Page 88 of A Better World

“That’s one way to look at it,” Linda said. She took the bottle from Rachel and swigged to make sure it hadn’t gone vinegar and would make her sick. “The other way is that you need to be in a hospital.”

Rachel waved her hand in lazy dismissal. “It’s not the addiction. It’s the habit. I don’t know how else I’d get through my days.”

“You could change things in your life. The quitting would follow.”You could leave here, she wanted to add, but she didn’t dare.

“Change,” Rachel said, and she sounded, to Linda, like Josie. Spent and trapped. “When I first moved here, I had so many plans. CEO, it could have been a clean slate for everyone.”

“You’re not getting it?”

Rachel shrugged. “I fell down in front of Parson tonight. It doesn’t look good.”

“I heard you were sabotaged. Jack hurt you.”

Rachel nodded. Closed her eyes, as if disappointed in herself.

“He shouldn’t get away with that. The other night, you told me that you procure,” Linda said carefully. “You fix. I assume that means you bribe whistleblowers and regulators. You arrange prostitutes. Maybe you stop,” she said.Maybe you gather all that damning evidence, and you give it to the lawyers on the outside, or that governor in New York, she wanted to add.

Rachel blew a cloud of smoke. “Once you’re in something, you’re in it. I’m so bloody. I’m covered in blood.”

Linda nodded, looking at the stars.

In the big house, the countdown started. She got up and walked toward the fake light.

On her way, she passed the pool party, and found Hip and Cathy kissing, Hip’s hands roving the small mounds under Cathy’s bikini top. No one seemed to be looking especially at them. Plenty of other kids were making out, including a few of the soccer kids. They were doing it in front of the servants, and it was as if they’d decided these servants were invisible.

Linda headed for the edge of the pool. Pressed her shoe against Hip’s bare back until he startled, pulled his hands out from under Cathy’s bikini. “I don’t give a damn what the rest of them are doing. Don’t be a creep.”

They separated, Hip mortified, Cathy irritated with insult. Who was Linda to tell Hip anything? Hip belonged toher. Before the kids had the chance to answer her, Linda moved on to the big house ballroom, where all the balloons had been timed to drop at once. Kai was standing between parties, looking through the crowds of people, his eyes finding Rachel. But he didn’t go to her and there was something so sad about that—that Rachel was in one place, and he was in the other. In her sickness she didn’t know to look for him. In his exhaustion, he’d become done seeking her.

“Five!” everyone shouted.

“Four!”

“Three!”

“Two!”

“One!”

The balloons dropped.

Daniella cozied to Lloyd, kissing a trail up his neck to his mouth. He really did look love drunk. Jack pressed his groin against his nanny (who was possibly a sex slave), one hand on her bottom, the other squeezing her breast. This was far away, with the balloons falling fast and smeary.

Everyone was cheering and happy. Laughing and having a good time. She looked for Russell. He was hugging the many friends he’d made there, going from one to the next. He looked happy, like for the first time in his life, he’d found people who appreciated him.

She started toward Russell Bowen, her husband. He would kiss her and hold her and maybe not forever, maybe not for even a minute, but for a moment, she’d feel close to him. She would not have this annihilating feeling inside her—that their marriage, their family, their life together in this place, was over.

But then, Russell headed a few steps back, to say hello to Tania Janssen’s husband, and between them, small and still—bored, even—stood Gal Parker’s children.

FEATHERS THROUGH TIME:AND THE AVIAN SHALL PURIFY THE EARTH

All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

—Zora Neale Hurston,Their Eyes Were Watching God

—Preface to Anouk Parson’s third collection of poetry, self-published, 2053.

PART IVIt’s Exactly What You Fear(The Plymouth Valley Winter Festival)

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