And then, miraculously, a voice pipes up from the back of the group. “She’s valid, Gerry. I recognize her. She comes into the store. Lives at 172 Cumberland.”
Gerry swings around, lowering his flashlight in the process. I blink away the floating dots in my vision. I recognize a few faces vaguely—a woman who works in the local dry cleaners and spends her afternoons leaning in the doorway, chewing gum and occasionally spitting out into the street; the traffic officer who works downtown near Franklin Arterial, one of the few areas of Portland that has enough car traffic to justify one; one of the guys who collects our garbage—and there, in the back, Dev Howard, who owns the Quikmart down the street from my house.
Normally my uncle brings home most of our groceries—canned goods and pasta and sliced meats, for the most part—from his combo deli and convenience store, Stop-N-Save, all the way over on Munjoy Hill, but occasionally, if we’re desperate for toilet paper or milk, I’ll run out to the Quikmart. Mr. Howard has always creeped me out. He’s super-skinny and has hooded black eyes that remind me of a rat’s. But tonight I feel like I could hug him. I didn’t even think he knew my name. He’s never said a word to me except, “Will that be all today?” after he has rung up my purchases, glowering at me from underneath the heavy shade of his eyelids. I make a mental note to thank him the next time I see him.
Gerry hesitates for a fraction of a second longer, but I can see that the other regulators are starting to get restless, shifting from foot to foot, eager to continue the patrol and find someone to bust.
Gerry must sense it too, because he jerks his head abruptly in my direction. “Let her have the ID.”
Relief makes me feel like laughing, and I have to struggle to look serious as I take my ID and tuck it into place. My hands are shaking ever so slightly. It’s strange how being around the regulators will do that to you. Even when they’re being relatively nice, you can’t help but think of all the bad stories you’ve heard—the raids and the beatings and the ambushes.
“Just be careful, Magdalena,” Gerry says, as I straighten up. “Make sure you’re home before curfew.” He tilts his flashlight into my eyes again. I lift my arm to my eyes, squinting against the dazzle. “You wouldn’t want to get into any trouble.”
He says it lightly, but for a moment I think I hear something hard running under his words, a current of anger or aggression. But then I tell myself I’m just being paranoid. No matter what the regulators do, they exist for our protection, for our own good.
The regulators sweep away in a group around me, so for a few seconds I’m caught up in a tide of rough shoulders and cotton jackets, unfamiliar cologne and sweat-smells. Walkie-talkies sputter to life and fade away again around me. I catch snippets of words and broadcasts: Market Street, a girl and a boy, possibly infected, unapproved music on St. Lawrence, someone appears to be dancing . . . I get bumped side to side against arms and chests and elbows, until finally the group passes and I’m spit out again, left alone on the street as the regulators’ footsteps grow more distant behind me. I wait until I can no longer hear the fuzz of their radio chatter or their boots hitting the pavement.
Then I take off, feeling again a lifting sensation in my chest, that same sense of happiness and freedom. I can’t believe how easy it was to get out of the house. I never knew I could lie to my aunt—I never knew I could lie, period—and when I think about how narrowly I escaped getting grilled by the regulators for hours, it makes me want to jump up and down and pump my fist in the air. Tonight the whole world is on my side. And I’m only a few minutes from Back Cove. My heart picks up its rhythm as I think about skidding down the sloping hill of grass, seeing Alex framed against the last, dazzling rays of sun—as I think about that single word breathed into my ear. Gray.
I tear down Baxter, which loops around the last mile down to Back Cove. And then I stop short. The buildings have fallen away behind me, giving way to ramshackle sheds, sparsely situated on either side of the cracked and run-down road. Beyond that, a short strip of tall, weedy grass slants down toward the cove. The water is an enormous mirror, tipped with pink and gold from the sky. In that single, blazing moment as I come around the bend, the sun—curved over the dip of the horizon like a solid gold archway—lets out its final winking rays of light, shattering the darkness of the water, turning everything white for a fraction of a second, and then falls away, sinking, dragging the pink and the red and the purple out of the sky with it, all the color bleeding away instantly and leaving only dark.
Alex was right. It was gorgeous—one of the best I’ve ever seen.
For a moment I can’t move or do anything but stand there, breathing hard, staring. Then a numbness creeps over me. I’m too late. The regulators must have been wrong about the time. It must be after eight thirty now. Even if Alex decides to wait for me somewhere along the long loop of the cove, I don’t have a prayer of finding him and making it home before curfew.
My eyes sting and the world in front of me goes watery, colors and shapes sloshing together. For a second I think I must be crying, and I’m so startled I forget everything—forget about my disappointment and frustration, forget about Alex standing on the beach, the thought of his hair catching the dying rays of sun, flashing copper. I can’t remember the last time I cried. It’s been years. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, and my vision sharpens again. It’s just sweat, I realize, relieved; I’m sweating, it’s getting in my eyes. Still, the sick, leaden feeling won’t work its way out of my stomach.
I stay there for a few minutes, straddling my bike, squeezing the handlebars hard until I’m a little bit calmer. Part of me wants to say, screw it, to shove off, both legs extended, and go flying down the hill toward the water with the wind whipping up my hair—screw curfew, screw the regulators, screw everyone. But I can’t; I couldn’t; I could never. I have no choice. I have to get home.
I maneuver my bike around in a clumsy circle and start back up the street. Now that the adrenaline and excitement have faded, my legs feel like they’re made out of iron, and I’m panting before I’ve gone a quarter of a mile. This time I’m careful to stay alert for regulators and police and patrols.
On the way home I tell myself that it’s probably for the best. I must be crazy, zooming around in the half dark just to meet up with some guy on the beach. Besides, everything has been explained: He works at the labs, probably just snuck in on evaluation day for some completely innocent reason—to use the bathroom, or refill his water bottle.
And I remind myself that I probably imagined the whole thing—the message, the meeting up. He’s probably sitting in his apartment somewhere, doing course work for his classes. He’s probably already forgotten about the two girls he met at the lab complex today. He was probably just being nice earlier, making casual conversation.
It’s for the best. But no matter how many times I repeat it, the strange, hollow feeling in my stomach doesn’t go away. And ridiculous as it is, I can’t shake the persistent, needling feeling that I’ve forgotten something, or missed something, or lost something forever.
Chapter Seven
Of all the systems of the body—neurological, cognitive, special, sensory—the cardiological system is the most sensitive and easily disturbed. The role of society must be to shelter these systems from infection and decay, or else the future of the human race is at stake. Like a summer fruit that is protected from insect invasion, bruising, and rot by the whole mechanism of modern farming; so must we protect the heart.
—“The Role and Purpose of Society,” The Book of Shhh, p. 353