Free to Fall

by Lauren Miller

  “So you grew up here?” I asked as we headed out, our sandwiches in a bag under North’s arm.

  “Boston,” North replied, leading the way down the narrow alley behind Main Street. “But we used to visit here a lot to see my aunt. She owns Paradiso,” he explained. “She hardly ever comes in anymore, though.”

  “And your parents . . . ?”

  “My dad’s still in Boston,” he said. “Trying to pretend his only son isn’t a high school dropout. My mom died when I was three.”

  Suddenly it made sense. The familiarity. He had a dead mom too. With all the technology out there to prevent accidents and cure illnesses, we momless were a rare breed. I was the only kid at Roosevelt without one, and probably the only kid at Theden, too. I wanted to tell North I was like him, but the words got lodged in my throat.

  “Why’d you drop out of school?” I asked instead.

  He glanced back at me. “School just wasn’t my thing.”

  “So now you just make coffee?”

  His eyes clouded. “I’m sorry I fall short of your standards.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” I said quickly, flushing. “You don’t fall short of my standards. I don’t even have standards.”

  “A girl like you should have standards.” He was wearing that amused smile again. “High ones.” He’d stopped in front of the back entrance to Paradiso. There was another door right beside it, made of metal instead of glass. “That is, as long as said standards do not prevent you from having dinner with an older, just-makes-coffee-for-a-living high school dropout in his empty apartment,” North said, twisting the knob on the metal door.

  The words empty apartment reverberated in my head. “Exactly how old is he?” I asked as I stepped past him, trying to sound coy and not totally freaked out by the idea. Inside the door was a flight of stairs going up. North closed the door behind us and turned both bolts.

  “Seventeen,” he said, starting up the stairs. My legs felt weak beneath me as I followed him up. I’d never even been in a boy’s bedroom—except Beck’s, and Beck didn’t count.

  There was a second door at the landing, with a doorbell button next to the knob and two deadbolts in the frame. North unlocked the door, using a different key on each bolt and a third one for the knob. What was with all the locks?

  I didn’t need Lux to tell me I didn’t belong here. I should’ve been with my classmates, if not at Thaiphoon with Hershey and the girls, then back on campus in the dining hall, eating roasted sea bass and Swiss chard and talking about string theory or Jane Austen. But should didn’t matter much right then, because doing what I was supposed to do would mean missing out on this.

  “After you,” North said, pushing the door open.

  10

  THE FRONT DOOR OPENED into the living room, which wasn’t actually a room but just a couch, a coffee table, and an overstuffed bookshelf sandwiched between a tiny kitchen and an even tinier sleeping area.

  “So you live alone?” I asked as I followed North into the kitchen. I figured he had to, since there was only one twin-size bed.

  He nodded as he unwrapped our sandwiches. “This place came with Paradiso’s lease. When I started talking about moving out here for good, my aunt offered to let me live up here for free.” He took a bite of his sub. Marinara sauce dribbled down his chin. I examined my own sandwich, wishing I had a knife and fork. “Just go for it,” North said. “There’s no un-messy way to do it. But after your first taste, you won’t care.”

  He was right. The ingredients by themselves were pretty unremarkable, but somehow together they became oh-my-gosh-you-have-to-try-this delicious. I wished for a second that Lux were running so I could mark this sandwich a favorite. Then again, Giovanni’s meatball sandwich, like North’s matcha latte, wasn’t on anybody’s menu, so its flavor profile couldn’t be cross-referenced against my consumption history or added to my preference hierarchy.

  “Wanna watch a movie?” North asked, his voice muffled with meatball.

  I quickly dabbed at the corners of my mouth. “You have a box?”

  “Not a GoBox, but a laptop with a DVD player and a bunch of DVDs.” He pointed at the bottom row of the bookshelf, which was lined with plastic cases instead of books. “Pick one.”

  I walked over and scanned the titles. Rudy, Rocky, Bull Durham, Hoosiers. “These are all old sports movies,” I pointed out.

  “Oh, but they’re so much more than that,” replied North. “Have you seen any of them?”

  I shook my head. “Which is your favorite?” North thought for a second then grinned. “Sit,” he instructed. “I’ll put it on. I don’t want you to know anything about it going in.” He went to the shelf and grabbed a case I hadn’t gotten to yet then kept his back to me so I couldn’t see the title.

  I pulled my handheld from my pocket to check the time. I had six texts from Hershey, the most recent of which she’d sent three minutes ago and was written in all caps.

  @HersheyClements: WHERE ARE U?!?!

  I quickly checked her location. Drake and Main. She was still at the restaurant.

  “Your roommate again?” North asked.

  “Uh-huh. I’m telling her I’m at the library so she’ll leave me alone.”

  “Don’t lie. Not over text, anyway. Just don’t answer.”

  “She won’t know I’m lying,” I told him. “I’m private right now.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Your location is hidden from the outside world, but your Gemini still knows your GPS coordinates. And even if Lux isn’t running, it’s logging it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it says so in the terms of use.”

  “You’ve read the terms of use?”

  North raised his eyebrows. “You haven’t?”

  “Oh, come on. Nobody reads the terms of use.”

  He shook his head. “You realize how whacked that is, right? You let Lux make decisions for you and you don’t even know how it makes them?”

  I ignored this. “Okay, let’s say you’re right—”

  “Which I am.”

  “And Lux does know where I am right now. Why does it matter if I lie about it?”

  “Because Lux uses a slicing algorithm,” North replied. “Which means it’s designed to detect patterns in events based only on narrow glimpses of a user’s experience. Let’s say you’ve been identified by Lux as a person who lies only when she feels guilty or when she’s trying not to hurt someone’s feelings or when she’s doing something she knows she probably shouldn’t be doing, like, I dunno, hanging out in some older guy’s apartment.” I saw the hint of a smile. “If you lie about where you are right now, then Lux will gather whatever data it can about this situation—including your location coordinates—and redirect you away from situations like this in the future. And I, for one, don’t want that to happen.”

  It sounded a little conspiracy-theory paranoid to me, but the truth was I had no idea how Lux worked. Every time I got a pop-up box with a privacy notice or an update to the terms of use, I just hit “accept.”

  I set my Gemini facedown on the coffee table and looked over at North. “So are we watching the movie or what?”

  “So what’d you think?” North asked when the credits began to roll.

  “It was . . . interesting,” I said.

  “So you hated it.”

  “No! I liked it. It’s just— I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about it, that’s all. The voice in Ray’s head was supposed to be the Doubt, right? So are we supposed to feel sorry for him?”

  North made a sound like a laugh. “You’re supposed to feel moved. Inspired.”

  I felt myself squirm. The story was inspiring, that was the problem. Its message made me uneasy. The main character hears this voice in his head saying “If you build it, he will come,” so he decides to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield, and all these dead baseball players show up to play in it. Besides being totally random (why exactly were these baseball players just hangin
g around, looking for someplace to play?), I found it super irritating that we were supposed to buy that the guy just automatically knows what the voice means. The phrase is cryptic and totally vague and yet Ray somehow understands that “If you build it, he will come” means “Build a baseball diamond in your cornfield”? Yeah. Okay. I can totally see how he’d figure that out.

  “It was just . . . implausible,” I said carefully, not wanting to totally tear into North’s favorite movie.

  “Says who?”

  I looked at him. “Um, me? A voice in his head told him to build a baseball diamond. In a cornfield.”

  “And look what happened,” North replied. “He saved his farm. Made peace with his father. Brought people joy. Think of where he would’ve ended up if he hadn’t listened.”

  I started to point out that losing one’s farm might be preferable to losing one’s mind, but I stopped when I saw North glance over at the wooden cuckoo clock on the wall. It was quarter to nine already.

  “I should go,” I said quickly, before he could suggest it, and got to my feet. “Thanks for the sandwich. And the movie.”

  “We should do it again sometime,” North said as he followed me to the door. “Now that I know that you’re more of a Rocky girl. No dead dudes or un-embodied voices in that one. Just stubbornness and punching.”

  “Perfect,” I said, and stepped over the threshold onto the landing. I expected him to come out with me, but when I turned back around, he’d stepped farther back into his apartment, his body tucked behind the open door. I swallowed my disappointment. “Bye,” I said, giving him a little wave before turning away.

  “Hey, Rory?”

  “Yes?” Thank God shot through my head as I spun on my toes to face him. Maybe actually kissing him would put an end to all the thinking about it. My heart was drumming in my chest as I looked up at him, channeling a girl who knew how to be kissed. I wasn’t actually; the only boyfriend I’d ever had was in ninth grade and kissing him was like kissing a fish, all pinched lips and closed mouths.

  “Don’t mention that we hung out to Hershey, okay?”

  My heart felt like someone had squeezed it. She was so unforgettable that he remembered her name. I was certain I hadn’t said it.

  “Sure.” My voice sounded flat.

  “It’s nothing personal, it’s just—”

  “It’s fine,” I said, flashing a smile. “I get it.” Before the moment got any more awkward, I turned and descended the stairs. Halfway down, I heard his door close.

  He’s a private person, I told myself as I walked back to campus. “Or he’s completely embarrassed to be associated with you,” I muttered.

  When I got to the courtyard, my eyes scanned the windows until I got to my own. The light was on. Hershey was still awake. With a sigh, I pulled out my Gemini to let myself in the main door. There was a new text on my screen.

  BLOCKED NUMBER

  A man built a rectangular house.

  His windows all faced south.

  What color was the bear outside?

  As soon as I tapped the message, another one appeared:

  You have thirty seconds to respond.

  Instantly my heart was racing. It was from the society; it had to be. Part of their evaluation. But the question made no sense. What did the shape of the man’s house have to do with the color of the bear he saw? I felt myself start to panic. Was it a trick question? How could I possibly know what color the bear was unless I knew what kind of bear it was, and how could I know what kind it was unless I knew where the—

  Suddenly it clicked. His windows all faced south. The house was in the North Pole. The bear was a polar bear. To the man, it would look white. I quickly typed my answer. Within seconds I got another text.

  Well done, Zeta.

  My breath whistled through my teeth as I let go of the breath I was holding. One down. How many more of these would there be?

  Still jittery with adrenaline, I went to the common room for some tea. There was a group of second-years playing Scrabble on the couches, so I sat at one of the long study tables instead. An hour later I was still there, hunched over my screen, working through the hardest word puzzles I could find, the chamomile cold in my cup. Next time I heard from the society, I’d be ready.

  I woke to the sound of a finger tapping a screen and the whoosh sound of e-pages turning. Hershey was sitting cross-legged on her bed, flipping through Vogue on her tablet. She’d been asleep when I finally made it back to our room at midnight, saving me from the inevitable inquisition. Or, rather, postponing it until now.

  “If you didn’t want to come with us, you should’ve just said that from the beginning,” she said the moment I opened my eyes.

  “I stopped by the public library and got sidetracked,” I told her, rubbing my eyes. I’d never actually been in the redbrick building downtown, but I’d read that it was open until eleven on Fridays and Saturdays, and based upon what Hershey already thought of me, it wasn’t a stretch for her to believe that’s where I’d choose to spend a Friday night.

  Hershey was an excellent reader of people so I was fully prepared for her to call bullshit on my act. But she just sighed. “I worry about you, Rory. You’re working too hard.” Relative to you, everyone is, my brain shot back. Hershey hadn’t set foot in the library since we arrived on campus, and I hadn’t once seen her study. She tossed her tablet aside. “But I get it,” she said. “I just missed you, is all.”

  I softened. Why was I so critical of her? Sure, she had her flaws and sometimes she said things that made me want to tear my skin off, but she was completely inclusive. She was making an effort to be my friend and I was treating her like crap.

  “We should go soon,” Hershey said, scooting off her bed. “We don’t want to be late for our fitting.”

  We took the street route downtown. Hershey was walking fast, so I pulled out my handheld to double-check our appointment time. We were both scheduled for ten o’clock, and it was only 9:45. At this rate, we’d be ten minutes early.

  The shop was on the south end of Main Street, which was good because it meant we wouldn’t have to pass by Paradiso on the way. I still hadn’t decided how to feel about North’s don’t-tell-Hershey-about-us comment, but I certainly wasn’t about to go strolling by with her the very next day. He’d think I was doing it on purpose to make some sort of point.

  “Your destination is on your left,” Lux announced as we arrived in front of a shop with a frosted glass door. Through the display window, I saw racks and racks of brightly colored gowns, each covered in clear plastic, and a girl from my section on the tailor block. There was another one waiting in a chair nearby. “Your appointment is in eleven minutes.”

  “Perf,” Hershey declared. “We have time for a coffee.” She set off down the sidewalk toward Paradiso.

  “Why don’t we try River City Beans?” I suggested, hurrying to catch up with her. The only thing worse than walking by with Hershey was walking in with her.

  “Because Paradiso is right here,” I heard Hershey say. She stepped up to the café’s bay window and smiled. “And so is he.”

  Hershey pulled the door open and sauntered inside. North looked up when the bell jingled, his eyes locking with mine. He held my gaze for a second then flicked his eyes to Hershey. No smile, no greeting, not an iota of recognition in his eyes. I fought disappointment. “Hey, Rory,” came a female voice. It was the girl with the shaved head I’d met the day I went to the cemetery with North. We hadn’t exchanged names, so North must’ve told her mine.

  I angled my body toward her so North was out of my sightline. If he was going to ignore me, I was happy to reciprocate. “Can I get a medium vanilla cap?” I asked her. “Triple shot.”

  “And for you?” she asked Hershey.

  “Just black coffee,” Hershey replied. “A large.” I expected Hershey to turn her attention back to North—from her comment at the door, I assumed that’s why we came—but she didn’t. “How do you know her?” Hershey
asked me as the girl went to work on our drinks.

  “I came in on my way to the library last night,” I said vaguely. Then, as casually and disinterestedly as I could muster, “Isn’t that the guy you thought was so hot?”

  “Not hot,” Hershey corrected. “Mildly sexy. And that was only because I was jet-lagged and tired and not thinking straight.” She glanced over her shoulder at North. I could see him out of the far corner of my eye, washing the milk canisters at the sink. “So,” her voice was louder now, as if she were broadcasting whatever she was about to say, “Did I tell you I’m seeing someone?”

  So that explained the late night sneak-outs. I tried to look surprised. “You are?”

  Hershey nodded dramatically. “It’s kind of scandalous,” she said. “So we’re keeping it a secret. But the chemistry is intense.” She glanced back at North again. Clearly to see if he was listening. He wasn’t looking at us, but I knew he’d heard her. Everyone in the café had. She was a hot girl using her outside voice to talk about hooking up. People paid attention to that.

  “Does he go to Theden?” I asked.

  Hershey gave me a mysterious smile.

  “Your appointment starts in two minutes,” I heard Lux say as the girl with the shaved head put our drinks on the bar.

  I took a sip of mine and smiled. “Yum. So much better than the matcha drink I had last time.” It was childish, and not even much of a jab, but I couldn’t help it. I saw Hershey glance at North again as she reached for her coffee.

  “Are you really seeing someone?” I asked Hershey when we were back on the sidewalk.

  “I use the term seeing loosely,” she said, looping her arm through mine. “Hooking up with in varied and unconventional places is more accurate.” I was intrigued and mildly grossed out. How unconventional were we talking here? Against my will, my mind leaped to the dream I’d spent the morning trying to forget. North and I, on the floor of the mausoleum, in the rain. All at once I was fuming, and the more I thought about the way he’d just treated me, the angrier I got. He’s sweet as can be to me when we’re alone and acts like he doesn’t know me when Hershey’s around? God, it was so transparent. And offensive. He obviously didn’t want me to tell Hershey that we’d hung out because he was trying to keep his options open. I was most irritated at myself for agreeing to keep it a secret. I should’ve said, Here’s a better idea, asshole: Let’s not hang out at all.