“Only if you’re free for two hours. He’ll talk your ear off,” Kate says. “Which is what he’s doing now. Are you planning to let us through, Art?”
He steps back to allow us passage on a wide concrete path. To our right are brick buildings, to our left are basketball courts, with more buildings behind them. The path was once lined with trees, if the stumps are any indication, but only a few remain. An assortment of containers fills the courts and more are grouped in the sunshine along the path. Some hold soil, some don’t, and I assume the empty ones prompted the trip to Central Park.
Leo grasps my left hand as tightly as I grip Eric’s with my right. Our path feeds into another curved path that borders a large, ovular expanse of dirt. A fountain sits on the right side, surrounded by concrete and benches where people soak in the sunshine of the chilly day.
“This is the Oval,” Kate says.
The wide area is surrounded by eight buildings that stretch out longways like rays of the sun. There were trees here, too, but a few by the fountain and the ones near the buildings are all that remain.
Between the people on benches, in the gardens, and walking past, there are as many as there were in Sunset Park, and it’s only a portion of the residents. As much as I like the idea of people being alive, I don’t necessarily want to live with them.
“How’d you stay warm this winter?” Jorge asks, transferring Jin to his other arm.
“Steam,” Louis says. “From the Con-Ed plant across the street. We got it working.”
“That’s impressive,” Eric says.
“Turns out if you have enough people, one might know something useful,” Kate says. “Artie was an engineer. But it can get chilly. We need to save fuel to run the plant next winter. We still use your solar, Eric. And now you’re here to help hook up everything we’ve collected.”
“Time to earn my keep?”
“You’ve been mooching off us for days,” Kate says with a wink. “But I’ll give you until tomorrow to start.”
Eric smiles, although the anxious furrow between his brows doesn’t budge, and the smudges beneath his eyes speak of the kind of fatigue sleep doesn’t fix.
Kate points at the glass-fronted ground floor of a nearby building, inside of which are brightly painted walls and a toddler-sized play structure. “That’s the daycare. For the little guys.” She smiles at the kids and points to a closer building with a similar space. “And we have a lower school in building Twelve. You can go while your grownups work. It’s a lot of fun.”
Leo doesn’t look convinced of that. I’m not, either. Since Sunset Park, he’s been within three feet of a known adult at all times. Paul was nearby when all hell broke loose, but if it breaks loose here, reaching Leo might prove impossible.
Kate leads us around the Oval as if this is of no concern. People were killed in StuyTown last year, her husband included, but you wouldn’t suspect it from her playful manner. She turns onto a side path at two attached buildings which stretch diagonally for the length of a city block. At the end of the second building, Kate climbs the few steps to a glass entry door under a green awning. “There used to be key cards, but, obviously, we did away with that. Most people don’t lock their apartments, but you can if you find the keys.”
We pass through a small lobby and into a staircase lit by dim motion lights, then up two flights into a hall lit by the same. “The motion lights work on batteries charged by solar,” Louis informs us. He stops in front of a door. “This is a five-bedroom. Let’s go in and figure out where you’ll live.”
The apartment’s large foyer has a galley kitchen to the left, with a pass-through to the combined living room-dining room on the other side. Sunlight streams through large windows onto glossy dark wood floors. The dining table is dark wood to match, the gray sectional couch and green chairs sit on an area rug, and wooden bookcases hold books and a tasteful assortment of tchotchkes. It’s an apartment anyone would like to live in, but I don’t want to live here.
Leo, Emily, and Chen run for the couch. Elena’s kids—Aurelia and Felix—follow, eager to mimic the big kids. Lincoln takes a step before he eyes Lucky, Harold, and Micah, and then he stays put. Mimicking the big kids himself.
After a minute of silence, Kate asks, “How do you think you want to split up? Same as in Quarantine?”
“We should live like we did back home,” Elena says in her soft voice. She points toward me and Eric, Jorge, and Paul. “You should take this one. I can take a three-bedroom, or a two.”
“April and I want to live together,” Rissa says.
“A two-bedroom for you,” Kate says. “Good. And a three-bedroom for Elena.” Elena smiles as if pleased Kate remembered her name.
“And you’ll live with us,” I say to Indy.
She doesn’t turn from where she stands at a bookcase, fingering the book spines. “Can we all fit with Lucky?”
“We’ll make it fit,” Paul says, which makes me want to hug him.
Lucky clears his throat. “Um, Auntie? Would it be okay if I live with Micah and Harold?”
It’s not so much hurt in Indy’s eyes as it is resignation, but she plays it off with a dramatic sigh, hand to her heart. “I knew you’d leave me. And not even eighteen yet.”
“I can stay—”
“No, it’s the only dorm life you’re going to get, since you’re not going to Yale.”
Lucky moves to hug her. When he pulls away, she faces the bookcase and swipes at her cheek. After more discussion, May takes a three-bedroom with Emily and Chen, and the boys insist Brother David and Lincoln live with them.
“There’s enough space,” Micah says. He bends toward Lincoln, his hair over his eyes but his full-lipped smile on view. “Want to be roomies?”
Lincoln nods eagerly. After three days in Quarantine, I think he’s attached. Rissa watches the exchange with melting eyes. I can practically hear her dreamy sigh across the room. The four-year age difference has grown markedly less obvious since Rissa shed her teen angst, though Micah hasn’t noticed either the adoration or maturation.
“I won’t rain on your parade?” Brother David asks.
“You can drink me under the table,” Harold says from where he sits in a chair. The bullet wound in his leg is still healing, though it remains uninfected due to Maria’s care.
That leaves us with the apartment in which we stand. Kate and Louis take the others to get settled, and I move to a window. The view is more Stuyvesant Town—red brick building and trees with meandering paths below.
Jorge drops Maria’s BOB next to mine while Jin takes in the room, his chubby fingers entwined in Jorge’s shirt. “Is he ours now?” I ask.
Jorge’s arms tighten around Jin, though he doesn’t seem to notice. “Elena and May have their hands full. I thought maybe someone in Stuyvesant Town would want to take care of him. Maybe someone who lost a…” He swallows his next words.
“Which bedroom is ours, Daddy?” Leo asks Paul.
Eric lifts Leo in the air. “Five bedrooms, Little Lee. Guess what that means?”
“What?”
“You get your very own room.”
Paul squints, skeptical Leo will be excited about this when he’ll barely leave our sides. Sure enough, Leo’s lower lip pushes out.
“And do you know the best part of having your own room?” Eric continues. Leo shakes his head, and Eric whispers, “Sylvie will fill it with toys, and your dad can’t say there isn’t room for him.”
“There is some truth to that statement,” I say.
Leo wiggles out of Eric’s arms to the floor. “Then I want the biggest one!”
I’m glad someone’s excited. We enter the hallway, which leads to the bedrooms and the Holy Grail of New York City apartments: two bathrooms. One bedroom sits on the left, a crosswise hall holds a bedroom and two bathrooms, and the last three bedrooms sit in the second half of the main hall. Every room is a decent size, and all have a large window.
“I’ll take the first bedroom,
” Indy says.
“That’s the smallest,” Paul argues. “Let me or Leo take it.”
Indy considers Paul’s broad frame and flourishes a hand at herself. “You’re bigger. How much space do I need? You two should be by each other, and Leo needs room for all those toys. Right, little man?”
Indy chucks Leo’s chin, but her jolly expression dissolves when he looks away. Ever since Brooklyn, Paul has quit his bombardment of humorous insults, whether because I scolded him or because Indy seems brittle, as if even a playful joke at her expense could shatter her facade. But even Pleasant Paul—a persona heretofore unseen—hasn’t cheered her up.
Paul and Leo take the rooms directly across from each other, Jorge the third, and Eric and I the one in the crosswise hall. It’s the largest, though also the ugliest, as it’s furnished with cheap veneer furniture that screams dorm room. Going by the books and papers laying around, this apartment was shared by NYU students who had differing levels of taste.
I sit on the full-size bed, which stinks of unwashed sheets. If they smell this bad after a year, I can only imagine the odor they once emitted. Eric takes a whiff and grimaces, then opens the closet to reveal a collection of baseball caps and more dirty laundry. “Well, the living room is nice.”
I try to smile at his joke, but my lips won’t cooperate. Even with the sunlight through the window, everything seems awash in a coating of gray. The plaid interior of the rumpled comforter blurs from my tears, and I hear Eric make his way across the area rug—a hideous brown nubby thing—before he pulls me against his shoulder.
He rocks me gently, hand smoothing my hair and lips pressed to my head. Maybe his mother did this for him, maybe his father. He’s good at it. I tell myself I could have nothing left, but that thought doesn’t fill the hole as it did a day ago. I should have everyone. We all should.
I force the tears to subside and welcome the anger that follows. It’s a fine balance to stay angry enough to not wallow in sadness yet not burn to a crisp with rage. There’s a Big Cry inside, trying to get out, and I’ve crammed it into a compartment in the hope it’ll fade away. If she were here, Grace would chide my attempt at avoidance.
“I’m fine,” I say. We’ve said it numerous times in the past days, and he knows what I mean. We’re not fine, but, in this moment, we’re fine enough. “I bet you didn’t realize I cared so much about home décor.”
Eric pulls me closer with a laugh that doesn’t quite cover the croak of held-back tears. “I fucking love you.”
“And I fucking love you,” I say. “But this furniture has got to go.”
3
Eric
Kate didn’t expect us to report to work for a few days, and we spent that time looting apartments on the higher floors until our bedroom no longer resembled a frat boy’s, and Leo’s room looked as though FAO Schwarz upchucked on the floor. Sylvie sits at the dining table on our third morning, her chin resting in her hands as if relaxed, but her brow is wrinkled with worry.
I’m due to leave for where they’re setting up the last of the solar panels. Sylvie hands me my coat off the back of a chair. “That thing weighs a hundred pounds,” she says. “What do you have in there? Rocks?”
I reach into a lower pocket and pull out a small flashlight and a metal Altoids tin.
“Fresh breath is that important to you?” she asks.
I hand it over. She inspects the tightly-packed contents—bandages and squeeze packets of antibiotic cream, a tiny compass, a razor, safety pins, a mirror, duct tape wrapped around a lighter, fishing line and a hook, along with other survival items.
She gestures in the direction of the river. “Do you plan to eat any fish caught in that cesspool?”
“I don’t plan to eat any fish, ever. I don’t eat things from bodies of water.”
“Is that why you always ignore the tuna fish?”
I nod. The thought of a can of tuna turns my stomach. I’ve tried seafood of all kinds, and every time I’m promised that this is the one I’ll like. It never is. Cassie is the same. We’d fish with Dad, though only he and Mom would eat our catch.
“There are more delicious things than tuna,” she says. “Shrimp? Lobster? Linguini with clam sauce?”
“Nope. Nope. And absolutely not.”
“Then why the fish hook?”
“Because I might eat fish if I’m starving to death.”
“Might?” she asks, and smiles when I shrug indecisively. “Next pockets.”
One contains a multi-tool with a knife, a pack of gum, and another lighter. My inner pocket holds two long, thin orange and white tubes, which she holds up quizzically.
“Smoke flares,” I say. “Ren gave them to me when we went upstate, remember?” Now that Wadsworth is gone, there’s no one to answer their call, but the colored smoke could distract zombies.
“A multi-tool knife, plus one on your belt. Do you have the one in your boot?”
“Yup.”
“Remind me not to mess with you. What’s the gum for? Some MacGyver bomb-type thingy?”
“Fresh breath, what else?” I say.
She laughs, a thin, almost hysterical sound. I check my watch. Paul and Leo have left for the daycare-school with Jorge and Jin, and Sylvie is meeting Kate to set up a work schedule. She’s terrified of going out there; she’s managed to hide in our building for days.
I bend to kiss her goodbye. When I straighten, she grips the hem of my jacket playfully, though there’s panic behind her eyes. “I have to go,” I say. “You can see the rest later, if you’re good.”
“We both know that won’t happen.”
She doesn’t release me. I crouch, pry her chilly hand from my coat, and warm it in mine. I’m trying to put a positive spin on this situation—this entire place—when I’m around her. I’ve done a respectable job of it so far, but, if she could read my mind, she’d freak out. The number of people is overwhelming—especially in the café, where the noise verges on deafening. I find it easy to get along with others, but that doesn’t mean I want to be around them.
“I know you don’t care what’s in my pockets,” I say gently. “But I really do have to leave. You’re going to be fine. Do you want me to come back and walk you to Kate?”
“Indy will be with me. Stop acting like I’m crazy.”
“Stop acting crazy and you have yourself a deal.” I kiss her and get to my feet, then touch my upper left pocket—the one that holds the picture of Sylvie and her grandma. “This one’s my favorite.”
Her lips curve in the simulation of a smile, and she tucks her hands under her thighs to hide their quiver. “Love you, freak.”
“Love you, crazy girl.”
I head out the door with a wink, leaving her smiling for real, though my own is gone as soon as I hit the hall.
I can’t see walls from where we work. Stuyvesant Town is three times bigger than Sunset Park, and though the buildings are sturdy, I’ve grown accustomed to having at least one or two of my barriers in view. I like my barriers in view. Anything could happen at a distant gate or wall and I wouldn’t know it until the first zombie limps into sight.
That’s not entirely true; Louis explained an alarm system that involves air horns, flares, and leaders whose job it is to escort people to a safe building. It’s well thought-out, but it isn’t the salve on my worry I’d like it to be. And it isn’t doing shit for this fury I can’t shake.
We did the right thing by coming here. We did the only thing by coming here. If we’d stayed in Brooklyn with no food, surrounded by zombies, we’d have started the slow crawl to starvation by now. Hardly any ammo, few weapons, fewer people. Kids. It was the right thing. Maybe if I tell myself that enough, I’ll be able to piece together whatever scraps of my dignity survived Walt’s deceit.
Louis says something beside me. “What’s that?” I ask.
“This wire goes straight into the box?”
“Yeah.”
These smaller panels will be connected to streetlamps, wh
ere, with the help of batteries, they’ll light the paths at night. With Artie the engineer, and the instructional materials they found along with solar equipment this winter, they don’t require my knowledge to hook this up. Kate’s effort to include me feels more like a kindness than a need, but it’s something to do, and I hate feeling useless.
I tighten a screw and imagine heading to Sunset Park, gun in hand. Fuck that, bomb in hand. I clear the idea from my mind with a shake of my head. They say time heals all wounds. Maybe it works for wounded pride, too.
“You all right over there?” Paul asks from across the solar panel.
I unclench my jaw to say, “Fine.” Paul doesn’t blink. “What?”
He grunts and resumes work with his screwdriver, Leo by his side. The plan was to drop Leo off at the school, but, when Paul arrived with a tear-streaked Leo in tow, it was clear Leo had other plans.
“Hey, Leo,” I say. “Can you go grab me my water bottle? And if you go in my jacket pocket, you might find a piece of gum.”
Leo runs off. I ask Paul, “What happened with school?”
“He flipped out, snot everywhere. Begged me to come.”
“He’s not ready.”
“He’s not, but I am. He’s been coming into my room every night. I know it’s messed up, but I want five hours alone where I don’t have to think, or answer a question, or listen.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” I say. “Although I thought you already spend most of the day not thinking.”
“Nice one, Forrest. So, you gonna tell me why you’re muttering to yourself or not?”
I glance at Louis, who chooses this moment to attend to something twenty feet away, and I focus on the next screw. “Not. Didn’t know I was muttering.”
“Bro, you’re not only muttering, you’re gesticulating.”
“Nice word.”
“I was pretty proud of it. So, why are you acting like a crazy guy on a street corner?” I move to the next screw, ignoring Paul’s question. Paul exhales. “Fine.”
The City Series (Book 3): Instauration Page 2
