by Katie Henry
“She ought to be wearing a hat,” Grammy Kit says, looking disapprovingly at the blond female anchor. “Imagine, being interviewed for television and forgetting your hat.”
We finish the segment on the government shutdown and then a piece about an unlikely friendship between a husky and a potbellied pig before the Ken Doll–esque male anchor turns it over to weather. Grammy Kit’s not likely to find that interesting, so I raise the remote, but then stop, frozen, at the sight of the national weather map.
Sun in Florida. Rain on the Eastern Seaboard. And there, hovering above the San Francisco Bay, a giant snowflake.
“Well, as you can see, Frank,” the weather lady’s saying to the anchor, “we’ve got this cold front coming in from the north—”
She keeps talking, stuff about cold fronts and air pressure and winds from the west, but I can barely hear her over the pounding in my chest and my head and my ears.
“So there’s a possibility San Francisco might see snow?” Frank the Anchor asks.
“A distinct possibility, yes. And the inland areas are almost certain to see at least a few flakes.”
Berkeley is inland. My home is inland. Hannah is inland.
The anchor and weather lady are laughing, like this is a fun little surprise, but I’m whisper-screaming at the TV, “When? WHEN?”
“What, dear?” Grammy Kit says.
“When can folks expect to see that snow, Mariana?” Frank the Anchor asks.
“It might be as early as this evening, Frank,” Mariana the Weather Lady says.
Oh my gosh. It’s tonight.
Oh my gosh. She was right.
I turn off the TV because I can’t think with it on, I can’t think with Frank and Mariana joking about sledding down Lombard Street. I can’t think because I don’t know what to think.
Hannah lied. Hannah said she lied, she told me she lied. But there’s going to be snow in Berkeley on December 21. A freak weather event on the right day and in the right place.
And I’m in Utah.
I stand up, boneless and bloodless and shaky. The end of the world as we know it is coming, and I’m not there. Hannah swore things would be all right, but only if I was there. I should be there, with her, watching the newscast and packing our go bags, making sure my family’s set with supplies for at least seven days. I should be there, but I’m here, in a Salt Lake City nursing home with a woman who thinks I’m her childhood friend and has outdated opinions on women’s hats.
I pace. But there’s barely enough space in this room to pace, between the hospital bed, the easy chair, and the portable toilet. Three steps to the left, three steps to the right. I don’t pace. I flounder.
“What are you looking for?” Grammy Kit asks.
I breathe out. “An answer.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know,” I say. But no, I do. I know what I’m looking for, and she’s the safest one to tell. She won’t remember in an hour. I kneel down next to her easy chair.
“I’m looking for an answer,” I tell her. “I’m looking for a sign that tells me where I should go. I’m looking for a clue that tells me what to do. I’m looking for something that tells me what I should believe. I’m looking for a . . .” I grasp for the word, near enough to snatch from the air. “I’m looking for a revelation.”
Grammy Kit stares at me, long and searching. Maybe I’m only imagining it, but for a second, her eyes look sharper. “Well, doll,” she says, “I don’t think you’re going to find that here.”
The words hit me like salt waves, like cold water on your face in the morning, something brisk and urgent that says, wake up, get up. The sign I’m waiting for isn’t coming. I have to choose, and I have to choose alone.
I’ve made so many choices in my life, but how many of them were really mine? I made choices because Hannah said the world was ending, and I believed her. I made choices because my parents and my church said they knew best, and I believed them. I made choices because a voice in my head said I should be afraid of the world and myself, and I believed it.
But here is something else I believe: I was put on Earth, given a body and brain—this body, this brain, imperfect and odd—to make choices. What’s the point, if I never make a true one?
What do you want, Ellis? Want something, choose something, Ellis.
I’m standing in this tiny room, narrow and cluttered and dark, but that isn’t how it feels. It feels like the horizon line at Lands End. It feels like the sky above Utah Valley. It feels—I feel—limitless. Boundless. Or maybe just unbound.
I want to go home.
I want to go home. I want to see the snow fall. Whether Hannah is there or not, whether the world ends or spins eternally, there’s nowhere else I would choose to be.
“I’m going home,” I say to Grammy Kit, because someone needs to know, and I need to hear myself say it. She blinks, then nods.
Okay. Okay. I need to keep my head. Attack the problem logically. First, and hardest, Aunt Tonya. I grab the bedside phone, scramble to find the cell number in Kenny #14, and dial. She picks up on the first ring.
“Mama?” she says, sounding surprised.
“It’s Ellis.”
She sighs as if to say, You couldn’t even last a half hour? “What is it?”
“I was calling to ask—” I should have taken a second and practiced this lie. “One of the nurses came by and told me they’re doing a movie night: 42nd Street. It’s after dinner and she said I could stay for it. Can I?”
“You want to stay for it?” I try not to be offended by the surprise in her voice.
“It’s basically my favorite movie,” I say, and that’s not even a lie. “Grammy Kit showed it to me the first time.” That’s not a lie, either. “Please?”
“What time should I get you?”
“I think around eight.”
There’s silence on the line. “All right. We’ll save some dinner for you. The cafeteria there is hit-or-miss.”
After I hang up with her, I poke my head out the door and flag down a nurse. “Excuse me,” I say, trying to keep my voice even and not vomit all over her white orthopedic shoes. “Is there a good cab company nearby? My aunt isn’t going to be able to pick me up after all.”
“I’ll call one for you,” she says, then adds, softer, “The residents’ phones can’t do it. Too many escapes.”
I thank her, and she promises to come get me when it’s outside. Once she’s down the hall, I shut the door. Breathe in, hold. Breathe out, hold. I kneel down by the easy chair again and grab Grammy Kit’s hand.
“Grammy Kit,” I say, and she frowns, as if I’ve called her Captain Crunch. Right. Ruby, I have to be Ruby. “Kit,” I try again.
“Yes?”
“I have to go, okay? I have to go somewhere now.”
She smiles slyly. “George waiting out back?”
Sure, that’ll do. “Yes. George is waiting for me. But you can’t tell anyone where I’ve gone.”
“Oh, Ruby, you be careful.”
“I will. I promise I will. But you can’t tell anyone or I’ll be in such big trouble you can’t even imagine. Okay?”
“If your mama calls,” she says, “I’ll tell her you’re spending the night over here.”
“But I can’t talk. If anyone wants to talk to me, I’m in the bathroom. Okay? You promise?”
She holds out her pinkie. I wrap it in mine. She leans in close. “Go get ’em, doll.”
The internet is a beautiful thing. I know lots of people are convinced it’s the downfall of humanity, responsible for everything from carpal tunnel to serial killers. And yeah, those 1940s scientists building computers the size of houses would probably never have guessed we’d eventually all keep one in our pocket and use it to watch videos of cats and/or browse apocalypse preparedness forums. Maybe they’d feel like we ruined their achievement. But I will say this for the internet: it makes it really easy to buy a plane ticket.
I bought mine at a library near the
airport, too scared to go straight there and buy one at the counter. They’d take one look at my face and know something was up. They’d have American Express on the line post-haste to report me for credit fraud, even though the card is technically in my name. Even though my parents bought my flight here with the same card, to boost my frequent flyer miles. And sure, it’s only supposed to be for emergencies, but if armageddon isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what qualifies.
I’m third in line to have my ID checked by the TSA, and my hands are clammy, my ticket clutched in a death grip.
They know who you are. They know what you’re doing, they can see it on your stupid, guilty face.
Oh, not now. I thought maybe it would go away. After that therapy session, after I shut it down once, I thought maybe it would stop. But it can’t, can it? It’s me. It’s part of me. I can’t rip it out or will it away.
They’re going to catch you and detain you and send you back to Spanish Fork; it’s going to happen, you know it is.
No. That’s a lie. I know the sky is blue. I know my name is Ellis. I know I’m second in line. But I don’t know what’s going to happen, I don’t know what I don’t know, it’s lying to me.
What if the school put you on some government watch list, what if you’re on the no-fly list—
What if, what if, what if? What if I just didn’t listen? What if I heard it—because I don’t think it’ll ever really be silent—but what if I just didn’t listen?
I’m first in line. The ID checker beckons me forward, and I go with a smile, ticket and passport in hand. He waves me through the checkpoint without a second look, and the gate agents even smile at me as I board the five fifteen direct to Oakland.
My middle seat doesn’t offer much of a view outside, especially since my window seat neighbor has the screen shut. We’re getting closer to home with every passing second, and I can almost feel the change in the recycled airplane air. The plane bumps and bounces over the Sierra Nevadas.
The plane’s going to crash and you’re doing to die.
I hear it, every word. But I try to hear it like white noise, sounds that can fade into the background of my mind. Just because I hear it, doesn’t mean I have to listen.
How pathetic would it be to die in a plane crash just hours before doomsday? You’re going to crash and die.
I might. But probably not. It’s so unlikely. Everything’s okay. I focus on those words until they’re the ones I hear.
Probably not, so unlikely, everything’s okay. Probably not, so unlikely, everything’s okay.
“Folks, an update from the flight deck,” the captain says over the intercom. “We’re just about to begin our final descent into Oakland. Might be a bit of a bumpy landing—looks like they’ve got some snow.”
There’s murmurs throughout the plane.
“Snow in the Bay,” says the businessman in the aisle seat next to me. “Can you believe it?”
“I always did,” I reply. He frowns at me, then goes back to his book.
Abandoning propriety, I lean across the sleeping man in the window seat and push up the screen.
Outside, the sun is setting.
Outside, there are snowflakes, perfect and fragile and real, falling from the sky.
Here are some things I will miss when the world ends:
An ice-cold cone from Yogurt Park, so big it threatens to topple
Sitting in the Park with my back up against Hannah’s tree, Tal beside me
Telegraph Avenue on a warm Saturday afternoon, smelling like incense and good food and home
I make this list in my head as I crisscross a snowy downtown Berkeley. It probably isn’t the smartest thing to do, wander aimlessly out in the open as a criminal. Because yes, running away from home when you’re a minor technically is a crime. I’ve looked into it. I didn’t really run away from home, though. I only ran back. But I doubt the police would appreciate the distinction, so I keep my hood up as I wander on an endless quest for a pay phone.
I finally find one in the Berkeley YMCA. Just up the street from school. Right back where I started. The very first thing I did after the cab dropped me off—several blocks away, in case my parents were already tracking my credit card—was break into my high school. Or, really, just walk inside, thanks to the staff party apparently raging in the C-building teachers’ lounge. I crept down the second-floor hallway as quiet as I could, to the very last locker bay and my unauthorized second locker. Three turns of the lock, and I had my emergency bag. Enough food for three days, if you ration carefully. A space blanket. A first-aid kit the size and weight of a hardcover book. A flashlight.
In the YMCA, I dump both backpacks against the wall and dig change out of my wallet for the pay phone. I’ve never used one before, so it takes a couple of tries and about three dollars, but finally, I hear ringing on the other line, and I will the universe to let him pick up.
“Hello?”
Just hearing his voice makes me want to crumble. “It’s me.”
A pause, an inhale, a recognition. “Ellis?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh my God,” Tal says. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Okay, good.” He breathes out. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry about what I said at my house, I didn’t know—”
“I know,” I tell him softly. “It’s okay, I know.”
“I was wondering when you’d call. When they’d let you. They didn’t send you to one of those troubled teen places, did they?”
“What? No.”
“Utah’s full of them.”
“How did you know I was in Utah?”
“I asked my sister to ask your sister. She said you’d gone to Utah, but wouldn’t say more than that.”
“Oh.”
“It must be boring as hell. And cold as shit. Is it snowing there?”
“I, um. I don’t know.”
There’s a beat as it dawns on him.
“Where are you calling from?”
“A pay phone.”
“Jesus Christ, Ellis, a pay phone where?”
His exasperation makes me want to laugh and sob at the same time. “Here. I’m home.”
“Berkeley?” he says. “You’re in Berkeley?”
I nod, then realize he can’t see that. “Yeah.”
Another beat.
“Did your parents bring you home?” he asks. I chew the inside of my cheek and say nothing. “Does anyone know that’s where you are?”
“Just you.”
There’s a scuffling sound on the other end. “I’m coming to get you.”
“No,” I say, then again, louder, because I can tell he’s moving around, maybe grabbing his keys. “No, I have to—you can’t come get me.”
“You don’t have to go home,” he promises. “You can stay with me and my dad, we’ll figure it out, we’ll—”
“It’s snowing!” I yell into the phone. “Tal. It’s snowing.”
I hear him sit down with a thump. “I know,” he says carefully. “I know what you think that means, Sam showed me that flyer you put up, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“This is the first snow in years. The first real snow, more than an inch, since the nineteenth century. They said so on the newscast.”
“You ran away because of a newscast?”
“I ran back,” I counter. “I wanted to see it.”
“There’s nothing to see!” he protests. “This isn’t the apocalypse, and Hannah never should have told you it was. She knows that, believe me, she feels so terrible for doing it. But this is a freak snowstorm, nothing else. What do you think you’ll see?”
“She said I had to be with her,” I tell Tal. “I know a lot of it was lies, but I don’t think that was. She said I had to be with her or it would all go wrong. I know you don’t believe me, I know you don’t believe at all, but I have to be there.”
He sighs, deep and heavy. “I’ll go with you,” he says. “Tell me where.”
I almost do. I almost do, because I’m scared, and I miss him, and I trust him not to tell anyone else. But my breath catches in my windpipe, itchy and gnawing, so I cough instead.
“Ellis,” he says. “Just tell me where.”
“I can’t,” I say. I think this moment was meant for me and Hannah, alone. I’d assumed we couldn’t get any converts because I made a terrible missionary and Hannah made a worse prophet, but maybe . . . maybe we weren’t meant to convert anyone. Maybe even our failure was meant to be.
“You don’t have any survival gear,” Tal says, trying to reason his way out of an unreasonable situation, as always. “If it’s really the end of the world as we know it, you’ll die. Wherever you’re going, you won’t make it.”
I don’t tell him about my emergency bag. “I’ll be okay.”
“You’re really going to do this?”
“Yes.”
I wait for him to yell at me. I wait for him to plead with me. I wait for him to threaten to call the police, or my parents, or my bishop. He’s quiet for a very long time, and I almost think the call’s been dropped, when finally he says:
“I will be here.” My heart bursts under my ribs. “I will be here when the world doesn’t end. I will be here even if it does. Even if I’m frozen in a block of ice, when you want to find me, you’ll know where to go.” His voice cracks. “Right?”
“Yes,” I say, more a sob than a word.
“You’ll come find me?”
“I’ll come find you,” I say. “I promise.”
And that’s when the call really does drop.
One more thing I will miss when the world ends: the smell of books.
Very old books, like the ones that used to be in Grammy Kit’s house, smell like tree trunks and smoke and vanilla extract. Brand-new ones smell crisp and clean, like ink and dryer sheets mixed together. If you research it, which I have, you’ll learn the vanilla smell comes from the lignin in the wood paper, a complex polymer close to vanillin. The dryer sheet smell is probably the finisher they use in production. Those are the facts, and facts do matter. But when you’re inhaling that scent for what might be the last time, facts barely matter at all.
Even in the library computer room, I can still smell the books. Faintly, from far away, but there. That smell, the one that’s cocooned and calmed me since the first day I toddled into a library and scooped up as many books as I could carry, that smell is still there. I fill my lungs with it as I read through my email one last time.
