praying she wouldn’t. I didn’t want to witness Micah chasing her, doing God knows what.”

  “You sat back and watched?” Frida said. “How could you?”

  “I saw nothing,” August replied coldly. “Sandy didn’t scream or anything, either. It was quiet. She agreed to take the poison and give it to the children. She told them it was medicine. Later, Micah said she was just sitting on the bed with the kids, singing a song about birds, trying to keep them calm. It was all she could do, I guess, to get out of this mess.” August paused.

  “Why didn’t he just let them leave?” Cal asked.

  “Would she have wanted to go? She’d be out there in the woods, alone with her kids.”

  Frida wasn’t crying, and the way her body felt next to his, Cal knew she was beyond crying, that sorrow had leached even that from her. Cal thought about his conversation with Bo about the Spikes. He must have been warning him away from this place.

  When August started talking again, his voice was careful, measured, as if he’d reported this very procedure at the Land’s next morning meeting.

  “Frida…You should know that Micah wanted the Millers to vacate the house for another reason. He wanted you to live there.”

  Frida began trembling slightly. “Micah knew I was out here?” Her voice was higher than usual, almost squeaky. “Before I told you?” She was trying to catch her breath.

  “As soon as I met you and reported your settlement to him, he knew.”

  “And he never came to see me?” Frida said.

  Cal brought his arms around her.

  “Micah wanted you out of the shed, and as quickly as possible,” August said. “The shed was too small, he said, too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. It was tiny. He knew you’d take the house.” August paused. “He wanted you guys to have a better life.”

  Frida didn’t answer.

  “Micah didn’t want me to bury the Millers’ bodies,” August continued. “He said that you”—here August looked at Cal—“would see the bodies and they’d scare you. That you’d never let Frida leave. That you’d stick to routine as a way to survive. He said it’s what you did in school, after your mom died.”

  Micah was right. He’d known that Cal would be a coward and that it would be Cal’s job to hold back his wife.

  Frida leaned into him. “It’s okay,” she whispered. Then to August, she said, “Why didn’t you want us to think they’d been killed? That would have really scared us.”

  “That’s what I said. But Micah was really freaked out, like I’ve never seen him. He didn’t want you to be afraid, and he definitely didn’t want you running away where he couldn’t find you or heading here, looking for answers. He was panicked. I had to tell him to wait with Sue while I dragged Bo’s body inside.”

  “You did it for him?” Frida asked bitterly.

  Even though Cal understood why she was angry, he didn’t want her to say anything more. She didn’t get it; she couldn’t. Micah might have committed the murders, but it had been August and Cal who had to go in afterward and face those deaths. Whatever had motivated August—loyalty or self-interest, desperation or fear, or even the same metallic coldness that ran through Micah—Cal couldn’t blame him for following Micah, for tidying up the situation, for trying to resolve it in whatever way he could. Maybe what August had done was wrong, but it was human, too. Maybe it was compassion that had led August back into that house. He’d wanted to return Bo to his family.

  No one said anything. Cal thought August looked tired, as if telling that story had been too much for him.

  After a moment, August said, “Let’s eat. It’ll take us a while to ge
t to Pines.”

  23

  They’d left when it was still dark. Through the night and into the next day, they’d ridden over a road so rough that even Cal had thrown up twice into an old wastebasket August kept for such purposes. They kept stopping to move fallen trees out of the way. Once August had braked for a deer running across the road; at first he thought it was an Illegal. That’s what they called them in Pines, he said. “Poor people, trying to get inside.”

  Frida wanted to ask, Isn’t that what we are? but she didn’t. It was another thing she’d keep to herself.

  Frida had intentionally chosen to sit at the back of the bus; she knew it would make her sick, but she wanted to be as far as possible from Cal and August’s conversation. They had spoken intently for the first half of their journey. Before starting the bus, August had told Cal he could still be of assistance to the Land. “Inside Pines,” he said, “you’ll have your eyes and ears on the ground.” Frida could sense Cal deliberately not looking at her as August spoke. And could she blame him? Her brother had killed their friends, and August had stood by and let it happen, and Cal was still willing to work with them. But she understood. They were going to be parents. Cal just wanted to keep their family safe.

  August had nodded at Cal and said, “There’s a role for you inside. Micah’s been thinking about it since you guys arrived.”

  Frida didn’t know what they were talking about, but it was probably about Micah’s plan. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t about building more Forms.

  Frida was relieved she couldn’t hear them talking over the engine. She didn’t want to know. She could only think about the baby and how they were being spirited away from Micah and the Land and the Millers and Anika’s wounded head. They were headed for a safe place. It would be safe, right?

  Cal was so invested in his conversation with August, he barely glanced out the window. Frida couldn’t take her eyes off the world; it looked even worse than it had on their way out of L.A., as if, in their time away, it had slipped further from care.

  The sky was gray above them, and the bus jostled over dirt and rocks and chunks of asphalt. Sometimes there were woods on either side of them, and sometimes the trees thinned out, turning black and shriveled, leading to soulless, empty spaces that reminded Frida of desolate parking lots. They once passed a gas station, dead. Someone had ripped out the hoses, and a fallen streetlight cut the convenience store in two. Occasionally, they passed houses, but they were falling over, deflated, covered in ivy, their doors knocked off, their roofs collapsed. A dog with xylophone ribs stalked an uneven porch. Frida hadn’t seen a pet in years, but this wasn’t anyone’s pet. No one would return here. Not ever.

  Frida kept thinking of Anika. How badly had Cal hurt her? And when Frida wasn’t thinking about Anika, she was thinking about Jane and Garrett.

  Whenever these dark thoughts came into her mind, Frida went back to the brochure August had given her. It made her feel better, boasting photographs of beautiful yet modest homes in a number of styles: California bungalow, Spanish Mediterranean, French countryside. They were so new, they seemed to glow off the page. Thanks to our cutting-edge workout facilities and well-maintained bike paths, our valued citizens live active and healthy lifestyles. Just wait until you try our Good for You! Diet Plans™, offered in each of our six shopping districts. The brochure said the population at Pines was capped at 10,500 for another five years or until the Community could build more neighborhoods and plazas to expand. We want to maintain a small-town feel. Come home to us!

  Curled into the back of the school bus, her legs smashed into the green vinyl seat in front of her, Frida had laughed at that. But she had to admit, other things excited her: Enjoy a different cultural event every night of the week, from classical-music concerts to lectures on obscure typefaces.

  Cal would like that.

  Take advantage of our speedy, hand-delivered correspondence system, and our Quality Interaction Centers™, where friends can meet face-to-face for stimulating conversation and a variety of antioxidant teas. At Pines, there is no time but quality time!

  Pines residents hadn’t eliminated technology from their Community; they just didn’t celebrate it. Once you’re done with work, why spend time in front of a screen? Maybe they lacked the resources, the satellites, the cell towers, but it didn’t matter: they had transformed a flaw into an asset. Pines was supposed to remind you of a bygone world that no one living had seen firsthand: cookouts and block parties, paperboys and school recitals. Daddies who took the trolley home, mommies who put up their own wallpaper.

  August had started the bus as soon as he’d eaten a little and filled the tank. As he turned on the engine, he’d said, “To everyone in Pines, Micah is dead. You must proceed from that notion.”

  Cal had looked at Frida then, as if she might not want to cooperate, and she’d nodded. Giving up her brother once more was a relief, actually.

  They had seen no one else on the way. “God willing,” August said, “it’ll be just us until we reach the first checkpoint.”

  As they approached Pines, August admitted to getting permits for Cal and Frida on his last trip. He hadn’t acquired entrance papers in years, he said, and Frida thought he must be thinking about the children he’d transported from the Land. “I got them from Toni,” he said.

  “Toni?” Frida said.

  “She’s on the inside here,” Cal said slowly. “I should have told you.”

  “Too late for that.” Frida was supposed to be upset, and she was, but she’d learned so much in the last few hours, this couldn’t compare. Toni. Frida couldn’t suppress a smile. Her old friend.

  Now Frida and Cal were a young couple, recruited to come to Pines because Frida—now Julie—was with child, and because Cal—now Gray—could be of assistance in their Education Department. To Cal, August had said, “You’ll be able to get to know those inside who are assisting us. And you’ll see who might be questioned by authorities, should trouble arise.”

  Frida shut her ears.

  The gates to get into Pines were tall and ornate. Like the gates of heaven, Frida thought stupidly. The man who pored over their paperwork was wearing a white button-down shirt so clean it made her eyes hurt.

  “Antonia Marles preapproved them,” August said to the man.

  Either Toni had pull, or there was a lot of gold in the small cashier’s box August handed the inspector, because they were let in after just a thirty-six-minute wait. Frida knew because she’d kept her eyes on the clock tower a few feet ahead. She’d been so nervous, she thought she might barf into the wastebasket. But they’d been waved through, and August parked in the nearest lot. Beyond that, he told them, were only the occasional delivery trucks and electric station wagons, which the richest families drove. Everyone else walked, took the trolley, or rode bicycles.

  “It’s nice,” Frida had said as they turned onto their street. She meant it. Beyond the border, there were at least three miles before the world started to look wild and ruined and frightening. Here everything had a start-over feeling.

  24

  Frida was still in bed, hoping she would fall back asleep. She wanted to spend the morning here and wake only for lunch, well rested. That plan never worked—now that she was eight months along, her belly large and ungainly, she could never stay comfortable enough to sleep the day away. But maybe it’ll work, she thought, just this once.

  The baby kicked twice, as if to say, Ha. Frida rolled onto her other side and pulled the duvet to her chin.

  Cal was in the shower; he had five minutes before the timer went off and the hot water turned cold again. She could hear him singing the song about the doggy in the window; it had been playing the last time they went to the Central Shopping Plaza. His voice sounded decent—deep yet sweet—but it was so unlike him that she laughed. How appropriate. He wasn’t Cal anymore, anyway. She was supposed to call him Gray.

  Frida had not been sleeping well since they’d arrived. Apparently,
a memory-foam mattress and two semifirm hypoallergenic pillows couldn’t help Frida sleep through the humidifier sighing on its pedestal across the room or the bothersome glow of streetlights outside. The fridge downstairs liked to make ice at two in the morning, and at dawn, the paperboy came down the block on his bicycle; Frida could hear him every day as he pulled copies of the newsletter out of his canvas bag and threw them onto the lawns. From the bedroom window it looked like a tiny white flute had been tossed onto the dewy grass below.

  Last night had been especially tough. The police had taken the neighbor’s son away. They’d been stealthy about it, or as stealthy as you can be when you’re throwing a grown man into the back of an armored vehicle. Mrs. Doyle’s son had been picked up because he was a drug addict. That was obvious; his downward spiral had saddened the whole neighborhood. For five years, Frida was told, he’d been the basketball coach for Pines West. Two years ago they’d won the championship, played against five other Communities in the Western and Northwest Territories. Frida had gotten used to saying that: the Territories. They were technically still part of the U.S., but those two letters sounded so antiquated, so inaccurate.

  “It’s not like the United States government contributes anything to our well-being,” Cal once said to Mrs. Doyle. He was very good at repeating rhetoric from the newsletter, but in a way that sounded fresh. “They can’t tax us if we don’t depend on them for anything. Besides, the government’s a wreck.”

  It had been clear that Mrs. Doyle’s son wasn’t doing well. For one, he kept skipping practice—his players dribbling balls listlessly for an hour before heading home—and sometimes he’d go missing for days. Some claimed that the latter wasn’t true, that Mrs. Doyle had been hiding him in her basement, to protect him from his urges, or to keep anyone from seeing him high. But that couldn’t be, because she was the one who had told the authorities. “It’s best for him,” she told Frida. “And for everyone. We can’t have drugs crossing into our borders.”