California(58)

“Can Frida leave early?” Micah asked Anika, who nodded and took Frida’s knife out of her hand. Strands of purple cabbage hung like party streamers from the blade.

“Leave it to me,” Anika said. “I’ll clean it up.” This was not the same woman who had gotten all huffy about the beans on Frida’s first shift.

They left through the back door. Construction on the new outdoor oven would begin soon, perhaps beautifying this dry lot of soil behind the Hotel. Until then, there were only the outhouse and a large fire pit dug into the dirt. The day before, Anika and Burke had used the pit to roast rabbit; the animals had been caught in rusted-out traps that almost everyone was worried about. Burke claimed that the contraptions wouldn’t last through the year, and Fatima had accused him of being an alarmist.

Morning Labor ended at lunch, but Frida had recently learned that some people spent the afternoons rotating through optional jobs like hunting, foraging, trapping, and composting. There was also construction of the Forms. Frida had wanted to join that group, but Sailor said it was by invitation only. He told her they could help with plumbing, if she wanted, which meant getting rid of human waste: cleaning bedpans, digging new latrines. “Everyone’s favorite,” he said. If not, she should just take it easy. He said most people had their afternoons off. “We value leisure time here,” he said, “and the boredom of a slow life.”

Weeds scraped at Frida’s ankles as she followed Micah. It was still warm out, and Fatima had lent her a pair of sandals. They were a size too big, though, and with each step they slipped off her ankles and slapped the ground, bringing up dust that settled under her heels. Micah seemed to sense she was having trouble keeping up and slowed down.

“I was afraid we’d never get to hang out,” she said when she’d reached him.

“Really?” He turned to her. “I didn’t mean for you to think that.” He pointed across the meadow to the untended land that bordered the Spikes. The Forms, she reminded herself.

“Let’s head for the shade,” he said.

“Are you going to murder me there?”

“Looks spooky, I know,” he said, with a laugh. “But I promise, they’re just like any other woods around these parts.”

They passed the large garden, which had all the same vegetables she and Cal grew, though far more of them. There were also kale and a kind of squash she didn’t recognize and what looked like a persimmon tree, lying dormant. She saw Sailor bent over the plants and wondered why Cal hadn’t volunteered for that team.

“I hear your husband’s on the brick headache,” Micah said, and tapped his forehead, making his straw hat wobble. It looked like his beard had been trimmed, if only by an inch or so. Or maybe it was the same length, and for once it had just failed to shock her.

“I think they’re almost ready to build the oven,” she replied.

They kept walking. A group of people was heading with buckets to one of the Land’s three wells, and Micah waved to them. She guessed they were on housekeeping.

Once they’d passed the camping area, where people could come to sleep outdoors, Micah asked, “How is it?”

“How’s what?”

“Being married?”

“It’s good,” she said. “I mean, I don’t exactly notice it anymore.”

“It can’t be as natural as breathing.”

She wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “No, I guess not. But we’ve been together for a long time. You know that.”

“It was just you two out there.”

Frida nodded. Should she bring up the Millers?

They had reached the lip of the woods. There were Spikes—Forms—bookending this section of trees, and probably beyond it, too far away for Frida to see from where she stood. Micah stepped aside and swept his arm across the space before them like a circus ringmaster.

“Cal’s dream come true,” he said.

“These woods?” Frida said, but she already knew what he meant.

“No. The two of you, the end of the world.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged. “Just that Cal has always preferred you above all others.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” She walked ahead, into the trees, as if she weren’t afraid of the darkness there, the branches that might cut her.

He only let her lead the way for a few seconds, and then he moved in front of her. As with Sailor in the Spikes—The Forms, she told herself again—Micah somehow knew his way through this dense forest. If you looked hard enough, if you were willing to step over bushes and dead trees, you could discern a path.

“Is August coming from this direction?” Frida asked.

He shook his head. “He can’t get the carriage through, so he has to go around.”

Micah was wearing the same green Polo shirt he’d had on the day they’d arrived, and Frida tried not to look too hard at it. It would only bring back that first day again, and she couldn’t revisit that. If she did, she might lose her footing or stop speaking or hyperventilate. Sometimes breathing wasn’t natural. Instead, she kept her eyes on a piece of loose straw, flapping from the brim of his hat. Perhaps because she couldn’t see Micah’s face, she felt emboldened to ask him questions.

“So August told you I was out here,” she said.