California: A Novel (24 page)

Frida realized the nausea had distracted her from the best part of Anika’s room—it was right underneath her. Unlike the straw monstrosity she and Cal slept on, Anika had a twin-sized mattress, practically new, maybe twenty years old. How had she gotten dibs on it? Anika must be favored. Not Micah-level special, but special nonetheless. The headboard was modern, too, cheap that way, made of a light, hollow metal, probably from Ikea, which had closed when Frida was twelve. “They took their meatballs and went back to Sweden,” Hilda had said wistfully.

Frida turned onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. It was badly cracked, in worse shape than she expected, and she thought maybe she’d tell Cal about it. Maybe he could get Micah to bring in the construction team. She realized how protective she’d become of Anika. She really cared about her.

Above her was a drawing. It had been made on a piece of fabric, cotton most likely, or maybe muslin, though Frida couldn’t be sure, torn into a square and stuck to the ceiling with sewing needles. Only a soggy, sagging building would be weak enough to pierce with such flimsy things, Frida thought as she took in the drawing itself. It looked like charcoal, but more likely it was ash. There were two stick figures.

Jane had friends here. Jane had friends here.

Frida stood on the bed in order to get a better look. It looked like an adult and a child—both female, with triangles for skirts. To the left of them was a tree and, above them, a smiling sun. A few birds flew across the page, depicted as sure-handed Ms—had every child since the dawn of time learned to draw flying birds this way? Next to the figures was a tiny oval shape with eyes. Was that an animal? Or a baby?

Frida placed her hand on her stomach, finding her breath. She wanted to yank the drawing from the ceiling, find out more, a name maybe, but she knew she couldn’t.

Was this a drawing of a mother and her daughter? Did she belong to Anika? Who but a mother would keep something like this?

Frida would ask her. That’s what Anika wanted; she must. Tomorrow, as they baked, Frida would find out the truth.

There was a knock on the door, and Frida knew who it was before he stepped inside. Cal looked so clean compared with last week, when he would return from Morning Labor covered in dust and sweat. Now he wore the faded button-down jean shirt he had always loved. Holes in both elbows, but at least tucked in.

“You okay?” he asked, but not until he’d shut the door firmly behind him. “Anika came to get me.”

“I’ve got those symptoms you asked for.”

“I hope Anika doesn’t put two and two together.” He pulled the shirt from his waist, as if home from a long day at the office, and sat on the edge of the bed. “Just in case, Micah’s telling people you used to barf a lot when you were a kid.” He paused. “It’s really happening, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “I think so.”

“No one can find out. Not yet.”

Frida pushed herself up to sitting. “What happens if they do?”

Cal shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s why we should wait. I’m working on Micah.”

“What do you mean?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure. Just trying to subtly persuade him, I guess.”

Frida didn’t want to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. “My brother can’t be persuaded.”

“That’s what I told Peter.”

“You two talk about my brother?”

Cal nodded.

“Without him?”

Cal nodded again. “When we have the opportunity. Peter thinks Micah’s a great leader, but that he needs to be kept in check. His ego, and all that.”

“And you think you can change him?”

Cal shrugged. “I guess Peter got him to loosen up. He once stole Micah’s clothes while Micah was taking a shower, then put them on one of the goats. I guess that finally broke your brother. He was buck naked and couldn’t stop laughing. Maybe that convinced Micah he could think of this place as family.”

Family.
Frida put a hand on Cal’s cheek.

“Tell me what you did in the meeting today,” she said.

He smiled, but it looked more like a wince. “You know I can’t.”

Frida imagined Micah telling Cal about Pines. Her brother would describe in detail how August got inside and what he did once he was there. They were big secrets, she imagined, and they would have to be whispered. Frida couldn’t summon Micah’s words, though. It was like trying to continue a dream after she’d already woken, and she hated that she didn’t know what would happen next. She wanted to know what Cal knew. Didn’t she?

“You can tell me,” she said. “I’m your wife.”

He shook his head. “I want to, baby, you know that. But if they find out I did, I would lose the access I’m gaining. You have to understand.”

“I see.”

If he wasn’t going to divulge, well, then, neither was she.

“I can’t,” he said. His words were sweet, but he wasn’t even looking at her. “I crossed my heart and hoped to die.”

“Stick a needle in your eye?”

“Is that really what the saying is? Jesus.”

He was already standing, as if eager to be away from her.

Frida rested all day, and the next morning, when she got up to bake, the Hotel was still dark. She felt fine, thank goodness. Dawn was a ways off. Would morning sickness coincide with the rising of the sun?

She read the hallway walls with her hands, tiptoeing to the staircase, and wondered what she’d say once she reached the kitchen. She wanted to ask who had drawn that picture. She wanted to ask if Anika had been a mother. Frida wished she could tell Anika that she herself would be one in just a few months. Now, at least, she was certain of the pregnancy. Last night at dinner she’d refused the kale dish, the sight of greens making her queasy, and she’d fallen into bed soon after, as exhausted as she’d ever been. Her body was in this child’s clutches, and he wasn’t—
she
wasn’t?—letting go.

If only she could tell Anika; Anika would understand. But no, Frida had promised.

They would make plain wheat bread today. No frills. Frida had decided last night. She and Anika had been too decadent lately, acting as if their reserves of chocolate, of coconut, of vanilla extract, were endless. If August went on a trip to Pines and returned empty-handed, she and Anika would be blamed for raiding the root cellar. Or she would be; Anika, special and feared, was probably above reproach. Yet another fancy dessert might imply irresponsibility to the rest of the Land, and that needed to be avoided.

The kitchen was dark when she reached it, the oven unlit. Where was Anika? Frida’s heart hiccuped. She imagined the baby flipping inside her like a quarter, heads to tails.

“Hello?” she called out.

She hadn’t told anyone about the drawing she’d seen in Anika’s room, but when she’d left it, she hadn’t closed the door, and someone might have gone in there uninvited. The drawing had to be a secret; why else hang it on the ceiling? What if someone had found out that Anika had told Frida about Pines? As an outsider, perhaps Frida wasn’t supposed to know. Anika could be in trouble. Come to think of it, Frida hadn’t seen her at dinner.
Don’t panic,
Frida told herself.
Not yet.

She wanted to run back upstairs and wake Cal. She would tell him everything in one long breathless rush, the same way he’d confessed Bo’s story. That morning, weeks before, he’d led her back inside, and in the center of the very house the Millers had died in, he told her the truth. All of it. She wondered if that would ever happen again.

Now there were other people to consider.

She waited in the kitchen, her body alert and taut as a predator’s. She could just make out the outline of a candle on the table and the box of matches next to it. Well. At least she could solve the first problem. Frida was striking a match against the strip of carbon when she heard the door open.

Anika walked in with a scarf around her neck and a glow stick in her hand. Frida had always imagined Anika walking through the Hotel in the dark, sniffing her way to her destination like a wolf seeking its dinner.

“You’re late,” Frida said. Wasn’t that what Anika had said to her, that first morning?

“Sorry. I actually slept last night.”

“You did? How long has it been?”

Instead of answering, Anika set to work lighting the other candles and getting the oven going. She unwound her scarf before the room was warm: a tiny form of penance.

“Did you dream?” Frida asked.

Anika shook her head. “Comatose.”

“Why don’t you ask August to get you some sleeping pills?”

“That stuff scares me. Anyway, I don’t like pharmaceuticals.”

“What about birth control?”

Anika smirked. “You’re not wasting any time this morning.”

“How can I, after what I saw in your room? That child’s drawing.”

Anika stuck another branch into the oven.

“When I was about six years old, my dog, a golden retriever mix, jumped onto the counter to get at a near-empty bag of Cheetos. Remember those? They were chips, sort of. Orange and powdery.”

Frida nodded.

“Well, no one was home, and Bongo got his face caught in the bag of Cheetos, and he couldn’t get out. He suffocated in there.”

“That’s awful,” Frida said. She meant it, but she couldn’t help but smile. “And absurd.”

“Curiosity kills, Frida.”

“So does gluttony, apparently.”

Anika shook her head. “You’re not understanding me.”

“Are you telling me there aren’t any answers here? No Cheetos?”

Anika held up a branch as if she were considering displaying it on a mantel. “It’s been so long since everything happened, I wonder if it means anything anymore.”

“It means something to you. I can tell.”

Anika threw the branch into the fire, which was strong and hot by now. “Let’s get started,” she said. “We’re running late.”

Frida told her she wanted to make bread, nothing fancy, and Anika didn’t offer her opinion, as she usually did.

The bread didn’t take much time to prepare; it was so easy, it was hard to ignore the truth: that their morning baking was just an excuse to share stories. A ruse.

“Okay,” Anika said finally. “I do want to talk about it.”

“Then go ahead,” Frida replied. “I’m a pretty good listener.”

“But you’ve kept the most important thing from me.”

“I have?” Frida said. She had the large bowl of dough in her hand. It was ready to rise, and she held on to it tightly. Anika knew she was pregnant. She must have guessed from Frida’s vomiting. Or maybe she had heard her and Cal whispering in her bedroom. Maybe everyone knew.

“The Millers,” Anika said.

Frida exhaled. Her friend was just as oblivious as ever. “What about them?”

Anika brought her voice to a whisper. “As soon as he heard, August told me they were dead. He would never keep something like that from me.” She paused. “But why? Why did they do it?”

“Anika, I have no idea.”

“Bullshit. Tell me why they killed themselves.”

Frida put down the bowl. In an hour the dough would be ready to knead. After only a few days of working in the kitchen, Frida’s hands and arms were baker-strong again, able to make loaf after loaf of bread for the Land. The body never forgets.

“I swear I don’t know, Anika. It’s haunted me for months.”

“When August told me the news,” Anika said, “I nearly fell down. He had to hold me up.”

“Cal buried them,” she said. “It was horrible.”

“You know what’s horrible? That I thought you’d have something useful to tell me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“All this time, I hoped you’d be able to shed some light on what happened, give me some solace. Help me understand. We allowed Micah into this place so that he’d protect us, and he let two of our founding members die.”

“They weren’t here anymore to be protected,” Frida said. “Why did they leave?”

Anika didn’t reply.

“What difference would it make if I knew anything?” Frida asked. She grabbed Anika’s wrist. It felt wrong, like putting her hands on a stranger.

“This isn’t a fair exchange,” Anika said.

“No, it isn’t.” Frida didn’t say that it reminded her of marriage, which was never fair, but at least it always changed. You gave and gave and gave, and then, eventually, you found yourself taking. Which was the better side to be on?

Anika hadn’t moved her wrist from Frida’s grasp, and Frida took this as a good sign. “Tell me about the drawing,” she said, her tone almost imperious. She sounded like Anika herself, and Anika obeyed.

“I had a boy,” she said. “That funny little egg shape in the picture? With the eyes? That’s my baby. Jane drew it for me—it’s of the three of us. I was like an aunt to that girl.”

She had her son late, as far as those things went. Forty-four. When she missed her period, she initially thought maybe she was going menopausal. But in June, on the longest day of the year, “literally
and
figuratively,” Anika said with pride in her eyes, she gave birth. The labor took forty-two hours; he was born in the barn, like an animal. They named him Ogden. “Not after the poet,” Anika said, but Frida had no idea who she was talking about. Cal would, but she didn’t think she could tell him this story.

“Was he the first child to be born here?” Frida asked.

“We weren’t the only ones, Frida.”

The Land used to have families. It wasn’t teeming with kids, but there were about fifteen or so when Micah arrived.

“There were children here when the Pirates attacked?” Frida said. “How could you leave something like that out?”

“I’m sorry,” Anika replied. “Sometimes…it’s too much.”

“Were they hurt by the Pirates?”

“No, not physically. But they were just as afraid as we were, if not more so.”

Frida kept her voice gentle. “Tell me about the children. You have to.”

All but three had been born here; the oldest, Melissa, was twelve and had come with her parents. The girl remembered her life before: the crime, the hunger, how the city had been promised paved roads, schoolbooks, medicine, but they never arrived. She was five when her parents decided to follow some old friends out here. “They’d come from Merced, so you can imagine.”