Fan ran the tub right away, pouring some of the bubble soap into the water, as she’d never tried that before. She stripped off her dirty clothes and looked at herself in the mirror, especially her belly, to see if there was a change. Was there the tiniest bulge? The light was different from when she’d peed on the road, and in the mirror it was evident. She sucked in her stomach and it didn’t go away. Still, she looked mostly like she always did, nothing too out of the ordinary. She was going to brush her teeth — it had been before the Nickelmans when she last did — but a funny feeling crept over her and she quickly slipped into the bubbly water, despite how hot it was. She scanned the ceiling, the seams in the molding, even the artwork on the walls, to see if there was an eye of a vid cam, but she couldn’t find one. When she was done scrubbing and washing her hair under the cover of the bubbles, she plucked the robe while sitting in the water and quickly stood up and put it on.
After cleaning her teeth and brushing her hair, she tried the bed. She was shocked how pillowy-soft it was, so unlike her firm cotton-batting mattress back in B-Mor and about five times as large. She lay down in various orientations and parts of the bed until she got back to the appropriate position, and she was going to shut her eyes for just a minute when suddenly she was slowly floating down a river, past a burning Who Falls Inn, before going over the lip of an artificial ledge into a deep pool, where Trish and Glynnis were swimming. They were splashing and gay, and it was all fine and easy with Fan showing Trish how to stay vertical underwater while keeping her feet above the surface. Quig was not present but for some reason Loreen was, complaining as usual about something from the water’s edge. But the three of them were ignoring her and Fan was on to showing Trish another trick, this one for twirling underwater, when the girl began to sink deeper and deeper. Fan couldn’t understand what was happening but she was sinking herself, or more like being drawn toward the bottom with greater and greater force, just like what happened to Joseph. Fan was a strong swimmer and could just escape the flow, but Trish couldn’t resist and dropped away into the depths. Fan let herself get drawn down right after her, and when she neared the bottom, she saw Glynnis pressed against a very wide metal grate, already drowned. Trish was stuck against the grate, too, fiercely struggling, and Fan kept trying to pull her from the main drag of the flow but it was no use. The poor girl couldn’t hold her breath any longer and opened her mouth, her body instantly rebelling against the water filling her lungs. She relented; then she was gone. Fan let herself get drawn in, too, and though she knew she could hold her breath a while longer, she was thinking maybe she should just give up, let the water cool the burning inside her lungs, when the flow suddenly ceased and she floated upward to the surface, Loreen’s voice coming clearer.
It’s quarter to eight, Loreen was saying, looming above Fan as she lay in bed. It’s time for dinner. Loreen said to get dressed right away. She looked mostly recovered, her face no longer so terribly pale like soap, and having washed and combed her hair and put on a beaded necklace, she looked almost glamorous, even with the shapeless, smocklike dress she was wearing. As Fan changed in the immense walk-in closet (into clothes Penelope had given her for the trip, a simple blouse and long skirt borrowed from another family), Loreen reminded her how important this meeting was, for Mister Leo was going to give them the geno-chemo Sewey needed, as well as the drilling equipment for the compound. When Fan stepped out, Loreen had her sit beside her on the bed, so she could brush Fan’s hair. Loreen took her time, running the brush gently through her short locks and pinning up one side and the other and then both, finally pulling all the pins and brushing her hair out again.
You know now why you’re here, right? Loreen finally said. I know you do. You’re not a dumb girl.
Fan nodded and said she did.
You’re going to be that woman’s helper. She’ll show you how to take care of the house. You’ll train under her and then someday take over when she retires. And you can live here the whole time, probably right in this room. But I will tell you this. These people don’t have their own children. It’s just the two of them. So who knows, if they really take to you, maybe someday all this will be yours. Can you imagine that?
Fan said she couldn’t, but that she understood. She knew she wasn’t going to live at the Smokes forever, so this was the best way, helping get the equipment for the new well, and especially Sewey his medicine. The one sad thing was that she would never see him or Eli or the others again.
Loreen pressed her hand between hers and, with what Fan could sense was genuine gratitude, said she would let them all know how she felt. That was when Quig knocked on the door and poked his head in to say they should go downstairs. Like Loreen, he looked chipper after washing up, like his usual self again, if much more nicely groomed, the one difference now being that he wasn’t really looking at her, seemingly unable to meet her eyes.
14
In the airy living room Mister Leo greeted Quig like he was an old childhood friend, taking both his hands for a hearty shake and addressing him by his full surname, Quigley. Quig reintroduced him to Loreen, whom he smiled at but clearly didn’t remember, and then to Fan. Mister Leo bent down with his hands extended and said, What a darling girl.
Loreen nudged her and she went to Mister Leo, who was perhaps ten or fifteen years older than Quig, though he looked just as young if not younger, being well fed but still impressively fit. Fan, like any of us B-Mors, would not have ever encountered such a person; the directorate people we might come across in the facilities or observing us in the malls were Charters, yes, but they were often technical types, engineers and accountants who seemed always tightly wound and focused, unlike this Mister Leo, who exuded a pure easeful sense of confidence and command and ever rightful ownership. He was very handsome as well and could have been spliced right into a spot for a supercar or luxury clothier, with his strong chin and full head of salt-and-pepper hair and startling cobalt eyes that matched the face of his bulbous platinum-cased diver’s watch. He was dressed in a silken black mock turtleneck and pressed black jeans with an alligator belt and he wore sleek tasseled black loafers made of a leather whose texture even from a distance looked to be extra-buttery and soft, which it was. He clasped Fan’s cheek and she braced at the surprisingly rough nubs of his fingertips on her jaw, exerting the subtlest pressure. Then he let her go. Mala brought out a tray of glasses of Champagne, and one with mango juice for Fan, and they followed Mister Leo as he showed them the artworks around the room, an abundant collection of sculptures and paintings and objets d’art. He walked with a limp — the leg Quig had saved — but not in the least pathetically, his gait more like it was lingering intentionally than it was skipping a measure. The art was pleasing enough to Fan, who didn’t know the first thing about what she was seeing; obviously Loreen didn’t much care. Quig, however, was quietly amazed, his eyes widening at certain pieces, as if he’d seen them before only in museum catalogs. Mister Leo was talking about a painting of the Italian countryside circa 1890s, highlighting its use of heavier brushstrokes and purer colors, when Fan glimpsed Mala walking off with the empty tray down the other end of a hall. She slipped away when they had moved on to a tabletop sculpture of a very skinny, very elongated figure and found Mala in the kitchen, working at one of two stainless-steel-topped islands.