Love is the Drug

by Alaya Dawn Johnson

  Bird rewinds past the hours of repeated instructions, student questions, and tense office banter, to the one section she marked. They listen again.

  “How many more do we have to get through?”

  “Um …” Shuffling papers, something scraping against the floor. “It looks like we’ve got all the girls up to date. No refusals among the ones still regularly attending. Early says that she’ll announce the new rule about the shot being mandatory for attendance after Thanksgiving.”

  “So today we have to finish out the boys? Have we finally gotten the last shipment?”

  “Yeah, there’s a group of seniors and the last of the faculty. Orders are to hurry.”

  “That’s what he keeps saying. And I keep asking, what the hell is the big rush about a vitamin treatment?”

  A pause. “It’s the quarantine, I think. There’s concerns.”

  “Concerns. Tyler, if you’ve heard anything I need to know —”

  “Just get your shot this evening and keep your head. You know David doesn’t tell us anything.”

  Bird stops the recording and raises her eyebrows at Marella. “This is shit and you know it.”

  “That thing about the quarantine is weird.”

  “It’s just that rumor, you know, the one about people bribing their way in.”

  “Damn, that’s some gold-plated gossip you got there, Bird. All I get to hear about is Tory Silver banging some soldier in the janitor’s closet.”

  “Wait — really?”

  Marella points two fingers at her eyes. “Focus. World catastrophe versus rich girl sexcapades. Not a contest.”

  “I don’t know about that. What if there’s a video?”

  “Her dad’ll buy YouTube. Are you serious about the quarantine thing?”

  “I saw it on some message board. Which ain’t bringing down Roosevelt David, so —”

  “Holy shit. His name.”

  “Is completely — holy shit.”

  Bird reaches for Marella’s hand unthinkingly as she rewinds again, and then plays:

  “You know David doesn’t tell us anything.”

  “It’s Roosevelt,” Bird whispers. “He’s involved somehow with the medical team. He must have known Dr. Granger.”

  “Which doesn’t mean he killed her.”

  “Okay, okay. But listen: It’s strange enough he’s so chummy with Mrs. Early, but the medical team? Are vitamin treatments at a prep school really that vital to national security?”

  “A prep school with the vice president’s daughter? Look at your cousin. He switches schools and magically he gets flu shots and proper air raid shelters and, you know, a fighting chance. God, sometimes I hate this city.”

  There’s nothing much Bird can say to that, so she doesn’t. Marella’s family isn’t rich. She knows more than Bird about the differences between white DC and, well, everywhere else.

  “So, do you think it’s a good lead?” Marella asks finally. “Vitamin treatments? Not exactly earth-shaking, but …”

  “There’s something there,” Bird says slowly. A door opens at the end of the hallway and Aaron waves at her. She waves back. “I think we should just check with Mrs. Early.”

  “Because she’s really going to tell us the truth.”

  “No,” Bird says quietly, “but her computer might.”

  * * *

  Bird makes a calculation, checks it again, and the answer is a string of ten numbers that have scared her most of her life. But she dials them, leaves a message, and waits. It does not take very long.

  “Emily,” her mother says. “I’m so glad you called.”

  This is cautiously promising. “I have a question about school,” she says.

  “Interesting. Well then, go ahead.”

  “I would like to have a conversation with Mrs. Early. In her office.”

  “In her office?”

  “So we can be alone,” Bird says. “I have some concerns of a private nature.”

  “You do. Would you mind sharing? Because I’d hate to bother your headmistress about some trifling better handled by the school counselor.”

  Bird swallows. “I would mind. Yes.”

  “Emily, I’ve been hearing some … worrying things. I think I told you how important it is for you to keep quiet and follow the rules. This is not the time to stage your teenage rebellion.”

  If not now, when? But she swallows that automatically. “I’m being safe, Mom.”

  “That’s not what Paul says. He says you’ve started dating that drug-dealing thug —”

  “Mom!”

  Of course she’s been talking to Paul. Bird is only disgusted with herself that she didn’t anticipate it.

  Her mother takes a deep breath. “I’ll call Mrs. Early. And you will not disappoint me, Emily. We’ll talk later.”

  “Thank you, Mom, I —”

  But Carol Bird has already hung up. Bird arranges things with Marella between lunch and the afternoon chapel service, where she sees Coffee goofing around with Trevor Robinson as if one of them might not be going to jail for the next decade. Coffee nods at her, which makes her flush and then grimace, because of course Felice and Gina saw. Charlotte is absent again; there are rumors about her parents that Bird doesn’t like to think about. The prep school social hierarchy is damaged but resilient. Coffee rises, Bird falls, Marella continues to employ her middle finger.

  After chapel, a group of soldiers escorts the girls back to the Devonshire side. Several black cars with tinted windows have parked across the street, but none lower their windows, and there’s no way for her to know if one of them is Roosevelt. She doesn’t see Paul anywhere, a proximate relief and a long-term worry.

  She arrives at her six o’clock appointment two minutes before, and Mrs. Early greets her at the door. Bird is relieved to see Mrs. Early’s laptop open on the desk, and surprised to recognize the cardboard box next to it. Sasha Granger’s effects.

  “Why do you have that?” she asks without thinking.

  Mrs. Early glances behind her. “Ah, Dr. Granger. Did you know her? Her husband was one of the first casualties of the v-flu, so I’m arranging to have her things sent to her daughter outside the quarantine zone. Please, Emily, have a seat.”

  Bird sits on one of the rose-upholstered chairs while Mrs. Early takes the other. Bird glances at the clock and estimates she has four minutes.

  “I want to report harassment,” Bird says.

  Mrs. Early blinks, but maintains that admirable poise Bird remembers from that ninth-grade encounter with her mother. “We take any kind of harassment very seriously, Emily. Can you tell me who you’d like to report?”

  Bird shifts to find a more comfortable position, but these chairs were designed to keep their sitters off-balance. “Roosevelt David,” she says. Three minutes.

  Mrs. Early winces. “Your mother … informed me that you might come here to discuss that.”

  “And she told you to ignore me?”

  “She … not in so many words.” Mrs. Early steeples her fingers and breathes deep. “I have to tell you, Mr. David is an unaffiliated agent of the US government. I’m not sure how much we can do. But if you’d like to make a complaint, I’m here to listen.”

  Bird feels in control again. A different kind of control than she had as Emily, Carol Bird’s perfect daughter. This is the control of rubber gloves mixing volatile chemicals, of a fireproof suit walking through flames. It’s the control of one minute left.

  “You’re saying it wouldn’t matter what he did?”

  “I’d inform his superiors, Emily. If he’s behaving inappropriately with our students, I have every reason to hope it will be relevant to their view of his current work.”

  In the thirty seconds she has left, Bird’s throat constricts. She remembers Roosevelt’s insinuation of what his bosses might do to her in his place. But he would say that, wouldn’t he? Could her power be so simple? Could she tell a supportive adult about his bad behavior and let the system sort him out? Coul
d she trust authority and just walk away?

  “I can’t fucking do it anymore!”

  The scream easily carries past the closed door, as do the fruitless efforts of Mrs. Early’s secretary to calm Marella down.

  “Honey, just sit here —”

  “We’re all going to die and you want me to sit down?”

  Mrs. Early looks at the door, back at Bird, and shakes her head. “Not another,” she mutters. “Emily, just wait here for a second. Let me see what’s going on.”

  Bird does not bother to check on Marella, gunning for an Oscar on the administrative couch. She heads straight for Mrs. Early’s desk. The laptop is open, unlocked, and the inbox is open to a draft of an email to the student body about quarantine procedures. Bird hesitates, then types Roosevelt’s name into the search field. Hundreds of emails populate the resulting window, but as she scrolls through she realizes that she miscalculated. Sure, one of these could contain damning evidence, but she has a minute at most and no time to read any. The subject lines are oppressively administrative, though certainly quite a few seem to discuss the “vitamin supplement program.” Should she try to forward some to herself? But that will leave an obvious trail on Mrs. Early’s computer.

  Bird clears the search field and moves away. Dr. Granger’s box contains the melancholic office junk she remembers, but she’s optimistic as she digs through. The pictures she ignores, but she grabs the few papers that look vaguely official. As Marella starts another round of sobbing, and Mrs. Early places an emergency call to the counselor — Bird spares a stray thought for her friend, who she hopes won’t have to spend too long on another administrative couch — Bird realizes she’s lost her bet. There’s nothing else in the box but a collection of parasite plushies and a handful of cheap jewelry. Most are rubberized bands that support one cause or another, but one aquamarine hairpin catches her attention. Dr. Granger didn’t seem like the costume jewelry type, and there’s no way that thumb-sized gem is real. She picks it up, fiddles with the catch, and nearly drops it when a tiny metal rectangle pops from the back.

  A hidden USB drive.

  Bird is sitting again by the time Mrs. Early comes back with sweat running into the makeup around her eyes.

  “Goodness,” she says, like she wishes she could say something else. “Now, forgive me, Emily, where were we? Did you want to make a formal complaint?”

  “On second thought,” Bird says, “I think my mom might be right.”

  Mrs. Early’s shoulders relax. “Mothers often are, Emily.”

  * * *

  The call that pays the piper comes that night, a few minutes before lights out. Marella reclines on Bird’s bed with a cold pack over her eyes and an expression that wavers between a grimace and a smile. She has appointments with the counselor lined up for the next two weeks.

  “You owe me nothing,” she told Bird when she staggered into the dorm. “But I hope you are very nice to me for the rest of your life.”

  Bird hopes her sacrifice will be rewarded, but she hasn’t checked the USB drive yet. She wants to use a computer less likely to be bugged. This is what she’s contemplating when her phone buzzes, but very different thoughts come after. She takes them to the stairwell and sits.

  “Well, Emily,” her mother says, “I think it’s time you tell me what’s going on. How could you have broken up with Paul?”

  “I don’t see how it’s your business.”

  Carol Bird sighs, the weight of the world not quite as burdensome as that of disappointing offspring. “You are my only child. Of course it’s my business if I see you making a terrible decision. If I caught you with drugs in your room, I suppose you’d tell me that’s none of my business either?”

  Bird sticks her knuckles in her mouth, but her giggles bubble around the crude stopper of her fist. She has to snag the skin between her molars before she can get herself to stop. It’s not even the pain, but the sweetness of her own blood that surprises her into stillness.

  “Is this your uncle’s influence? I should have known better than to leave you alone with Nicky for so long. How that man has managed to get to fifty with habits like his —”

  “Maybe because they’re not so bad?”

  “Oh no, you listen to me, now. Is that any way to talk your own mother?”

  “Sorry, Mom.”

  “My father used to say, ‘Carol, I brought you into this world and I can take you out.’ You should be grateful I go so easy on you. If your grandfather heard this mouth of yours, he’d make you cut the switch yourself.”

  “You made me do that too.”

  Carol Bird clucks her tongue. “I never used it. Honestly, you kids have no idea how good you have it.”

  “Sorry, Mom.”

  “And Emily, I obviously cannot control your love life, but you’ll allow me to tell you that you have made a huge mistake with Paul. He called me yesterday, and, child, whatever he did I want you to promise me you’ll consider taking him back. A man like that is one in a million. He’s going to make something of himself. And I don’t even want to contemplate what he told me about that white boy, that drug dealer who gave you something at the party —”

  “He didn’t.”

  Bird doesn’t mean to say this, but the defense leaps from her lips with its own, contrary consciousness.

  “I have it on very good authority that he did.”

  “I think we both know how good that authority is.”

  “Roosevelt David is —”

  “You know better. You can blame me for breaking up with Paul, but don’t you dare blame Coffee for drugging me.”

  “Coffee? What kind of a name is that? Did I raise you to date some thug?”

  You raised me to do exactly what you told me.

  “We’re not dating,” she says. “Paul had no right to call you.”

  “Emily, you don’t sound very well.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Tell you what, we don’t have to discuss this now. And when I get back, we can just have a girls’ night with Aunt Grace. I’ll get a great new relaxer —”

  “I like my hair.” She knew this moment had to come sometime, but she still feels assaulted.

  “You’re too young to understand the world the way I do, so you have to trust me on this. Those sorts of seventies styles make people in the professional world uncomfortable.”

  “You mean white people uncomfortable?”

  “No, not necessarily, it’s about projecting the right image —”

  “Because otherwise I’m too Black?”

  “Emily!”

  Bird pants, her hand stings, and she wishes to God that she could have a single conversation with her mother that doesn’t feel like being skinned alive.

  “Sorry, Mom.”

  “I will let this go. You are clearly under a lot of stress. I love you. Think about what I said about Paul. Never underestimate the power of a good man. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  The power of a good man. She closes her eyes and wishes for him to find her. And while she wishes, the world spins, the marble falls, and the emergency siren shatters everyone else’s peace.

  * * *

  The first time the school evacuated, the shelters smelled of dust and mold and rat poison; they looked like industrial caverns with cracked linoleum floors lit yellow with flickering incandescent bulbs. The chapel basement still reeks of disuse, but someone has made an effort to make it more habitable. Multicolored rugs join in a haphazard mosaic. Beanbag chairs and large pillows are scattered with fuzzy, lived-in welcome, and the students collapse on top of them like the bosoms of lovers whose return they had despaired.

  The boys arrived before them, and Bird finds Coffee effortlessly in the crowd of dazed and grunting boarders. It annoys her, this homing signal, this Coffee-shaped beacon drumming his tattoo in the unwary reaches of her subconscious. Even at the height of her obsession, she had never felt that for Paul. Coffee’s hair looks shaggier, curlier than normal, spilling onto his forehead and s
prouting in tufts that glitter in the light of the new fluorescent bulbs. His lean, chiseled musculature is disconcertingly obvious in his plain white T-shirt and low-riding sweatpants. Marella takes one look at him and laughs.

  “Close your mouth, honey.”

  Bird gulps. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ve known I liked girls since the third grade and even I know what I’m talking about. Go ahead, I’ll just wait for the world to end over here.” She flops into one of the last free beanbags and stretches her arms over her head.

  In the far corner, Coffee watches her without even the pretense of indifference. She has to talk to him, of course she does. Resentment, terror, common sense, parental disapproval, nothing has ever changed that.

  He’s sharing his carpet of red and blue stars with Aaron, which at least gives her an excuse. Her cousin gives her a quick hug, then looks over his shoulder in case anyone saw. There aren’t many lower school boarders, though, and being friends with Coffee probably gives him plenty of cred.

  “Em, I tried calling Dad but it didn’t go through. He’s okay, right?”

  “It’s just a threat,” Bird says, squatting between him and Coffee, “not a real attack. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  Coffee wraps his long arms over his knees and tilts his head so that he’s looking up at her for once. Bird can hardly feel her body, except where her leg almost touches his and the heat between them could send her to the moon if she let it.

  “I want to go back home, Emmie,” Aaron whispers, yawning. “The school isn’t that bad, I guess, but I miss our albums.”

  She could kill Roosevelt, dig his heart out with a rusty spoon. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “Aaron, I swear, I’m trying. I want you to go back home too.”

  Aaron yawns again and stretches out on a pillow. Coffee pulls a piece of cloth from his pocket and hands it to her.

  “It’s clean,” he says, his first words to her in four days.

  She stares at it for too long, through eyes that don’t want to focus. Very gently, Coffee pries it from her grip and wipes her eyes. Which is how she realizes that she’s crying.