Page 78 of A Better World

Linda felt the soft couch with her hands. “Is today a bad time?”

“Jack convinced Parson to push all his East Asia trips onto me as a test for my fitness. It’s been a nightmare,” Rachel answered. The bags under her eyes were back and worse than ever before. It was like they’d been drawn with purple-black charcoal.

Linda nodded. “I’ve helped people with this problem you’re having. Addiction. I can help you, if you want.”

Rachel’s eyes burned a hole right through Linda. She was reminded, then, of her mother in a hospital bed. For just a moment, she was out of time. They looked different from the outside, but on the inside, Poughkeepsie and Plymouth Valley weren’t so very different.

“Tell me why you’re here.”

“I’ve had this feeling for a long while,” Linda said. “That something’s wrong with this place.”

Languorous, Rachel reached down beside her chair to produce a bottle of coconut rum. She locked eyes with Linda as she poured into her mug, as if daring her to say something contrary about it. It was a gross drink. The kind of thing you do because you can’t stop, not because you like it. “Whatever do you mean bywrong?”

“What’s the significance of the black ribbons?”

Rachel made herI don’t know—people here are crazy!face, sipped more coconut rum.

“I talked to this woman who told me that every year, some sick kid or group of kids gets forced into the tunnels at the Winter Festival. There’s this nuclear engineer—he spends most of his time in the mental ward. He lost his kid down the tunnels last year. It happened during the Winter Festival. From the things people have been saying, or letting slip, Sebbie and Katie Parker were chosen to go down this year. But you guys told me they’re not in this town anymore. You told me they’re safe with their mom, Trish Parker. But I’ve been calling Trish Parker and I can’t get through. She won’t verify it. Where are those kids? What happens at the Winter Festival?”

Rachel looked at her mug, seemed to consider having another swig, but was repulsed. Linda understood, suddenly, that either she or Kai or both had tossed out all the booze in the house. But she’d saved this bottle. Secreted it away for when she’d need it. “What do you think happens?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

“It’s a party,” Rachel said. “Lots of drugs. Anything goes, if you’re into that.”

“And no one gets hurt?”

Rachel rolled her eyes.

“It’s not a crazy question,” Linda said.

“It is, actually. It’s a fucking stupid question because you don’t know anything. You’re just stirring the pot.”

“So tell me, and I’ll leave the pot alone.”

“Do you know what Daniella used to do before she was our fearless leader?”

Rachel’s eyes were sewn with red threads. It was possible she didn’t know what she was saying. Was blackout. “Vegas. Think about it. What’s Vegas known for? Her mom was a hostess. She worked at a BW whorehouse. The world’s oldest profession. Do you know what I do on the side? All these goddamned trips?”

Linda had the feeling it wasn’t good.

“I’m a fixer. I fly out, I fix things. If important people want something, I procure it. If someone needs to be shut up, I pay them so much they can’t say no. That’s how I got into these people’s good graces. I’m good at it, because people trust me. Nobody sees me coming. Daniella was talent. She wanted in. She didn’t care how. She was supposed to be his piece on the side; Lloyd likes pieces on the side. They all do. They keep them around as domestics and then they trade them in. But she’s Daniella. The woman could whip a eunuch. She seduced him, got rid of the wife. Promised him she’d be better for him politically. She worked the angles. Lloyd went from low man to CEO. That’s why her stepkids hate her, not because she’s got the firm boundaries of a perfect parent. She replaced their mom, who has to live on the outside now. You think she’s fucking around? A woman like that?

“And Anouk? Ever notice her son looks just like her dad? Ever wonder why she’s so obsessed with genetic purity?”

Linda didn’t understand that part. Well, she had some idea, but it was too outlandish. She picked up the candy ribbon. The bowl came with it. She pulled, forgetting that she was in someone else’s house. Forgetting everything.

“Me, Daniella, your husband, Jack Lust—they have to bring outsiders like us in to do their dirty work. Third generation’s incompetent. Fourth generation, like Keith? Fucking psychotic. He thinks he’s the son of God.

“Jack’s nanny? That’s his piece. Colette is so fucking milquetoast she lets it happen. Whatever makes him happy. He goes through them like tissues. Colette is the one who sleeps in the servants’ room. She says she likes it because it’s closer to the baby. The nanny almost never helps with the kids. She’s usually too sore. But that’s better than what happens in some of these houses. Some of them—”

Rachel looked up at the ornate ceiling, her eyelids going heavy. “They like them young.”

Linda was standing. She’d pulled the ribbon free. Her hands squeezed without thinking and she broke it.

“People live here for so long, they forget common decency.”

Linda held the pieces in her palm, irreparable as broken teeth. So she dropped them to the floor, where they scattered.

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