They each took a moment to surrender.
“Yeah,” said Archie.
“Yeah,” said Katie.
“Good,” Sandra said, taking a deep breath. She glanced at her watch. “I have to get out of here.”
She grabbed the stack of press kits and strode out of the kitchen.
Archie and Kate exchanged glances. It was Archie who spoke first:
“If you think you’re babysitting me, you are out of your mind.”
Four
Katie and Archie followed their mother out to her car.
Well, not her car exactly. Sandra Montrose’s car was a five-year-old Ford Focus, which she had bought from the Garrett Island Ford dealership. But the Focus was on the mainland now, parked with hundreds of other islanders’ vehicles. There were five car dealerships on the island. In addition to Ford, there were GM, Honda, Toyota, and Chrysler outlets, and their managers had been the most vocal opponents to the Arrival corporation’s plans. They’d have to forgo a month without sales or service income, they’d argued. When they were on the verge of suing Arrival, the self-driving car company settled, paying them what their estimated income would have been for the month, but the dealers had to agree to surrender the keys to all the vehicles they had on their lots. Arrival didn’t want some rogue joyrider taking a car from a dealer lot and sabotaging their autonomous fleet.
And the car dealerships weren’t the only ones who had to be paid off. The Arrivals were battery-powered, and all the island gas stations feared bankruptcy if they lost an entire month of sales. Even the local police department — Sandra had heard all about this from Joe — had to be compensated for lost revenue. The Arrivals were programmed to obey the speed limit, so there weren’t going to be any tickets issued for exceeding it. And an Arrival never overstayed its time at a parking meter. It had a built-in app to purchase more time if needed.
After she gave up the Focus, Sandra was given the use of a bright red Arrival. About the same size as her car, but far more futuristic looking, with its swoopy, aerodynamic shape. The car, sitting in the driveway, was linked to the house by a thick, black cable.
“You wanna unplug Gracie?” Sandra asked the kids.
Archie jumped at the chance. He went to the front of the car and detached the cable from an opening next to the right headlight. As he pulled it away, a small, red panel whirred into place over the outlet, disguising it. The cable itself retracted into the charging station — a small box attached to the wall next to the garage door.
“Thank God I remembered to plug it in last night,” she said. “Be just great, running out of juice on the way to the event.”
Archie, having completed his task, went and stood by his sister.
Then, speaking neither to Katie nor Archie, Sandra said, “Gracie, open.”
From somewhere — under the car, maybe the vents at the base of the windshield — came a voice. Feminine, but not overly so. Personable, but at the same time not overly familiar.
“Good morning, Sandra. It would be my pleasure.”
“I think she sounds hot,” Archie whispered to his sister.
Katie whispered back, “She might be the best you ever get.”
The door on the passenger side — both sides, actually, were passenger sides — popped out an inch, then slid back on a track to allow access. There were two seats in the front and two in the back. A gleaming black touch-screen dash ran across the bottom of the windshield.
There was no steering wheel.
Gracie said, “It is going to be a lovely day, Sandra. A high of seventy-five degrees, moderate cloud cover. There is a chance, however, of fog later in the afternoon.”
“Thanks for that,” Sandra said.
It had become something of a game for everyone on the island to try and identify the voice. The rumor was that Arrival had hired Scarlett Johansson to provide enough linguistic sound effects that the cars could put together any sentence necessary. Others thought Amy Adams or Emma Stone had been brought in. Sandra’s theory: several actresses had been used, their voices thrown into a digital blender to come up with the ultimate tonal companion.
If you were French or German or Spanish, well, not to worry. The cars could be programmed to respond in any language, and it was up to each owner to give their car a name. Sandra had chosen Gracie for hers. It had been the name of her cat when she was little.
As if she were going to be driven around by a real chauffeur, Sandra got into one of the back seats, leaving the front two empty. She tossed the briefcase stuffed with press kits onto the seat next to her.
“Break a leg, Mom,” Katie said.
Sandra smiled wearily. “Thanks,” she said quietly. Then, in a stronger voice, “Gracie, let’s go.”
“Are you sure you have everything?” Gracie asked.
“I’m sure.”
“Destination?”
“Garrett Island Community Center.”
“I’ll take you there.”
The door slid silently back into place.
Making no more noise than that of rubber rolling on pavement, the car backed out of the driveway and lined up perfectly against the curb.
“I’ll say this,” Archie quipped. “It backs up way better than Mom ever did. And it never pulls into a parallel parking spot nose-first.”
Sandra waved at her kids as the car moved on down the street. They watched until it reached the corner, turned, and was out of sight.
“Don’t look now,” Archie whispered, “but he’s watching us.”
“What?”
“The serial killer,” he said, tucking his chin down into his shoulder as he whispered. “He just pulled back the curtain and was checking us out.”
Katie, with feigned casualness, looked across the street. Her brother was right. The old man in the house opposite theirs was at the living room window. She could see a couple of fingers pulling back the curtain, a sliver of face and one eye.
“What should we do?” Archie said. “Call the cops?”
Katie sighed. “Yeah, right, do that. ‘Hello, 911? There’s a man looking out his window! Send everything you’ve got!’ You’re nuts, that’s what you are.”
“I know what his name is,” Archie said. “It’s Bruce Clifford.”
“How do you know that?”
“We got some of his mail one day. Some old New Yorker magazine.”
“Oh,” Katie said.
“Don’t you think that’s kind of suspicious?”
“That he’s old?”
“No, duh. That he’s got two first names. Bruce and Clifford. I bet it’s made up. He’s got, like, a new identity because he was a serial killer someplace else, had to get away, and made up a different name.”
“You’re the stupidest kid on this island. Maybe in all of Massachusetts.”
Katie started walking back into the house, Archie trailing her. He followed her all the way into the kitchen, where Katie poured her cold coffee into the sink and refilled the mug from the pot.
“You don’t even like coffee,” Archie said. “You just drink it ’cause you think it makes you look older.”
She faced him. “What are we going to do today?”
“Huh?”
“Mom put me in charge. Your ass is mine.” Before her brother could object, she raised a cautioning index finger. “You heard Mom. This is a big day for her. So we’re just going to chill out, take it easy, not get into any shit.”
Archie studied her for several seconds, weighing his response. Finally, and with feigned formality, he said, “I believe that is an excellent idea, Katie. I could not agree more.”
She eyed him skeptically. “Bullshit.”