California(28)

The Calabasas Community wasn’t its own city, not yet, but it had exploited a loophole: it ran its own schools, funded its own police force and firefighters, and anyone hired to protect and work within its borders either had to be related by blood to one of its residents or pass a rigorous application process. But nobody knew how to apply because the details weren’t on its website. Calabasas was apparently pouring money into alternative energies; it’d be the first carbon-neutral and energy-independent Community in California, which would make it even more attractive to prospective residents who were sick of blackouts and high energy bills.

The politicians understood that these were the constituents who mattered. Hardly anyone outside the Communities voted anymore. It didn’t seem to make a difference. Some people were waiting for the Communities to become their own sovereign states. It was only a matter of time, people said. Micah hated to hear this. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion, he said. They could fight it.

Cal had simply thrown himself into his gardening projects. He argued that if the rich forsook them, the country might be better off. “Maybe I’ll run for office,” he said, holding up a basket of onions. “I’ll run on a vegetable platform.”

He was joking, but Frida thought what Cal was doing made sense. He taught people how to grow their own food. This was necessary. After all, his expertise had kept them alive.

Cal would never let them go hungry, Frida thought now. He’d gotten them this far.

She lifted the dress out of the creek, and was surprised by how heavy the water had made it. Laying the dress across a rock, she grabbed Cal’s pants, faded and dirty at the knees and still cuffed at the hems. Such a sweet sight, his clothing, wrinkled and wet, removed from his body. Even when things got difficult between them, doing Cal’s laundry made Frida feel a love so tender she could weep.

The Group never took responsibility for that first kidnapping. It was obvious they were behind the stunt, though, and for an entire month Frida and her family didn’t hear from Micah. Her parents had no idea what was going on, but they were too busy struggling with Dada’s diminishing career and the cost of living to worry too much about him. Besides, he’d never been great at keeping in touch with them; and when he did swing by, he’d bring liquor and a crate of potatoes, and they’d be delighted, tripping over themselves with gratitude.

“They probably think he’s doing summer stock,” Cal joked.

Four weeks into Micah’s disappearance, Frida had walked to the east side for answers. She didn’t dare drive; the lines at the gas station were long, and it would’ve taken a week’s worth of wages to pay for the trip. Besides, she didn’t want Cal to know what she was up to. To this day, she’d kept it a secret.

She had turned onto Echo Park and walked a block when a man had approached her, empty-handed but imposing. “Can I help you?” he’d asked.

“I’m a friend of Toni’s,” she said, and the man looked at her closely before nodding. He whistled once, loudly, and suddenly there was her brother’s girlfriend, calling from the window above.

Toni lived on the second floor of a ramshackle duplex that overlooked Echo Park’s now-drained lake. The lake’s old bridge was gone, maybe burned for firewood, as were the pedal boats. Frida had been born too late to see the lotus flowers, which had once floated across the water’s surface.

“Where is he?” Frida had asked Toni as soon as they were face-to-face. “Is he okay?”

Of course Toni wouldn’t tell her anything, at least not there, not with other Group members in the living room behind her and hanging around on the porch below.

Looking back, Frida realized the Group had established a nascent encampment, even then. Everyone on that block was a member of the Group. That guy who had whistled for Toni was protecting their space. Already they were patrolling that part of town. Already they’d put people to work to improve their surroundings. Frida had nodded to the women in the empty lake who were picking up debris with yellow dishwashing gloves on their hands. She wondered if they were the same women who flirted with her brother. Toni had only smiled at the view. “We’re all about beautification.” Then she said Frida should go.

The next day, Micah showed up at Frida and Cal’s door with a party blower in his mouth. He blew into the mouthpiece, and the striped plastic unfurled into a straight line with a crunch that made Frida’s stomach tighten.

“You aren’t dead,” she said, and let him inside.

She did not give him the satisfaction of asking about the kidnapping.

That had been a rough time, Frida thought now, not even counting the collapsing economy, the nights without power or heat. Thank God for the weather in L.A. and the tiny apartment she and Cal had moved into; they kept each other warm. It was rough because of Micah’s secretive life, and her parents’ ignorance—their denial—of it; because of Cal’s disdainful remarks about her brother, whom she felt a compulsive need to defend, and because of Toni and Micah’s arguments: the damage of those fights trailed them like a pack of hungry dogs. And then Canter’s closed, and Frida couldn’t bake anymore. And then she and Cal had even less money. The day she brought home loaves of stale bread for the last time, her hairnet balled in her back pocket like some useless currency, she’d thought it couldn’t get much worse.

But it could, and it did.