“It’s just one of those dumb things, Holly-bear,” her mom finally admitted. “Trust me, this will not be the last time you’ll feel like it’s bullshit being a woman.”
“Mommy,” she pleaded, because she hated it when her parents cussed.
“I’m sorry.” She kept rubbing Holly’s back for a while. Holly felt herself calming down. The world was not always fair, and people had very dumb ideas about things. That was the lesson, right?
Her mom laughed, and Holly remembered how beautiful her dark skin looked in the bright white sun. “That’s exactly right, doll. And most of the dumb ideas come from men like your dad who think they’re right about everything. Don’t tell him I said that, but it’s definitely the truth.”
Holly hadn’t missed her mom in a long, long time, but she did now. Missed her like hell. She went to sleep that night wishing it wasn’t the case that every wonderful thing about her mom felt like it originated in another life or a dissipating dream.
Kate Morris, on the other hand, was not thinking about her family, childhood, friends, or lovers. There were errant memories and traumas that might preoccupy anyone’s mind in such circumstances: listening to her mother cry as she tried to sleep in the passenger seat of their Honda Civic in a Fred Meyer parking lot after Sonja left Earl; this kid, Arturo, who used to tease her in grade school and called her an ogre one too many times, so she slammed the heel of her hand into his nose, and she had to see a child therapist for two years; or why not turn to thoughts of the partner she’d just left behind? She’d learned from every example in her life that men were scared, selfish, and weak. In the end, you could only rely on yourself. And Matt had gone and proved it to her once and for all. She’d listened to his car beat a crackling retreat down the gravel drive and took the moment to imagine herself as an old woman, when all these years of rain and thunder would be but a dim and painless remembering. Then she’d stood and returned to her office to keep working, and it was thrilling how very alone she was, how riddled with wounds.
But she had no use for memory at all that night.
Instead, she couldn’t stop thinking of how the blood had roared in her ears as that armored vehicle rolled toward her, how the adrenaline felt like it might lift her off her feet and send her hurtling like a mortar round into its hull. Shock them, fuck them, grind them to the bone. Be fearless. Be Achilles, be Roland, be Joan of Arc. Have a mental disease. Follow your clit. Drive across the Dakotas and watch a storm sear the horizon, recognize herself in its peels of wind and each crack of lightning, her true fellow travelers. Don’t change, don’t learn, don’t fall, don’t flinch. All she’d ever feel was sorry for people who didn’t know what it was to want something more than their own life. Conjure a tempest, spew rage from the heart, and make them stare into this city of Cassiterite dark she’d made with nothing but her ravaged voice.
Those in charge did not look at it quite as romantically. Urban heat and expensive bread had led to a summer of occupations and confrontations in capital cities around the world. In Pretoria, authorities opened fire with rubber bullets and tear gas, killing six. In Paris, protestors overturned a police vehicle, crushing two of their own. In Taipei, rioters battled with the army for six days until a typhoon blew through, soaked the city in two feet of rain, and buildings along the coast crumbled into the water. In Israel, a carefully calibrated plan to let only so much food and water into the Gaza Strip suddenly seemed overgenerous. They tightened the rations, and rocks and bottles flew and IDF vehicles burned. In China, the Ministry of State Security began detaining children they declared dissidents and returning their lifeless bodies to parents some weeks later. Protests against these brutal practices were becoming larger and more unruly, while the Communist Party blamed the CIA for sparking insurrection. There was a patient zero for all of this. The world’s leaders glared at what had gone on for more than three months in Washington.
President Love’s closest advisors huddled around him in Camp David, and he made sure to go berserk on them. He hurled a glass at the wall and told them they could resign if they didn’t like his plan. Of course, they were all on their knees after that, begging for forgiveness, and it made him sick to watch. Vic Love knew combat, and he knew from combat that the joy of violence is inborn, that people secretly love to supplicate themselves to men powerful enough to unleash it decisively. The only answer to this clusterfuck was to sow unparalleled fear. In fact, he should have been looking at it this whole time as an opportunity. This rebellion in the nation’s capital that had flummoxed and vexed him—he could use it as a proving ground. His nighttime disturbances echoed within the halls of Camp David, and his husband asked to be flown back to their estate. “You’re not well,” he told Vic before leaving. Vic told him to stay in Montana until he needed him for a magazine cover. It wasn’t that Vic never thought he would make a mistake, but he’d never imagined anyone outflanking him the way Morris had. In many ways, Kate Morris and Loren Victor Love were meant for each other in this moment, as the malformed soul of the old world seized and screamed in the death throes of whatever would be birthed next.
This time, there would be no warning.
JULY 31
“I’m taking the amnesty,” Holly Pietrus told the others. The siege had winnowed down to a core 21,582 hardy souls, still camped on the Mall and crowding the rooms of the Capitol. Morris, Yudong, Pietrus, Young, and Levine were gathered in the Speaker’s office. Kate had tacked a George Carlin poster to the wall behind her, the comedian’s eyebrows popping: When you’re born into this world, you’re given a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front-row seat. It reminded Kate of her long years in this amazing swamp city, where despite the evil that went on, the guts were hip-hop and the skin was pure metal.
“We’re almost out of food and water,” said Holly. “Whatever happens next…” She trailed off.
Kate nodded. She clutched her hands in her lap and gazed at her big, rough thumbs. “What you’ve all done here is beyond brave. I don’t say this lightly, but the world will never forget this. And it will never forget you.”
“I’m here till the end,” said Tom. He lounged in the Speaker’s chair, cracking and shelling walnuts. He’d found both the walnuts and the little metal gripper tool in a private cabinet of a random office.
Kate nodded but said otherwise. “No, you need to take the deal, Tom. The rest of you too. I’ll stay.”
“That makes no sense,” he said.
Kate blew a breath up her face, lifting a strand of greasy hair from her eyes. “It makes perfect sense. I’ll make an announcement tomorrow laying it out for everyone: They can stay with me and suffer the consequences, or they can go with you all.”
“To do what?” Tom demanded.
“To start a boy band—what do you think, Tom? To keep fighting.” Kate looked to the woman she trusted most. “Liza and I already discussed it. You’ll keep pushing, keep agitating. And you’ll hire the lawyers to stay up the government’s ass until we’re all out.”
“There’s no guarantee when that will be,” said Holly.
“Yeah, well, there’s not too much guarantee to anything, is there? I have to stay here,” she said plainly. “I have to make them come and get me.”
Their final meeting came to an end. They hugged and said their goodbyes. When Holly embraced Kate, she couldn’t help herself, and she broke down crying.