Elsa came back carrying two tumblers full of iced tea. “A few of them got carried away. They’re not pagans, Rhonda. All my girls are good Christians.”
“Of course they are-they’re super Christians.” Rhonda drank from the glass with relish, and sat back. “Law, that’s good.” She sipped again and said, “Those teenagers, the ones that came through the Changes before puberty? I get the impression they think they’re a little more pure than everybody else-even the older sisters in their own clade.”
The reverend sat on the chair and sighed as if conceding the point. “They’re growing up in a different world than we did, Rhonda.”
“You don’t say.”
“The facts of life have changed. Those girls coming up now are sure they’re never going to be ‘defiled.’ They get to have their babies without going through any of that… business that other women have to go through.”
“They get to have their cake without having to eat it,” Rhonda said, and cackled.
The reverend allowed a wisp of a smile, and then her frown returned. “All they talk about is babies.” She pitched her voice to keep it within the thin walls of the trailer. “They don’t want to do anything but play with their dolls and talk about how wonderful it will be when they finally get their own children. And the only ones they admire more than themselves are the natural-borns.”
“I’ve noticed that, too,” Rhonda said.
“I’ve got NB girls having their periods at eight, nine years old. The oldest ones are nearly twelve. It won’t be long ’til I have babies raising babies, and the third generation will be upon us. And the white-scarf girls couldn’t be happier. You’d think angels were coming.”
“Hon, that’s a cult.”
“It’s not a cult, it’s just…” She shrugged.
“At the very least you’ve got another schism brewing.”
The reverend’s expression didn’t change, but she hadn’t missed that “another” slipped in like a knife. After the Changes, Harlan Martin had been determined to keep his church together, and he’d succeeded for a couple years. But he wasn’t about to alter his preaching to make it easier on all the people getting divorced, or moving in with people of the same clade. God doesn’t change, Harlan said, even if he changes us. Then Harlan tried to excommunicate two blank women who’d moved in together, and that was it-the fuse was lit. Rhonda admired Harlan for sticking to his scripture, but she’d already felt the political winds changing and knew he couldn’t win this fight. The blanks outnumbered the other clades in the church, and Elsa had led the charge to force him out. Her new church ordained her a week after Harlan cleaned out his office.
“They’re just children,” the reverend said. “They’re being rebellious.”
“Oh, listen to yourself. You already said they were growing up in a different world. You’re just an immigrant here, and you don’t understand the language. They think they’re the real thing. They probably don’t even think you’re a real beta.”
The reverend looked up, eyes slightly narrowed. In the limited vocabulary of beta expressions, that was outright anger.
So, Rhonda thought. The reverend had heard the girls talking about her.
“Listen to me, Elsa,” Rhonda said. “You’ve got to get hold of this before it spins out of control. Before they spin you out. You’re going to have to crack down on those teenagers. Make them throw out those scarves, for one.”
“I can’t just say, ‘No scarves.’ That would just make them more secretive, and I’d become the enemy.”
“You’re already the enemy,” Rhonda said. “You just have to make sure they know they need you.”
The reverend rubbed a finger over her smooth forehead. She went to the window and pushed aside the gauzy curtain. “Help me build the school, then.”
Ah. Every conversation with the reverend eventually came around to the beta school.
“We haven’t even broke ground on the high school yet,” Rhonda said. “The town can’t afford two new school buildings. Now if you wanted to start a private school…”
“You know the Co-op can’t do that,” the reverend said. “Most of us are on social assistance. We just don’t have the kind of resources you do.”
Rhonda almost laughed. The reverend also never failed to get a dig in about the vintage, thinking that her thinly veiled references would put Rhonda on the defensive. “I wish I could help you, Elsa.”
“What about the grants?” the reverend asked. “Do you honestly need all thirty million? Some of that money, just two or three million, could be used for a beta school-it would still be for education, after all. And say my girls don’t ever go to the high school, they go to this Co-op school instead. Then we don’t need as big a building.”
Rhonda pretended to consider it. “I hear what you’re saying. I do. And I’d like to help you, especially if it would make your people happy.” She shook her head. “But hon, that money’s been preallocated-the plans are submitted to the state. The federal and state grants are for building Switchcreek High School. Nothing else. The government don’t just let you spend it on whatever you want.”
The reverend paced the small room. Rhonda let her stew about it, think it was as unfeasible as all the other times they’d talked. Then when she didn’t say anything for a minute, Rhonda said, “Well, we could propose… No, Deke would never go for it.”
“What?”
“A branch campus.”
The reverend blinked at her. “High schools don’t have branch campuses.”
“Let’s just say it’s part of the high school that’s not connected to the main building,” Rhonda said. “We amend the plans to put a separate wing on the high school. Then after construction starts, we put the wing over here instead of over there-we don’t even have to change the blueprints.”
“You can’t do something like that and not have anybody notice, Mayor.”
“Oh, we wouldn’t hide it from anyone. We just make sure the whole council approves it.” The whole council being Mr. Sparks, the reverend, and Deke. Rhonda, as mayor, was a nonvoting member. “Then we make sure that none of our people make a fuss, or complain to the state. As long as we keep our paperwork straight and sell it to the town we’ll be all right.”
“That’s one tough sell,” the reverend said. “Mr. Sparks doesn’t want to change anything. The argos went along with the school last time because of their young ones, but those kids will graduate in a few years, and there aren’t any to replace them.”
“Not yet,” Rhonda said.
“Maybe not ever.” A few of the younger argos still hope to have their own babies some day, and so the high school plans made a concession to optimism: fifteen foot ceilings and double-wide doors.
“I’ll talk to Deke,” Rhonda said. “Maybe if we promise to throw some of the construction work his way…”
“He won’t take anything that looks like a payoff, Rhonda.”
“Any work his company gets is money in the pockets of his workers. It’s good for his people.” She shrugged. “But it won’t feel like a payoff if I convince him that the beta school is for the good of all of us.”
“And what’s your reason, Rhonda? That high school’s been your pet project. I find it hard to believe you’d risk that.”
“Oh hon, I’m not risking the school. I’ll still get my football field. But I’m willing to cut out a few classrooms to help you build your school because I can do the math.” She smiled sweetly. “You betas are breeding twice as fast as my clade. The argos aren’t breeding at all, and the skips are dying off. In a few years the majority of voters are going to be little bald girls.” She shrugged. “I’m just preparing for the world to come.”
The reverend offered to walk Rhonda back to her car. The heat seemed worse when they stepped out of the air-conditioning.