California: A Novel

by Edan Lepucki

  Sailor smiled and handed her the bag. “Anyway, I’m glad Mikey said something right off. You guys are rank.”

  “Sorry,” Cal said. “August never has this kind of stuff to trade.”

  Sailor looked away, his hand already on the door. “See you in a few.”

  When they were alone in the Bath, the sun darkening the paper on the windows, Frida kept her eyes on the plastic tubs. She couldn’t look at Cal, absorb that neediness. She knew he wanted her to say something like Can you believe this? or Where the hell are we? He wanted to be comforted by their camaraderie, but Frida was too zombified to offer him anything of the sort. She would wash herself, and that was all. Cal would follow her lead.

  She plunged her hands into water so cold it made her teeth ache and scrubbed her pits until her arms hurt. It felt good to be clean. She stepped into the tub next, to soak her feet.

  Cal finished quickly, and she watched as he applied hydrocortisone to the island of dry skin on his arm and aloe to the back of his neck.

  Frida grabbed a razor next. Its hollow nothing-weight took her breath away.

  Her skin was so dry, and her leg hair so thick, that she winced as she dragged the razor across her skin. “Does it hurt?” Cal asked, but she didn’t reply. She moisturized afterward, rubbing the lotion into her calves and even across the tops of her feet. Her skin looked amazing bare, smooth as a slide. She hadn’t seen her legs hairless in years, and she’d missed it.

  “I wonder if I can get waxed here,” she said.

  Cal laughed too hard. He’d hang on to that joke for the next eight hours.

  He didn’t say anything as she replaced her dirty shirt with the one Sailor had given her: it was powder blue and fit just right.

  Sailor knocked on the Bath door then. Time was up.

  Sailor was to show them the Land. Frida allowed herself to be led around, but she didn’t ask any questions. Not about the Spikes surrounding them on all sides, nor about the various decrepit houses where all these people lived, nor about the barn and garden beyond. The tour probably would have been more in-depth had Frida allowed it to be, but every time Sailor asked if they wanted to see something beyond this strip of real estate—they had two cows, apparently, and a herd of goats and a place where residents could sleep under the stars, should they so choose—Frida shook her head. It’d been a while since they’d seen Micah.

  “I’d like to see the barn,” Cal said.

  Frida shook her head again. “I’d like to see my brother.”

  “Fine, fine,” Sailor said, and led them back to the building where they’d left Micah.

  In the late nineteenth century, its glory days, it had been a hotel, or more than that. Sailor explained that on the bottom floor there had once been a restaurant and a meeting room for locals and a small store at the back that had sold grains, bolts of cloth, axes. Now, the restaurant kitchen and dining room were where food for the residents was prepared and served. When it was first built, guests stayed in the hotel rooms on the three upper floors, usually for a few nights, but sometimes longer if they were waiting for permanent lodging. It was all in the pamphlet, Sailor said. People used to come to view the decrepit buildings, and the Hotel was one of the main attractions.

  “A couple of years before the town closed to tourists,” Sailor explained, “money was poured into rehabbing the building, and the Church, too. They obviously ran out of funds before they could finish. But, still, neither is collapsing anytime soon.”

  “Where is everyone?” Cal asked.

  It was a good question. Frida had gotten so used to being isolated, she had barely noticed that all the people who had crowded the main street just an hour before were now gone.

  She looked up; on the second floor of a building, a woman was watching them. When they caught eyes, the woman ducked out of sight.

  “Micah told them to make themselves scarce,” Sailor said. “Until later.”

  “‘Later’?” Cal asked.

  They stepped up to the porch of the Hotel, and Frida could tell that Cal was stalling. He wanted to get as much out of Sailor as he could before the others returned. This kid was a talker.

  “So where’s August?” Cal asked.

  Sailor smiled and put his hand on the door. It looked solid, obviously part of the renovation. “He’s on another trip.”

  Cal nodded, as if he expected this. “When will he be back?”

  Frida didn’t think Sailor would fall for it, but he was as carefree as those gophers Cal had planned to capture in his traps.

  “In a day or two. Don’t worry, you’ll see him soon. He likes to relax between trips.”

  So August lived on the Land. He was one of them. When Frida had told him about her brother, August had known it was Micah she was talking about.

  “Let’s go inside,” Sailor said.

  On their way in, Frida tried to catch Cal’s eye, but for once he wasn’t looking at her. That, or he was pretending not to care about what he’d just learned.

  10

  Cal had expected the Hotel to be dark inside, perhaps because the tall windows flanking the front door were draped in heavy curtains, to keep out the heat, he guessed. But he hadn’t accounted for the windows on the other side of the building. These had to be uncovered because the room they stepped into wasn’t bleak and cavernous but high ceilinged and striped with shafts of dusty light. This was a kind of lobby, though if there had ever been a desk for checking in guests, it had been removed long ago. Perhaps it had been disassembled for a Spike.

  Aside from a few worn chairs and an empty bookshelf, the room was bare, its hardwood floor creaky and pocked. A carpeted staircase led to the upper floors, and on the landing a circular stained-glass window tinted the light green.

  “Are you guys keeping this as an old-timey hotel?” Cal asked. “It still looks like one.”

  The ceiling above them groaned. There had to be people upstairs.

  Sailor shook his head. “There isn’t a concierge or anything.” He nodded toward the light at the back of the building, through a wide hallway. “Micah told me to take you into the dining room. I’m sure you guys are hungry.”

  Cal was, and said so. Frida shrugged, her spine straight, her eyes bright as swimming fish. He couldn’t blame her for her shock, but it was starting to unnerve him.

  Circular wooden tables filled the dining room, as did a variety of mismatched chairs: a delicate midcentury modern thing that resembled an insect, a few cheap metal ones that could be folded and stacked, even a leather recliner. A long, rectangular table had been pushed along one wall, probably for setting down vats of food for the dining guests. The room’s built-in shelves were crowded with trays of silverware and piles of plates, a few bulky towers of bowls, a congregation of motley glasses and mugs, and the occasional Mason jar.

  It didn’t look like anyone had renovated this room. A papyrus of graffiti covered the peeling wallpaper, and in some places the wainscoting hung slack from mold. One of the large windows had been boarded up with the wood from a patio table: at its center, a perfect circle, for an umbrella, teased like a peephole.

  “As I said, the rehab project was never finished,” Sailor said. “They ran out of cash.”

  Cal imagined a velvet rope, cordoning off this back part of the building from tourists.

  “It’s not that bad, though,” Sailor said.

  Cal agreed. The other windows were intact and large—was it their light that had penetrated the lobby? Cal realized he was squinting. Even among this disrepair, dining with a sunrise or sunset had to make anyone feel lucky. The view outside was of the land beyond the main street; Micah and these people hadn’t settled past the Hotel, and so all Cal could make out was the wild of the woods. He suspected there was a stream or river that way, an easy water source for the residents.

  Here, Cal felt so close to the open air, it was like he was standing on the ledge of a train car. He’d done that on the ride from Ohio to Plank; his mom had insisted he take a tr
ain to college. The ride was long, but he’d enjoyed the Styrofoam cups of instant coffee and the gnarled man who served them, and he loved to bite the edges of these cups, imprint them with his teeth as the landscape slipped across the window. Ohio was the ugliest, even more so than Nebraska. When he stood on the train ledge, the air had been so strong and rough on his arms, each moment swallowing the tracks beneath him, that he had trembled.

  From the windows of the dining room, he could make out more Spikes in the distance. They drew a circle of protection around the Land.

  Aside from the boarded window, the others looked to be holding up okay. Only one small pane was broken, and someone had repaired it by taping a Frisbee to the hole. The shoddy fix-it job reminded Cal of Plank. Micah had probably promoted that handyman.

  In fact, the whole room reminded Cal of Plank’s dining room; it had the same buffet setup, the same disregard for aesthetics. This was probably what Plank looked like now. Had a group of settlers moved in since the school had shut down? He didn’t want that. If it couldn’t remain as it was, he wanted it to die.

  A swinging door at the other end of the room opened, and Peter walked in with an olive-skinned woman who wore men’s boxer shorts over leggings. She held a large pot that appeared heavy by the way she flexed her arm muscles. Her tank top was tight against her ribs, and Cal tried to ignore the hard mounds of her nipples. Frida had told him that she and her friends used to put raisins in their bras so that boys would think them perpetually turned on, or cold, their skin brailled with goose bumps. He had never been sure if he should believe her, but now it seemed likely that Frida at fourteen would have wanted to look like this woman.

  “This is Fatima,” Peter said. Fatima nodded a hello. When she lifted the pot onto the buffet table, he saw that her armpits were unshaved. He wondered if only certain residents were allowed to use the razors in the Bath or if Fatima simply chose not to.

  Cal knew that Frida was looking at him, looking at Fatima.

  “Where’s Micah?” she asked.

  “Here I am,” Micah said.

  He was coming through the swinging door—the kitchen was back there, obviously. Without slowing down, he grabbed a pile of bowls and called to Sailor to get the spoons. Frida had stopped looking at Cal, of course. Her eyes didn’t leave her brother, and Cal was nervous she’d fall into an even deeper fog. He led her to the table Micah had set the bowls on and pushed her into a chair that must have once belonged to a 1950s Formica dining set: its seat and back were made of pink vinyl, slit in more than one place, its legs, curved metal. It squeaked with the weight of her.

  “I’ll get you food,” Cal said.

  Micah nodded. “She needs to eat.”

  During the meal, Cal, like Frida, couldn’t look away from Micah. Cal’s mind had accepted that his old friend was alive, but the specific, distinct reality of Micah was almost too much to bear: the snorted laugh that Cal had somehow forgotten, the way he affected a yawn to fill a pause in the conversation, how he held his bowl of soup to his face to slurp its dregs. It was as disquieting as déjà vu; Cal had been here before, but he couldn’t have been.

  They were eating bowls of bean soup. Cal’s spoon was made of silver, and with each bite he tasted the bitter metal. Frida had been given a plastic spork, but she was barely eating. The group had fallen silent, and Cal felt, again, the barrage of questions pushing at him from within.

  “I don’t understand, Micah,” he said finally. “Didn’t you blow yourself up?”

  “Ah,” Fatima said. “No wonder your sister looks so ill.”

  “We thought he was dead,” Cal said to her.

  She raised an eyebrow. “That was foolish of you.”

  Micah held up a hand. “No, it wasn’t.” That yawn again. “We were very, very good.”

  “We—as in the Group?” Cal asked.

  Peter stood. “I’m clearing these bowls now.” He looked to Fatima, then Sailor. “Help me.”

  When they were gone, Micah leaned forward. “California, you’re freaking out my friends.”

  “Please call me Cal.”

  “Cal. Sorry. I’ll explain everything in time.”

  “I think right now would be good.”

  Frida bit her lip. She was watching them like they were in a soap opera.

  “Frida,” Micah said, turning to her. “I love you. You know that, right?”

  She smiled, all at once coming to life.

  “Why don’t we go see your room,” Micah said.

  The upper floors weren’t as derelict as downstairs, but they hadn’t been remodeled, either. Not professionally, at least.

  “We’ve spent some time making things comfortable up here,” Micah said as they headed upstairs. The walls were painted, if a bit sloppily. Cal could make out burn marks on the ceiling from the flames of gas lanterns long ago.

  Their room was on the third floor near the end of the hallway. It was a small room, with a small glassless window that was covered with a piece of cheesecloth. The thin fabric had been stapled to the wall.

  Their bags were waiting for them on the floor, but they fell slack, as if someone had removed most of the belongings inside.

  “Did you take our clothes?” Cal asked Micah.

  Micah smiled. “They’re probably just being washed. Don’t freak out.”

  “My jeans were in there.”

  “You really care that much about jeans?” Micah said. “I wouldn’t have taken you for such a fashionista, Cal. Besides, I said, you’ll get everything back.”

  “When?” He was about to say more, when Frida grabbed his hand and nodded at the room, as if to offer it to him. But he couldn’t wear a bedroom.

  There was a collapsible camping table made of nylon and metal, and a bed with a wrought-iron headboard. Cal couldn’t tell if the sharp, itchy mattress of hay was from the nineteenth century or if it was merely supposed to appear that way.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Micah said, when Cal sat down on it.

  “People always say, ‘You’ll get used to it,’” Frida said suddenly. “It’s not really true.”

  Micah grinned. “That’s just because you’re spoiled.”

  Frida laughed.

  Cal turned to Micah. “You’re the one with clean fingernails.”

  They both looked at him like he’d gone too far.

  “No need to get sensitive,” Micah said. “I was only poking fun.”

  “So was I,” Cal said.

  “Boys,” Frida said. But then she was quiet again, and Cal couldn’t help but be annoyed.

  “Is this room usually empty?” he asked. “Is that why there’s nothing in it?”

  Micah shook his head. “We’re not too big on personal effects here.” He explained that this was Fatima’s room.

  “Where will she sleep?” Cal asked.

  “Probably with Peter.”

  “Is Peter her—husband?”

  Micah burst out laughing. “Can’t be married without a government, California. If you’re asking if they’re a couple, then, yeah. I guess. I don’t ask. But they haven’t jumped over a broom or anything.” He squinted at Cal. “Did you guys? Are you?”

  Frida nodded.

  “A year or so after you…left,” Cal said.

  Micah stroked his beard. “I see. So, what? You’re Frida Friedman now?”

  She laughed. “God, no. Can you imagine? The choice to keep Ellis was a no-brainer.”

  “I didn’t realize that kind of thing—marriage—still happened,” Micah said. “And so young, too. That must’ve been quite a surprise to everyone.”

  “Not really,” Cal said. “My mom always said I was an old man trapped in a kid’s body. I was only twenty-three when we did it, but damn if it didn’t feel like a decade had passed since I left for Plank.” He tried to smile. “People said it seemed right for us. Besides, it’s not like we had a wedding.”

  “No? What a shame,” Micah said.

  “Your parents gave us their rings,” Cal sa
id, “but we sold them, for money to get out.”

  “Good for you,” Micah said.

  No one spoke for a moment.

  “Can you tell us how it is that you’re here?” Cal asked. “Please.”

  Micah scrunched his lips together. “It was a prank, Cal. An elaborate prank.”

  “But someone blew up. People died.”

  “What made you so certain it was me?”

  “The Group claimed it,” Cal said.

  In good old terrorist fashion, the Group had issued a statement five hours after the bombing. They’d released a photo of Micah and some gibberish about taking back public spaces for the common citizen. The police had confirmed his identity; there had been DNA evidence.

  “Did we ever claim anything before that?” Micah asked.

  “Come on, you’d been posting your stunts online for years.”

  “But we never officially owned up to anything violent.”

  “That doesn’t mean you weren’t responsible.”

  Micah sighed. “Look, I’ll tell you this much.” He took off his hat. Cal saw nothing until Micah bent forward. There it was on the crown of his head, a dime-sized bald spot in his mess of hair, pinkish and rough edged

  “Did you get that in the bombing?”

  “I got it a few hours before. Hurt like a motherfucker. That, and we drew a bit of my blood. Put it on a vest we planted there.”

  Frida spoke up. “Someone scalped you?”

  Micah put his hat back on his head. “Just a patch.”

  Cal shook his head. “That’s absurd.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Did anyone blow themselves up?”

  “Yes, just not me.”

  “Didn’t they want the credit?”

  “Credit didn’t matter to him. He was dedicated to the cause.” Micah sighed. “It was important that everyone think I’d done it. It was proof of my commitment to the Group.”

  “Except it wasn’t you.”

  Micah nodded. “What can I say? I was needed elsewhere. Anyway, the bombing drove away anyone who wasn’t serious about the Group’s cause, and we recruited a bunch of new members.”