Page 33 of A Better World

As they were getting into their cars, she realized she’d forgotten her purse. She jogged back inside. The restaurant was fully lit. One of the dayworkers had tuned a longwave radio to news from outside Plymouth Valley. The announcements were familiar: there’d been an uprising against the West Virginia government, and a tornado had shredded much of Iowa. In brighter news, scientists had made further breakthroughs in nuclear remediation. Because of national security laws they weren’t yet able to share their discoveries.

A handful of dayworkers mopped and wiped down surfaces inside the large church. It felt like being backstage at a play after the performance has finished. Someone had placed a cut pomegranate in a basket on the bandstand’s Hollow altar just ahead of its Geiger counter. Photos of two children she didn’t recognize were inserted into the meat of the fruit. Their shapes had been cut out from larger photos, the scissors overzealous, so that the kids were missing parts of arms and legs. The fruit juice had run upward via capillary pressure, staining the bottoms of the photos red.

In Linda’s condition, it made little impression. Seeing double, she wandered into the small room where they’d met, which she realized was an old confessional with the screens dividing priest from sinner removed, to give it length.

She bent low. Spotted her purse under the chair where Anouk had sat.

When she came back out to the parking lot, the players had changed. Anouk was gone. Rachel and Daniella were standing on either side of Gal, who was swaying on her feet. Linda guessed she’d never gone home at all but had spent this whole time drinking by herself at the bar.

“The decision was made. It’s done. It’s over!” Rachel yelled. But that whiskey was starting to hit, so Linda wasn’t sure. Maybe it was Daniella who was yelling.

Then, somehow, Gal was crying, and Daniella and Rachel were driving away.

Weaving drunkenly, Gal headed for Linda’s car like she thought it belonged to her. She grabbed the handle and tried to open it: nothing.“I think that one’s yours,” Linda called, pointing at the only other car in the lot: a clown-orange C class.

Gal tugged the handle. “I wantthisone!”

On jelly legs, Linda came to the fender. “Moot point. The engine won’t turn with either of our blood alcohol levels behind the wheel.”

Gal rattled the handle. Things were swerving, streetlights making trails. “Probably stop that,” Linda said.

“I want to go home! To my real house!” Gal said, letting go. She wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. But it was two sets of eyes. Linda squinted, doing her best to stay focused.

Behind them, the dayworkers headed for their bus. She considered asking them to make two stops before exiting town, but she wasn’t sure whether this violated one of PV’s many mystery rules. She pulled out her device. “Do they have ride services here? Do you know a number?”

“They don’t care. No one cares,” Gal said, her voice returning to that baby talk.

“But is there a number?”

“You just hit the red emergency button. They give rides,” Gal said. Her arm looked freshly bruised from her fall. A splotchy purple welt had spread along her right shoulder and trapezius. Linda winced. Though they were covered, her knees had to be even worse.

Linda hovered her thumb over the red button. Calling Russell was the better move, but she hated to wake him. More to the point, she didn’t want him to see her this irresponsibly drunk. It seemed like a violation of their partnership: they’d agreed to try hard to assimilate; she’d drunk her weight in booze.

“Red button,” Gal said. “Press it, dummy.”

“Are you messing with me?”

Gal shook her head. “That’s all the cops do is give rides at night. It’s all drunks and no crime.”

Linda pressed the red button. Right away, a polite voice answered. “Would you like a car, Dr. Farmer?”

She didn’t give her location. They’d found her through her device and were on their way. She hung up just as the dayworker bus pulledout. As soon as it was gone, the town went still. Sleeping. Like a clock whose gears have ground down.

“They said five minutes. Sit tight.”

“But I’m not sitting,” Gal said.

“People here are nice but they’re not good,” Gal mumbled.

They were in the back of a spacious police sedan equipped with device chargers and a screen. In the side pockets were Omnium shrink-wrapped toiletries like toothpaste and combs, plus a gallon-sized barf bag. Linda pulled this out, shuddered at the amount of alcohol necessary to fill it.

“No good. Meanwhile their dumb birds’re barkin’ all night and all day!” Linda answered. The whiskey had hit, and even if she’d tried, she couldn’t have explained what she’d meant, because the birds didn’t bark.

As the car traveled, the houses got smaller. Gal pulled out the toiletries on her side, tearing and tossing the Omnium wrap to her feet. She chewed on the toothbrush, broke the comb in half, then took the barf bag and slowly tore it down the middle.Don’t be a jerk, Linda wanted to say, but decided not to engage. She rolled down her window. Crisp, cold air slapped her cheeks.

“Did Anouk recite her stupid poem?”

“?‘The Inheritors,’?” Linda answered. There was a divider between the front and back seats, and the two cops didn’t seem to have any interest in what was happening. This, Linda decided, was good.

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