Page 96 of A Better World

Linda mimed searching for pockets, coming back with nothing, then understood that the question was more open ended. “We’re broke. This move cost everything.”

“That’s okay,” Josie reassured. “We’ll figure something out.” It wasn’t the typical Josie thing to say. Back home, she’d have whined and told Linda to figure it out because she was hungry. But she’d changed. Life there had shaved away her arrogance and girlish giggles.

She remembered Glamp, then. The way she’d been a kid one day, a woman the next. Or, she’d lived a woman’s life inside the mind of a child. “It occurs to me I should ask: Is anything happening to you? Is anyone hurting you?”

Josie shook her head. “Not like how you mean.”

“Then how?”

Josie picked up the pepper shaker, poured a sprinkling into her palm, and licked it. “I don’t know. The houses, they’re all the same. The people are all the same. I keep picking stuff up—the dishes and couch cushions. I look under the tables, the bed. I keep thinking they’re not real. They’re like, props. At school, after every test the kidsare like:What’d you get? What’d you get?Every weekend it’s like:Where’d you go? Who’d you hang out with? How far is your daddy or mommy from a golden ticket? I’m third generation, except I sound like a dumbass because I don’t cuss. I’m all scatological and can only saypoop! I’m so special. My parents got their tickets early because they do side jobs. We’re all so frigging special.And it’s like, do you realize the goddamned ocean just drowned the Maldives? Fuck you, dude. And seriously, what are these side jobs? Are these families all hookers?”

Linda gave her a look, like,Maybe. They might be hookers. “It’s the same thing for me with ActHollow. My job isn’t to be a doctor. It’s to make them look good,” Linda said, raising her arms to indicate the clinic. “We don’t have enough patients. The patients we do have, we can’t adequately treat.”

“That must piss you off,” Josie said.

“I’ve been in denial. I couldn’t admit it until now. Nobody to admit it to.”

“I wanted to like this place,” Josie said. She’d wrapped her arms around her waist, gathering the material so that it bunched and puffed. “I tried. I’m still trying. I like the math. And I learned a lot of new ball skills when we started soccer, so I thought it could be good. I thought once everybody started inviting us places that it was going to work out. It would be like back home only with better stuff. But it’s not like that. If anybody texts me I have to text right back. If I blow it off, it’s a drama. They all talk about it like it’s the end of the world. I have to conference with everybody from the team at night. Arnie Nassar runs it. He’s this drill sergeant. He calls on us. We have to be like:Yeah! Soccer’s great! Yeah! School’s great! Yeah!They’re always in my room. Even my room isn’t safe. They can tell I don’t like it, so they made me into a project. I’m a challenge. They have to rehabilitate and save me. But they don’t actually care. It’s just something to do.”

“That sounds miserable.”

“If I don’t sit with them at lunch, there’s payback. My lunch goes missing. My papers get stolen. So I have to hide behind that smelly freaking beam. They’re the ones who smashed Hip’s lunch. It was payback for losing the game.

“And the lunch people—they love to pick on the loners. They’re so mad at us residents they can’t wait. They screw with my food. Like, give me half or the wrong thing and then they pretend not to hear me when I complain. I know their lives suck and everything, but they suck, too.

“One time I sat with Hip. Just for the relief, you know? Cathy freaked! Lost her mind! He gave me his green beans because he knows I like them and she was all:Why didn’t you ask me first! I’m the girlfriend!She was all afraid I was gonna steal him away from her. Like I’m gonna break them up… Hip didn’t talk to me the whole time, just to keep her happy. God forbid Cathy Bennett ever feel unhappy. She might have an anxiety explosion. And the worst part is, I have to go through all this garbage, but I’m probably not even going to wind up in a company town. Even if I got the grades and the job, I can’t stand these people. It’s for nothing.”

“You could go back to New York. You like it there.”

“It’s falling apart, plus I’d never be able to see you. Because outsiders aren’t allowed in. And you couldn’t see me except on some special occasion like if I died. Because you’d have to use real money to visit. And you don’t get paid in money.”

The idea that golden tickets broke up families should have occurred to Linda before now. But twenty-five years seemed so far away. Even one year had been more than she’d wanted to think past. Now she realized: Russell might get a golden ticket, but the kids might not. “We don’t know how things are going to shake out.”

“We do. It’s how everything bad happens. You’ll get used to the idea and it won’t seem so horrible. You’ll get so used to it that it seems inevitable. I’ll leave and Hip and Dad’ll stay, so you’ll stay, and you won’t even be that sad about it, because you’ll have worried about it for so long that when it happens it’ll be a relief. And Dad and Hip’ll think I’m a rebel. They’ll be like:Oh, Josie, she marches to the beat of her own drum. What a character.But you’ll know, because I’m telling you right now. You’ll know, but I bet by the time it happens, you’ll forget this conversation. I will, too. We’ll both be so used to the idea that it doesn’t seem that bad at all.”

“Josie… That’s not true.”

Josie’s eyes were wet. She’d been fiddling with the blue gown on her lap so much that she’d torn it. “When you dropped me off at the police station, you said nothing was as important as me.”

“And I meant it.”

“But this place is bad for me.”

“Yes,” Linda said.

Josie’s jaw hardened, and Linda saw that underneath all the tears and sadness, she really was angry. “Then why are we still here?”

Linda’s eyes welled. This was it: the reason for the divide between them. “I’m trying to figure it all out, Josie. There’s a lot to figure. We have limited options. You’re not the sacrificial lamb. If we leave without a plan, we’re fucked.”

“You’re on my side. And you’re on ActHollow’s side. And you’re on Dad’s side. And you’re on Hip’s side…” Josie bunched her hands, the whole gown coming undone, splitting in two at her waist. “You don’t do anything. Nothing changes. It never has. Even back home. Dad said something, you got mad. Dad got what he wanted and worked late or didn’t come home for dinner or watched screenies while you did the dishes. You yell and no one changes and then you don’t follow up. It’s like giving permission.”

“Stop it,” Linda said. “You’re going too far.”

“I want to go home,” Josie said.

“Home’s gone. We have nothing, Josie. This is it. Where will we go? What will we do?”

“I don’t know!” Josie cried. “That’s your problem!”

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