Pucker

by Melanie Gideon

  And stay?

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “YOU LITTLE SHIT,” SAYS PHAIDRA when we finally make it back to the library two hours later. It’s nearly six. Everybody has already left. Because of me we have a long walk back to the Compound.

  “That’s Mr. Shit to you,” I say. Because of me our bellies are full of orange scones and peppermint tea, but I don’t mention this.

  She shakes her head. Once again I’ve managed to underwhelm her with my witty repartee. Phaidra scowls and begins to jog down the corridor.

  “No running inside the Ministry,” I shout, picking up my pace to catch up with her.

  “What are you, five? You think anybody cares?”

  “I do. I think they care a great deal,” I say, huffing to keep up with her. She’s in good shape. I might not beat her in a race. This pleases and annoys me. I keep thinking I’ve gotten myself free of wanting her; then she sucks me back in with her tractor beam of indifference.

  It feels good to run. Good to sweat. We canter out of the city and into the woods. I feel so utterly strong and Paul Bunyan-ish, running with this spectacularly beautiful and rakishly intelligent girl by my side, that I can actually imagine wringing the trees with my bare hands and squeezing the sap into our mouths.

  “Did you run track?” I pant at her.

  “No. Christ.” She stops suddenly and looks at me. “I have absolutely no idea why I came after you, Quicksilver.”

  She’s wearing a ponytail. The strands closest to her neck are wet with sweat. I would like to place my lips at the place where her backbone begins. At the little knob that juts out like a drawer pull.

  “What were you doing in his bedroom?” she fires at me.

  “I just wanted to see what the passageway led to,” I say.

  “No. You’re after something.”

  “Everybody’s after something,” I say.

  She shakes her head at me; she’s not buying it.

  “You do a great deal of head shaking,” I tell her. “Has anybody ever told you that?”

  She gives me a withering look.

  “Ow,” I say.

  “You’re a real piece of work,” she says.

  “So why did you come after me?” I ask.

  I have a theory. I think she likes me but doesn’t want to admit it because she doesn’t want to like anybody in Isaura because that would mean she wants to stay. And I don’t think she wants to stay. She wants to stay in her new body, but she does not want to stay in Isaura.

  “Because you’re my apprentice, you ass,” she says. “I’m responsible for you. Whatever you do reflects badly on me. If you don’t get trained, I’m in trouble.”

  “It’s more than that,” I say.

  I want to wrest the truth from her. All this combustion between us. It has to mean something.

  “I like you,” I say softly.

  Her eyes narrow with suspicion.

  “No, I mean I really like you, Phaidra.”

  “I see,” she says. “Like you like Trixie?”

  I blunder on, suddenly desperate to prove my worthiness to her despite having been with so many girls that I don’t care about. That’s not who I am. I need her to know that.

  “You don’t see things the way most people do,” I say. “You’re so . . . fearless.”

  Phaidra’s face hardens. “I’m not fearless,” she says.

  “Of course you’re not. That’s not what I meant. That you’re a robot or something,” I say stupidly.

  Phaidra glowers at me in silence.

  “Your name,” I say quickly, trying to salvage the conversation. “Is it Greek?”

  Phaidra shakes her head. “You don’t need to know the derivation of my name. Stop acting like this is going somewhere. I don’t feel the same way about you.”

  “What way?” I ask.

  Phaidra wheels around. “God, you’re relentless,” she cries, her hands on her hips. “All right. Here it is. I have no feelings for you whatsoever. None. I don’t care about you; I don’t care what happens to you. Get it?”

  “Oh,” I say in the smallest of voices, bile rushing up into my throat.

  She glares at me, her cheeks flushed pink. “You pushed us here,” she says.

  “Yes, I’m an idiot,” I say.

  She doesn’t disagree with me. I struggle to regain my composure, but it’s useless. I’m utterly vulnerable and I can’t hide it. I just look at her miserably.

  Phaidra runs off. My feet feel like they’re encased in blocks of concrete.

  What do I do? Go after her? Try to make her fall in love with me when I know I’m leaving any day?

  Nothing is clear anymore.

  Phaidra’s right: I am relentless. At least, as a child I was. I used to test my mother constantly. There was a part of me that suspected she loved me more than my father. And if I wasn’t right about that, if she didn’t love me more than him, then certainly she loved me in a different way, without guile, without restriction. I was dependent on her. Under her gaze, and only her gaze, I became three-dimensional; I sprang to life.

  But now my mother is depending on me and there’s a chance that I’m going to let her down. Would she want me to stay and make a life here, in the world where I was born? Would she deny me the birthright of a normal face? No, I don’t think she would. Not the mother I grew up with. Not the mother she used to be before she got so sick.

  Entertaining these thoughts makes my throat ache violently. The tears come fast now, blurring my vision. I cram my fist against my mouth to keep myself from crying out.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  “YOU’RE COMING ALONG NICELY,” SAYS Dash late that night. “Keep this up and you may get to leave Orientation early.”

  He’s referring to the fact that I’ve just spent the evening with two of the Connecticuts: Veronica and Mee-Yon. For some reason, Dash believes there’s some correlation between dating and my successful assimilation into the Changed community. He thinks all this attention from the opposite sex will result in my conversion.

  He’s wrong. The more time I spend with the Connecticuts, the more they weird me out. They are the strangest girls I’ve ever met. They don’t seem to mind that I see one of them right after the other. On the contrary: tonight, after an hour had passed, Veronica got up of her own volition and left the porch seat vacant for Mee-Yon as if some internal bell had gone off. I even heard them saying a cordial hello to each other in the dark as they passed on the street. Mee-Yon’s only concession to being preempted by Veronica was that she asked me to wipe my mouth with a napkin before I kissed her. I obliged, of course, for I was living a boy’s dream, wasn’t I?

  They’re beginning to wear on me. More than once I’ve wanted to grab the Connecticuts by their collective shoulders and shake them. But I don’t, because each one of them gives me her undivided fawning attention and I’ve become a junkie—if I don’t get my daily hit, I go into withdrawal.

  Meanwhile Dash and I have found some way to manage. He uses the outhouse first in the morning; I put the kettle on for tea. I don’t bore him with my carpentry mishaps; he doesn’t come to me for conversation. We are professional. Neither of us wants a repeat of that night when I offered him my Levi’s.

  “So how’s Ms. Master Carpenter?” asks Dash casually.

  He’s trying to act nonchalant, like he’s inquiring about the weather, but I know he’s got a thing for Phaidra and he wants news. Anything. Is she wearing her hair a different way? Does her skin smell of lemon or turpentine? I give him the truth.

  “She sucks,” I say. “She treats me like the dog shit she scraped from the bottom of her shoe last week.”

  Dash’s eyes recede in his head and he guffaws. Here’s something he didn’t expect from me. Bravado, yes. Bluster and arrogance. But not self-deprecation. It’s a relief for us both.

  I know my willfulness drives Dash crazy. I feel sorry for him, but not too bad. In exchange for babysitting me he gets all sorts of extras, like cigarettes and whiskey.

>   “Is it worth it?” I ask, gesturing to the pack of Marlboros sitting on the table.

  His eyes narrow. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you?”

  “I wish I could quit,” I say.

  He studies me. “You don’t wish any such thing, loser,” he says.

  THIRTY-NINE

  AT BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING I’m informed that I have once again forgotten to attend our group meeting. This makes two missed meetings in a row. Michael tells me I’ve left him no choice: he will have to tell my Host.

  “You do that,” I say to his retreating back as he self-importantly, and may I add eagerly, marches up to their table to report me.

  Dash storms up and slams his fist down on the table, sending the silverware flying. “Think you’re better than everyone else? Think the rules don’t apply to you, Thomas 11?” he hollers.

  “You knew where I was,” I remind him.

  “I didn’t know you were supposed to be somewhere else,” he says.

  Emma cups my elbow protectively. She’s developed a crush on me and her adoration unmoors me. It’s like an extravagantly watered lawn, so green it hurts to look at it. She nestles into my hip. I push her away. She emits a tiny cry of protest.

  “Thomas,” she insists, “pay attention to me.”

  “Not now, Emma,” I say.

  Her eyes widen with desperation. “I—I need to tell you something,” she stammers.

  “And I said later. Are you deaf?”

  “What’s wrong with you!” Rose grabs me by the arm and whirls me around.

  “There’s nothing wrong with him,” says Trixie, grabbing my other arm. I push them both away, only to have Emma creep back and take my hand. Her flesh is dimpled and soft; even though she’s eleven, she’s still got her baby fat.

  “It’s all right,” she whispers. “Everyone forgets. I forgive you.”

  Did her parents take her disease out on her? Did they hate her for making them live in the dark? Did they resent having to live an upside-down life where night was day and day was night? And did she apologize like this to them? Did she forgive them for hating her?

  I give her hand a squeeze and she squeezes back.

  “I’m a jerk,” I say.

  “Yup,” she agrees. She has been in the sun constantly. Her skin’s turned the color of wheat.

  “I’m sorry I missed the meeting,” I tell her.

  “It’s okay. You can come next week,” she says.

  “You better go,” says Dash.

  All of a sudden somebody cries out, “Something’s wrong with Geld!”

  The old man has gone rigid in his chair. It looks like somebody has stuck a pole through him.

  “How long has he been here?” asks Rose.

  “Thirty-two thousand, seven hundred and ninety-six days,” answers Jesse.

  Geld begins to shake. He’s wrapped up in a shawl, but his bald head is bare. “I was a double amputee!” he shouts.

  Nancy, the Head Host, strides across the Refectory floor. “Quiet, nobody wants to hear that,” she says. She looks down at his writhing body, evaluating him. She tells Dash to go to the infirmary and get the Compound nurse.

  Panic spreads across Geld’s face. “No,” he gasps. The spasms intensify, shaking him out of his chair and onto the floor. “Let me . . . go.”

  Nancy squats by him and assesses the situation coolly. I know she’s thinking only about herself. How much trouble will she get in if she lets him have his way?

  “Please,” Geld begs. He grabs Nancy’s wrist and she recoils. “There’s nothing left.”

  I remember the first time I saw Geld. How everybody, including myself, had the urge to talk right over him, pretend he wasn’t there. If the Connecticuts are remote islands, Geld is no more than a nubbin of coral, worn down so far that it no longer ruffles the surface of the sea. Long before this day, he was just gone.

  Is it because of the Change? Does it gradually leach away the thing that makes us human?

  I stare at Geld lying there on the floor, still now. He reminds me of the bird that creamed itself against Otak’s window, the way it gave up, just slid right off the glass, knowing it would fall twenty feet to the ground.

  “Get him help!” yells Phaidra.

  Dash shakes his head, a look of fury on his face. He crosses the room and I trail after him like a little kid.

  Dash helps Geld straighten his limbs, makes him comfortable on the floor. “You go now,” he tells Geld. “It’s all right. I won’t let them bring you back.”

  “Thank you,” says Geld. It’s the last thing he says before he withers away. It’s like somebody suctions the air out of him and within moments he is a husk. All at once everyone begins talking as if it never happened. As if they’ve forgotten they just watched a man die in front of them.

  Everyone except for Phaidra; she runs from the Refectory. I want to follow her. But I just stand there because like everybody else, I’m partly relieved he’s gone.

  I don’t go out that night to search for my mother’s Seerskin. I’m so agitated over the morning’s events that I make myself sick. Dash summons the Compound nurse and she gives me something to help me sleep. He sits in the room with me as I drift off. I’d like to think it’s because he cares for me, but I know he’s just doing his job. It’s his responsibility to make sure I make it through the first hundred days intact.

  As I’m drifting off, I forget where I am. Time collapses and I think I’m at Cook’s house just after the fire, my seeping eyes covered in gauze. I writhe around on the mattress “My Barker’s,” I say.

  Dash’s face is blurry; it looms large and then it retracts.

  “Where’d you leave it, T?” he whispers.

  “In the outhouse,” I say. “In the lime.”

  When I open my eyes shortly before dawn the next morning, the book is perched on top of my boots.

  FORTY

  THAT DASH HAS FOUND MY primer is not a good thing, but I’m not sure what I can do about it. I hope he’ll come to the obvious conclusion: that I’ve stolen the book from the Ministry. I am working in the library, after all. That’s not so bad, I tell myself. So he thinks I’m a thief. Far better than him figuring out the truth.

  I remain in my room obsessing until daylight, then I leave in search of distraction. I go to Trixie’s dorm. I grab a handful of pebbles and throw them at her window. Moments later she comes tiptoeing out in her nightgown.

  “Hello, Thomas 12,” she says.

  Trixie has short blond hair; she’s sturdy and rosy cheeked; she looks like Nancy Drew.

  I take her to the barn. It’s like every bad movie you’ve ever seen. We fall into a pile of hay. Let me tell you something about hay. It’s no good. It’s scratchy and it makes you sneeze. But where else are two teenagers to go?

  “Don’t you want to touch me?” Trixie finally asks after we’ve been lying there for about ten minutes.

  “Yes,” I say.

  But I’m not sure. In theory I do. But here’s what happens: suddenly I become discriminating. I don’t want to feel just any old breast. I want the breast to belong to somebody I have feelings for. Trixie’s not a romantic. She takes my hand and slips it into her nightgown anyway. I rest my fingers on her neck, killing time. I pretend her collarbone is a keyboard. I play it like I’m Scott Joplin performing the “Maple Leaf Rag.”

  “Come on,” she says.

  I retract my hand. “Not today.”

  “You changed your mind?”

  “I’m sorry.” Trixie is a beautiful girl. I can’t believe I’m turning her down.

  She buttons up her nightgown. “You like Veronica better?” This is said with very little affect, like she might have been commenting on this year’s crop of tomatoes.

  “No. It’s not like that,” I say.

  “Tammi?”

  “No, not her either.”

  She fixes her gaze on me. Her lashes are so pale blond they appear white. She shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”r />
  “I don’t understand either,” I say.

  We walk out of the barn together. I pluck hay off the sleeve of her nightgown. It’s going to be another perfect day. The sky is cloudless. The sun has just risen above the trees. Suddenly I feel despair. I see Geld writhing around on the floor, pleading with Nancy to let him die. I see this beautiful girl offering me her breasts and me not really caring. And I see Phaidra.

  She’s got a book tucked under her arm; in her hand she holds a steaming mug of tea. She’s on her way somewhere. We’ve obviously interrupted her. Phaidra shoots me a look of disgust and tries to stuff the book under her sweater.

  Trixie stops and surveys Phaidra. “She hates you,” she tells me.

  “Yup,” I say. My hair is sticking up in the back. Flattened from lying in the hay.

  “See ya.” Trixie lopes off to the right.

  Phaidra shakes her head in disbelief.

  “Are you going or coming?” I call out cheerfully, intent on ignoring the fact that I’ve just been spotted coming out of the barn with a girl covered in hay.

  “Sleaze,” she snarls, and stalks off in a westerly direction. I follow her.

  “You’re welcome to your opinion,” I say.

  “It’s not opinion. It’s fact. Everybody knows it.”

  “Well, if everybody knows it, I’d prefer you call me a cad. It’s a classier word, don’t you think?”

  She hoots. “Okay, Mr. Darcy.”

  I’m determined not to swear. She’s winding her way through the woods and it’s all I can do to keep up with her.

  “What are you reading?” I call out. I want her to know I’ve seen the book.

  She begins running, trying to lose me. She tosses her tea into the air. Beads of golden liquid hang suspended in the turquoise sky. I pound after her. We wend our way over roots; we clamber over huge boulders of granite. I smell mica. I smell wild onion. This girl . . . this girl.

  Suddenly she stops short and spins around. She hurls her mug at me. I jump out of the way, but I’m too late. It hits me on the bridge of the nose and when I land on my feet, I land all wrong. My leg twists beneath me and I hear the bone cracking.