Page 70 of A Better World

“You know, I saw this once before at Anouk’s house—caladrius penned together. But I thought they were solitary. I was told if they’re kept together,” Linda said, “they’ll fight.”

“It’s not indiscriminate. Discriminatory? They gang up and pick on one,” Daniella answered.

“It’s community building,” Rachel joked.

“Plymouth Valley,” Anouk called from the podium. “We’re here today to celebrate community. Let’s all give each other a sign of goodwill and peace.”

The crowd became a sea of gratitude prayer hands. Linda bowed to the person closest to her. The call was “May the wind be at your back,” and its response was “May you never come in last.”

This was not done with amused smiles. It was serious.

A man to Linda’s left offered his hand. She shook it, noticing only then that it was Percy Khoury. He wasn’t wild eyed like he’d been at the hospital and the soccer sidelines. Now, he appeared sluggish. She suspected lithium. “May the wind be at your back,” she said.

His eyes flashed with recognition, and she may have been wrong, but she thought she saw kinship there, too. “Beware the Great White,” he mumbled.

“What?” she asked.

But he’d turned to Amir Nassar. “Never come in last,” he mumbled, back on script.

Up ahead, Kai Johnson left the group of men he was with, including Russell and Jack, and walked back to Rachel. “Jack’s up to something. Run hard. Don’t stop. Make it a personal best,” he told her.

“I’ve got CEO in the bag. You worry too much,” she answered. Then she kissed him. They held one another. It warmed Linda’s heart.

“And now!” Anouk announced: “The Beltane King will do the honors.”

Keith Parson emerged from behind his mother, his costume that same skintight black jumpsuit, only he’d removed the mask. His movements were loose, like a cartoon jester’s, and she remembered his shamble back in the tunnels.

“On your mark.” He didn’t shout, but his deep voice carried. “Get set.” His eyes surveyed the crowd. Linda felt her shoulder with her hand. It had ached for days after pushing past him. His eyes found her. They stayed on her. They weren’t happy.

“Go!” he shouted.

It took a few moments before there was room to move. They were separated by heats, each wearing chips that activated once they crossed the starting line, for an exact race time. Suddenly, there was room. The three of them were jogging. Slow, at first. Anouk waved as they passed and they waved and hooted back. The road opened. Daniella and Rachel shot out. Linda sprinted to keep up.

Uh, oh.

Daniella and Rachel weren’t an anomaly. Everybody was running fast. Top speed. Didn’t they know this was a 5K? Were they really going to hold this pace for the entire race?

Linda panted, pushed herself. Her lungs burned. It wasn’t fun. It was hard. They passed the one-kilometer mark, where she noticed the map. It looked a lot like the Labyrinth below—turns upon turns that made a perimeter.

The sound of thousands of runners, shoes slapping, is a mix between rain and applause. You feel it coming up from the road and through you. The sound drowned under her heartbeat, her panting breath.

Going south, they passed the two-kilometer mark. Vaguely, she recognized Gal’s side of town, but this knowledge went nowhere, because all conscious thought was this:I can’t do this. I can’t keep up.

They rounded a corner. Her knee twinged. Her untested sneakerspinched.Guys, won’t you slow down?she wanted to ask.Isn’t the point of this to do it together, not to come in first?But probably, like most things around there, she had that wrong. The point was the performance: to come in first, to show strength, or not run the race at all.

Winding, winding. They approached Gal’s house. It had been repaired, the back half rebuilt and painted fresh. A hatchback was parked in the driveway. Linda felt her scalp recede over her skull, her hot limbs break into goose bumps: that was Gal’s car from the lot that night of the fire. Was she home so soon from the hospital?

“Have either of you visited Gal since the fire?” Linda blurted, loud and for everyone around them to hear.

“I’ve been busy opening a clinic,” Daniella answered.

“Right.” She knew they wanted her to stop talking about Gal. They’d both made this clear. But a bad thing had happened and for reasons she could not fathom, that thing had gone unresolved. Had Gal really set her own house on fire just for spite? Were her children okay in Palo Alto? Was she ill? If so, should she be allowed out in the world, where she might have more children and commit the same crime twice?

This worry inside her had been a low-level noise for a long time. She was pretending everything was fine, happy as could be, but she wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t eating. This had occurred to her only when she’d talked with Josie about the street sign. When she’d admitted that she wasn’t sure she liked herself around these women. An agreeable milksop. Jack Lust’s wife, Colette, part 2. “I ask because I’ve been doing research on idiopathic leukemia. I want to make sure her kids are getting the proper treatment in Palo Alto.”

“They have doctors in Palo Alto, moron,” Rachel said.

“Moron’s strong,” Linda panted. She could hardly put one foot ahead of the next. They were toward the end of the block, running north along the wall.

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