Page 38 of The Compound

When Candice came into the dressing room, she found me sitting on the floor, biting my nails and staring at myself in the mirror. She dropped down besideme.

“What is it? Has something happened?”

“No,” I said. “Only I’m worried about me and Ryan.”

“Oh, darling,” she said. “You have nothing to worry about. You should see the way he looks at you.” She stroked my hair, and I leaned against her.

“I know,” I said. “That’s what I thought. But I just tried to, you know, have a moment with him by the pool, and he was completely disinterested.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t. He’s a red-blooded man. They’re always interested.”

“He fell asleep.”

“You’ll have to work a bit harder, is all.” She looked at me, considering, then went to her wardrobe. It was full to the brim: she clearly hadn’t been neglecting her Personal Tasks. She pulled out a red dress and pressed it against my body. “There,” she said. “That should do it. Put it on, and I’ll fix your hair.”

I slipped it on, gratified that it fit. I looked at myself in the mirror, turning to see myself from different angles. She was right: it was perfect. I sat down and closed my eyes as Candice brushed my hair. She told me what colors she wanted to use, and what her preferred style of contouring was. I was generally particular about how my makeup was done, but I only nodded and let her do what she wanted. Candice knew what she was doing. She dabbed a couple of products on my skin, and wiped a silver shimmer over my eyelids. “Look up,” she said, and I did. “Tilt your head like this.” She put her hand on my chin to steady me. Her face was very close to mine. I could see the ring of gray in her blue eyes, and the blush she had placed across her cheekbones. She leaned closer still, though she was looking at me differently now. The air between us became suddenly charged, I felt her breath on my cheek, and we watched each other for a moment. I waited for her to lean in and kiss me. I could see that she was considering it. I was considering it too. She looked at me calmly but appraisingly. When she leaned back, I knew her thoughts as if they were my own. You survived a sunrise banishment if you shared a bed with someone from the opposite sex. There was no safety to be won from being in a same-sex couple. She finished my makeup, and we let the momentgo.

—

On my wayto find Ryan I stopped by the living room, where I knew Sam would be. Even down the hallway I could hear the low pitch of his voice, the slight rumble of his laugh. There was no mirror in the hallway, but I could picture how my hair moved across my shoulders, how my gold necklace glinted against my tan; I could feel the tips of my eyelashes brush against my eyebrows. I wanted to see Sam. I wanted him to seeme.

He was talking to Becca. I paused in the doorway, trying to think of some excuse to enter the room. I needn’t have bothered: they were thoroughly engaged in conversation, and didn’t glance my way when I stepped in. They were sitting in the folding chairs, Becca shaking her head, more animated than I had ever seen her. They seemed to be talking about politics. Of course, we weren’t allowed to talk about our personal lives,and before we had come we had been told that it was better not to speak about life outside the compound; it would be too easy to let a personal detail slip, which would in turn lead to punishments. They were speaking obliquely, however, skirting around mentioning anything too obvious, in the same way that Candice and I skirted around saying outright what it was we wanted to receive as a Personal Reward.

“I think if ordinary people stopped working together to make things easier for the people at the top, and started working together to effect change that would benefit them—you’re laughing at me,” she said.

“I’m not,” he said. “I’m really not. Only you remind me so much of myself when I was younger. I had ideas then, too.”

Becca looked at him sitting across from her, elbows resting on her knees. I don’t think that there was any attraction there, but she looked at him with a sort of directness which nevertheless spoke of intimacy. “I think you still have ideas now,” she said. “Only you let other people do the talking.”

“I’ve never known anyone to willingly give up power. Things would have had to get very, very difficult.”

“You don’t think it would be worth it?”

“It’s not that. I guess I can’t think of a system to replace what we have. Pointing out that something is broken doesn’t count as a solution.”

“I’ll never understand why you let Tom and Andrew take charge,” she said scornfully.

I might as well have been invisible. It was incredible how quickly the value I had placed on my appearance evaporated. I looked stupid standing there, dressed up with nowhere to go. I tried to slip away, but Becca looked up and saw me. Sam looked at me too, then, and looked quickly away. I crossed my arms, my hands gripping my elbows.

“Hey, Lily,” she said. “What do you think?”

“Of what?”

“Systems of government.”

“What, like, here?”

“No,” she said slowly, staring at me like I was stupid. “In real life.”

Becca had never spoken to me in such a disparaging way. I wonderedif Becca’s lively conversation with Sam had made her feel that she was intellectually superior, in the same way that being dolled up by Candice had given me the strength to arrive in a room and expect to be admired. Becca was the only one among us who wanted to think about the world on the outside. I wondered why she was here if she couldn’t fully commit to life in the compound. Sam was looking at me now, too. I kept my arms taut, resisting the urge to let them swing behind my back. “I don’t know. I never really thought about it.”

“You don’t think about the society we live in?”

“Becca,” Sam said.

“We’re not supposed to talk about the outside,” I said, my voice small. I wasn’t fooling them: they knew I had nothing to say. It was hard to remember how powerful I had felt only minutes ago, standing in front of the mirror. I had never felt more foolish.

There was a brief silence in which Sam took a sip from his beer. When he placed it down Becca reached for it, and Sam moved the bottle out of reach. You had to be at least eighteen to be on the show, but I don’t think anyone believed that she was really that old.

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