Middle Ground (33 page)

I shook my head slowly.

“I thought I’d never get the chance. God, Madeline, that almost killed me. That was worse than anything, to think that I never told you how I felt. And how much you deserved to hear it. I’ve never hated myself so much in my life. I felt so selfish and stupid for holding that back.”

I opened my mouth to argue but he interrupted me.

“I love you so much. I need you to know that.”

I nodded because I couldn’t say anything.

“I always have,” he said. “Since the second I laid eyes on you. No one’s ever had that effect on me. You made my head spin. You changed my life.”

I smiled at him and touched his lips, but he pulled my hand away.

“I’ll always love you. Forever. Do you believe that?”

I nodded. “Forever.”

“You’re the only thing that matters,” he went on. “Nothing can ever happen to you.” I pressed my fingers over his lips because he was going to make me cry.

“I know,” I said, and I pulled him down close to me so I could taste his words.

Two days later we left for Eden. The good news was the students who’d escaped were safe. The list of enrollment in each DC was confidential, so the police had no way of acquiring the students’ names. The only person who could release that information was Richard Vaughn and the news reported he was still recovering from a serious health incident and wasn’t available for questioning. For the time being, we’d won. No one was going to order students back to the DC until more investigations took place.

We arrived the night before the spring festival. It was an annual all-weekend event to honor the spring equinox. Stores closed down, shuttles stopped running, and the streets became an open promenade to welcome a parade of music, food, and art.

About two hundred students were relocated to Eden. They were scattered around the city in hotels and volunteer homes. The entire city donated food and supplies. Justin and I escorted about fifty students to a hotel downtown. His parents were covering the expenses.

“How can your parents afford all of this?” I asked Justin after we checked the students in and were heading back to his parents’ house. Now that I thought about it, it occurred to me his parents didn’t even have jobs. They had been full-time volunteers most of their lives.

“Are they independently wealthy?” I asked.

“More like dependently wealthy,” he said. “Remember, my dad invented the Cerberix. And it can hack into anything.”

He grinned at me and I caught on. “They’re stealing the money?” I asked. “From bank accounts?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly,” he said. “My dad owns the rights to a dozen patents. He does pretty well. But we get a little help from a private investor.” He looked at me. “Your father.”

“You’re stealing from my dad?”

“We tap into the digital-school corporate accounts and draw money out when it’s needed. Your dad’s got a couple hundred mill in there. Might as well put it to use.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “So, my dad’s company funds everything you guys do?”

Justin grinned. “We don’t feel too bad about it,” he admitted.

***

The next day, Clare and I got ready for the festival at Justin’s parents’ house. The late afternoon was warm and humid, so we both wore sundresses. The house was swarming with visitors and guests. A blues band was performing in the living room and music filled the house like light. It warmed and polished everything. The front door was propped open to let anyone inside.

I followed Clare downstairs and we headed to the kitchen and Elaine was sitting at the table drinking a glass of wine with two of her friends. When she saw us she smiled.

“Madeline, you’re wearing makeup,” she told me. “And a dress.”

“Sometimes her inner girl breaks through,” Clare said.

“I was just trying to cover up this bruise.” I pointed to the narrow scab on the top of my forehead, just below my hairline, where my head had hit the boat’s windshield.

“Well, you look gorgeous,” she said. “And Clare, you grew your hair out.”

Clare nodded. “I’ve been too busy to cut it,” she said. She’d curled her hair tonight in soft waves, and her coral lipstick made her blue eyes stand out. We sat down at the kitchen table, and Clare and I helped ourselves to handfuls of sugar peas.

“You both look refreshed,” Elaine noted.

“It’s hard not to be when I’m here,” I said.

“Maybe you should come out here more often,” Elaine said.

“Why is it so good to be here?” I asked. “What is it about this place? Is it all the ocean air? Or the climate?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Nope,” she assured me. “You can bring this place with you anywhere.”

“How?” I asked. I needed to know her secret.

She took a sip of red wine. “Look around you, Maddie. It’s the people. That’s the energy you feel. That’s what you’re reacting to. We slow down and enjoy life.” She pointed to the sugar peas in our hands. “When you rush what you eat, you hardly taste it. You get a stomachache, right? It’s the same with life. Just slow it down and enjoy every bite. Eat at the table. And fill up all the chairs around it with people you love.”

Noah came through the door and raised his hands. “There you two are,” he said. “Can we get going? I’m starving.”

We stood up and followed Noah outside, where Justin and Pat were waiting for us in the front yard. We walked downtown and followed a path through the street lit by tin-can luminarias decorated with vines and leaves. The candles inside flickered and moved with the breeze.

I asked Justin why Eden celebrated the vernal equinox.

“
Equinox
means ‘equal night,’” he told me. “It’s the first day of spring, when there’s equal amount of day and night.” He explained that cultures have been superstitious about it for centuries. It honors the idea of lightness and darkness and of death and rebirth.

I discovered quickly that the spring festival revolved around eating. When we reached downtown, the streets were filled with food stands. I tried baked apples, gooey with caramel and brown sugar drizzled on top. There was barbecued pork, grilled portobello mushrooms as big as my hand, roasted sunchokes, and squash. For dessert there were chocolate truffles and apple and marionberry pies. There were fruit smoothies and home-brewed beer and wine. There were deep-fried doughnuts and dried plums, pears, cherries, and apricots that tasted as sweet as candy.

The food alone was intoxicating. It made my taste buds scream, since I had barely used them in the last six months. I wanted to try everything, so Justin and I ended up sharing portions. We split pizza and crepes and doughnuts and cake. All my senses were on overdrive after being dulled for so long.

The DC students paraded through the streets like they were in a movie set, stunned to the point of surreal. Wherever we glided, Justin and I were stared at and pointed out like we were some celebrity couple sauntering down a red carpet. Between the two of us, it took an hour to walk one single block. People stopped to thank us or congratulate us on what we did. Secretly, I loved the attention. In my gut I had a feeling this was the way it would be when we were together and I realized I loved all the eyes on me. I was fine with being in the spotlight. It might be a lifestyle I was cut out for. And one year ago, I was just a single girl sitting in her room, staring at a screen.

Clare and Gabe caught up to us and we ran into Molly and Scott and the six of us stayed in a group as we walked down the street. I pointed out a booth with a line of people ranging from toddlers to elderly. It was the busiest tent at the festival.

I asked Justin what they were doing and he told me it was a long tradition.

I watched people sorting through boxes of seeds and bulbs and shoveling dirt into small brown pots. People took turns watering the pots after the seeds were planted.

“It’s symbolic,” he said. “You’re supposed to think about a goal you want to achieve in the next year, or a wish you hope will come true. That seed becomes your goal. So, you plant it and see if it grows.”

I looked back over at the stand.

“Have you ever done it?” I asked. He nodded and said when he was little he did. He said every year he wished for telepathic powers but since it never came true he stopped trying.

I told him I wanted to try it and I pulled Clare’s hand and got in the back of the line. When our turns came, we both looked over the seeds and tried to choose something that represented us. I didn’t know flowers very well, but my mom loved lilies and she’d sometimes splurge on a bouquet of them. I liked that they were tall and confident. I chose a lily bulb and they handed me a bowl full of soil. Clare chose a tulip bulb.

I rolled the bulb between my fingers and thought about what I wanted to accomplish this year, what wish I wanted to see grow. I put my thoughts and energy into that wish and let it travel through my hand and imagined it floating through my fingers into the bulb itself. I planted it a few inches deep and poured water on top and I liked the idea my wish was safe and secret but had the potential to burst through.

Clare and I found Gabe in one of the food lines. His eyes were wide, like he was trying to soak in as much of the atmosphere as he could. I asked him if he was overwhelmed with the choices and he shook his head.

“Not with the food,” he said. “It’s the women. They’re everywhere.” He pointed out the tan girls around us in dresses and spaghetti-strap tank tops. “For the last six years all I’ve met are girls that get weak in the knees every time I come near them. And not for the sexy reasons.” He handed me a piece of paper. “Look what someone gave me.”

Clare and I ducked down to read a plastic business card. A lot of single people carried these, to list their favorite profiles and contact numbers.

“She told me she’s visiting here from Sacramento for the weekend and I should
chat her up.
Does that mean I should call her?”

Clare pointed to the loopy black print. “She gave you her CMO.”

“Her what?”

“It’s her profile number for Contact Me Online. It’s a really intimate friendship site. And she gave you her ID number on date2go.com.” She raised her eyebrows like he should be impressed.

“I don’t speak robot,” Gabe replied to her look.

“She’s interested,” I explained. “She wants you to find her online so she can study your profile. Then she wants you to go to this dating site and request a questionnaire to see if you’re compatible with her to meet for a virtual date.”

Gabe still looked baffled.

“It’s how most people meet these days,” Clare said.

He frowned. “Why didn’t she just talk to me?” he asked. “I was standing right here.”

Clare and I looked at each other to try to explain. “Because that’s backward to a lot of people,” I finally said. “Most people think you’re weird if you want to meet face-to-face. You don’t talk in person until you know each other first.”

“No, thanks,” Gabe said, and threw the plastic card into a trash can. “I’ve been waiting six years to meet girls. I don’t want to date a computer screen.”

When we found the rest of the group, Justin grabbed my free hand. We passed more tents full of activities: people painting eggs and ceramic mugs and making bookmarks and decorating photos with dried flowers.

We walked down to the beach where there were bonfires burning as far as you could see. We sat on a blanket and started discussing things we wished for, one thing we wanted to accomplish in the next year.

I didn’t mention what I really wished for, I didn’t want to jinx it, so I said I wanted to learn how to read sheet music and play the guitar. Clare wanted to travel to Europe. Gabe wanted to mountain bike. Pat wished Angelina Jolie would be reborn.

“Angelina Jolie
Salt,
or Angelina Jolie
Tomb Raider
?” Scott asked.

“Definitely
Tomb Raider,
” Pat said.

We asked Justin what he’d wished for and his eyes went straight to me. He paused for a second and smiled.

“Ninja powers,” he finally said.

“Poor choice,” Noah scoffed. “Ninjas are overrated. They have such limited weapon selection.”

“They don’t need weapons,” Justin argued. “They’re cunning.”

“They don’t even wear armor,” Scott pointed out.

“They don’t need it,” he said. “They’re too fast. And their senses are so heightened, they can smell something from three miles away.”

“You made that up,” Pat insisted.

“So? It’s my dream,” Justin said.

We made yearly goals for each other. I gave Scott the goal of fine-tuning his people skills.

“You’re really not a bad guy, you just come off as such an ass at first,” I told him.

“He has to work on his interpersonal communication,” Molly agreed.

I told Molly she needed to water down the science jargon.

Gabe nodded. “You sound like a medical dictionary,” he informed her.

“I think it’s sexy,” Scott argued.

Gabe told me I should learn to work on my patience. Or to give in once in a while. He dared me to try and stay out of trouble for a month.

We sat around and talked about life and dreams because they all felt in our grasp that night. Fireworks erupted over the ocean, in shapes of blooming flowers and showering branches of trees. The flowers opened and blossomed and then the petals fell over the water into a shimmering pool of light. People danced on the beach, their arms gliding like waves, like they were following some path in the jet stream. Happiness followed behind me like a loyal shadow.

The celebration carried into the next day and there was more live music and festivities and art shows. Justin and I stood on a wharf packed with sailboats and watched a band performing on the stage of a pavilion at the edge of the beach. Hundreds of people gathered around the stage, but tonight we wanted some privacy. I was on my third baked apple. Justin leaned over and grabbed it out of my hand and took a bite. He handed it back to me and licked his sticky fingers.

“After this whole mess is figured out, with the DC and digital school, do you think our lives will ever be this simple?” I asked.