California(60)

“I can’t believe you just said ‘Don’t be typical’ to me.”

“Now you know how it feels to see a ghost.” She smiled. “Brings you back, doesn’t it?”

He looked bashful for the first time since she’d arrived.

She picked up his empty cup and swiped at its bottom with her index finger, then brought her finger to her mouth. The liquor tasted sour as vomit.

“Ugh,” she said. “You must be really desperate to drink this.”

“Maybe,” he replied. “You know how it is, not having all the things we used to have.”

“Tell me about it!”

Cal never wanted to gripe about what they were missing from the old life. He said talking only made the loss more palpable, the absence more glaring. He said it was a form of self-punishment.

Micah seemed to agree with Cal, because he didn’t go on. Instead, he took off his hat and ran his hands through his scraggly hair. Frida was glad she couldn’t see the top of his head, that bare spot. Micah looked more like her with his hair long, and she realized she was proud of this. It would help with the Vote.

“I want to know why you did it,” Frida said.

Micah raised an eyebrow.

“Stop with that phony face,” she said. “Tell me.”

He sighed. “Look at it this way: no one’s looking for me, are they? The police, Homeland Security, they were idiots. Or, I don’t know, maybe they were just underfunded. They got a piece of me, tested my blood. They had a piece of clothing my poor family could identify. They had enough to close the case, and they did.”

“‘My poor family.’ Listen to you. There have to be easier ways to disappear.”

“I was the head of the Group by then. One of them, anyway. You had to have known.”

Did she? She supposed she should have. “So what?” she said.

“What I did, or what I pretended to do, proved we were serious. Not only to you and everyone outside, but to our own members, the little shits who’d started skulking around only because they’d heard we might feed them.” He shook his head and put his hat back on. “My stunt proved we were in control. For the first time, people were scared of us, really scared of us. Until that day, no one important cared about what happened outside the Communities.”

“I hate to say it,” Frida said, “but they still don’t care. But maybe you knew that all along, and that’s why you didn’t actually commit suicide. Maybe you were too chickenshit to do it for real.”

He smiled. “That’s beside the point, don’t you see? My stunt, whether real or not, freaked out the Communities, and it got us new members. Good ones. People saw we could be powerful.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“Within a month we’d expanded our encampment by a mile.”

“But what about the guy who really did blow himself up? He died anonymously for your…cause? Just like that?”

“Better that than to die pathetically, ignobly.” He looked at her. “Isn’t that how Hilda put it? I read the websites. I read what she thought of me and what I’d done.”

Frida felt the old anger feathering in her chest. “You know she came to terms with it. They both did. They had to.”

“I suppose,” Micah said.

They were silent. Micah’s words filled Frida’s head—my poor family. That was all they were to him. Three people he could dupe.

“Frida?”

“How are they? Do you hear from them?”

“Ah,” he said, grinning. “See? That’s what you really want to know.”

“Just tell me. Are they okay?”

The day Hilda and Dada moved to the Group’s encampment, Frida said she was disgusted. “I know you’re scared out here, I get that,” she’d told them. “I know they’ve promised to keep you safe, that you won’t have to worry about money. They’ll probably treat you like royalty. But they took Micah from us. Doesn’t that matter?” When her parents wouldn’t answer, she told them of her and Cal’s plan. “We’re getting out of L.A. as soon as we can.”

“Don’t be stupid,” her mother had said. “You have to stay.”

That’s when her father had called her a traitor, for leaving willingly. Frida didn’t say that Micah was the real traitor. She wouldn’t.

Her mother had hugged her goodbye and said, “Enjoy the air out there.” Her father had hung back, saying nothing.

The Group had welcomed Hilda and Dada to join them and partake in their resources. They would make sure they were safe and that they’d never go hungry. After all, their son had died for the cause. All the Group asked for in return was the house, which they’d dismantle for parts, and the land, which they’d use for who knew what. Frida didn’t want the property; she didn’t care about inheritance and all that. The pain she felt at their leaving for the encampment was about something else. She was losing everyone. Cal had been trying to convince her to leave L.A. for months, but it wasn’t until her parents told her of their plan that she agreed to go. There was no reason to stay.

“I haven’t been in touch, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Micah said. “But the encampment stretches to downtown now. And there’s another one planned. This time, near the beach.” He paused. “I’m sure they’re fine. Better than fine.”