Stardawn (3 page)

“I’m sure we’ll find you the perfect job.”

When I didn’t smile, he nodded, lifting up his hand to indicate the door.

“You can go now, Alyana.”

I did, watching them warily as I rose from my chair and pushed it back beneath the table. But when I closed the door behind me, I hesitated, pressing my ear to the narrow slit of light.

Their voices came back muffled, but I could hear the concern in them. For me, or for them?

“. . . never showed any behavioral abnormalities before. . . .”

“Still,” the mustached man’s voice rose up with a rumble, “there’s the issue of her mother.”

Momme? What did Momme have to do with all of this? I did my best to listen, but their words were jumbled; they made no sense.

“We should be sure to match her to a Council-loyal citizen if we’re to ensure she doesn’t get led astray.”

Yada yada yada, their voices went on and on. I stood in that hallway, the little children passing me on their way to the restroom, and felt my stomach drop down somewhere to near my feet. You were telling the truth, weren’t you, Benny? Oh, I didn’t mean to doubt you. I just didn’t want to believe it.

I still don’t,
was what I thought as I returned to my classroom and lowered myself into my seat. My girlfriends turned to me, smiling bright.

“How’d it go?”

But I didn’t answer them. Couldn’t. My eyes were on Mazdin Rafferty as he rose from
his
seat and headed toward the door.

Mazdin Rafferty. His scores are abysmal, and we all know it. Always distracted by girls, by the cruel games he and his friends play. Writing all of our names on a list. Ranking us by our “assets.” My teacher has taken to warning him in the past year: “Watch it, Mazdin. An attitude like that and you’ll be stuck digging ditches soon.”

But his attitude doesn’t matter, and his scores don’t either, do they, Benny?

Because he’ll be a doctor. A vocation the Council will
steal
for him, right out of the hands of someone who deserves it. That’s why you and your friends cornered him in the dome. Because of the injustice of it. Because he is
taking
that job from a better, smarter man.

It doesn’t mean that you should have lost your temper, you and those friends of yours. When I looked at Mazdin, I could see the scar that still healed on his lip, the slight shadow under one eye. You shouldn’t have let yourself get swept up in the tide of your anger, no matter how fierce. I want to believe that your friends talked you into it, that they’re wild boys, rougher than you—but who am I kidding?

Because today, sitting at my desk, I felt sick with rage. My friend Sheila asked me what was wrong, setting her hands over mine. I swallowed hard, made myself smile at her. You told me not to tell anyone, so I didn’t. I’ll always keep your secrets. I hope you know that. I hope you’ll keep mine.

I hope . . . I hope you’re wrong. I hope that at the Vocation Ceremony, Mazdin gets the grunt job he deserves, and I . . .

I don’t even know what I want, Benny. Not really, not anymore.

Yours,

Alyana

58th Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing

Benny,

I didn’t expect you to come to the ceremony today.

But I felt you there, in the captain’s stateroom, well before I saw you. We filed in, garbed in our best dresses and suits, our hands folded gravely in front of us. I think the rest of them kept their fingers clenched tight so that they seemed more stately, more adult. But mine? They wouldn’t stop shaking. I’d been preparing for this day for years and years—ever since I first set foot in school. Everything in my life was coalescing toward one point. Here, beneath the stars. I should have been happy, but I wasn’t. Couldn’t be. Except for a warmth deep in my belly. Why?

You, it was you. You stood at the back of the room with your friends. They snickered and joked, but you sat forward in your seat, watching keenly. My eyes caught yours and my hands grew still. I let them fall against my hips. Walked taller, prouder toward the front of the room. Even if the Vocation Ceremony was a sham, even if my whole damn life was a lie, I had something perfect, something true.

You.

My parents were somewhere in the crowd. Eitan and his intended, too. I couldn’t have cared less about them, or the captain, prattling on about the new future ahead. Your eyes were amber beams, burning into me. You looked . . . guilty, Benny. Your unruly eyebrows all knitted up. And then I remembered what I’d written in my last letter. You probably thought it was all your fault, didn’t you? That you’d ruined me, somehow, by spilling the Council’s secrets.

Well, it’s true that before you told me of their plans, I’d been innocent. No, that’s not right. I’d been
naive
. And now I wasn’t. Sometimes knowledge goes down hard as stale bread. One day you’re a little kid who thinks that anything is possible. Why, the captain was just a girl once, wasn’t she? That’s what our teacher said, that someday one of us might rise in the ranks, become captain too. But then you learn that it’s not true. Not everyone is fit to fly this ship. Not in the eyes of the Council.

It’s hard to accept, at first. It hurts to know that your life might be smaller than you had once dreamed. But it’s the
truth
, Benny. How are we ever supposed to find happiness if we don’t know the truth—the shape of the ship around us and our lives ahead? I’d rather live with you here, in the real world, than fly a thousand stupid spaceships.

I smiled at you. You saw it—I know you did, from the way that you let your eyes dart sideways, to see if your friends noticed; from the way that the skin on your cheekbones and neck darkened a shade. But you didn’t know why I smiled. It was a secret smile, just for you. I wanted you to know that I was all right—that I would be all right, as long as we faced our future
together
. I want you to know that there is nothing scary or dark or terrible in the whole universe as long as we stand side by side. It was easy to stand up there, and lift my chin high and smile, even as Mazdin Rafferty stole a scroll marked with blue, even as Arran Fineberg heard
his
work assignment—clock keeper, a specialist job; he’s been sucking up to the vocational counselors for weeks—and let out a hoot, and the captain clapped him on the shoulder as though proud, and called him “son.” As if it wasn’t all part of some plan of the captain’s. As if it was something Arran had earned, and not some scrap the Council had thrown down to the rest of us. I could know the canker at the root of this ceremony and grin and grin through it, all because of you.

I still grinned when he called my name and told me I’d be a baker. I kept my eyes on you even as my mother’s gasp rose up over the applause. It took me a moment to register why this would be such a shock to her. Momme is often angry, but I don’t know that I’ve ever really seen her like that—mouth opened so wide, I thought she might cry.

I went to rejoin my classmates. Only then did I break my gaze from yours, as I worked my thumbnail underneath the seal and read the cursive that was written there, under my name and my work assignment, under the captain’s loping signature. At 0900 hours tomorrow I’m to report to Miriam Jacobi’s bakery.
Your mother
, Benny. And the woman mine hates most in a world she sees as almost entirely hostile. Oh, it was hard to smile then. But what choice did I have?

None. No choice at all.

I want you to know that I saw you hovering there, as my mother and father talked at me after the ceremony. I wanted you beside me, to lace my fingers up in yours, to press my face against your shoulder. To kiss you again, easily this time, like it was an old habit. But I think it’s good you kept away. Momme’s nostrils flared as she talked. She drank too much wine and spilled more of it on the marble than she did in her mouth. She kept talking about your mother.

“I hope you know better than to worry about what
that woman
has to say about the world! She’s to teach you only baking, do you hear me? And nothing else!”

I looked at her, nodded quickly. Drank down my cup of wine. What else was there to do except to flash my gaze at you just as you were getting ready to go? Did you see me? You looked so handsome with your hair brushed back, standing among your friends. I could tell that you shaved today. Your cheeks looked soft and clean. I wanted to kiss them, to taste your skin. Your mouth. Was it for me? Did you know that I would see you and think about how handsome you are?

Well, now you do. Now you know that I watched as you and your boys walked together toward the lift. They let out drunken hoots and howls. But you walked real slow, like every step mattered. I wish I could have been walking beside you. Wish I could have been anywhere but
there
, with Momme’s rage sucking all the air from the room.

Yours,

Alyana

59th Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing

Benny,

Thank you for walking me home today. I’m sorry I wasn’t my usual, yammering self. I don’t think I’ve ever been so
tired
before. Your mother had me running from oven to oven from dawn until the time you pushed through the bakery door. At first, I was sure that the chime meant just another customer. I got ready to be set to task once again. But instead, your mother only poked her head back through the kitchen door, grinning like a child.

“Quitting time. And you have a visitor,
talmid
.”

And there you were. Your curls were damp on your forehead in the heat of the kitchen. Are those ovens ever
not
running, Benny? I guess I’ll learn the answer soon. But even you looked a little wilted there, and you’d only just arrived! Your smile was soft. Sheepish. It was so
hard
to resist falling into your arms, tangling up my fingers with yours, grabbing the hair at the nape of your neck and kissing you deep. But I did resist, as I gathered my coat and my things, and bade your mother good night.

I think you saw how her eyes gleamed at us. Does she . . . does she
know
?

It shouldn’t horrify me, but it does, just a little. Not because we’ve done anything wrong. Of course we haven’t. It’s only natural for a young man and woman to find each other like we have. But my mother . . . she came to me last night, after I had written you that letter. Apologized for losing her temper, as she always does, at the ceremony. I watched her sit beside my bed, the woman who had once read me bedtime stories. In the yellow lamplight of my room, her face was now creased with frown lines. Wrinkles. It was the first time, I think, I ever saw her look old.

She licked her lips before she spoke. Slowly, like every word pained her.

“Miriam is not a bad woman,” she said. Her voice was husky. With tears, or with the last bits of drunkenness? “We were dear to each other once. You remember.”

Of course I do. We spent every festival day at your house, or your family at ours. Our mothers bathed us together when we were hardly more than infants. I remember, though I must have been so
tiny
then, the way those two women laughed together. Splashing us. Singing us songs.

“What happened?” I asked. It was a brave question. I’ve never asked her that before. Never asked Tateh. Never asked you. I remember the fight, of course. The way your mother stormed away with you in tow. But I never knew
why
.

Momme didn’t answer for a long time. Finally she reached down and brushed my hair from my face.

“Philosophical differences” was what she said.

She stood. Clicked off the light. Shut the door. Like I was a little girl. But I’m not anymore. You know that.

And your mother does too. If I asked, would she tell me what bad blood once boiled up between two best friends? Has she told you? Do
you
know? Does it have something to do with what you told me about the Council?

I distract myself with questions. I have so many, and none of them important. Because what I really wonder is, what would my Momme do if she knew how I feel about you?

Because tonight, we stood in the lamplight at the end of my street. My arms were dusted with flour, my nails caked with dough. My eyelids were so heavy, I could hardly lift them. But that didn’t matter. You gathered me in your arms, held me close. I pressed my ear to your chest and listened to your heart beat. I was so tired, more tired than I’ve ever been before. And yet I could have stayed there all night with you. It didn’t matter that my neighbors passed us on their way home from work—that little boy from around the corner walked by with his dog and let out a whoop at the sight of us. You only laughed, gentle, sweet laughter. So I kissed you. First soft, then harder. Filled with new life because of you.

I can’t let you be a secret. You’re too good, Benny. I want to tell the whole ship, to write it in the dome glass, to let the clock chimes call out your name. How did we ever let the drama of our mothers tear us apart? We should never have allowed it.

And I won’t. Not again. Not anymore. Momme and Miriam can have as many “philosophical differences” as they’d like. But they’ll never keep me away from you.

Yours,

Alyana

75th Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing

Benny,

These are the things I like about you:

I like the way your hand feels when you hold mine in it, dry as paper, soft as sleep. I like the way your thumb touches my knuckles, like it can’t quite believe that I’m there beside you, that I’m yours. I like the way you turn to me, your eyes sparkling with that meager hope. Once, when we were young, I thought you knew everything there was to know about our little world, the ship around us, our fates and lives ahead. I like how, when you look at me, I see that assurance unsettled. I like that you never expected me, expected us, how you laughed when you realized how I feel about you, how I’ve
always
felt about you. What, did you think me nothing more than a silly girl? There’s always been a gravity inside me, Benny, just as heavy as the one we feel inside our ship. It was the part of me that wanted to talk about books, to sit in trees, to close my eyes and be alone, to think. It was the part of me that was the least like Momme, and nothing like Eitan, either. There is a quiet inside me. I like the way you match it.