The smell, strongest here, was not fresh; it was the smell of older, dry death. The door waited—locked, perhaps—but Nayima did not want to go inside. Nayima laid her palm across the building’s warm wooden wall, a communion with whoever had left her the PT Cruiser. And the shoes she would choose. What visionary had brought them here in this humane way? Had they known what was waiting? Her questions filled her with acid grief. She was startled by her longing to be with them, calm and resting.
Just in time, she heard the music.
“Look what I found,” she said, and held up the sign for him to see.
“Can’t read that from here.”
“I can come closer.”
“Wouldn’t do that.”
So, nothing had changed. She sighed. “It says—‘Smile, Remove Your Mask.’”
He laughed. She already loved the sound. And then, the second miracle—he tugged his mask down to his chin. “Hell, since it’s on the sign.” He pointed a finger of judgment at her. “You stay way over there, I’ll keep it off.”
His voice was clearer. It was almost too dark to see him now, but she guessed he couldn’t be older than fifty, perhaps as young as forty. He was young. Young enough. She wasn’t close enough to see his eyes, but she imagined they were kind.
“I’m Kyle,” he said.
She grinned so widely that she might have blinded him.
“Easy there, sister,” he said. “That’s all you get—my name. And a little guitar, if you can be a quiet audience. Like I said, you’re moving on.”
“Some of the other cars have gas. But this one has a full tank.”
“Good for you,” he said, not unkindly.
“You’ll die here if you’re afraid to touch anything.”
“My cross to bear.”
“How will you ever know you’re immune?” she said.
He only shrugged. “I expect it’ll become clear.”
“But I won’t be here. I don’t know where I’ll be. We have to . . .” She almost said We have to fight back and make babies and see if they can survive. “. . . stay together. Help protect each other. We’re herd animals, not solitary. We always have been. We need each other.”
Too much to comprehend lay in his silence.
“All you need is a full tank of gas,” he said at last. “All I need is my guitar. Nothing personal—but ever hear of Typhoid Mary?”
Yes, of course she had heard of Typhoid Mary, had lived under the terror of her legacy. In high school, she’d learned that the poor woman died in isolation after thirty years, with no one allowed close to her. Nayima had decided long ago not to live in fear.
“We have immunity,” she said. “I won’t get you sick.”
“That’s a beautiful idea.” His voice softened practically to a song. “You’ll be the one who got away, Nayima.”
She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had called her by name. And he’d pronounced it as if he’d known her all her life. Not to mention how the word beautiful cascaded up and down her spine. While her hormones raged, she loved him more with each breath. Nayima was tempted to jump into her PT Cruiser and drive away then, the way she had learned to flee all hopeless scenarios.
Instead, she pulled her car within fifteen yards of him and reclined in the driver’s seat with her door open, watching him play until he stopped. The car’s clock said it was midnight when he finally slept. Hours had melted in his music. She couldn’t sleep, feverish with the thought of losing him.
At first, she only climbed out of the car to stretch her limbs. She took a tentative step toward him. Then, another. Soon, she was standing over him while he slept.
She took in his bright guitar strap, woven from a pattern that looked Native American. The wiry hairs on his dark beard where they grew thick to protect his pink lips. The moonlight didn’t show a single gray hair. He could be strong, with better feeding. Beneath his dusty camo jacket, he wore a Pink Floyd concert shirt. He could play her all of the old songs, and she could teach him music he didn’t know. The moonlight cradled his curls across his forehead, gleamed on his exposed nose. He was altogether magnificent.
Nayima was sure he would wake when she knelt beside him, but he was a strong sleeper. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell, even as she leaned over him.
Was the stone rolling across her chest only her heartbeat? Her palms itched, hot. She was seventeen again, unexpectedly alone in a corner with Darryn Stephens at her best friend’s house party, so aware of every prickling pore where they were close. And when he’d bent close, she’d thought he was going to whisper something in her ear over the noise of the world’s last dance. His breath blew across her lips, sweet with beer. Then his lips grazed hers, lightning strikes down her spine, and the softness . . . the softness . . .
Kyle slept on as Nayima pressed her lips to his. Was he awake? Had his lips yielded to her? It seemed so much like Kyle was kissing her too, but his eyes were still closed, his breathing uninterrupted even as she pulled away.
She crept back to her PT Cruiser, giddy as a twelve-year-old. Oh, but he would be furious! The idea of his anger made her giggle. She dozed to sleep thinking of the gift of liberation she had given Kyle. Freedom from masks. Freedom from fear. Freedom to live his life with her, to build their village.
By dawn, Nayima woke to the sound of his retching.
She thought she’d dreamed the sound at first—tried to will herself to stay in her happy dream of singing Kumbaya with well-groomed strangers in the horse stalls, hand in hand—but she opened her eyes and saw the guitar player hunched away from her. He had pushed his guitar aside. She heard the splatter of his vomit.
Nausea came first. Nausea came fast.
Shit, she thought. Her mind was a vast white prairie, emptied, save that one word. She remembered his laughter, realized she would never hear him laugh again now.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought for sure you were like me. An NI.”
She wished her voice had sounded sadder, but she didn’t know how. She wanted to explain that he might have contracted the virus somewhere else in the past twenty-four hours, not necessarily from her. But despite the odds and statistics on her side, even she didn’t believe that.
It’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it, Gram would say. Nayima clamped her fingernails into both palms. Her wrist tendons popped out from the effort. Hot pain. The numbness that had thawed with his music and 4-H stories crept over her again, calcified.
The man didn’t turn to look at her as she stood over him and picked through his things. His luggage carrier held six water bottles and a mountain of candy bars. The necessities. She left him his candy and water. His 9mm had no ammo, but she took it. She left his guitar—although she took the strap to remember him by. She might take up guitar herself one day.
The man gagged and vomited again. Most people choked to death by the third day.
“I’m leaving now,” she said, and knelt behind him. She searched for something to say that might matter to him. “Kyle, I found that Rescue Center over in Farm Land—Farm World—and it looks nice. Somebody really thought the whole thing through. You were right to come here. Where I grew up, they just burned everything.”
Even now, she craved his voice. Wanted so badly for him to hear her. To affirm her. To learn her grandmother’s name and say, “Yes, she was.” Yes, you were. Yes, you are.
The man did not answer or turn her way. Like the others before him, he was consumed with his illness. Just as well, Nayima thought as she climbed back into her car. Just as well. She glanced at her visor mirror and saw her face: dirt-streaked, unrepentant. She blinked and looked away.