Ink

by Sabrina Vourvoulias

  Loreta tapes me up.

  When she is wounded, so am I.

  Loreta won’t look at Finn, and he’s half crazed. That I’m so injured mostly. But also that anyone would think him capable of hurting me, for that’s what he reads in Loreta’s gaze when she finally meets his eyes.

  She has gone so deep inside me to salve her wounds that for a while I remember what it was like when she wasn’t around. I’m curiously flattened by my sudden solitude – more, even, than by the injuries – and I sleep on and off through the day. By the time Finn gets back from work, most of our community has grown noticeably cooler toward him. Which has to sting since some of them have found shelter here only through his effort.

  Meche comes into the kitchen during dinner prep. Silvio pretends to faint.

  “Shut up,” she says to him when she notices. She corners me. “All right, be straight with me. Did Finn hit you? Father Tom keeps telling people there is no way in hell, but you haven’t given us any other explanation.”

  There is a betrayal of our growing friendship in the question, and I know she can read the reproach on my face. “Of course he didn’t,” I say icily.

  “Give me a reason to believe you.” It is a plea like I haven’t heard, nor ever imagined, coming from her.

  “I’ll tell everyone what really happened after dinner.”

  She gives me a long look and finally nods.

  You have to show yourself to them. The thought I convey to my twin carries a note of panic. Even if it isn’t in your nature to do so.

  I don’t hear an answer.

  During dinner I am the small, warm buffer between Finn and the others.

  “Mari has something to say to us,” Meche says forcefully as soon as the clamor of the meal starts to die down.

  I squeeze Finn’s hand before I stand up. I don’t look directly at any of them. “Forgive me, but there is no other way to tell this,” I say. “Once upon a time….”

  I hear someone groan. Loudly. Pointedly. I start at the beginning anyway.

  I feel her rise to the story. When I get to last night, I stop telling and start repeating. It is my spirit twin’s memory, not mine.

  There is dead silence when I finish. I walk to the entrance of the dining room and flip the light switch. The room turns twilit, illuminated only by what filters in from other rooms.

  Now, I say. Please?

  She jumps. The pain in my ribs almost makes me black out.

  Then there she is, standing beside me.

  Perhaps predictably, the Central Americans and Mexicans at the table see her first. Myth and legend lives pretty close to the surface for many of us. The others who have sensed her before – and named that sense with shapes from their own beliefs – see her now as I see her: a jaguar both ancient and eternal, eyes alive with the stuff of dream and nightmare.

  She limps over to where Finn sits and butts her head under his hand. He is awkward with her, trying to stroke her unsolid head as if she were a domestic cat. I sense something like amusement bubble up in her, but also a love both like and unlike what I feel for him.

  Your magic is that magic will never abandon you, she mindspeaks him. But, of course, he doesn’t hear her and just keeps trying to pet her.

  When I turn the light back on, for an instant she fades to what might catch the edge of your eye when you’re not really looking, then jumps back inside me.

  The eyes trained on Finn and me are uniformly round. Nobody says anything, and the evening ends in silence.

  I’m alone in the kitchen loading the dishwasher when Meche and Abbie come in.

  “Mari,” Meche says, contrite.

  “Shut up,” I cut her off. “Where’s Finn?”

  “In the garden. Father Tom’s with him,” she says. “I think I saw a bottle of Jamesons go out with them.”

  They keep watching me.

  “Stop it,” I say, tired of being the center of attention. “It’s okay. I’m not really pissed off, you know, just a little freaked out. Like I stood in front of everyone in my underwear.”

  “The ‘Hello Kitty’ ones?” Abbie says, then cracks up.

  “That’s bad,” I say.

  Moments later Meche is laughing too, and I can’t help it, I join in.

  Somewhere deep inside me I hear an echo.

  Finn: Burying the lede

  1.

  “So it’s done. I’ve filed for divorce.”

  Strangely, Cassie’s called me on the landline of the paper instead of my cell phone.

  “Congratulations, I guess. You going to be okay if I stay friends with him?”

  “You mean when he surfaces from the deep end he’s gone off?”

  “The whole world’s gone off the deep end.”

  “Yeah, that seems to be one of the excuses.”

  I sigh.

  Melinda’s glaring at me. As if I might take her sudden fury as anything other than editor bluff.

  “What does Mom say?”

  “After all the years of scorn she’s suddenly acting as if I’m being precipitous. And she really doesn’t cotton to my idea of holding out for half the value of the Smithville property as part of the settlement. Go figure.”

  “For once I agree with her.”

  “Nice. I kind of expected better from you.”

  “Sorry. Forgot the sibling solidarity at all costs rule. The comment was uncalled for. ”

  “I’ll say.” She pauses for a bit, then adds, “I’m going out for drinks with Allison and Sarai to mark the occasion.”

  “Ask Sarai if the tunnels under Math’s buildings are filled to capacity yet, would you? Father Tom has a few more families he has to find some sort of shelter for.”

  She makes a rude noise. “Ask her yourself. I was calling to invite you to join us.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Because it sounds like a buzzkill or because you’re swamped by work or because you’re suddenly the poster boy for in-love?”

  “All of the above? And there’s no sudden about it. Should I remind you about months’ worth of conversation concerning wasting my life waiting for Mari?”

  “I know.” She goes silent for a moment. “You’re lucky. Things always turn out right for you in the end.”

  “God, I hope so.”

  “I guess I’d better get off the phone. Allison’s starting to shoot me mean boss-friend looks.”

  “Okay. Hey Cassie?”

  “What?”

  “You know I hope it turns out right for you in the end too, right?”

  “I know.”

  Melinda comes over to my desk the second I hang up.

  “Rumors,” she says.

  “Like twitter rumors?” I make a face as I say it. Lately there have been a bumper crop of bogus leads on the fall.

  “No. Like boyfriend in the civil patrol rumors.”

  “You still seeing that guy?”

  “Tall, blond and handsome? You bet. He’s like a dream come true.”

  “Gross. I imagined better for you.”

  “You’re kind. And mean at the same time. Anyway, you want to hear what he says? They’re expecting another mob scene.”

  “Where?”

  “The big scanner warehouses on Amsterdam.”

  “Jesus. Doesn’t the Senate Majority leader own a piece of that business, or something?”

  “Or something,” she nods. “He was on the board of directors and still has a big chunk of shares.”

  “They’re doing it to get the feds involved.”

  “That’s what Arthur thinks.”

  “When?”

  “He’s being told to prepare for tomorrow.”

  “Are you putting anyone else on it?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m putting everyone else on it.”

  “So why are you talking to me?”

  “Because I expect you’ll be the only one to file anything worth shit. When all the smoke clears, you know what this’ll be, right?”

  “A Pulitzer
.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “History isn’t about prizes, you know.”

  She looks at me with pity overflowing her eyes. “It’s all about prizes, you moron. Hey,” she yells at Matthews, “If you ever again put the word ‘contumacious’ in a piece you file I’ll string you up by the balls, you hear me?”

  “Melinda?” I say before her butt entirely clears my desk.

  “Yeah?”

  “You know how to pick a lock?”

  “Duh.”

  “All the flash drives with my notes are in the top drawer of my desk.”

  Her eyes narrow. “You losing your nerve? Because I can’t imagine a worse time for it.”

  “No. Just being a little paranoid.”

  “Paranoid’s fine. Paranoid’s smart. Hey, how ’bout I save you like 50 column inches in the A-section tomorrow so you can include all that backgrounder stuff you’re so fond of?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” She flashes me a smile when she goes.

  * * *

  I don’t want to get out of bed.

  There isn’t anything in the world better than waking up next to the person you love. I pity Father Tom for the fact he’ll never experience this. Of course, he says he knows a love much greater than what can be had on earth, but I can’t imagine it. Nothing bigger than this fits in the human heart without blowing it apart.

  This is what I see when I look down into the circle of my arms this morning: Dark eyes like pools of ink underlaid with pain and an equal measure of joy. I know, without an instant of doubt, I fit in the latter and if you don’t think that does something to a man, you’re crazy.

  “Why are you awake so early?” she asks, stretching but not breaking the contact along the length of our bodies.

  “Melinda thinks there’s going to be a big story to break,” I say, then lean in to kiss her. “Strange days make for exciting journalism.”

  “I could do with a little less strange and exciting.”

  “The state of emergency can’t last forever. It’s expensive. Pile that on top of the ongoing expense of running the inkatoriums and all the lost ink revenues, something’s going to give. Just about the time the state budget has to pass.”

  “You think it’ll ever go back normal again?”

  “A new normal. Kids like Abbie and John and younger won’t even remember what it was like.”

  “Speaking of Abbie and John, I wonder if Meche’s decided when exactly to drive them back to Smithville,” she says. “I thought Abbie was going to die when Meche made an offer on Blue Belle.”

  “Good die or bad die?”

  “Both. Abbie knows it’s a great deal. But that one forms such tight, unbreakable bonds.”

  “Poor John.”

  She smacks me.

  “I’m going to miss them,” she says. “They’re lodged in my heart now.”

  “Another one who forms unbreakable bonds.”

  “Poor Finn.”

  I shut my eyes, hold her close. Unbelievably grateful Finn, I think. But I don’t say it.

  “I don’t understand the point of having a chambered heart if not to let people take up residence,” she says. “Meche and Abbie and John and Nely are all crammed into one chamber. Father Tom is in the same one as my dad. You’re in another.”

  “See that you don’t make me share it, okay? ”

  “Like anyone would fit in there with you.”

  “Ha. You’re funny.”

  She doesn’t go on to list the tenant of the fourth chamber. I don’t have to ask who it is.

  I open my eyes to look at her. “Maybe we should name him. So we don’t always think of him as the baby.”

  “I don’t want to think of him at all.”

  “And that works for you?”

  “No,” she says. “It doesn’t. But it seems to be the new normal.”

  We stay silent for a while, but when I start to get out of bed she pulls me down to her.

  “Is there time?”

  “There’s always time,” I lie.

  Later, she watches me get dressed. “Promise me you’ll be back before I even get out of bed.”

  I sit down on the edge of the bed. “Ask me for a real promise.”

  She laughs. “You’re promised to me already, silly.”

  I kiss her and as I straighten back up, I brush the hair out of her eyes. The other one looks out of them.

  I have a bad feeling, I cast the thought at her.

  As if I had magic.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe Melinda has me covering this,” Belsen grumbles. “Nothing’s happening. Nothing newsworthy ever happens when I’m around. And not for Sophie either.” Sophie is the young photographer interning with the Gazette, and I think it may be an indication of how tremendous Melinda believes this will be that she’s decided to put her on this assignment. So far, the girl hasn’t been able to shoot anything in focus.

  Ag, the real photographer, is tracking tweets on her mobile so she can shoot and post even before the mob turns down Amsterdam. Matthews is the lead reporter on that end.

  “Just keep your eyes open,” I say.

  We’re sitting on a fire escape one flight above Amsterdam, and across the street from the warehouses where, if Melinda is correct, the mob will be converging.

  Any minute now.

  About forty-five minutes later the Talking Heads ringtone sounds from my cell phone. Melinda.

  “My boy must have fucked up,” she says.

  “No shit. This place might as well be a ghost town.”

  “You better start on back to the office. There’s real stuff happening.”

  “Like what?”

  “Ribbon cuttings and such.”

  “Nice, Melinda.”

  “Hey, you’ve got to keep a sense of humor.”

  And you do.

  All day I’ve felt doom sitting on my shoulder. I’ve said goodbye over and over without putting it in words. And nothing happens.

  That’s life for you.

  2.

  I’m five houses down the block from Meche’s, knocking on the door of the ob/gyn who lives there. Melinda’s lost her edge after the great-scanner-riot-that-wasn’t fiasco and I’m here to do a simple profile at her direction.

  The air is finally clear of the heavy smoke smell that has clung to the city, and standing outside waiting for the doc to open the door, I can see the first signs of a late-arriving spring.

  An attractive African-American woman, fortyish, dressed in jeans and an old t-shirt with a face faded to indistinct wraith, opens the door.

  “Doctor Watkins?”

  “You must be the reporter from the Gazette. Come in. I hope you don’t mind talking while I paint my living room. I get next to no time to take care of household tasks so I’m afraid I’m not giving it up, not even for newspaper fame.” She gives me a lopsided smile.

  I like her immediately.

  But the interview is routine. She does the requisite amount of work at a community clinic in one of the lower-income neighborhoods of Hastings and has some state-of-the-art machines at her higher-income regular practice, but there’s nothing really to distinguish her from dozens of other doctors in the city.

  “Can I ask you something, off the record?” I say at the end of the interview when we’re drinking perfect espressos in her stainless steel kitchen.

  “Sounds dangerous. Shoot.”

  “Why am I interviewing you?” I know I sound rude. But she reminds me a lot of Meche and I have a feeling I’ll get a real answer.

  She laughs. “When Melinda came in for her pap smear ….”

  “Too much information,” I interrupt, putting my hands up in a stop motion.

  “… I might have implied I had something that would interest you all.”

  “Have I missed it?”

  “No. Glossed over it is more accurate.”

  “Okay. I’m listening now.”

  “I to
ld you I presented a paper at the state medical association’s conference last year.”

  “Yeah. I got that. About,” I dig my reporter’s notebook out of my back pocket and flip through until I get to the right page, “the impact of economic class on patterns of fertility. Sounds thrilling.”

  She grins at me. “You might not think so, but it is quite a sexy bit of scholarship.”

  “Ha. I imagine so.”

  “Anyway, on the basis of the paper I was invited to be part of the state commission on public health concerns.”

  “Got that. Yawn.”

  “One of the first things new members get to do is take a look at the bigger state-run interests that dovetail with their areas of expertise. So the other two newbies got the inoculation and nutritional development programs. I got inkatoriums.”

  “Did I miss something in your background? Because I’m not getting how you’re an ink expert.”

  “I’m not. But the reproduction rate of inks is much on the commission members’ minds these days. Like, is there a consistently high fertility rate or is there a lot of variation between blue tats and greens? Or black tats and the other two? And if so, what does it mean in terms of population control if they close down the inkatoriums?”

  “They’re considering that?”

  “Indeed.”

  “On the record now.”

  “No. But I promise, I’ll give you something before you go.”

  “So what does it mean in terms of population control?” Every hair on the back of my neck is standing.

  “It means a sterilization program at the inkatoriums before they’re shut down.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I’m not. The inkatorium closest to the Canadian border has pioneered the program we’re thinking of adopting. They’ve been running it for the past six months. It’s pretty cost effective since it uses implanted rods to release the sterilizing agents subcutaneously. By the time the rods disintegrate and are absorbed into the body, the effects are irreversible. It’s testing at about three months after implantation at the moment. And 96 percent efficacy.”

  “Jesus.”

  She finishes her espresso while she watches me digest the information.

  “What are you giving me on the record?”

  “This,” she digs into the pocket of her jeans and pulls out a flash drive. She places it on the counter beside my reporter’s notebook. “It’s a visual record of a week of procedures at the originating inkatorium. The videos aren’t great quality, and the sound is dreadful. Also, I don’t know if they’re Mp4s or what you might need to use to open and view them, but there they are.”