UnSouled (44 page)

Being the last one in, Cam tries to sit shotgun, but Sonia won’t allow it. “There’s less of a chance you’ll be seen in the back, since those windows are darker. And besides, your ‘multicultural’ face is too damn distracting for an old woman trying to drive a large vehicle.” So the shotgun seat is left empty, and Cam ends up sitting in the back with Connor.

“So where are we going?” Connor asks.

Risa turns around to answer and offers him a grin. “You’ll see.”

Cam can’t tell if it’s the exact same grin she offered him a moment before, or if there’s more warmth to it. He can’t stand not knowing. The frustration of it makes his seams begin to itch. He knows it’s all in his mind, but the crawling of his seams feels very real. The unspoken, undefined relationship between Risa and Connor is maddening.

Sonia drives with the practiced caution of the elderly, yet still manages to hit every bump and pothole in the road and issues forth curses that could make a longshoreman blush. Five minutes later, she pulls into the driveway of a modest two-story home.

“Did you warn her?” Risa asks as they come to a stop.

Sonia puts the car in park with a decisive thrust. “I don’t warn,” Sonia says. “I act, and people deal.”

Cam idly wonders if Roberta will be like this if she lives long enough to be that old. It gives him an unexpected and unwanted shiver.

Once out of the Suburban, Sonia quickly leads them to a side gate, where a shih tzu has already begun barking and shows no sign of ceasing anytime soon. “We live in a backdoor
world,” Sonia tells them, “so move your collective asses before the neighbors get nosy.” Sonia opens the gate, ignoring the dog, which tries to nip at everyone’s heels at once, in futile defense of its territory.

“One of these days,” says Sonia, as she leads them to the backyard, “I’ll punt that fool dog into Central Time.” And off of Grace’s concerned look, Risa assures her that Sonia doesn’t mean it.

With a high wooden fence around the perimeter of the yard, the back door is much less conspicuous than the front. Sonia raps loudly, and then raps again, not patient enough to wait for it to be answered. Finally a woman comes to the door. She seems to be in her midforties and is holding a toddler wearing a Minnie Mouse dress. A stork-job, Cam figures. Middle-aged people always seem to get babies dropped on their doorsteps these days.

“Oh good Lord. What now?” the beleaguered woman asks.

Then Connor gasps. “Didi?” he says, looking at the toddler.

Although the little girl regards him without a hint of recognition, the woman holding her appears both pleased and taken aback at the same time by the sight of Connor. “I changed her name to Dierdre.”

“Well, I still call her Didi,” says Risa. “You remember Hannah, don’t you, Connor?” Risa says, clearly a prompt to save him the embarrassment of not remembering the woman’s name.

When the woman looks at Cam, her face blanches, and Cam can’t resist saying, “Trick or treat,” although Halloween is months away.

Hannah puts Dierdre down and tells her to run inside and play, which she is more than happy to do, and the shih tzu, still unable to stop itself from barking, follows her just far enough to guard the threshold between the kitchen and the dining room.

“You’re full of surprises, Sonia,” Hannah says, her eyes still
locked on Cam. Then she herds them all in before they draw unwanted neighborhood attention. Cam finds the house a little too warm, but maybe it’s just in contrast to the chill of the overcast day.

“I spend my days helping Sonia,” Risa says, “but Hannah’s been kind enough to let me spend my nights here for the past few weeks.” Now that they’re safely inside, she introduces the rest of them to her, saving Cam for last, rather self-consciously calling him “the one and only Camus Comprix.”

“Are you ADR?” Cam asks as he shakes Hannah’s hand.

She eyes him with the same suspicion that everyone does. Everyone who isn’t starstruck, that is. “No. I was never a part of the Anti-Divisional Resistance. I’m just a concerned citizen.” Then she turns to Sonia. “We should talk. Alone.”

Hannah pulls Sonia into another room. She spares a glance back at them and says, “Risa, keep an eye on Dierdre. The rest of you, make yourselves comfortable,” then adds, “But not too comfortable.”

Risa, now their temporary hostess, escorts them into a living room filled with the primary-colored detritus of preschool toys strewn haphazardly on the floor. Dierdre ignores the visitors, content to throw plastic blocks in the direction of the dog, who retrieves them, no longer interested in territorial defense.

The room has many clocks. Hannah must be a collector. They all show different times, as none of them are wound or plugged in. Well, almost none. There’s one clock ticking, but Cam can’t figure out where the sound is coming from. How appropriate, he thinks, that the house of an AWOL sympathizer is all about the importance of time, yet the timepieces are all at odds with one another.

Risa draws the curtains as they settle into their new holding pattern until Sonia and Hannah’s summit meeting can bring about a decision as to what to do with them. “So,” says
Risa with an absolute awkwardness that is completely unlike her, “here we are.”

“And here be dragons,” Cam says, he himself not even knowing exactly why he says it or what it means. All he knows is that in some odd way, it’s true. He knows that Risa is still trying to process his and Connor’s presence here. She doesn’t even ask how they’ve come to be together, which tells Cam that she’s so far from dealing with it, she doesn’t even want to know.

They all sit spaced apart on a sectional sofa and the two chairs facing it, trying to keep this from feeling as awkward as it is. Grace is the only one who doesn’t sit yet. She wanders around the room, seemingly immune to the tension, examining photographs and knickknacks and digging her hand into a jar of Jolly Ranchers on a shelf too high for Dierdre to get at.

Cam wishes he could dig into at least one part of himself that retains that much innocence. Not even the tithes he has residing within him are naive enough to feel safe in Hannah’s comfortable living room. The memory bits of his tithes are more about feeling superior, so all he can dredge forth from them is aloofness. That’s not going to endear him to Risa.

“Hannah’s the teacher who saved Connor and me from the Juvey-cops when we were first on the run,” Risa explains.

“Oh,” says Cam impotently. “Good to know.” All her explanation does is reinforce the history Risa has with Connor. Cam hates having to hear it.

Grace, happy to fly beneath the radar of conversation, lines up her cache of candies on the living room’s coffee table. The bowl of Jolly Ranchers is still half-full, and the sight of it sparks absurd discord in Cam. Option Anxiety, he’s come to call it. “One man’s meat,” he mumbles to himself, but realizes it’s loud enough for the others to hear, so he explains. “It’s not just taste buds that create a preference for flavors,” he tells them. “My internal community is always at odds when it comes
to things like those candies. A part of me loves the green apple and another the grape. Someone has a particular affinity for the peach ones—which they don’t even make anymore—and someone else finds the whole concept of Jolly Ranchers nauseating.” He sighs, trying to dismiss his pointless Option Anxiety. “Bowls of mixed things are the bane of my existence.”

Connor looks at him with a blank zombie stare that must be well practiced. “You talk as if someone actually cares.”

Risa offers that slim grin to Cam again. “How can people be interested in the inner workings of your mind, Cam, when they can’t figure out the inner workings of their own?” It sounds like a sideways snipe against Connor, but then she gently pats Connor’s hand, turning a perfectly good snipe into a playful barb.

“Why don’t
you
choose a flavor for me?” Cam asks Risa, trying to be playful too, but Risa avoids the issue by saying, “After the trouble Roberta went through to find you such nice teeth, why rot them?”

“I got my favorites, but that don’t matter,” Grace announces. She indicates her well-spaced row of candies and puts a definitive end to the subject by saying, “I always eat them in alphabetical order.”

Cam decides to obey the sense memory that doesn’t like hard candy and doesn’t take any.

“How are your friends at Proactive Citizenry?” Risa asks Cam tentatively.

“They’re no more my friends than they are yours,” he tells her. He’s about to tell her that he’s turned on them and has given up the shining spotlight to help her, but Connor steals the reveal from him.

“Camus showed me some damaging evidence we can use against them.”

Cam regrets having shared it with Connor at all. Had he
known he’d come face-to-face with Risa here in Akron, he would have saved it all for her. Now he resents Connor for even knowing.

“And there’s more,” Cam adds. “You and I can talk later,” he tells Risa.

Connor shifts uncomfortably and turns his attention to the pictures around the room. “My guess is that Hannah is divorced or recently widowed. There are pictures of a man with her in some photos, including one with Dierdre—but Hannah’s not wearing a wedding ring.”

“Definitely widowed,” says Grace without looking up from her candy organization. “You don’t keep pictures out of a guy you divorced.”

Connor shrugs. “Anyway, it looks like she’s really taken to raising this Dierdre as her own.”

“She has,” Risa admits. “It was a good choice for us to leave her with Hannah. Not that we had much of a choice.”

The direction of the conversation makes Cam uncomfortable. “Exactly whose kid is it?”

Connor smirks at Cam and puts one arm around Risa. “Ours,” he says. “Didn’t you know?”

For a moment Cam believes him, for he knows Risa has many secrets yet to be discovered. Cam is disheartened until Risa slides deftly out of Connor’s embrace.

“She was a storked baby that Connor picked up from a doorstep,” Risa explains. “We took care of her for a brief time; then Hannah volunteered to take her off of our hands before we were shuttled to the next safe house.”

“And did you find motherhood an interesting experience?” Cam asks, relieved enough to be amused at the thought.

“Yes,” says Risa, “but I’m in no hurry to repeat it.” Then she stands, moving away from both Cam and Connor. “I’ll see what’s in the refrigerator. You must be hungry.”

After she’s gone, Connor’s demeanor changes a bit. He becomes dark. A brooding gray like the sky outside. “You’ll keep your eyes and your hands off of her. Is that clear? You will not cause her any more grief than you already have.”

“Ah!
The green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on!
” Cam says. “She told me you were the jealous type, but you’re a weak and pale Othello.”

“I’ll unwind you with my bare hands if you don’t leave her alone.”

That makes Cam genuinely laugh. “Your pointless bravado will be your downfall. All that arrogance with nothing to back it up.”

“Arrogance? You’re the one who’s full of himself! Or full of others, I should say.”

It’s like a sword has finally been drawn in the duel. Grace looks up from her Jolly Ranchers, even Dierdre and the dog, way across the room, seem to tune in. How will Cam respond? Although the wild parts of himself want to lash out in anger, he reins them in. Anger is what Connor wants. It’s what Connor knows how to deal with. Cam won’t oblige.

“The fact that I’m physically, intellectually, and creatively better than you is not arrogance or conceit; it’s a simple fact,” Cam says with forced calm. “I’m the better man because I was made to be. I can’t help what I
have
any more than you can help what you
don’t
.”

They hold hard gazes until Connor backs down. “If you want to joust over Risa, now’s not the time. Right now we all need to be friends.”

“Allies don’t gotta be friends,” Grace points out. “Take World War II. We couldn’t a’ won it without Russia, even though we hated each other’s guts then.”

“Point taken,” says Cam, once more impressed by Grace’s unexpected wisdom. “For now, let’s agree that Risa is off-limits. A demilitarized zone.”

“You’re mixin’ your wars,” Grace says. “The Demilitarized Zone was Korea.”

“She’s a person, not a zone,” says Connor. Then he goes over and plays with Dierdre, putting an end to all negotiations.

“You’re forgetting,” Cam says to Grace, who also noted the documentaries that so absorbed her at the motel, “that the United States and Russia almost nuked each other to smithereens after World War II.”

“I’m not forgettin’ nothin’,” Grace says, returning to her candies. “When the two of you really go at it, I expect I’ll build myself a bomb shelter.”

62 • Connor

This changes everything.

Connor’s initial thrill at seeing Risa is quickly crushed under the weight of the reality. Not the reality of Cam, but the reality of their situation. Now that Risa is with them, she’s no longer out of harm’s way. Connor had longed for her—there is no question about that. For all these months, he has ached to hear her voice and to be comforted by her words. He longed to massage her legs even though he knew she was no longer paralyzed. His feelings for her have not changed. Even when he thought she had betrayed the cause and had become a public voice in favor of unwinding, he knew deep down she could not be doing it of her own accord.

Then, when she came on live television to reveal it was a sham and thoroughly slapped down Proactive Citizenry, he loved her even more. After that, she vanished into hiding, just as completely as Connor had—and there was comfort in that. He could look out into the night and know she was out there somewhere, using her formidable wits to keep herself safe.

Connor, however, is anything but a safe harbor now. With what they mean to expose about Proactive Citizenry—and what he might potentially learn from Sonia—she is in much greater danger in his company than not. His journey is now into the flames, not away from them—and of course she’ll want to go with him. And Cam’s words still echo in his mind.

“I’m the better man because I was made to be.”