California(85)

Neither woman spoke. Frida searched for something harmless to ask.

“You said you built more Forms?”

“We did. We hadn’t thought of them as security, as a gate to keep people out, until Micah suggested it. We also built the lookout Towers. We worked for months. Aside from using all the inessential stuff here on the Land to add to the Forms, August had begun leaving and coming back with discarded items for us to use. He was going to Pines—that’s when we found out about that. I remember my hands then; they were shredded from all the manual labor. I was glad the kids missed that.”

“You haven’t told me what happened to them. Where is your son?”

Anika looked like she might throw up, and Frida glanced at the window to check the dawn’s progress. The sun was about to rise. When Anika spoke, her voice was low and quiet. “It’s almost dawn. Morning Labor is about to start.”

“Just hurry and tell me now.”

Anika shook her head and grabbed the bowl of dough. “You can’t make me rush a story like that. Let’s knead this before it’s too late.”





16



At the morning meeting, they convened in a circle on the Church’s stage. It was so cold, they covered the icy metal chairs with blankets before sitting down. August had returned the night before; now he held a clipboard stuffed with yellowed loose-leaf paper and a pencil that he’d sharpened first with a knife and then, when that wasn’t quite sufficient, his teeth. Cal had to admit, the guy did look pretty tough gnawing at the lead. As usual, they spent half an hour reviewing Labor assignments, all of them outlined in August’s notes, and then Sailor told them about his meetings with the team leaders. Cal had been deemed a strong critical thinker by the construction team leader, though he was “unnervingly quiet.” Sailor raised an eyebrow at Cal as he said this. “And everyone in the kitchen loves your wife,” he added.

“What’s going on with the baking?” Micah asked.

“Please don’t stop them,” Sailor said quickly. “That coconut cake she made, and her sourdough? I mean—wow.”

“It didn’t occur to me that I should stop them,” Micah said. “As long as Frida wants to keep doing it, that is.”

“I’m sure Anika has a whole baking regimen in place—kneading, baking, calisthenics,” August said. “Poor Frida, I wouldn’t want to work for that woman.”

Cal wanted to say that his wife enjoyed her baking sessions with Anika, but he held himself back. Frida hadn’t had a friend in so long, not since Sandy Miller, and it was obvious that her time in the kitchen had helped her. To Cal, Anika seemed stiff and humorless, but Frida could draw out the fun in anyone. Hell, she’d done it with him.

“Makes me nervous,” Peter said, and Micah looked up at him quickly. Cal thought he detected a slight shake of Micah’s head, or maybe in his eyes, a speechless no. He wasn’t sure what they were worried about: that Frida would tell Anika about her pregnancy?

August changed the subject so deftly, Cal hardly caught that he was doing so. In moments they were onto other mundane matters: who wasn’t cleaning up after themselves in the Bath; what still needed to be done for winterizing; if there was enough meat on Snorts, one of the pigs, to butcher him.

When they got to questions of agriculture, Cal leaned forward. These past few days, he’d found himself loving this part of the meeting. It made him think of his job back in L.A., working with the volunteers to make sure the crops they’d planted were thriving.

“We want to reorganize the garden next spring,” Peter said, “but we have no real plan of action.”

Cal realized that everyone was looking at him.

“It’s a mess,” Dave said, and Sailor groaned. “If we lose another crop of lettuce, I’m going to—”

“Plus, the seeds,” August said.

“Sailor,” Micah said. “Tell Cal what you’ve got.”

He had heirloom seeds, Sailor explained, from his uncle in Charleston, South Carolina.

“Stuff you haven’t ever seen before, stuff that hasn’t been grown commercially for three, four hundred years,” he said. “He gave them to me when I left for Plank. I hoarded them when I first got there, don’t know why. But I brought them here. We should use them.”

Cal couldn’t help but feel giddy. He’d read about seeds like these.

“I’d be happy to take a look.”

The men, even Micah, beamed. That was it then: they needed a farmer for their Village People. This was why Cal had been invited into the circle of power.

They’d moved onto plumbing. There was a question of making the work mandatory for everyone, including themselves. “If we do it without complaint,” Peter said, “it’ll set an example.”

All the men begrudgingly agreed.

“The truth is,” August said, “the job can’t be voluntary anymore. Nobody wants to do it.”

“Latrine digging isn’t that bad, especially compared to maintaining the outhouse,” Dave said, and Micah held up a hand, wincing.

August turned to Cal. “This is glamorous, isn’t it?”

“Certainly is,” Cal replied, and August laughed.

Cal was relieved when the meeting ended. Even the discussion of security, plans to build three more Forms, and adding another man to the night shifts proved a snore. Part of him was glad the meeting had been so boring; he wouldn’t be compelled to talk about its tedium with Frida. When he’d finally learned about Pines two days earlier, about how August traded with them, Cal had been glad for the keep-quiet rule. It kept him from repeating to Frida what she might not be able to hear. It had been a relief.