Quig did not comment on Sewey as he drove, nor upon anything having to do with the compound or where they were heading. All he seemed interested in was describing the various parts and functions of the car to Fan. Of course, she had been in passenger vehicles before but they were B-Mor minibuses and taxis and she’d never actually sat in the front of one until now, everyone going around on scooters and bikes. When Quig heard this, his solemn, roughened face appeared to light up, and without her asking, he explained how everything worked, from the gearbox to the pedals to the dashboard to the steering wheel, then went over all the gauges and knobs and buttons, even the power seat-controls, which Fan worked on her own side, moving back and forth and up and down. He had her move her seat up as far as it could go and extend her right leg and he handed her a plastic container of dried fruit Loreen had packed for the trip to use as a steering wheel so she could practice matching the turns. It was silly at first but Quig was serious and reminded her to keep her eye not on him but on the road and the more she focused the more it seemed her actions began to have a magical bearing on the car; on the sharper curves she slowed down and she pressed her foot against the firewall when they had a clean straightaway and she wound gingerly through a bunkering of potholes on the ruined main street of an abandoned town. They drove through that town and another in the rolling countryside wilted and bleached out from the lack of rains, the saw of Loreen’s reprised sleep-breathing sounding just as husky and dry. Fan’s arms began to ache from holding up the container but she was beginning to enjoy herself, too, feeling an unlikely liberty and exhilaration, which if you think about it, can be seen as a good approximation of this life, where control is more believed than actual.
Which is, of course, what Fan took for granted when she happened to glance over at Quig, who to her shock was not facing the road but focusing on her instead, his hands mirroring hers. The sight caused her to jerk involuntarily to the side, which Quig couldn’t help but follow, and the high-riding car swerved, tires in full wail, until he fought the nasty, scary snaking and steadied it, and they were once again rolling calmly down the road. It was a good thing there was no other traffic. Loreen had been roused awake, crying out when one of the knitting needles poked her in the chin, drawing a trickle of blood.
What the hell happened?
Big rock in the road, Quig mumbled, like it was any fact of nature.
And you didn’t see it? she complained, dabbing at the blood with her shirtsleeve.
Nope.
Fan saw Loreen looking back over her shoulder, dubiousness crimping the corner of her mouth, and although Quig didn’t meet Fan’s gaze and was driving again, she was sure he winked at her. She wondered about him, the person he might have been when his wife and daughter were alive. Fan had heard more about them from Penelope, who mentioned once after a meal that Quig’s daughter had been, in fact, very pretty, beautiful in that way girls can sometimes be when bearing certain of their father’s features (even if, like Quig, he was nothing special to look at), this from when she’d caught sight of some pix in his albums while he scrolled through his handscreen. He didn’t try to hide it from her, but otherwise he never talked about his daughter, and if a visitor asked innocently after his family or children, he would simply stop whatever he was doing and leave, even in the midst of cutting into someone or stitching them up. The compound knew better and Fan did, too, but she pressed Penelope for more about his past Charter life, details that between her and Loreen and a few others who’d been at the compound from early on could be gathered into an unofficial history of what had happened, and how he came to make a life in the Smokes.
10
Quig, we now know, had enjoyed the life of most any other Charter citizen. He was born and raised in a Charter village down south and was educated in the customary fashion, attending school for many more years than a B-Mor ever would and then enrolling in a Charter university for a specialized degree in veterinary medicine. His wife was a trained veterinarian as well, and after their internships, they opened a practice in a village where they would live for nearly twenty years, before having to leave. After the first few years, his wife quit working to have their child and Quig combined with two other vets to run a busy, successful practice, the largest in the area. People from other Charters were soon bringing their pets to the practice, and so he and his partners came up with the idea of servicing the area in call-vans, charging high fees to treat and groom the many pets and animals a typical Charter family owned.
Given the exorbitant costs of living and schooling and health care, Charters usually had one or at most two children, as well as because of the frankly limited opportunities for having a full-on Charter life. There was fierce competition for whatever one might do, at every level, whether it was playing the trombone or being on the swim team and, of course, succeeding in the classroom, where everyone was routinely tested and ranked in all subjects. In fact, there were rankings as well on the teams and orchestras and even in the special-interest clubs, where if it was difficult to gauge talent, then enthusiasm and leadership were appraised. It went on from there through university and professional school, and then careers, the weekly Power List of who was at the head spurring ever-accelerating achievement but also in certain cases a kind of malaise that B-Mors and counties people never really suffered, that empty-lunged feeling that can come from being measured, unceasingly, from the moment of birth.
Pets were simpler to raise, in every way, plus they couldn’t disappoint the family or themselves and naturally offered and received affection unconditionally, which in this world is rare, all of which accounted for why the Charters loved them dearly, and insisted on menageries of them, outfitting the expansive-by-design balconies of their condos or their backyards with romper equipment and kenneling for their squads of cats and dogs but also the toy swine and hens and even goats a growing number of enthusiasts raised for healthful meat and eggs and milk. Quig and his partners did very well for themselves, and while they weren’t as rich as the people-doctors or business executives, they were as secure as any of their Charter neighbors in what they expected from their lives, content with the kind of condo they inhabited, the vehicles they drove, how many helpers (just one, for Quig’s family) they employed, where and how frequently they dined out, all the vital metrics, as Charters would say, duly aligned. Quig and his wife and daughter were in this sense happily unexceptional. Trish was talkative and bubbly and a tad plumpish, with loose chestnut brown curls just like her mother’s, and she was a brainy girl, too, always high in the rankings from preschool onward, her parents probably thinking that she had a good chance to be an engineer or executive or maybe even a C-specialist. They also entered her in the Charter Association beauty pageants, and though Trish was not the most fit-looking entrant in the preteen category, her gifted viola playing and her astounding retention of arcane historical facts in the knowledge rounds made up for somewhat lower scores in the yoga demonstration and evening-gown promenade. She could also look stunning; her last competition gown, Penelope said, was made from a brilliant copper silk taffeta that stunningly set off her tresses. Plus, she had that electric smile you saw in nearly every page of Quig’s albums, the wide, free grin that to the judges seemed to express the most genuine, deep-seated glee, and reflected not just the glowing inner girl but the wider Charter clime that shone just as bright. She was twice a regional finalist and was preparing for a third attempt at the nationals, practicing her yoga positions and musical pieces for many hours each week when the first animal plagues struck out west.