I shrug. ‘Walked . . . in.’
‘How’d you get past the guards?’
‘Played . . . Living.’
She stares at me. ‘They let you in? Ted let you in?’
‘Distrac . . . ted.’
She puts a hand to her forehead. ‘Wow. That’s . . .’ She pauses, and an incredulous smile breaks through. ‘You look . . . nicer. Did you comb your hair, R?’
‘He’s in drag!’ Nora laughs. ‘He’s in Living drag!’
‘I can’t believe that worked. I’m pretty sure it’s never happened before.’
‘Do you think he could pass?’ Nora wonders. ‘Out on the streets with real people?’
Julie studies me dubiously, like a photographer forced to consider a chubby model. ‘Well,’ she allows, ‘I guess . . . it’s possible.’
I squirm under their scrutiny. Finally Julie takes a deep breath and stands up. ‘Anyway, you’ll have to stay here at least for tonight, till we can figure out what to do with you. I’m going to go heat up some rice. You want some, Nora?’
‘Nah, I just had Carbtein nine hours ago.’ She looks at me cautiously. ‘Are you uh . . . hungry, R?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m . . . fine.’
‘’Cause I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about your dietary restrictions. I mean, I know you can’t help it, Julie explained all about you, but we don’t—’
‘Really,’ I stop her. ‘I’m . . . fine.’
She looks uncertain. I can imagine the footage rolling behind her eyes. A dark room filling with blood. Her friends dying on the floor. Me, crawling towards Julie with red hands outstretched. Julie may have convinced her that I’m a special case, but I shouldn’t be surprised to get a few nervous looks. Nora watches me in silence for a few minutes. Then she breaks away and starts rolling a joint.
When Julie comes back with the food, I borrow her spoon and take a small bite of rice, smiling as I chew. As usual it goes down like styrofoam, but I do manage to swallow it. Julie and Nora look at each other, then at me.
‘How’s it taste?’ Julie asks tentatively.
I grimace.
‘Okay, but still, you haven’t eaten any people in a long time. And you’re still walking. Do you think you could ever wean yourself off . . . live foods?’
I give her a wry smile. ‘I guess . . . it’s possible.’
Julie grins at this. Half at my unexpected use of sarcasm, half at the implied hope behind it. Her whole face lights up in a way I’ve never seen before, so I hope I’m right. I hope it’s true. I hope I haven’t just learned how to lie.
Around 1 a.m., the girls start to yawn. There are canvas cots in the den, but no one feels like venturing out of Julie’s room. This gaudily painted little cube is like a warm bunker in the frozen emptiness of Antarctica. Nora takes the bed. Julie and I take the floor. Nora scribbles homework notes for about an hour, then clicks off the lamp and starts snoring like a small, delicate chainsaw. Julie and I lie on our backs under a thick blanket, using piles of her clothes for a mattress on the rock-hard floor. It’s a strange feeling, being so utterly surrounded by her. Her life scent is on everything. She’s on me and under me and next to me. It’s as if the entire room is made out of her.
‘R,’ she whispers, looking up at the ceiling. There are words and doodles smeared up there in glow-in-the-dark paint.
‘Yeah.’
‘I hate this place.’
‘I know.’
‘Take me somewhere else.’
I pause, looking up at the ceiling. I wish I could read what she’s written there. Instead, I pretend the letters are stars. The words, constellations.
‘Where do . . . want to go?’
‘I don’t know. Somewhere far away. Some distant continent where none of this is happening. Where people just live in peace.’
I fall silent.
‘One of Perry’s older friends used to be a pilot . . . we could take your housejet! It’d be like a flying Winnebago, we could go anywhere!’ She rolls onto her side and grins at me. ‘What do you think, R? We could go to the other side of the world.’
The excitement in her voice makes me wince. I hope she can’t see the grim light in my eyes. I don’t know for sure, but there is something in the air lately, a deathly stillness as I walk through the city and its outskirts, that tells me the days of running away from problems are over. There will be no more vacations, no road trips, no tropical getaways. The plague has covered the world.
‘You said . . .’ I begin, psyching myself up to express a complex thought. ‘You said . . . the . . .’
‘Come on,’ she encourages. ‘Use your words.’
‘You said . . . the plane’s not . . . its own world.’
Her grin falters. ‘What?’
‘Can’t . . . float above . . . the mess.’
She frowns. ‘I said that?’
‘Your dad . . . concrete box . . . walls and guns . . . Running away . . . no better . . . than hiding. Maybe worse.’
She thinks for a moment. ‘I know,’ she says, and I feel guilty for crashing her brief flight of fancy. ‘I know this. It’s what I’ve been telling myself for years, that there’s still hope, that we can turn things around somehow, blah f**king blah. It’s just . . . getting a lot harder to believe lately.’
‘I know,’ I say, trying to hide the cracks in my sincerity. ‘But can’t . . . give up.’