Our mugs sat half-empty, the coffee cold and forgotten. “Probably,” said Collie softly.
“She said to tell her family she was sorry. What was she sorry for?”
“Dying, I guess.”
“Why didn’t she check her mirrors? It was like—” The spoon almost bent in my grasp; I tossed it aside. “Like she wanted to be shot down.”
Collie was silent for a long moment. “You must have been more hidden than you thought,” he said finally. “It happens. Don’t blame yourself.”
“I’m not. I was just doing my job. But I want her to have done her job!” I gave a shaky laugh. “I’m angry at someone I’ve never met! I had to watch her die; I at least want to know that she did everything possible not to get shot down.”
Collie’s eyes were pained. “Amity, why the hell did you land?” he said in a low voice. “You must have seen it was hopeless.”
“I had to.”
“When I heard, all I could think about was finding you.” His hand found mine across the table; our fingers gripped each other tightly. “For anyone else it would be bad enough, but for you…” He didn’t finish his thought.
He didn’t have to. Just having someone there who knew was enough.
The crash that killed my father happened in the fields behind our house; he was on his way back from a World for Peace meeting. I was the one who found him. For a long time, I was sure there had to have been a malfunction: someone or something I could blame. But there hadn’t been. He’d somehow – a pilot with thousands of hours of experience, on a landing he’d made hundreds of times – brought it in too fast. His plane had somersaulted, its wings crumpling as they went; he’d been thrown clear and his injuries had killed him.
Not immediately, though. It only took minutes, I guess…but each of them weighed on me like lead.
Collie and I sat silently, sharing the same thoughts. His shoulders were slumped as he slowly rubbed his thumb against my palm. “You never cried afterwards,” he said at last. “Do you remember? Not once. I wanted to help you. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You did help,” I said. “That day in my room. You came in and just sat and held my hand. You didn’t try to talk to me, or tell me how sorry you were.”
“I didn’t know what to say. Everything I thought of seemed so trite.”
“But at least you understood that. No one else did.” I sat back, releasing his hand as the waitress appeared and refilled our coffee mugs. I hardly noticed when she’d gone. I sat studying Collie – this older version of the boy I’d known.
“I’m…glad you’re here,” I said roughly. “And those words seem pretty trite, too.”
Collie looked up. Something went still inside me as our eyes met.
“I was going to find you tonight even before I heard what happened,” he said finally. “It’s been a month, Amity.”
“I know,” I whispered.
He scanned me, unsmiling. “I won’t say anything else about it if you don’t want. I’ll wait another month, or two, or three, or—”
“No!” I broke in. I gripped his arm. “Collie, I wanted to find you, too. I had to tell you—”
I broke off. There was too much I wanted to say; the words crowded together in my throat. Neither of us moved. Across the airstrip, another plane came in: a blur of lights speeding in the distance.
“Tell me what?” Collie asked after a long pause. His eyes were a challenge.
My chin jerked up. I was not going to cry. “You said that you wanted to pick up where we left off.” I sounded almost angry. “And I wanted to tell you…yes.”
Collie’s gaze stayed locked on mine. “Is this only because of what happened today? Are you going to decide tomorrow that—”
“No! I mean, yes, maybe it was the catalyst, but I’ve wanted you for weeks now.” My jaw was tight. “Do you want me to say it? Fine, I will. You’re all I can think about. When I go to sleep at night, all I can see is you. When you’re in the locker room with me it’s like torture, because all I want is to touch you—”
Collie moved suddenly, shoving his chair back. He grabbed my hand and we left the cafe; he pulled me into the shadows near the office. A soft rain had started. Across the airstrip, headlights from a truck swept across the asphalt. The raindrops glittered in its lights.
He took my face in his hands. His tone was low, intense.
“Please tell me that again,” he said.
I heard myself let out a moan as I threw myself at him. Collie caught me up tightly, lifting me off the ground.
“Amity…” His voice was hoarse.
“I missed you,” I got out. “I missed you so much.”
Our heartbeats thudded together, even through his jacket and my coat. I buried my face against his neck, breathing him in – the smell of machine oil, summertime, a thousand memories.
Finally we drew apart a little. Collie stroked my damp hair back with both hands.
“You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to do this,” he whispered.
He lowered his head. When our lips met it was the second kiss I’d ever really wanted. I closed my eyes this time, but stood very still, drinking it in – the slight roughness of his mouth, the shouts of the fitters in the distance, the warmth of his hands on my cheeks.
His lips left mine slowly, lingeringly. He kept his hands on my face as we studied each other. I swallowed and reached up, clasping them in mine.
“Nice night,” drawled a voice. Harlan and another pilot passed by on their way to the office. Harlan’s eyebrows were up in his hairline.
Neither of us answered. As they disappeared into the building Collie took a half-step back, his left hand still holding mine. “Let’s go find someplace where we can be alone,” he said.
I was so happy I was scowling. “That sounds like a good idea,” I said. Collie smiled slightly and touched my forehead. And the fact that he knew I was happy despite my furrowed brow made me scowl even harder.
He kept hold of my hand even as he signed back into the pilots’ register in the office, keeping my fingers folded firmly in his on the counter as he scribbled his name with his right hand.
“I thought you were left-handed,” I said. An actual smile had started now. I didn’t care that Myra was watching. I didn’t care that pilots never held hands, never got involved.
Collie put down the pen. “I am. It’s not my best signature ever.”
Myra was grinning. “So I guess you found him,” she said to me.
I nodded, not taking my eyes from Collie’s face. “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve found him.”
Chapter Fifteen
The light of dawn crept through my curtains, giving the room a gentle glow. Collie’s arm around me felt strong and firm; our legs were tangled warmly together under the sheets.
“What’s that one?” I whispered, pointing to a swirl of plaster on the ceiling.
Collie considered it. “A turtle. See the neck?”
“Really?” I wrinkled my nose. “It looks like a plane to me.”
He laughed softly. “Everything looks like a plane to you.”
“No, that one over there doesn’t. See? It’s a running wolf.”
“That’s a horse, Amity Louise. Look, there’s even a saddle.”
I sat up a little and studied him. I couldn’t stop smiling; it felt as if someone had handed me the sun. I traced a circle around the tiny freckle beside Collie’s eye. “I remember this, you know,” I said. “From the first time we kissed.”
His eyes were dark blue in the dawn light. He smoothed the hair back from my forehead. “I lived on that kiss for four years.”
“Now you’ve got even more to live on.”
Collie grinned. With a rustle of sheets, he rolled over on top of me. “Yes, but I don’t plan on being away from you for four years again,” he said. “Or four hours, if I can help it.”
I stroked his back as we kissed. I loved the bare weight of him on me – the warmth of our skin together. I hadn’t smiled
this much since before my father died.
When we finally drew apart, I nudged Collie off me. “All right, I’ve got to check something.” I stretched across him to my bedside table and snapped on the lamp.
Collie’s hands grasped my waist. “Oh, this is nice…” He tried to pull me on top of him and then fell back, laughing, as I took the lamp and shone it into his eyes. “What are you doing, you madwoman?”
“Stay still.” I stretched his eyelids open, inspecting his right eye and then his left; he squinted and twisted his head away.
“I think this is defined as torture, you know. It’s been illegal for a long time.”
“Stop complaining; I’m busy.”
“Bossy as ever. Do you remember that time when you decided you were going to run away from home, and you insisted that I had to go with you, and—”
“It’s no use,” I broke in. I sank back. “I can’t tell what colour your eyes really are. They’re blue when I hold the lamp one way, and green another.”
He crossed his arms behind his head and grinned. “Yours are easy. Light brown, like melted chocolate.”
I combed my fingers through his hair, loving that I could just reach out and touch it. “And your hair’s blond in places and kind of golden in places and it’s brown in other places…you’re a chameleon, Collis Reed.”
“Well, I never claimed to be boring.” He started to say something else, then glanced around the room and his forehead creased. He propped himself up on his elbows. “Hey, I just noticed – where are all your things? Didn’t you bring them with you?”
“What things?” I said after a pause.
“Your books, your models, that little box you used to keep treasures in, your—”
I put the lamp back on the table and cleared my throat. “They’re…in the closet.”
Collie gave me a quizzical look, then got out of bed, dragging the sheet with him. He wrapped it around himself as he opened the closet door. When he saw the trunk on the floor he crouched down.
“Can I open it?” he asked, looking back at me. His fingers rested on the lid.
Our clothes from the night before lay on the floor – my dress, and the tan trousers and white shirt Collie had changed into after he’d signed in. I pulled on his shirt and buttoned it as I crossed to him.
“Go ahead, if you want.” I hadn’t opened the trunk since I arrived. Its contents had reminded me too much of Dad…and Collie, I guess.
I squatted beside him. “It’s not locked.”
He eased open the lid. Everything inside was wrapped in newspaper; it rustled as he undid the first parcel. A framed sepia photo emerged: me, Collie and Hal. The three of us sat in a row on the wing of my father’s Firedove, grinning widely. My father stood in front of us, leaning back against the wing with arms outspread.
The caption at the bottom was in his handwriting: My three kids.
Collie touched the glass over the caption. “I’m, um…glad you didn’t tear me out of this one,” he said finally. Still gazing down, he put his arm around me.
“He meant it, you know. He always thought of you as his son,” I told Collie in a low voice. “I know he’d be proud of you now.”
Collie didn’t speak for a moment. “Yeah…I hope so.”
He put the photo aside and then turned and took my shoulders. His thumbs caressed my collarbones. “And I think he’d be happy about this – about us.” He grinned suddenly. “Well, maybe not about me wearing a sheet in his daughter’s bedroom. He might think it was a little sudden.”
I leaned close and kissed him. “Sudden, after twelve years?”
I could feel his smile. “True. Maybe the only question is what took us so long.”
The night before had been darkness, tangled sheets, the heat of our bodies and mouths. It was as if I’d never been touched in my life. His hands woke up nerve endings that had never existed before him.
“We can wait if you want,” Collie had whispered. “I promise I won’t mind.”
And I’d whispered back, “No – I don’t want to wait.” Concordia’s unseeing eyes had allowed no other answer, even if I’d wanted to give one. Thank you, I thought to her now. I might never have said yes to Collie at all without her.
I stroked his arm, feeling the softness of its golden hairs. “Tell me what it’s been like for you, these last four years,” I said quietly. We’d talked about me some the night before, but had barely touched on him. “Were things…all right in the Central States?”
Collie grimaced. “You don’t want to hear about that.”
“Of course I do. I’ve read pamphlets – stuff about people being sent away, and correction camps. Is it really that bad?”
Collie didn’t respond at first. He pulled out another wrapped bundle from my trunk. “It’s pretty bad,” he said finally. “Whatever you’ve read is probably true.”
I sat back on my haunches as I watched him. “What about your parents?”
Collie sighed and put the parcel aside, as if accepting the inevitable. “We lived in Denver,” he said. His tone was flat. “It was the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, but everyone was scared all the time. You keep your head down and mind your own business and hope no one reports you.”
“Reports you for what?”
“Anything. If you’re not liked, all someone has to do is claim you’ve been bad-mouthing Gunnison – then you’ll be found Discordant no matter what your chart says.”
He glanced at the small tattoo for Leo on the base of his thumb. His expression hardened. “We went to the CS because Dad thought an old crony of his could hook him up with some deals, but it didn’t happen,” he said. “Then we couldn’t leave. He had to take an industrial job. That was what all his big plans came to, just stacking boxes in a factory. I had to do it too, once I got to be sixteen. It was the most mind-numbing, soul-destroying work ever. And meanwhile Goldie was busy drinking herself to death, and…” He stopped and rubbed his forehead.
“There was this girl on our street who’d been found Discordant,” he said finally. “Anna.”
I closed my fingers around his. “What happened to her?”
“The first year or so after we got there, she just had to wear a ‘D’ on her clothes. She had this doll she used to play with. I remember she told me once that her doll had a good birth chart, even if she didn’t…” Collie trailed off.
“And then one day the Shadowcars came,” he finished roughly. “I saw them take her and I turned away like everyone else.”
I squeezed his hand. “Do not blame yourself. Collie, you couldn’t have done anything except get taken away, too.”
“I don’t blame myself,” he said, sounding tired. “That’s the part I hate most.”
Silence wrapped briefly around us. “Anyway…I had a chance to get out and I took it,” he said. “I can’t tell you much about that. Then I came here and got into training school.” His mouth twisted. “That’s it. You’re all caught up.”
I licked my lips. “Why…why can’t you tell me about how you got out?”
“Because Gunnison doesn’t like it when his good little citizens escape.” Collie’s tone was short. “You can get out if you grease the right palms, but they’re not people you want to cross. I won’t tell you anything that could put you in danger, Amity. Not ever.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wrapped my arms around him and pressed close. Neither of us spoke for a moment. “I wish I’d known what you were going through,” I whispered against his shoulder.
The warm breadth of his back felt tense under my hands as he held me. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“I would have…written to you, or tried to come to you, or—”
“Don’t be stupid. The last thing anyone wants is to get in to that place.” Collie drew away and touched my face. “Hey. I’m here now. Let’s forget about it.”
I knew that he couldn’t forget about it, not with his parents still there, but I nodded.
“And anyway, it
doesn’t matter about me,” Collie added. He stroked his fingers through my hair. “Everything you told me last night…getting arrested, how unhappy you were…”
“I’m here now, too,” I said. “We’re together. It all worked out.”
Collie grinned suddenly and kissed my nose. “True. Yeah, except that you think a turtle looks like an airplane.”
We went back to unwrapping things from the trunk: books, more photos. Finally Collie found the tin box I used to keep treasures in and creaked open its lid. “Look,” he said. “Remember this?”
I pressed against him and took the small model Firedove from his hand. Collie had given it to me for my tenth birthday. It was cast metal, beautifully painted. It had sat on my desk for years.
“I always wondered how you were able to afford this,” I said, turning it in the light.
He smiled ruefully. “I stole it.”
I laughed, startled. “Really?”
“From old lady Beasley’s shop. I think she knew, too. Don’t you remember, for a few years I hated going in there?” He took the Firedove from me. “I painted it myself, though,” he added, fingering a wing. His smile had turned slightly bitter. “I wanted to have something really good to give you.”
The words felt awkward. “But…you know I wouldn’t have cared if you hadn’t.”
“I cared.”
There was a pause. I squeezed his hand and jumped up. “Come on – I want to have it out on my desk again.” I felt excited suddenly. “Bring the box, too.”
Half an hour later a dozen crumpled sheets of newspaper lay on the floor and my room looked like a place that someone actually lived in, with all my books and photos out on display. The pieces of my life. They didn’t even fill a small trunk; why did it make me feel so whole to have them out again?
“You’ve got a beautiful smile,” said Collie softly. He was still wearing the sheet. The sight of him made me wonder why all men everywhere didn’t start donning them.
“You’ve got a beautiful…everything,” I said, and he grinned and scooped me up in his arms, flopping us both onto the bed.