“Yes, Michaela. I’m still right here.”
Her daughter sounded excited now—keen. “It started happening between seven and eight our time, between four and five Pacific standard, which is why the women west of us got hit so hard. So we’ve got all day. We’ve got just about a full tank.”
“A full tank—of waking hours?”
“Bingo.” Michaela heaved a breath. “I know how crazy this thing sounds, but I am in no way kidding. You’ve got to keep yourself awake. And you’re going to have some hard decisions to make. You need to figure out what you’re going to do with your prison.”
“With my prison?”
“Your inmates are going to start falling asleep.”
“Oh,” Janice said. She suddenly did see. At least sort of.
“Have to go, Mom, I’ve got a stand-up and the producer’s going crazy. I’ll call when I can.”
Coates stayed on the couch. Her gaze found the framed photograph on her desk. It showed the late Archibald Coates, grinning in surgical scrubs, holding his infant daughter in the crook of his arm. Dead of a coronary at the impossibly unfair age of thirty, Archie had been gone now almost as long as he had lived. In the picture there was a bit of whitish afterbirth on Michaela’s forehead, like a scrap of web. The warden wished she’d told her daughter that she loved her—but the regret only held her still for a few seconds. There was work to be done. It had taken a few seconds to get a hold on the problem, but the answer—what to do with the women of the prison—did not seem to Janice to be multiple-choice. For as long as she could, she needed to keep on doing what she had always done: maintain order and keep ahead of the bullshit.
She told her secretary, Blanche McIntyre, to buzz their PAs again at their homes. After that, Blanche was to call Lawrence Hicks, the vice-warden, and inform him that his recovery time from wisdom tooth surgery was being curtailed; he was required on the premises immediately. Finally, she needed Blanche to notify each of the officers on duty in turn: due to the national situation everyone was pulling a double. The warden had serious concerns about whether or not she could count on the next rotation coming in. In an emergency people were reluctant to leave their loved ones.
“What?” Blanche asked. “The national situation? Did something happen to the president? And you want everyone for a double? They aren’t going to like that.”
“I don’t care what they like. Turn on the news, Blanche.”
“I don’t understand. What’s happening?”
“If my daughter’s right, you’ll know it when you hear it.”
Next, Coates went to get Norcross in his office. They were going to check on Kitty McDavid together.
Jared Norcross and Mary Pak were sitting on the bleachers during Period Three PE, their tennis rackets put aside for the time being. They and a bunch of Silly Sophomores on the lower tiers were watching two seniors playing on the center court, grunting like Monica Seles with each hit. The skinny one was Curt McLeod. The muscular redhead was Eric Blass.
My nemesis, Jared thought.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said.
Mary looked at him, eyebrows raised. She was tall, and (in Jared’s opinion) perfectly proportioned. Her hair was black, her eyes were gray, her legs long and tanned, her lowtops immaculately white. Immaculate was, in fact, the best word for her. In Jared’s opinion. “And that would be apropos what?”
As if you don’t know, Jared thought. “Apropos you going to see Arcade Fire with Eric.”
“Um.” She appeared to think this over. “Lucky you’re not the one going with him, then.”
“Hey, remember the field trip to the Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum? Back in fifth grade?”
Mary smiled and brushed her hand, the nails painted a velvety blue, through her long hair. “How could I forget? We almost didn’t get in, because Billy Mears wrote some nasty ink on his arm. Mrs. Colby made him stay on the bus with the driver, the one who had the stutter.”
Eric lofted the ball, went up on his toes, and whacked a killer serve that barely topped the net. Instead of trying to return it, Curt flinched back. Eric raised his arms like Rocky at the top of the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps. Mary clapped. Eric turned toward her and bowed.
Jared said, “It was MRS. COLBY EATS THE BIG ONE on his arm, and Billy didn’t put it there. Eric did. Billy was fast asleep when he did it, and kept his mouth shut because staying on the bus was better than getting beaten up by Eric at a later date.”
“So?”
“So Eric’s a bully.”
“Was a bully,” Mary said. “Fifth grade was a long time ago.”
“As the twig is bent, so the bough is shaped.” Jared heard the pedantic tone his father sometimes adopted, and would have taken it back if he could.
Mary’s gray eyes were on him, appraising. “Meaning what?”
Stop, Jared told himself, just shrug and say whatever and let it go. He often gave himself such good advice, and his mouth usually overrode him. It did so now.
“Meaning people don’t change.”
“Sometimes they do. My dad used to drink too much, but he stopped. He goes to AA meetings now.”
“Okay, some people do. I’m glad your father was one of them.”
“You better be.” The gray eyes were still fixed on him.
“But most people don’t. Just think about it. The fifth grade jocks—like Eric—are still the jocks. You were a smart kid then, and you’re a smart kid now. The kids who got in trouble in fifth are still getting in trouble in eleventh and twelfth. You ever see Eric and Billy together? No? Case closed.”
This time Curt managed to handle Eric’s serve, but the return was a bunny and Eric was vulturing the net, almost hanging over it. His return—a clear net-foul—hit Curt in the belt-buckle. “Quit it, dude!” Curt shouted. “I might want to have kids someday!”
“Bad idea,” Eric said. “Now go get that, it’s my lucky ball. Fetch, Rover.”
While Curt shuffled sulkily to the chainlink fence where the ball had come to rest, Eric turned to Mary and took another bow. She gave him a hundred-watt smile. It stayed on when she turned back to Jared, but the wattage dimmed considerably.
“I love you for wanting to protect me, Jere, but I’m a big girl. It’s a concert, not a lifelong commitment.”
“Just…”
“Just what?” The smile was all gone now.
Just watch out for him, Jared wanted to say. Because writing on Billy’s arm was a minor thing. A grade-school thing. In high school there have been ugly locker room stunts I don’t want to talk about. In part, because I never put a stop to any of them. I just watched.
More good advice, and before his traitor mouth could disregard it, Mary swiveled in her seat, looking toward the school. Some movement must have caught her eye, and now Jared saw it, too: a brown cloud lifting off from the gymnasium roof. It was large enough to scare up the crows that had been roosting in the oaks surrounding the faculty parking lot.
Dust, Jared thought, but instead of dissipating, the cloud banked sharply and headed north. It was flocking behavior, but those weren’t birds. They were too small even for sparrows.