by Joshua Corin
He took his time. Gobbled down a pinch of chips. Licked the cheese dust from his fingers.
“So,” he said, “are you asking for my notes?”
She didn’t humor him with a response.
“Well, Judy, here’s what I think, and keep in mind that I only have impeccable instincts when it comes to human nature and a fourteen-year history with the governor, having helped him win his first elected office way back in—”
“I know, Poncho. I was there. Get on with it.”
“If the governor hates Muslims, it’s not because of the religion.”
“Go on.”
“It’s because many of them vote Democrat.”
“Get out.”
Poncho shrugged, smirked, and got up from his chair.
As he reached for the doorknob, Judy muttered, “I need to be ahead of them, Poncho. Especially about the small stuff. They’re the enemy.”
“The Democrats?”
“The media, you ass.”
Poncho sighed, let go of the doorknob, and took a step toward her. “Oh, Judy. Nobody’s the enemy. It’s that kind of paranoia that set Herod to execute the firstborn—”
“No. No. You do not get biblical with me. I’m not other people.”
“Fine.” Poncho held up his hands in apology. “But isn’t it healthier if you view everyone as a potential friend instead of a potential foe? Isn’t it—oh, what’s the word—nicer?”
“I don’t get paid to be nice. I get paid to provide and maintain a consistent message from the governor’s office.”
“Not everything’s about money.”
“Oh, Poncho. You dew-eyed fool. Everything is about money.”
After a moment’s contemplation, Poncho once again reached for the doorknob. “Well, the governor is on the phone right now with the governor of Michigan, and he’s got a joint press conference with the FBI at two-thirty. He might have a window around one-thirty when you can confront him about his alleged Islamophobia. I’m sure he’ll love that.”
“We were lucky enough that MSNBC tipped their hand in our one-on-one. If it is even remotely possible that they or anyone else is going to ask the question during the press conference, we will need to have an answer ready.”
“He may have hired a lawyer. That’s the whole story. Everything else is spin. What’s there to discuss?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Judy replied. “You come with me. Be in the room when I prep the governor for his press conference. You need to learn not everything is as easy as you want it to be.”
“Maybe not to you.”
Chapter 19
“No!” said Omera, “I’m not coming out!”
And why would she? Here, inside her blanket fort, she had everything she needed in the world. She had her stuffed animals and her dolls to keep her company. She had her coloring books and her bag of crayons to keep her occupied. She had her pillows in case she got sleepy. If she needed to go potty, she would have to get out, but her bathroom was connected to her bedroom and her bedroom was the home of her bed and her blanket fort sat atop her bed.
Her mother did not sound impressed. “Do you want me to get your father?”
Omera did not want her mother to get her father—he could be scary when he got upset—when he got upset his face changed color like the Hulk’s except instead of green it turned red. No, getting her father involved would be very bad, but coming out of the blanket fort would be worse.
If she got out of the blanket fort, if she went with them to morning prayers, she could die.
And Omera didn’t want to die. Her best friend from preschool, Amy Atkins, died from peanut butter and that was only last year, and Omera’s heart still hurt when she thought about Amy. They were going to go to Disney World someday and meet Ariel and Jasmine, their favorite princesses, and it was going to be so fun and their parents had even agreed to take them when they were eight. Amy would never be eight.
And if Omera went to morning prayers, then she would never be eight.
It was her older brother’s fault. He was the one who went around the house talking about what he’d read online. He wasn’t even supposed to be online. He wouldn’t stop talking about explosions and people dying and Omera, who was still wiping the sleep from her eyes, asked him who was dying, and then he told her the details of what happened to people who went to Eid prayers.
He shouldn’t have told her the details.
But by the time their mother told him to shut up, Omera had heard the details and was seeing the details in her imagination and she didn’t understand it, not completely, but the mystery of it all made it far worse, and Omera scampered back to her room and she couldn’t shake the details and she piled up her blankets and her sheets and used her pillows as pillars to keep the roof from collapsing and she shut her eyes, but the details followed her into the darkness and wouldn’t let her go, not ever.
Amy Atkins died from peanut butter and now she was somewhere else and it wasn’t here and Omera wanted to stay here forever.
In her house.
With her toys.
Safe.
“Omera,” her mother said. “Last chance. Come out now or I’m getting your father.”
Omera’s father was in his office with the door closed. He was not to be disturbed. His office was his fort. His office was where his toys were, like his laptop and his books. If he was forced to come out of his fort, he would not be happy.
And everyone was supposed to be happy today! It wasn’t Omera’s favorite holiday—that had to be Halloween—but it certainly was in her top five because she got to eat as many candied apricots as she wanted. She didn’t care if they were gooey. She didn’t care if they made her teeth tingle. She didn’t care if they gave her a tummyache later on. Eid may not have been her favorite holiday, but candied apricots were her absolute no exception favorite food.
All of the people who died today would never be eating candied apricots again.
Omera cuddled with Fuzzy. Fuzzy was her favorite stuffed animal. Fuzzy was a giant velvet bumblebee. Omera cuddled with Fuzzy and shut her eyes and—
With heavy footsteps, her father entered the room.
He approached her fort. His shadowy form swallowed it up.
“Habiibtii,” he said. His voice sounded wet. “What’s this about you not coming to morning prayers?”
Omera searched for the right words. If she spoke the right words, she could convince him. If she spoke the right words, she could live.
Then he asked, “What are you afraid of?”
What was she afraid of? Now there was a question. How much time did he have?
He sat down on the corner of the bed. The mattress sank with his weight and the springs inside the mattress creaked.
Omera still hadn’t spoken.
So her father posed a third question. “Do you believe that God exists?”
“Yes,” she answered without thinking.
“Who is God?”
“ ‘God is the Lord of Worlds, the Lord of Mercy, and the Giver of Mercy.’ ”
“Yes, yes. Very good. But who is God to you?”
Omera frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You know the words. But what do they mean? What mercies has God given to you?”
“Mercy is…uh…when you can hit someone and you don’t…right?”
“That is one definition, yes, I suppose. Let me ask you this. What is good that you have? What are the things you like?”
“Well, I like Fuzzy.”
“What else?”
“I like you and Mama and candied apricots and Princess Jasmine. And swimming. And Halloween.”
“What about your older brother?”
“He’s a jerk!” Omera replied. “Plus, he has b.o.”
“Be that as it
may, he’s still your brother. And he loves you.”
Omera remained silent. She wasn’t convinced.
“All these things you like, all the good things in your life, where do they come from?”
“Well…um…Fuzzy came from the store and Princess Jasmine comes from Agrabah and candied apricots come from…trees?”
“And who created apricot trees?”
“God.”
“That’s right. And one of the reasons He created apricot trees is so that people could eat candied apricots because He knew people would like them because God has everything all planned out. Whatever happens is what He wants, and He is merciful.”
“But…”
“But what?”
Omera’s brow crinkled in deep thought. A profound idea was forming inside her brain, but it was so profound that it needed time to mature. Finally, she was able to express it, and this is what she said: “Did God plan for Amy Atkins to die?”
Her father became silent for quite a long while. The weight on the bed sank even farther.
“Habiibtii, sometimes things happen, bad things, and we get sad. And that’s okay. It’s okay to feel sad and to cry.”
“Do you ever feel sad, Papa?”
“I feel sad right now.”
Omera poked her head out. He was sitting on the corner of her bed. He was wearing a gray suit. He hadn’t put on a tie yet so the collar of his crisp white shirt was an open mouth. She crawled onto his lap. She brought Fuzzy with her. The material of his trousers was slippery, but he held her to him in a loose hug.
“As apparently your older brother told you, a lot of people died this morning, and all they were doing was praying. And that makes me sad.”
“So aren’t you scared that if we go to pray, we’re going to die, too?”
“No.” He matched her gaze. “Because whatever happens is what God wants. And in my life, He has given me many blessings. Such as you.”
He ruffled her dark hair with one of his large hands.
“Do you feel better now? Are you ready to go?”
Omera nodded. It wasn’t a lie if it wasn’t said out loud, right?
Her father smiled at her and left the room so she could get ready.
As she changed into the outfit her mother had picked out for today, which really did look very colorful, Omera thought about everything her father had told her. She knew he meant well. She knew he loved her. She knew a lot about him. She’d known him all her life. And he’d known her.
Which made it all the more frustrating to Omera that he hadn’t realized what she desperately needed him to say. She didn’t want speeches or parables or platitudes. She was seven years old and she was scared and all she wanted was for her father to tell her this: everything was going to be okay.
Was that so difficult? Was that so beyond his reasoning?
Omera changed into her outfit but all the while pouted. Once she left her room, the pout would have to stay behind. She’d have to pretend to be happy. So she got her best pouting out now. When she put on her shoes, she stomped her feet. When she took out her earrings, she slammed her jewelry box shut.
Then she kissed Fuzzy goodbye.
“Take care of everyone else,” she told him. “In case I don’t come back.”
Fuzzy didn’t respond, but he was a quiet one. She knew she could trust him. He’d never let her down before.
Chapter 20
The mountain was closed.
Which in itself was absurd, thought Xana, but this was a day of absurdities. She idled in front of the three orange-and-white construction barrels that had been set up at the foot of the roadway that allowed vehicles to ascend Stone Mountain. She took out her phone and snapped a photograph of the orange-and-black sign fastened to a nearby post.
CLOSED FOR REPAIRS
She had been suspicious before. Now she was anxious. And the sinister part of her that itched every time a stoplight turned red, the part of her that encouraged jaywalking even though the crosswalk was only two meters to her left, the part of her that hungered to hear the word No so she could defy it—oh, this part of her was giddy. Xana shifted into park, got out of her Rambler, and proceeded to move the barrels one by one off to the side.
No one popped out of the shadows to confront her; in all honesty, Xana was mildly disappointed.
She drove a little way up the mountain path, shifted again into park, and returned the barrels to their original configuration.
Then she got back in her Rambler and proceeded slowly up, up, up toward the flattop peak of Stone Mountain.
She didn’t have a gun in her glove compartment. She didn’t even have a large flashlight. If someone nefarious did pop out of the shadows, all she had to defend herself was her wits. She wasn’t concerned.
Unless her assailant came armed with a bazooka.
Actually—and wasn’t this indicative of her life?—Xana had been face-to-face once before with a motherfucker armed with a bazooka. She’d only been a child then. Her father was on a dig in the Bamyan Province of Afghanistan. Officially he had been searching for pottery from the age of Zoroaster, but unofficially…well, with her father, there always was an unofficially, and one of the local warlords had stumbled upon this ulterior motive and invaded their camp one night with a squad of brigands armed with Uzis and grenades. The warlord himself appeared to be unarmed, although he carried a long metal suitcase. Xana wondered if it contained a tuba. At their dig in Bangladesh the previous year, one of her father’s entourage had been a one-eyed German named Peter who played the tuba, and the case in which he let it sleep bore a striking resemblance to this case, which the warlord was hefting around. Unfortunately—
“Hey!”
They must have spotted her from the top of the mountain because two middle-aged men were now scurrying down the path toward her. One of them was breathing hard from the effort. The other carried himself as if he ran a marathon a week. They both wore light blue ball caps. Xana cranked the emergency brake.
The sinister part of her chomped at its bit.
She rolled down her window.
The healthy man reached her first. He had a 9mm S&W Shield holstered at his hip. Small, portable, reliable. Very popular handgun ever since the Georgia legislature passed HB 60, authorizing concealed carry just about everywhere.
Xana had nothing against guns per se. She wasn’t a fan of paranoid yokels who brought them on a trip to McDonald’s, but this man, the healthy man, had a look of intelligence about him. There was caution in his green eyes. Deliberation.
“Ma’am,” he said. “This is a restricted area. I’m going to need you to turn around.”
“Quarantine?” she asked him.
“Construction.”
His gaze flitted toward the backseat of the Rambler. He remained an arm’s length away from her.
This man was a cop. Xana was sure of it.
His out-of-shape buddy finally joined them and added his two cents.
“Lady, you got a minute to get out of here, or you’re going to be in a world of hurt.”
He was packing an S&W .44 Magnum at his hip. Of course he was. Xana was tempted to spout the cliché—the smaller the cock, the bigger the caliber—but she had a feeling this sweaty son of a bitch wouldn’t be amused.
So she turned her attention back to the cop. “Where’re your hard hats?”
“Our hard hats?”
“You said there’s construction. You should be wearing hard hats.”
“Are you sassing us?” The unhealthy one took several steps forward, all the way until he was leaning his wet face within inches of hers. “Is that what you’re doing, lady?”
He might as well have handed her the grip end of his gun.
She might as well have reached for it.
The trick was to take the gun with one ha
nd while using the other hand to snag the fool by the back of his shirt. Once snagged, she could spin him around so that he was facing out and, more important, his hands were not in her face. Unfortunately, the back of his shirt was sopping with sweat, and when she went to grab a handful of it, the fabric sponged and her fingers slipped. So she instinctively went to grab it with her other hand, but her other hand now held the .44 Magnum.
Which was how she ended up accidentally clocking him in the rear of the skull with forty-five ounces of stainless steel.
The other guy, the cop, had his 9mm out and fixed on Xana before the first guy hit the dirt.
“Put your gun down!” he demanded.
Xana leaned her gun hand out the window and lined up its long barrel with the unconscious fellow’s sizable back.
“I’ll be honest,” she replied, “I’m not the best shot. I cheated on my marksmanship exams twice. But Mr. Magoo could hit the target at this range. So how about you put down your gun, Officer?”
The cop didn’t comply.
So Xana sweetened the deal.
“Look, I get it. You’ve got questions. You don’t know me. You don’t know why I’m here. You don’t know who might get concerned if I don’t call in when I’m supposed to. So I’ll make it easy for you. Put down the gun, and maybe the bad day you’re experiencing won’t get any worse.”
The cop still didn’t comply, but those intelligent eyes had gears grinding behind them.
So she waited.
It didn’t look like his buddy was bleeding from his head wound. Well, not externally. Still, Xana couldn’t believe how clumsy she was just now. Rusty, rusty, rusty. Or worse yet, maybe it was age.
This fucking life.
“Your partner here needs an ambulance,” she said. “And you can’t call an ambulance with your gun. Put it on the ground.”
“That is not going to happen,” the cop replied.
“Then your partner’s going to die. That’s on you, Officer.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“What should I call you, then? How about Steve?”
“Why Steve?”
“You look a little like Steve McQueen.”
