I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I’VE BEEN RUNNING, DARTING DOWN empty side streets and avoiding busy roads, hoping that Zen will reach me before Lib does.
I have to protect myself. I have to protect this baby.
I’ve found myself on a gravel path cutting through a short stretch of woods. It opens up to a parking lot that abuts a rectangle of red and white grass. A gaming field, obviously, but for what sport I don’t know. I hear commotion on the other side of a muddy hill, almost as if all the sheep and cows, goats and horses had been set free simultaneously. I crest a small incline and see that there are animals running wild, but of the human variety.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of students are swarming the squat but sprawling brick building. Boys and girls dozing on benches and bounding across car hoods. Boys and girls bouncing on the grass and sulking curbside. Boys and girls, still and silent amid the chaos. More boys and girls and boys and girls and boys and girls than I’ve ever seen together before in my entire life.
Like everyone in my settlement, I was homeschooled with my housesisters until the Blooming. I’ve never seen a real school like this before, the kind Melody attends. I want to be normal like them. I want to lose myself in that crowd. But then I remember: I’m not anonymous anymore. I quake at the memory of the riot that broke out at the U.S. Buff-A. If this crowd of thousands found out that I was here . . . Oh my grace. They’d string me up for sure.
I’m starting to worry for my safety when I spot a car approaching the parking lot. The window rolls down and I see . . .
Zen!
The car stops a few feet away from me and I run to greet it. Zen gets out on the driver’s side . . . and my sister gets out on the other.
My sister!
I have never, not ever, been happier to see two people in my entire life.
And before I even know it, I’m hugging them and they’re hugging me and I’m not lost anymore.
I’m found.
“Thank you, God,” I say.
HARMONY IS BEYOND EMOTIONAL.
She’s laughing and crying and having a hard time staying on her feet. Zen and I walk her all wobbly-legged over to a patch of grass and sit her down. Zen respects our privacy and returns to the car. I settle down beside her.
I keep hoping a psychic twin connection will kick in, so each of us would instantly and intuitively know and understand what the other is thinking and feeling. We could just look at each other and be, like, “Ohhhh, okaaay. I get it,” and be done with it. But without the benefit of a monozygotic mindbond, the only way we’re going to work through our issues is to talk about them. I put in some practice with Ram, but I’m not so good with feelings. Where to begin?
Harmony decides for me.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, fresh tears still falling. “I hope you can forgive me.”
“I already have.” I mean it.
“For everything,” she says, sniffling. “For . . .” She buries her face in her hands, unable to catalog her mistakes out loud. Which is fine by me because the less I hear about her and Jondoe, the better.
“I know. I forgive you. For everything.”
Harmony exhales with a shudder. I put an arm around her shoulder to comfort her.
“It’s not my forgiveness you need to ask for,” I say. “But Ram’s . . .”
Harmony startles. “You know about Ram?”
“He came to find you,” I reply. “He’s a mess without you.”
Harmony sighs heavily.
“I understand that you bolted on your honeymoon because you don’t love Ram,” I say. “But what I don’t get is why you were trying to get me to come back with you.”
“I thought I wanted you to return with me,” she says, keeping her eyes on the ground. “Goodside is all I know. As much as I couldn’t see myself living there for the rest of my life, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else either. I thought that if we made our own household together, I would feel less alone. I could repent and stay married to Ram, even if he could never love me in that way. . . .”
She doesn’t give me time to ask what she means by this. Is Ram in love with someone else?
“I now know how unrealistic it was for me to think you’d join the Church with me,” she says matter-of-factly. “It’s the only way I’ve been brought up to be and believe and I can’t make the commitment myself!” She looks up at me now. “Does that make any sense?”
Yes.
Yes, it does.
“I don’t want to be a Surrogette.” It’s a relief to finally say this out loud for the first time. “I never got to make that choice, and neither did you. Our parents chose for us.”
Our eyes meet in commiseration, but I don’t turn away. Harmony looks just as intently at me and we don’t break the gaze, not even when our shared stare approaches awkwardness. Then a strange sensation comes over me. I don’t know how to describe it really, but in this moment, I feel like I’m discovering part of myself through her, and she through me. Something lost, now found.
All at once, we ask the same question at the same time.
“What now?”
It’s not funny. Not in the least. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, we both giggle, then laugh, then all-out snort and roll on the grass.
When we finally calm down, I mouth the words to help me. Help us.
We are smart.
We are stunning.
We are strong.
We are everything we need to be.
I just hope it’s enough.
I LOOK OUT THE WINDOW, THE SCENERY WHIZZING BY TOO quickly to make sense of anything I’m seeing. None of us speak, though Melody’s lips are moving. She seems to be praying, even though she’s not the praying kind. I want to follow her example but all the verses ring hollow in my heart. And my own prayers in my own words—please, Lord, let Jondoe come back for me, please—rival my little house-
sisters’ pleas in their petty selfishness. I’ve given God enough hassle already.
Then, without any obvious provocation or warning, Zen taps the steering wheel with his palm to get my attention.
“You’re not the only Church girl who has doubts.”
A flinty flicker of hope sparks in my chest.
“I’m not?”
I can tell that this remark has taken Melody by surprise.
“How do you know?” she asks.
“I know,” he says resolutely. “There are girls like you in every settlement in the tristate! It’s hard for you to wrap your head around, but you can turn away from the Church Orders without turning away from faith.”
“I can?”
“You can,” Zen says, with a pointed look in Melody’s direction that implies that there’s far more than what he’s actually saying. “You’re not a blind believer, Harmony; otherwise you would’ve married that first guy when you were thirteen. You’re a thinker. And thinking and following the Church Orders is like trying to take a sip from a shaken-up can of Coke ’99.”
He’s right.
“I was tired of the Church always telling me what to believe without explaining why.”
Melody finishes my thoughts for me. “But you can’t get any answers if you don’t ask any questions.”
Zen nods appreciatively. He locks eyes with me in the rearview. “You have choices, Harmony.”
“You do,” Melody concurs. “We both do.”
I suddenly understand what Melody and Zen are offering me.
They want to help me take permanent leave of Goodside.
Who would miss me if I never came back? Ma? She already said goodbye—twice—when she tried to marry me off—twice—to someone I didn’t—I don’t—love. And there are my housesisters, more compliant than I will ever be, who will—who surely already have—taken my place in service of the Church community. My chores have not gone uncompleted in my absence, that’s for sure.
The spread of the Virus all around the world has given Church elders good reason to put even stricter prohibitions on our contact with the outside world. By
forbidding us to go beyond the gates for all but missionary or agricultural business, we’re quarantined from contagions that cause sickness in the body and soul. I knew when I left Ram that the red dress—my punishment for going Wayward—would await my return. I hoped that the Council would go easier on me if I saved Melody’s soul; a short-term shunning was a small price to pay for her salvation after all. I should have realized much sooner that Melody would never trade her world for mine. I see that now, and my naïveté almost makes me want to cry.
Did I really come here to bring Melody to Goodside?
Or did I come here to bring out the Otherside in me?
“We’re here,” Zen says as he pulls into and up the gravel driveway. “Melody’s going to drop me off at school to do some damage control, but she’ll be back soon to help you sort this all out. Won’t you, Mel?”
“Of course I will,” she says. “Ram’s waiting for you.”
As I get out and take the first uneasy steps toward the house, Melody sticks her head out the car window and gives me a thumbs-up.
“You can do this, sister!”
Sister! Her acceptance uplifts me. I feel as free as the veil that caught the wind and flew away. . . .
I dream of a life where girls don’t hide behind veils. And they can dress as they want to and cut their hair or keep it long if that’s what they like. And they can study the Bible, really study it by asking questions and having them answered, and also read other, unbiblical books too. Where red is the color of strawberries, cardinals, and morning glories, not shame, shunning, and sin.
A life where girls are free to fall in love . . .
Even if that love proves to be something else entirely.
I want all these things, not just for me, but for the baby growing inside me.
ZEN INSISTS THAT SCHOOL IS THE BEST PLACE FOR HIM TO do damage control. Apparently Ventura Vida is making major media by spilling all the insidery gossip about me that only a best friend like her would know. But I couldn’t care less about her or my image right now. All I can think about is Harmony.
“You think we can help her?”
“I hope so,” he says. “Her situation is . . .”
I finish for him. “Complicated.”
“To say the least,” he says. “But she’ll have options out here that she wouldn’t have if she went back to Goodside.”
And for the first time since I met her, I’m awed by Harmony’s bravery. She’s rejecting the only life she’s ever known in the hopes of building a better future for herself. I’m proud to call her my sister. I can’t wait to tell her so.
“You have options too, Mel,” Zen says. “You never wanted to be a Surrogette and now, because of Harmony, you may not have to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t be surprised if she offers to make the delivery to the Jaydens for you,” he says frankly.
“I would never ask her to do that!”
“She might do it as a form of penance,” he says. “Church guilt runs deep.”
I shake my head firmly. “No way.”
Mark my words: If it were up to me, no girl would ever sign on to be a Surrogette again.
We pull up in front of the school.
“I’ll stick with what Jondoe’s Reps are spinning,” he says. “That yours is a professional working relationship and you never, ever had lovemakey sex.”
I really don’t care what anyone thinks about me and Jondoe anymore. Now that I know that there’s hope for Harmony, there’s only one unresolved issue that needs resolving and it’s between me and Zen.
“ . . . I’ll say you were fotobombed and—”
“Zen?”
I have his undivided attention. “Yes?”
“That Tocin you gave Ram last night,” I say. “It was for me.”
His mouth falls open.
“You were going to dose me,” I say quickly. “Then talk me into using the, um . . . condom. With you.”
He jumps up in his seat and smacks his head on the car roof.
“No! I’d—never! No!”
“It’s okay. I’m not mad,” I insist. “I mean, it was a compromise, right? We could make good on our pact, without jeopardizing my contract with the Jaydens.”
Zen is shaking his head, both hands pulling at the hair right above his ears.
“I’d never try to trick you into doing anything like that. With me. Never.”
I’m trying not to let this hurt my feelings. “Then who was it for?”
“Me . . .”
His voice trails off and his eyes keep flitting away from mine. It’s not that he’s on the MiNet. He just can’t bring himself to look at me. And I can’t bring myself to ask him to.
“You’ve never been anything but up front about where you stand, Mel. Your contract has always come first. I’m just an optimistic idiot for letting myself believe otherwise. I guess it wasn’t until after I confronted you at the Mallplex the other day that I finally said, ‘Fuck it.’ Literally. Fuck. It. I decided I’d get dosed enough to do it with one of the Cheerclones. It didn’t matter which one because none of them were you.”
He laughs in a hollow way that makes my chest ache.
“That’s when I finally let go of the dream that my first time,” he says, “would be our first time.”
I’VE MEMORIZED PLENTY OF VERSES, BUT PRAYING ON THEM hasn’t brought me any closer to understanding what they really mean. Knowing the words doesn’t equal knowing the Word. When it comes to the Scripture, I’m as superficial as my little housesisters. Maybe I should go back to the basics, the first prayer I ever memorized.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” I say to myself, hoping it’s not an insult to skip ahead to the part I really need right now. “Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil. . . .”
I’m standing in the spot where Jondoe once stood. My finger touches the buzzer Jondoe’s finger once pressed. The same finger that traced the curve of my hips . . .
The door opens.
“HARMONY!”
And in an instant I am swept up in an all-encompassing crush of grass and manure, sweat and oatmeal soap.
“Oh, Harmony.”
Oh, Ram.
The only person in Goodside who is more lost than I am.
ZEN IS STRUGGLING. I HAVE NEVER, EVER SEEN HIM AT SUCH A loss for words.
“You have to understand, Mel. You’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted to be with.”
“In that way?” I ask.
“In every way.”
I do understand. More than he can possibly know.
But I can’t . . .
Can I?
After sitting in silence for more than a minute, waiting for me to respond to his confession, Zen finally opens his mouth.
“Well.” Pause. “I guess I better get.” Pause. “Going.”
He gets out of the car swiftly, but hesitates before taking the front steps leading up to the school. I watch him through the window, and something—a biological drive, a human instinct, an evolutionary pull that I’m powerless to resist—takes over. Head to toe. Limb to limb. Top to bottom. Inside and out.
“Wait!”
He runs back over to the car and crouches down in front of the window so my mouth is just inches from his. “What?” he asks.
“Nez.”
He slowly breaks into a smile.
“Lem.”
And before I can stop myself, I cradle his cheeks in my hands, pull him close, part my lips, and . . .
My first kiss.
Ours.
All of us.
All of our ancestors, and all of our descendants, are coming together to celebrate this kiss, to clap and fist-pump and foot-stomp and shout out loud to the universe YES! YES! A million billion years of YESSSS!
We break apart, stunned and breathless.
And for a moment, I’m afraid that Zen will launch into a quikiwiki spiel about how kissing is a sort of evolutionary
taste test, that healthier offspring are produced by partners with different immune proteins, and those differences can be detected in the sloppy swap of genetic information encoded in our spit.
But he doesn’t say any such thing. Instead, I find out what he started to say in the tree house.
“I love you.”
And then he breaks into the most deranged grin I’ve ever seen on anyone, anywhere, except maybe my own crazyface in the rearview mirror.
WHEN I LAY DOWN WITH JONDOE, HE PROMISED TO SHOW ME the Truth.
I just wish it hadn’t taken me until right now to see it clearly.
“Ram . . .” I begin. “I’m . . .”
“I forgive you,” Ram says automatically.
I need to be punished. How can I expect to be punished by a sweet soul whose transgressions are far worse than my own?
“When Melody found out I was with—” My throat closes on his name.
“With him?” Ram asks.
I nod. “How did she react?”
Like a little kid avoiding trouble, Ram looks everywhere—his feet, the ceiling, out the window, down the hall—but at me.
“What did she say, Ram? I have to know.”
He speaks quickly, hoping to get this unpleasantness over with. I brace myself for the worst.
“She said she wished you had never come into her life.” He gulps down more air. “She wished you had never been born.”
It’s a relief, really, to hear what I have most feared.
I don’t deserve Melody’s forgiveness.
I don’t deserve Zen’s help.
I don’t deserve Jondoe’s love.
This is my punishment.
I take a breath and force a smile to my face. “I have blessed news, Ram.”
“What?” His eyes are shiny with tears.
I swallow hard and pat my belly.
“We’re having a baby.”
He blinks.
“But . . . I didn’t . . .”
There had always been rumors about Ram being of an unmentionable kind. That despite his brawn, he was soft. More interested in watching the boys than the girls.
“We didn’t . . .”
That’s why the Church Council chose him for me. Better to put the two unteachable spirits together than admit defeat and cast us off entirely.