California: A Novel (32 page)

Sheryl snorted.

“I thought you’d never offer!” Betty said, and they all laughed again. Frida felt the pride that being funny brought, and for the first time in days, she felt happy, and safe.

The women left before the fire got too low, but Frida stayed. She wanted to listen to the singers for a little longer, she said. She promised Betty she’d return the shower curtain picnic blanket to the outdoor lounge. The night air, scraped clean by the rain, felt good on her face.

Rachel showed up soon after the women left. Without the guitar to guide her, Rachel began to sing “This Little Light of Mine.”

Her voice was deep and scratchy. She had been a smoker in her past, Frida could tell. She imagined Rachel twenty years earlier, Dave’s age: her hair long, lots of eye shadow maybe, definitely a run in her tights, drinking a lot, every night her lips stained purple with wine. Back then she wouldn’t have sung, unbidden, like she did now. Dave probably wouldn’t have liked her young. Hilda had once said that some women, the lucky ones, lost their youth but found something much better, something sexier, to replace it.

Frida was still young, though, wasn’t she? She was sort of in between the younger men and the older women. That couldn’t have escaped notice. The women must wonder if she wanted children, now or ever. They must have considered her fertility. If they felt threatened by her youth, they didn’t show it.

The next song was one she knew, and Frida decided, what the hell, she would sing along. She remembered the lyrics from day camp so long ago, when there was still money for that kind of thing. She wondered whether Micah had supplied it to the Land’s canon.

Frida sang loudly and terribly, and she laughed with everyone else when Peter supplied the baritone echoes. She wanted this. She wanted to stay here. It was what she’d wanted when they arrived, when she had fallen into her brother’s arms, and when she met all these strangers, saw their buildings, ate their food. She had wanted to be part of a community, and, abracadabra, here it was. She’d felt so lucky. That feeling was coming back to her now.

Once the fire died down and everyone began to disperse for bed, Frida’s secret surfaced in her thoughts once more, and she wasn’t sure what to feel. She was a fraud. She was a liar. Her friends were all following the rules of this place without complaint, and now here she was, an exception to those rules. It wasn’t right. If Frida thought Anika would be happy, she was crazy. Anika would come around to the idea, Frida was sure of it, but the longer the pregnancy was a secret, the worse it would be. Frida would look no better than Micah, who fed off secrets. She and Cal would be starting off here badly if they withheld this information.

She tried not to think about it. She wanted to push the baby from her mind. Not now, not now.

Already sounding like a mother, she thought.

When Peter caught up with her on the way back to the Hotel, there was no use wasting time with a preamble. “I feel like people should know,” she said.

“They will soon enough,” he said.

He seemed so glad that she was pregnant, despite the complications that were sure to take over this place, at least for a little while.

Frida smiled. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” She couldn’t help it.

She was channeling Sandy Miller, she realized, triumphant before her chart of menstrual cycles, glory be the gift of children, excited for the bounty they would inherit. Because that’s what moms did, right? They chose to believe the future was good. To assume otherwise was to participate in a kind of despair.

Peter squeezed her shoulder and told her to sleep well. “August will be back tomorrow,” he said, and she nodded. The Vote was upon them.

And here she was, a few nights later, sitting in the Church next to Cal, in the same pew they were always led to, right up front so that nearly everyone was behind them. The first time, she’d been too shocked to really take anything in; her brother was alive and here was a whole town of people just a two-day journey away from the Miller Estate. The first night, she couldn’t possibly have been bothered to notice that someone had carved the initials
D.B.B.
into the pew’s wooden seat or that the buzzing lights at the back of the room seemed to be saying
uh-huh, uh-huh
over and over again. Cal had initially found those lights to be obnoxious, but he didn’t seem to mind them now. He had nodded at a few people on their way in but had since fallen quiet. He squeezed Frida’s hand every now and again, and she squeezed his back.

Betty had told her that housekeeping never cleaned the Church’s interior, but clearly someone had been in here to dust. The stage before them was clean and buffed, the metal piping around its edge smooth as the hem of a gown. There was nothing on the pulpit: no ballot box, no table with small slips of paper, no vat of ink to dip people’s thumbs into after they’d cast their vote.

Then Frida remembered that it would all happen publicly. That’s all she knew.

She hadn’t asked Micah or Anika, and it seemed odd to turn around and ask Rachel, who was sitting behind them. Dave was sitting elsewhere, of course. Rule 1: discretion.

“Do you know how it’s going to work?” Frida whispered to Cal.

“Everyone who wants us to stay will move to a designated corner of the Church,” Cal said. “Anyone who doesn’t will go stand on the opposite side.”

Someone whistled, a piercing, two-fingered one, and Cal stopped talking. Micah walked onto the stage.

“Let’s get started,” he said, and clapped his hands twice.

Frida had expected her brother to say a few words about the Land’s philosophy, about how this was a significant moment in their history as a community. They hadn’t accepted any new members since he and the others had arrived a few years back, and that had to be on everyone’s minds. It wasn’t until Micah didn’t say any of this that Frida realized she’d been composing a speech for her brother in her head these last couple of days. She had imagined him describing Cal’s gifts as a farmer and carpenter and critical thinker. He would go on and on about Frida’s bread, about how well liked she was. He might say something about family.
Frida is my sister,
he would say, and leave it at that because everyone would understand how meaningful that was.

Instead he held up his hand and said, “I’m confident that everyone has already made up their minds.” He paused, and Frida imagined everyone behind her nodding. “So here we go. If you’re in favor of Frida and Calvin moving to the Land permanently, to participate in our community, please move to the northeastern corner of the room.” He pointed to the back-left corner of the Church. To Frida and Cal he said, “Please remain seated, guys.” And then he jumped off the stage, presumably to make his own vote.

“Don’t they want to debate it?” Frida whispered to Cal. “They don’t have questions or anything?” She felt so ignorant. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask these questions earlier.

“A few took private meetings with Micah and Peter,” Cal said, “to voice their concerns.” His eyes remained on the stage, but Frida could tell he was listening closely, trying to discern the migration patterns of those in the pews behind them. “August’s been lobbying for us the past two days.”

Cal was obviously confident they had everyone’s support, and after a few moments Frida felt him relax against her into the pew.

“You’re acting as if there’s a screen in front of us,” she said. “Like we’re at the movies.”

He smiled. “Pass the popcorn.”

He must have pushed the baby out of his mind. That, or he truly believed that once they were accepted here they could not be forced out.

From the corner of her eye, Frida could see that the people in the pew to their left were moving across the room. She turned her head, expecting seriousness on everyone’s face, but Peter was absently running his tongue over his teeth as he passed the last pews, and Fatima had gotten distracted by her thumbnail; she almost bumped into August, who was just ahead of her. Anika was smiling, for once.

She could tell Cal didn’t want to look at the gathered group until everyone had finished voting and that he expected her to do the same. She didn’t care. She turned to watch the people crowd into the far back corner. They were a disheveled and unlikely bunch, huddled together as they were around the campfire. She’d been to it every night since the first time. Yesterday she’d brought cinnamon buns to pass around, and Sailor, a rare visitor to the festivities as far as she could tell, had joked, “Buttering us up for the Vote, lady?” before taking two. Everyone laughed, including Frida, but it had also made her uneasy. He was right. She had been deliberately campaigning, befriending anyone who looked her way. As if she were running for prom queen.

More and more people had clotted into the northeast corner, and after a few minutes it appeared as though everyone had moved out of their pews. Only Frida and Cal remained seated.

This was good, she told herself. She and Cal had been accepted. They were wanted.

But even as relief passed over her, so did its inverse, its shadow. It was the same shame she’d felt flush with at the campfire. She just wanted them to like her, and there was something selfish about that, especially when they didn’t know about the baby. The baby was important; it was necessary information.

Tell them.

Was it crazy to imagine her baby, passing on this message? It was as if Frida had picked up a bottle that had washed onto shore. She had unfurled the scroll to find these instructions.
Tell them.

“They need to know,” Frida said to Cal.

“They will,” he said. He was still facing straight ahead. She remembered what he’d said a few nights before.
Wait and watch.
He actually thought Micah would figure it out for them.

But would he?

“No,” Frida said. “Now.”

She felt herself standing. Cal’s hand had grasped her own, he was trying to yank her back to the pew like a current pulling her underwater, but she shook him off.

“Micah,” she said. Too quietly at first. The collective volume of the room had risen suddenly. Everyone had begun to talk to their neighbors; they were excited, Frida supposed, by the official change, by the obvious outcome of the Vote. The Land was growing! They could not be contained!

“Frida,” Cal said. “Please.”

She didn’t look down at him.

“Micah,” she said again. She yelled it.

This time, everyone heard her, and her brother emerged from the center of the crowd as if he’d been pushed forward.

Everyone had stopped talking.

“You okay, Frida?” Micah asked. “We usually hold an optional postvote analysis, if you want to contribute then.”

“Let’s wait,” Cal said, but not to everyone, only to her.

Frida sought out Anika’s face in the crowd, but before she found her, she saw Betty and then Lupe. And Rachel. Had all these women been mothers? Her eyes passed over Smolin. Had he been a father? If these people had been parents once, they still were. That role could never be taken away.

Her parents had grieved Micah’s death; their son was dead, but they were still his parents.

“I’m pregnant,” Frida said. She said it loudly, she made sure of that, but she repeated herself, just to be sure. “I’m pregnant.”

The lights huffed over the silence that Frida’s news had wrought. She looked immediately at Cal, who had let go of her hand. His eyes were on his lap.

“Excuse me?” Micah let out a harsh and sudden laugh that startled those nearest him; it was as if he’d punctured a balloon with a needle. “Did you just say you’re
pregnant?
”

His delivery was perfect.

Peter stepped forward, with the same innocent, confused expression as Micah’s. Frida couldn’t help but be impressed with his acting, too. These guys were good.

“I wanted to tell you all before,” Frida began. She realized she had no excuse that wouldn’t implicate Cal, who she’d promised was a good man. And she didn’t want to tell on her brother; if she did, the Land might not recover.

Cal stood up. “I asked her not to,” he said. He had taken her hand again. “I thought it would make it easier. I wanted you to consider just us first, before anything else.”

All at once, people began to murmur to one another. Frida felt them looking at her, as if scrutinizing her body for signs, for proof of her betrayal. She wanted to lay a hand across her belly, but she didn’t. That would be too much for them.

The volume kept rising. It was like the back draft of fire, enveloping them with a
whoosh.

“I can’t believe this,” Micah said, somehow louder than the others, and the room fell quiet again. “Frida?”

“Oh, please,” Charles called out. “You expect us to buy that, Mikey? Your sister is pregnant, and you don’t know?”

“You know everything.” It was Sheryl’s voice, but she was behind the others, and Frida couldn’t see her. “You knew. You had to.”

Micah said nothing, only shook his head.

“What does this mean?” Fatima asked.

Charles nodded. “Yeah. We can’t just change everything we’ve come to stand for. What about our rules?
Your
rules?”

All at once, people began to walk away from the corner.

“Everyone, please remain calm,” Micah said.

“Where are they going?” Frida asked Cal.

“They’re voting us out…or they’re coming for us.” Cal was looking at Micah and Peter, whose heads were bent toward each other, whispering. August was headed to their huddle, and Sailor and Dave stood a few feet away, alert as bodyguards.

“Or maybe the conversation will continue,” Frida said. “Some of them might want it.”

She meant that they might want to talk further about what the future would look like if it had a child in it. But she also meant the child itself. Her baby. Would anyone be happy for her?

She looked back at the corner for Anika. She could only imagine what Anika must be thinking. Of Ogden, maybe. Babies are newborn for such a short period. Frida wanted to tell Anika that she would get that beautiful time, if not back, then again. They all would.