California(120)

“Not everything can be luxurious,” she’d told them when Frida made a joke about Cal’s khakis. The hems were uneven. People said the same about the lack of hot water and the days when their electricity shut off completely. Residents knew ahead of time when the lights wouldn’t work, but still, it was shocking to sit in the dark in their big new house. It made Frida afraid, just a little. Pines wasn’t perfect; things were running out here, too. Mostly, she didn’t worry, though; almost every day, the newsletter mentioned advances in alternative energy. They’d find a way.

That day at the center, Toni had stirred honey into her tea. They sat by the window, which overlooked yet another park, this one studded with benches and large outdoor sculptures. A man and his son were flying a kite that looked like a strawberry.

“In Phoenix,” Toni said, “they’ve got a Community that has a haberdashery and a man to make your shoes. But everyone lives in these terrible apartments, clearly designed by a cheapskate.”

She smiled and lifted her mug; it was one of those ceramic ones without handles, and Toni held it gingerly. It seemed the only thing she approached with hesitation.

It had been a shock to see her. She wasn’t the same person Frida had known years ago. Toni’s hair was cut to chin length and dyed light blond, and she sounded different, too: her voice bright and cheery. People kept approaching her, to say hello, to say they wanted a meeting with her, and she kept passing out her business card, nodding to her assistant Gregory, who sat across the room, writing in a notepad. She was in charge of Citizen Compliance and Outreach. Frida had said it sounded like a big job, but Toni had only shrugged, fake modestly.

“Do you still go running?” Frida had asked her as they stood up to leave.

For a moment, Toni looked like she’d been slapped. And then she smiled. “Oh dear, not since middle school, I don’t think.” She held her gaze on Frida, as if to say, Watch it, and Frida had nodded, trying her best to smile. August had told her to pretend they’d never met Toni. “Ms. Marles,” he’d called her, right before they approached Pines. Frida should have listened; it was na?ve to think she could get her friend back.

Now it was only Cal who saw Toni, at work Downtown. He was advising on a number of matters, including the nutrition thing, but mostly he was helping to design courses for Pines University. The school would soon open its doors to citizens from neighboring Communities, should there be spots open. The Communities were interacting more and more every year. It was the only way to maintain safety, and their trade programs made them more alluring to prospective clients.

Frida hadn’t asked Cal anything else about his job, or about Toni’s, though she was curious how Toni was allowed to hold such a prestigious position in a Community so obsessed with the idea of women being homemakers. Cal had told her that Toni was married to her work, but Frida wondered if the real reason Toni was single was because she still held a torch for Micah. Or maybe she and Micah were still an item. Possibly, but Frida didn’t bring it up with Cal. If anyone at Pines were to ask her for information, she wouldn’t have any; if she were truly ignorant, she’d be better off.

Cal was still singing from the closet. It made her think of Rachel, belting it out at the campfire. They were probably all happy that the winter had turned out so mild, and that spring was just around the bend. She wondered how Anika was doing. She wanted to believe the place had returned to normal, that she and Cal had been forgotten.

She pictured Peter cooking on the outdoor stove at the Millers’ place. And then she imagined her brother, standing on the Church stage. He was alive, but she had to pretend he wasn’t. She wanted to pretend that. It was the price she paid for this large, sunny room with its fluffy cream-colored carpeting, its big bed, with side tables to match. Or no: the price was the mild but nagging guilt she felt every morning, waking to this new life.

Frida sat up. If Cal was going to emerge from the walk-in closet fully dressed, maybe even with his shoes on, she should at least drink some water and chew a piece of Refresh! so that she didn’t have morning breath. She swung her legs to the side of the bed and placed a hand on her stomach, which was so big and round it looked silly, like she’d swallowed a globe. The veins beneath her skin were like river lines on a map. Her belly button had popped weeks ago. The baby danced inside of her.

She thought of Ogden. Every time she passed a herd of schoolchildren, she imagined him among them. Sometimes she even pictured him living on this street, riding the trolley with his adoptive mother, getting lunches at school. He was doing well; he had to be.

When Frida saw someone in the telltale navy-blue uniform, spraying vomit off the sidewalk or cleaning the public bathrooms, she thought of the older kids who had been brought from the Land. They were Hatters now, and one day they’d be wearing these uniforms, doing these jobs.

Frida had seen the Center at Pines just once. It was a big beige building on the south side of the Community, surrounded by well-manicured trees and a sloping lawn too radiant to be real, as unscathed and bereft of human commotion as a corporate office park. The newsletter sometimes did stories about the Center, about the services the Hatters were learning to keep Pines clean and running smoothly, and Frida kept waiting to see a group of them training with older workers. She hadn’t yet.

She hoped the kids from Pines were okay at the Center, happy even.

Again, Frida thought of Mrs. Doyle’s son. What was he eating now? His had to be a terrible exile, wherever it was. She pictured that skinny dog they’d passed on the ride here. She and Cal, they were lucky. Frida knew she was thinking only of her own family, that she had begun to see them as special: separate from the rest of the world with all its attendant suffering and corruption. Maybe it was wrong, but it was the choice she had made.