“Rosie, about your offer…” Rosie’s was DZ, even PAV reception was spotty. But that didn’t stop someone inside from overhearing conversations, so I chose my words carefully. “I want to wait. I’m not ready.”
“When the time is right, you will know.” She patted my cheek. “You are a wise one.”
I didn’t feel wise. I did feel relieved.
“I’ve got more cookies in the oven,” Rosie said. “I’d best get back to them.”
“Can I help?” Dee was in a love-to-cook phase. My similar phase had been very short. I could find my way around the cook center, but wasn’t a whiz like Gran.
“Of course. But I might put you to work.”
“Cool.” Dee followed Rosie into the kitchen.
Sal and I sipped our cocoa, held hands, and acted exactly like I never imagined I ever would. Even just a few months ago, I’d been so determined not to be a typical sex-teen, falling all over boys, dressing to attract them—and every creepy pervert in the galaxy—that I’d decided never to have a boyfriend. Yet here I was, enjoying the major bright spot in my life—Sal.
The only thing we ever argued about was his inclination to be overly protective. I understood why he felt that way. After all, it can’t be easy to see your girlfriend threatened by a former B.O.S.S. agent. I shuddered, thinking about Ed. About how he took my mother from me. The power he had wielded over Dee and me. Dee, who still thought Ed was her father… But Ed was gone. And I didn’t need protecting.
If anything, I wanted to be more active in the Resistance. If guys as young as sixteen could be NonCons, why they made girls wait until eighteen made no sense to me. Guys didn’t get tattooed at sixteen; girls did. Every day for a sixteen brought unwanted sexual advances, or worse. And yet the leaders of the Resistance thought Resistance activity was too dangerous. Ridiculous.
It seemed like guys everywhere—even the NonCons and Resistance fighters, who should know better—bought into at least some of the Media propaganda about women not being as strong or capable as men. I sipped my cocoa, swallowing down the negativity.
While we were talking, a woman came in and joined the lone man. Her chestnut hair, caught in clips above her temples, cascaded over her shoulders like in a shampoo vert. Her clothes were definitely not Sale-o-rama. They were ultrachic, showing off her perfect figure. She was tall, too, almost Amazonian. At first, I thought she was beautiful. Looking closer, I noticed a hardness to the set of her mouth that didn’t seem so attractive.
Sal was looking at her, too. I squeezed his hand. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He frowned slightly before turning his attention back to me. “I should have been thinking about you.” He brushed his lips over my fingertips. I forgot everything except how he made me feel.
After Dee returned from helping Rosie, we bundled up to go. We were nearly to the door when a voice called, “Miss Oberon.” Dee and I turned simultaneously. “You might need this.” The chestnut-haired woman was holding up one of Dee’s mittens. “It’s awfully cold outside.”
“Miss Maldovar!” Dee hurried over to the table. “Thank you! Mom gave these to me last Holiday. I’d hate myself if I lost one.” She snugged her hand into the errant mitten.
“I can imagine. So sad about your mother.” She laid a hand on Dee’s shoulder. “Be careful with them.” She glanced up, scrutinizing me. “You’d better run back to your sister now.”
Sal held open the door and asked Dee exactly what I was wondering. “Who’s that?”
“My new teacher, Miss Maldovar. She’s so ultra.”
I glanced in the window at the same moment the woman’s eyes met mine. The hairs on my neck involuntarily prickled. I buttoned my coat. It was icy cold out.
III
When Dee and I got home, Pops was sitting in his favorite chair, his prosthetic leg propped up against the side table, his crutch lying on the floor next to it.
Dee flung herself into his arms, planting a big kiss on his cheek. “Tons of homework right before Holiday. Can you believe it?” She straightened up. “Will you help me with my math later?”
“Sure enough, Deedles.” He chucked her under the chin. “Try ’em yourself first, though. I’ll check your answers.”
Dee bounded off to her room.
“How about you, Little Bit? School okay today?” he asked.
“Uh-huh.” I wasn’t going to tell him about my visit to Mrs. Marchant. He’d only get worked up and frustrated because he couldn’t help me. In the few months since Dee and I had moved in with Gran and Pops, Pops’s health had gotten worse, and he was growing more forgetful. Not wanting to dwell on depressing subjects, I asked, “Anything exciting happen here?”
“Checkerheads came by again.”
So much for changing the subject. A stranglehold of anxiety knotted my gut. The same anxiety that had been my constant companion since my mom’s murder, but which had subsided somewhat since Ed’s death. I wrapped my arms about me, not even bothering to chide him about the derogatory slang for the police. “What did they want?” As if I didn’t know.
“Had a couple of Bureau agents with ’em this time.” He rubbed the day’s worth of stubble on his chin. “Still looking for that no-good, worthless, piece-of-crap Ed. I told ’em he’d never been to see Dee, didn’t care a whit that she was his daughter, and I didn’t give a damn about him or where he was. Probably out cheating on his wife with some other woman now that Ginnie’s dead.”
“Pops!” There was no reasoning with my grandfather about the government. I understood his contempt perfectly, but—old and disabled or not—I was terrified he’d get himself into some kind of trouble he couldn’t get out of. “You probably should have been a little… nicer.”
“Nicer?” He snorted. “Like anything the government’s ever done to me was nice?” He patted his stump, a reminder of the shoddy treatment he’d received when he’d lost his leg in an accident while working on a government project years earlier.
I tried logic. “They’re B.O.S.S. They can, you know… reassimilate you.”
“I ain’t scared of reassimilation, Little Bit. It’ll take more than some warped technology to turn this old geezer into a pile of mush.”
I doubted Pops knew how zombified reassimilated people were. Like the teacher I’d had who’d strayed from GC-mandated texts. He was never the same after he came back. But it took more than vague threats to scare Pops. “Did they say anything?” I asked. “What leads do they have?”
“Same as before. His last PAV signal was from around Lincoln and Wells. Said it might have come from the old Robin’s Roost hotel.” His eyes flashed, and he straightened up. “That’s where your father and his friends hung out. Been deserted for years. What business would Ed have had to be there?”
I shrugged, as if I hadn’t a clue that Ed had been there, looking for me, while I’d been there looking for evidence my mom had hidden. I had found the evidence. And Ed had found me.
Pops sighed, and slumped back into his chair. “Alan and Ginnie’s wedding reception was there. Place all done up in silver and Neptune green. Fairyland. That’s what it was like. A magical fairyland.”
His eyes lost focus, clouded by what was becoming a much too frequent faraway look. I needed Pops to stay present. I perched on the arm of his chair. “Did they say anything else?”