You'll Like It Here (Everybody Does) (13 page)

But Colin says nothing.

I'm guessing it must be midnight when we reluctantly part, and only then because Mom reminds us that she and Gramps have been called to report to work at eight tomorrow morning. Gil, of course, has to go to his job at the TV station as well. So the Gilmores dutifully climb up through their trapdoor, and we promise to meet again tomorrow evening to sing in the darkness.

“I guess they're not robots after all,” Gramps says as we grope our way down the hallway to our bedrooms.

“Not tonight,” Mom agrees. “They were fun, and a breath of fresh air in this stuffy place.”

The next day, after my lessons are done, I take the Carriage computer out of the backpack in the closet, prop it up in the center of my bed, and do a search on Chroma. I find more than I can read at one sitting, so I begin with the Blue race. I have just settled in to read when I hear Colin and Jennifer in the living room. I put the computer away quickly and join them. A few days ago I was bored, with nothing to do, and now I wonder if there will be enough hours in the day.

Colin has brought the book he's so proud of, stashed under his shirt. It is, as he said, about wolves and the Land of the Fathers before the age of industrialization. There are no specifics in it, no names of places or people that we can relate to, and when we check to see when or where it was published, we find there's no information.

Mom and Gramps come home shortly after five o'clock. They say the work at the factory isn't hard, but it's repetitive and boring.

“And you're not allowed to call us there,” Mom says. “I'm sorry.” She closes her eyes briefly and bites her lip, then goes on, “So if you ever need help, you'll have to call Tom. That's part of his job.”

“When do you get a day off?” I ask.

They look at each other and say nothing.

“You have to work every single day?” David says. “How can they do that to you?”

“We'll be allowed days off when it's necessary to visit the health clinic, also to go to the park with you when it's our turn,” Gramps says.

“And that's all?” David sputters.

“As we told you,” Mom says, “the work's not difficult.”

But she can't disguise that gloomy look on her face. “We can stick with it for a little while,” Mom goes on, “until we figure out our next move.”

“Not to worry, Meggie B.,” Gramps tells me. “Let's consider Fashion City like one of those rest areas where we used to stop on the interstate. We are resting before we get back into our vehicle and move on.”

“I think they are afraid we might wind up in a worse place than this,” David later confides to me. “They know only the basics of programming the Carriage navigator.”

“But Mom was a really smart professor!” I protest. “Wasn't she trained to navigate the Carriage?”

“You probably don't remember, since you were only three,” David says, “but it was Gramps who took the training before we left Chroma. Mom was spending all her time with Dad in his last days.”

That bit of information makes me nervous, because I know Mom is the technology geek in our family, while Gramps is the artiste.

The next day, I search the computer and find a tutorial for the Carriage. Could I? Of course I could. Why not? Yes! I'm going to learn all by myself to navigate this space thingy, and you know what? I can do it, because
I
understand the language.

L
iving in the Land of the Fathers, we settled into routine. We don't feel the same bliss that Ulysses's men felt in their lotus stupor, but we are temporarily reconciled to the idea of living in this mundane world.

Mom and Gramps go to work early each day, while Meggie and I take care of the apartment and do the food shopping. We've learned that in Fashion City boys and girls our age are expected to develop homemaking skills in preparation for having a family someday. In the afternoons we obediently do our monotonous schoolwork. For some reason Meggie's class lasts longer than mine. Then we go for a walk with Colin and Jennifer, or if the weather is bad, we meet inside. Sometimes we go to their place, which is exactly like ours, but usually, just out of habit, we gather at our place.

Gil has decided that our night group will always meet
on our balcony, because he says it's inconsiderate to expect Mom and Gramps to climb up through the trapdoor. Sure, it's nice of him, but if he'd ever seen Mom and Gramps doing chin-ups or playing sports with me and Meggie, he'd know Mom is no buttercup and Gramps isn't feeble. Still, it's okay with us, so we let Gil be the gentleman and have his way.

Jennifer is a shining star in this otherwise dreary world. In fact, I'm torn between wanting to be with her and wanting to leave this place forever. Which do I want more? I can't say. I've been so wrapped up in her spell, it's taken me a while to notice Meggie's crush on Colin. As her big brother, I feel obligated to discourage her—for her own good, of course.

“You know, he's not interested in a girl your age,” I tell her one day.

“I'm little, but I'm old,” she says to me.

“That line was so much funnier when Dill said it in
To Kill a Mockingbird
,” I tell her, just to make her aware that I know those words are not original with her.

“You know what I mean,” she says. “Our minds are equal.”

I have to laugh at that. “Why, you haven't even achieved blue yet,” I remind her—once again.

“Blue means nothing to him,” she says. “Furthermore, you dork, it means nothing to me either. In this world, it'll only get you in trouble.”

I chuckle because I know she doesn't really feel that way. I'm not blind to her habit of checking the mirror two or three times a day. She's dying to see blue.

But Meggie's crush on Colin isn't nearly as hysterical as Gil's crush on Mom. He is sooo obvious, it's embarrassing. He picks up small gifts for her—chocolates, flowers, a fruit basket. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. And both of them pushing forty.

Occasionally we come across Bonnie, the woman next door who is afflicted with gross vacillation, and we see Tom each evening at lockdown, or when he's collecting schoolwork. Sometimes he brings our work back to us for corrections, but only when we've been careless. We'd have to be in a coma to have real problems with these classes.

We've met only a few of the other tenants in our building. Colin and Jennifer told us there aren't many young people living here, and no small children at all.

“As soon as a new baby is born, they move,” Jennifer explains. “Everybody but us seems to be moving up.”

Meggie doesn't care much for food shopping, and I certainly don't like dusting and vacuuming, so we trade off, and that's how I wind up doing most of the grocery shopping by myself.

Often Tammy pushes a few of the blue boxes into my hands. “Take some of these today,” she says with a goofy Lotus smile. “One Lotus for a difference you'll notice.”

I accept them because I feel like I can't refuse. Mom tells me not to pick up the stuff on my own, but if it's offered, I should accept. We've collected so many boxes, we have nowhere to store them, and when you open a kitchen cabinet, they come tumbling down on you.

One evening Meggie mentions that Gil eats Lotus like it's candy.

“Maybe it's because he's in ‘luv,' ” I say, and I'm surprised to see Mom blushing a little. “I'm amazed he hasn't proposed to you yet,” I tease her. “You know the Fathers want everybody in pairs.”

“He's very nice,” Mom says, “and he has a lovely singing voice. But I wouldn't have a husband who allows himself to be manipulated with drugs and mind control.”

“He has no choice,” Gramps says. “He doesn't have the option to leave, as we have.”

The next day Colin and Jennifer come in wearing shorts.

“Hey, Meggie B.,” Colin says with a smile, and I can see her eyes glaze over. He has used her pet name, and I know she must be daydreaming that he feels the same way she does, but I know he's just being nice to a kid.

“It's a hot day, David,” Jennifer interrupts my thoughts. “Are you going to be comfortable in jeans?”

“Yeah, it's a real scorcher,” Colin agrees. “Better dress cool.”

“We didn't see any shorts for sale at the mall,” I say.

“They were there,” Jennifer explains. “But maybe you missed them because they don't have much of a selection.”

Duh! Like they have a good selection of anything. But I keep that thought to myself.

“I'll ask Mom to buy some,” Meggie says, “but today, jeans it is.”

“Then why don't we just stay indoors?” Colin suggests.

“I agree,” I say. “No point in being miserable.”

“Good idea,” says Jennifer. “Do you guys have a radio?”

We don't, so Jennifer goes upstairs to bring theirs down, while the rest of us settle around the kitchen table.

“You should get a radio,” Colin tells us. “It pleases the Fathers.”

“What kind of programs do you listen to?” I ask.

“They play nothing but music all day long,” Colin says. “It's nice.”

“Great!” I say, and I mean it, but my joy is short-lived. When Jennifer plugs in the radio, elevator music pours out of it. It's worse than church music, but I suppose it's better than no music at all—barely. With the music as a backdrop, we settle into a nice, normal conversation—uh, as normal as conversations go in Fashion City.

After a while Colin says, “Our dad is going to marry your mother. Of course, I'll soon be gone to war, but the rest of you will get larger quarters, and it'll be good for everybody.”

I'm surprised, and slightly ticked off to hear him say this. As far as I know, Gil hasn't asked Mom, and Colin is surely taking a lot for granted.

“I don't think Mom will ever marry again,” I tell him.

Jennifer is astonished. “Not marry? The Fathers won't be pleased.”

“Right,” Colin agrees. “Your mom is young enough to have more kids.”

“I don't think Mom wants more kids!” I say hotly. “The Fathers just want more workers and soldiers. And by the way, do the Fathers send their own children to war?”

“The children of the Fathers at war!” Jennifer exclaims, as if I'm being irrational. “They are much too valuable as our future leaders. Look at all the sacrifices the Fathers have made for us already.”

“That's absurd!” I say. “Why don't we ever see these Fathers? Where do they live? Certainly not in the sectors. No, they are out of sight so that we can't see their elaborate lifestyle. And it's for sure that, wherever they are, their rivers are not polluted with factory waste, and the air they breathe is not thick enough to stick to the lungs.”

Jennifer is so distraught at my words, she takes a Lotus pill from her shorts pocket, unwraps it with unsteady fingers, and chews it.

“The Fathers take care of the people,” she says. “Praise the Fathers.”

I've upset her, and now I feel like a jerk. So I try to backtrack. “Just sayin' … but look, I didn't mean anything.”

Colin stands up, unplugs the radio, and tucks it under one arm. “Jennifer, we should go.”

Jennifer nods and stands up as well.

At the door, Colin turns and says to me in a low, controlled voice, “Your newness in our city is wearing off, and you must learn quickly that you can't say things like that. It's not tolerated.”

“You can be sent away for disloyal statements,” Jennifer adds.

“Sent away where?”

“To wherever they sent Mom,” Jennifer answers as tears well up in her eyes.

I
dig further into the Carriage tutorial and learn that the navigation is done by figuring a set of coordinates. It's a string of numbers that's like a code that you punch into the control panel. The first number is for the place you're located, and the numbers after that are for something else, followed by a number for the planet of your destination, then the latitude and longitude numbers for the location on that planet, then a more specific number, then something … something that I haven't quite figured out yet.

If you have no specific destination, and you want the computer to find a place for you, you enter your preferences. That's what Gramps did when he brought us here, and obviously it's not the best method. I imagine that's why Mom and Gramps are now nervous about moving forward. They want to find just the right place next time,
and considering all the possible worlds out there, it's not easy.

David knocks on my door. “Jennifer and Colin are here.”

As I store the computer, I realize I didn't finish my schoolwork. Well, so what? I haven't messed up since I've been here. I place the half-finished work in the door pocket for Tom.

Both Colin and Jennifer are in a good mood as we set off toward the city. Maybe they each had a Lotus for a difference we'd notice. They seem not to remember David's dissing of the Fathers yesterday. Pretending all's well is a habit of most people here.

Today there's a mild breeze, like rain may be in the air, and we agree to a shorter walk than usual. We're on our way back home when the thunder starts.

Colin points in the direction of some apartment buildings we haven't seen before. “Let's take a shortcut through these parking lots over here!” he suggests.

“The dark people live here,” Jennifer explains.

“So the African … I mean, the black people live apart from whites?” I ask.

“Yes, of course,” Colin says. “The Fathers don't allow the races to mix.”

I know America didn't integrate overnight. It was tough, and there were “years and years of fears and tears,” as my African American teacher used to say, but they made a lot of progress. It seems the people in this place haven't even started to work on the race problem. Could
it be because they have no leadership since Lincoln and King left to go to the Western Province?