Scowling, the aide left the office, and Kimberly nervously lit a cigarette.
“What is it, darling?” asked Andrei, seeing the trouble in her face. “I thought you had rehearsal this afternoon on your new play.”
“I did. It’s about Robert Shelter. The man who wrote my play. Someone arrested him. I know you’re too busy to check on everything that happens, but—” Andrei interrupted. “I ordered it.”
Kimberly was shocked. “Why? How could you?”
“The outlaw theaters are getting out of hand. I have been entirely too lax. They are proliferating and as they ridicule the government—they are getting dangerous.”
Kimberly looked at him, his words sinking in, “I’m going to do Robert’s satire.”
Andrei shook his head, looking more like a father dealing with a willful teenager than a man speaking to his lover. “You do this, it is at your own risk.”
She turned angrily and headed toward the door.
“Kimberly. I am not free to do anything I want, the way I want. I have superiors to whom I must answer. I am surrounded by spies and informers—both American and Soviet. There are old men in the Kremlin who have always been, and still are, suspicious of our entire plan of occupation. They would feel much more comfortable with America crushed by an iron fist. And they may yet do it.”
She watched him a moment, then walked out the door. Andrei turned back to his desk.
Peter Bradford sighed as he stopped the Wagoneer in his driveway and saw the Harley. He promised himself he’d be civil to Justin, if only out of respect for the Milfords. But as a father he couldn’t be expected to approve of this romance. Justin had no future; it was that simple. Maybe he’d gotten a raw deal because of Devin, but the local PPP would never give him a college recommendation, or a travel permit, or an employment certification. Justin was left with few options: a laborer’s job, if he were lucky, jail or exile if he continued his “antisocial” behavior.
Peter got out of his car and headed for the back door just as Jacqueline and Justin came through the front door. “Hi Justin. Where are you guys going?”
“Out for a ride,” Justin answered.
“You got gas?”
“Sure, com gas,” Justin replied, smiling. “Borrowed from the tractor.”
Peter looked at his daughter, who kept her face slightly averted from him. “Honey, can I speak to you for a minute?”
“What for?” Her eyes were still red from crying after her disappointment that afternoon at the dance tryouts. “Just come here, please. Excuse us, Justin,”
“Sure.” He shrugged, watching Jackie. She followed her father back into the house and then stopped at the door, remaining a dozen feet behind him. Peter realized instantly that she would come no closer.
“Where are you going?”
“We told you. Out. For a ride.”
“I don’t like you going out with Mm.”
“Really? I’d never guess. You’re so subtle.”
“Look, Jackie. He’s a loser. And you’re not. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I like Mm. His father works for you.”
“And I can tell you that boy is no source of pride to the Milfords.”
“Well, that’s what’s important, all right,” she snapped, and headed for the door.
He did not want to fight. “Look, your mom and I have to go to Omaha. I don’t want you out after curfew.”
She turned to look at him, tears in her eyes. “God, Daddy, you don’t understand anything.” She raced from the house and moments later he heard the roar of H the motorcycle. Peter shook his head, wondering what he had done wrong.
An hour later, Peter, in his best suit and tie, and Arnanda, dressed in a simple blue evening gown, were speeding along the freeway toward Omaha. They had an armed escort, two UNSSU motorcyclists, their red lights flashing. The lights blotted the stars out of the vast midwestem sky.
“These escorts make me feel like a fool,” Peter grumbled.
“Worse yet, they make you look like the enemy.”
“Thanks.”
“I gather you had words with Jackie and Justin when they left.”
“She knows how I feel about that boy.”
“Did you ask Jackie how her day went?”
“I didn’t have time. Why, something special?”
“Tryouts for the district company.”
“Damn, I forgot. How’d it go?”
“She was rejected.”
“Somebody beat her out?”
“Yes, the bitches who were doing the judging.”
“Why?”
“She was too good. Too original. Too individual.” She laughed darkly. “Ail the things we taught her to be.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means the judges denounced modem dance. They want the Bolshoi in Nebraska. Politically acceptable ballet. You know what one of them had the nerve to say to me? ‘Sometimes cooperation is more important than talent.’”
“Somebody actually told her that?”
“They told me. But we know ail about cooperation, don’t we?” she said bitterly.
“That’s not fair.”
“Jackie losing isn’t fair. I watched it. She was amazing.”
“Maybe I can look into it.”
“You’d better do a damned sight more than just look into it. She’s our daughter and she deserves to have a chance.”
“Everybody feels that way.”
“I don’t care. Everybody’s not as good as she is.”
“Settle down,” he said quietly. “I know you’re upset…”
“Look, Peter. I understand why I have to stand in line for tomatoes, and why Scott has to sneak extra meat from the training table when you could have practically anything you wanted delivered to the back door, but this is different. This is your daughter’s life and I don’t know whether it’ll be worth a damn—but she has a right… not to be penalized for being good.”
“You don’t think I love her as much as you do?”
Amanda looked out into the darkness at the emptiness of the barren fields and deserted highway. “I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes I think what you love most is some idea of what’s fair you carry around in your head.”
“None of this is fair. We have to hang on to what we believe in.”
Amanda realized that she had gone too far. She saw the hurt on Peter’s face and regretted having caused it. She took his hand, not wanting the evening to be lost. “I believe in my daughter. I believe in you—maybe sometimes I even believe in myself. That’s all I believe in.”
Peter squeezed her hand. She took his arm and put it around her shoulders, sliding across the seat next to him like a teenager. She put her head on his shoulder.
The car, with its motorcycle escort, disappeared into the night.
Justin, with Jackie hanging on behind him, piloted the old Harley along a moonlit, tree-flanked country road. He kept his lights off. He knew the way, and at the proper moment he steered across a field to an abandoned barn that loomed dark and ominous against the moon-bright, snowy fields. He turned off the engine and a heavy blast of rock music, forbidden by the authorities, rang out in the sudden quiet.
“You sure you still want to go?” he asked. “Omaha’s rough and gettin’ there is dangerous.”
“Good,” she said.
“Jackie, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I won’t get hurt.”
She wondered if he understood how her life had changed that day, when those judges had rejected her dance, had shattered her dream. She looked at Justin, touched by his concern, and somehow felt older than he, wiser, ready for whatever came.
Justin shrugged and pulled his goggles off. “Okay, then let’s party.”
They hurried into the barn and were greeted by about a dozen teenagers. Lanterns cast long, eerie shadows across a floor still strewn with hay. Couples danced amid the bales as bottles of homemade wine circulated along with homegrown joints. Jackie took a swig of the wine and, when a joint made its way to her, considered taking a hit.