* * *
AS A general rule, friendships were discouraged within the G.R. The organization was structured to prevent people from spending too much time together or relying too much on specific individuals for their social sustenance. In the Ginkgo Street Compound, members lived in large groups that were frequently reshuffled; jobs were rotated on a regular basis. Watchers were paired up by lottery and rarely worked with the same partner twice in a single month. The point was to strengthen the connection between the individual and the group as a whole, not between one individual and another.
This policy made sense to Laurie, at least in theory. People were extremely vulnerable when they joined the G.R. After expending so much energy tearing themselves away from their old lives, they were dazed and exhausted and deeply vulnerable. Without proper guidance, it was all too easy for them to lapse into familiar patterns, to unwittingly re-create the relationships and behavior patterns they’d left behind. But if they were allowed to do that, they’d miss out on the very thing they’d come for: a chance to start over, to strip away the false comforts of friendship and love, to await the final days without distractions or illusions.
The main exception to this policy was the highly charged relationship between Trainer and Trainee, which the organization tended to view as a necessary evil, a statistically effective but emotionally perilous strategy for easing new members into the fold. The problem wasn’t so much the formation of an intense, exclusive bond between the two individuals involved—that was the whole point—as it was the trauma of dissolving this bond, of separating two people who had essentially become a unit.
It was the Trainer’s job to prepare the Trainee for this eventuality. From the very beginning, Laurie had stuck to the protocol, reminding Meg on a daily basis that their partnership was temporary, that it would come to an end on January 15th—Graduation Day—at which point Meg would become a full-fledged member of the Mapleton Chapter of the Guilty Remnant. From then on, the two of them would be colleagues, not friends. They would treat each other with common courtesy—nothing more, nothing less—and strictly adhere to their vows of silence in each other’s company.
She’d tried her best, but it hadn’t done either of them much good. As the end of Meg’s probation approached, they grew increasingly agitated and depressed. There were several nights that ended with one or both of them in tears, lamenting the unfairness of the situation, wondering why they couldn’t just go on living as they had, sticking to an arrangement that was working fine for both of them. In a way, it was worse for Laurie, because she knew exactly what she was returning to—a crowded room in Gray House, or maybe Green, a sleeping bag on a cold floor, long nights without a friend nearby to help pass the time, nothing to keep her company but the frightened voice in her own head.
* * *
A WEEK EARLIER, on the morning of Meg’s Graduation Day, they’d reported to the Main House with heavy hearts. Before setting off, they’d hugged each other for a long time and reminded themselves to be brave.
“I won’t forget you,” Meg promised, her voice soft, a bit hoarse.
“You’ll be fine,” Laurie whispered, not even convincing herself. “We both will.”
Patti Levin, the first and only Director of the Mapleton Chapter, was waiting in her office, sitting like a high school principal behind an enormous beige desk. She was a petite woman with frizzy gray hair and a stern but surprisingly youthful face. She gestured with her cigarette, inviting them to sit down.
“It’s the big day,” she said.
Laurie and Meg remained silent. They were only allowed to speak in response to a direct question. The Director studied them, her face alert but expressionless.
“I see you’ve been crying.”
There was no sense denying it. They’d barely slept and had spent a good part of the night in tears. Meg looked like a wreck—hair tangled, eyes raw and puffy—and Laurie had no reason to believe she looked any better.
“It’s hard!” Meg blurted out like a heartbroken teenager. “It’s just really hard!”
Laurie winced at the breach of decorum, but the Director let it pass. Pinching her cigarette between thumb and forefinger, she brought it to her mouth and sucked hard on the filter, as if it weren’t drawing right, squinting with grim determination.
“I know,” she said on the exhale. “It’s the path we’ve chosen.”
“Is it always this bad?” Meg sounded like she was about to start crying again.
“Sometimes.” The Director shrugged. “It’s different for different people.”
Now that Meg had broken the ice, Laurie decided it was okay to speak up.
“It’s my fault,” she explained. “I didn’t do my job. I got too attached to my Trainee and let things get out of hand. I really screwed up.”
“That’s not true!” Meg protested. “Laurie’s a great mentor.”
“It’s our fault, too,” the Director admitted. “We could see what was happening. We probably should have separated you two a month ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Laurie forced herself to meet the Director’s eyes. “I’ll try to do better next time.”
Patti Levin shook her head. “I don’t think there’s going to be a next time.”
Laurie didn’t argue. She knew she didn’t deserve a second chance. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted one, not if she was going to feel like this when it was over.
“Please don’t hold it against Meg,” she said. “She’s worked really hard these past couple of months and made a lot of progress, in spite of my mistakes. I really admire her strength and determination. I know she’s going to be a great asset to the Chapter.”
“Laurie taught me so much,” Meg chimed in. “She’s just a really good role model, you know?”
Mercifully, the Director let that pass. In the silence that followed, Laurie found herself staring at the poster on the wall behind the desk. It showed a classroom full of adults and children, all of them dressed in white, all of them with their hands in the air, like eager A students. Every raised hand held a cigarette.
WHO WANTS TO BE A MARTYR? the caption asked.
“I guess you’ve noticed that it’s a little crowded around here,” the Director told them. “We keep getting new recruits. In some of the houses we’ve got people sleeping in the hallways and the garages. It’s just not a sustainable situation.”
For a miserable moment or two, Laurie wondered if she was being kicked out of the G.R. to make room for someone more worthy than herself. But then the Director glanced at a sheet of paper on her desk.
“You’re being transferred to Outpost 17,” she said. “You move in next Tuesday.”
Laurie and Meg exchanged wary glances.
“Both of us?” Meg asked.
The Director nodded. “That’s your preference, right?”
They assured her that it was.
“Good.” For the first time since they’d arrived, Patti Levin smiled. “Outpost 17 is a very special place.”
* * *
THE ONE thing life had taught Jill was that things change all the time—abruptly, unpredictably, and often for no good reason. But knowing that didn’t do you that much good, apparently. You could still get blindsided by your own best friend, right in the middle of a macaroni and cheese dinner.
“Mr. Garvey,” Aimee said. “I think it’s time I started paying some rent.”
“Rent?” Her father chuckled, as if he enjoyed having his leg pulled as much as the next guy. He’d been in a pretty good mood for the past few weeks, ever since he’d come back from Florida. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I mean it.” Aimee looked completely serious. “You’ve been really generous to me. But I’m starting to feel like a freeloader, you know?”
“You’re not a freeloader. You’re a guest.”
“I’ve been living here a looong time.” She paused, daring him to disagree. “I’m sure you guys are really sick of me.”
“Don’t be silly. We enjoy
your company.”
Aimee frowned, as if his kindness just made things harder.
“I’m not just sleeping here, I’m eating your food, using your washer and dryer, watching your cable TV. I’m sure there’s other stuff, too.”
Internet, Jill thought. Heat and AC, tampons, makeup, shampoo and conditioner and toothpaste, my underwear …
“It’s really okay.” He glanced at Jill, wondering if she had a different opinion. “Right?”
“Absolutely,” Jill said. “It’s been fun.”
And she meant it, too, despite her occasional complaints about Aimee’s lengthy, open-ended crash at their house. Sure, there’d been some rocky times in the fall, but things had gotten better in the past month or two. Christmas had been really nice, and they’d thrown a great New Year’s party while her father was on vacation. In the weeks since then, Jill had made a point of asserting her independence from Aimee, no longer going out every night, making a good-faith effort to keep up with her schoolwork and spend a little more time with her dad. It seemed like they’d finally come up with a balance everyone could live with.
“I’ve never paid rent before,” Aimee said, “so I have no idea what the going rate would be, especially in a beautiful house like this. But I guess the landlord decides that, right?”
Her father winced at the word landlord.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “You’re a high school student. How’re you going to pay rent?”
“That’s the other thing I wanted to tell you.” Aimee seemed suddenly unsure of herself. “I think I’m done with school.”
“What?”
Jill was startled to see that Aimee was blushing, because Aimee never blushed.
“I’m dropping out,” she said.
“Why would you do that?” he asked. “You’re gonna graduate in a few months.”
“You didn’t see my report card,” Aimee told him. “I failed everything last semester, even gym. If I want to graduate I’m going to have to go back next year, and I’d rather shoot myself than be a fifth-year senior.” She turned to Jill, requesting backup. “Go ahead, tell him what a fuckup I am.”
“It’s true,” Jill said. “She can’t even remember how to open her locker.”
“Look who’s talking,” he said.
“I’m gonna do better this term,” Jill promised, thinking how much easier it would be to buckle down with Aimee out of the picture. They wouldn’t be walking to school every morning, getting stoned behind the supermarket, or sneaking out for two-hour lunches. I can be myself again, she thought. Grow my hair back, start hanging out with my old friends …
“Besides,” Aimee added. “I got a job. You remember Derek from the yogurt store? He’s managing the new Applebee’s over at Stonewood Plaza. He hired me as a server. Full-time, starting next week. The uniforms are ugly, but the tips should be pretty good.”
“Derek?” Jill didn’t try to hide her disgust. “I thought you hated him.”
Their old boss was a sleazeball, a married guy in his mid-thirties—his key chain was an LCD cube that flashed pictures of his baby son—who liked to buy alcohol for his underage female employees and ask lots of probing questions about their sex lives. Ever use a vibrator? he’d asked Jill one night, totally out of the blue. I bet you’d like it. He’d even offered to buy her one, just because she seemed like such a nice person.
“I don’t hate him.” Aimee took a sip of water, then heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief. “God, I can’t wait to get out of that school. I get depressed every time I walk down the hall. All those assholes on parade.”
“Guess what?” her father said. “They’ll all come to Applebee’s, and you’ll have to be nice to them.”
“So? At least I’ll be getting paid for it. And you know what the best part is?” Aimee paused, smirking proudly. “I get to sleep in every day, as late as I want. No more waking up hungover at the crack of dawn. So I’d really appreciate it if you guys kept your voices down in the morning.”
“Ha ha,” Jill said, trying to fend off a sudden troubling vision of the house after she left for school, Aimee wandering through the kitchen in nothing but a T-shirt and panties, her father watching from the table as she guzzled OJ straight from the carton, every day a disaster waiting to happen. It made her really glad that he had a new girlfriend, a woman close to his own age, even if she was a little spooky.
“Listen.” He seemed seriously concerned, as if Aimee were his own daughter. “I really think you should reconsider. You’re too smart to quit school.”
Aimee exhaled slowly, like she was beginning to lose her patience.
“Mr. Garvey,” she said, “if you’re really uncomfortable with this, I guess I can find somewhere else to live.”
“This isn’t about where you live. I just don’t want you to sell yourself short.”
“I get that. And I really appreciate it. But you’re not gonna change my mind.”
“All right.” He closed his eyes and massaged his forehead with three fingertips, the way he did when he had a headache. “How about this? In a month or two, after you’ve been working for a while, we can sit down and figure out the rent situation. In the meantime, you’re our guest, and everybody’s happy, okay?”
“Sounds good.” Aimee smiled, as if this were the exact outcome she’d been hoping for. “I like it when everybody’s happy.”
* * *
LAURIE COULDN’T sleep. It was her third night at the Outpost, and the transition wasn’t going as smoothly as she’d hoped. Part of it was the strangeness, after twenty-three years of marriage and nine months of communal living, of once again having a room of her own. She just wasn’t accustomed to solitude anymore, the way that lying alone on a comfortable mattress could feel like tumbling endlessly through outer space.
She missed Meg, too, missed their sleepy bedtime talks, the schoolgirl camaraderie of the Unburdening. Some nights they had stayed awake for hours, two soft voices bouncing back and forth, recounting their life stories in random installments. In the beginning, Laurie had made a good-faith effort to keep them focused on Meg’s training, to discourage idle gossip and nostalgic chatter, but the conversation always seemed to have a mind of its own. And the truth was, she enjoyed its meandering trajectory just as much as Meg did. She excused her weakness by reminding herself that it was a temporary condition, that Graduation Day would come soon enough, and she would, by necessity, have to resume her regimen of silence and self-discipline.
And here she was, trying to do just that, but with Meg in the very next room, so close that not being able to talk to her seemed absurd and almost cruel. It was hard to be alone under any circumstances, but even harder when you knew you didn’t have to be, when all you had to do was throw off the blankets and tiptoe down the hall. Because she had no doubt—none at all—that Meg was wide awake at that very moment, thinking the exact same thoughts she was, resisting the exact same temptation.
It had been simple to behave at the Compound, with so many people around, so many watchful eyes. At the Outpost there was no one to stop them from doing what they wanted, no one to even notice except Gus and Julian, and those guys were in no position to criticize. They were sharing the master suite on the ground floor—it had a king-size bed and a whirlpool tub in the adjoining bathroom—and Laurie sometimes thought she could hear their voices late at night, frail bubbles of speech drifting through the quiet house, popping just before they reached her ears.
What are they talking about? she wondered. Are they talking about us?
She wouldn’t have blamed them if they were. If she and Meg had been together, they would certainly have been talking about Gus and Julian. Not to complain—there wasn’t all that much to complain about—but just to swap impressions, the way you do when new people enter your life and you’re not quite sure what to make of them.
They seemed like sweet guys, she thought, though maybe a bit self-involved and entitled. They could also be a little bossy, but Laurie suspected
that this attitude was more a fluke of circumstance than a flaw in their characters. They’d been the sole occupants of Outpost 17 for almost a month before Laurie and Meg had arrived, and they’d naturally come to think of the place as their own and to assume that the newcomers would have to abide by the rules they’d established. As a matter of principle, Laurie didn’t think this was fair—the G.R. was based on equality, not seniority—but she figured she’d wait a little while before making a fuss about the decision-making process.
Besides, it wasn’t like the house rules were particularly onerous. The only one that caused Laurie any personal inconvenience was the indoor smoking ban—she liked starting the day with a cigarette in bed—but she had no intention of trying to change it. The policy had been put in place to protect Gus, who suffered from a severe case of asthma. His breathing was often labored, and just the day before, he’d suffered a full-on attack right in the middle of dinner, leaping up from the table with a panicky expression, gulping and wheezing like he’d just been rescued from the bottom of a swimming pool. Julian ran to their room to retrieve an inhaler and rubbed Gus’s back for several minutes afterward until his respiration returned to something like normal. It had been terrifying to watch, and if Laurie had to smoke on the back patio to give him a little relief, that was a sacrifice she was more than willing to make.
As a matter of fact, she was grateful for the opportunity to practice any kind of self-denial, because the Outpost offered so few of them. Life here was so much easier than at the Compound. Food was plentiful, if not fancy—mostly pasta and beans and canned vegetables—and the thermostat was kept at a civilized sixty-two degrees. You could go to bed when you felt like it, and sleep in as long as you liked. As for work, you set your own hours and filled out your own reports.
It was almost disturbingly cushy, which was one of the reasons she was trying so hard to maintain her distance from Meg, to not fall back into the easy routine of friendship. It was bad enough being warm and well-fed and free to do as you pleased. If, on top of all that, you were happy, too, if you had a good friend to keep you company at night, then what was the point of even being in the G.R.? Why not just go back to the big house on Lovell Terrace, rejoin her husband and daughter, wear nice clothes again, renew her membership at the Mapleton Fitness Club, catch up on the TV she’d missed, redecorate the living room, cook interesting meals with seasonal produce, pretend that life was good and the world wasn’t broken?