a word with you all night. Do you have a minute—?”
She doesn’t wait to hear his response but draws him away from me. He turns his head over his shoulder and mouths,
Now that the fireworks are done, people flow back into the ballroom, where the reception will continue. Everyone is laughing and chattering. This is a good night, a time of celebration and hope. In his speech, Fred promised to restore order and stability to our city and to root out the sympathizers and resisters who have nested among us—like termites, he said, slowly eroding the basic structure of our society and our values.
This is what the future looks like: happy pairs, bright lights and pretty music, tasteful draped linens and pleasant conversation. Willow Marks and Grace, the rotting houses of Deering Highlands, and the guilt that compelled me out of the house and onto my bike yesterday—all of it seems like a bad dream.
I think of the way Willow looked at me, so sadly:
The last, wispy fingers of smoke have dispersed. The green hills of the golf course are swallowed in purple shadow.
For a second I stand on the balcony, enjoying the order of it all: the trimmed grass and carefully plotted landscape, the pattern of day into night into day again, a predictable future, a life without pain.
As the crowd on the terrace thins, I catch the eye of a boy standing at the opposite side of the deck. He smiles at me. He looks familiar, although for a moment I can’t place him. But as he begins moving toward me, I feel a jolt of recognition.
Steve Hilt. I almost don’t believe it.
“Hana Tate,” he says. “I guess I can’t call you Hargrove yet, can I?”
“Steven.” Last summer I called him Steve. Now it seems inappropriate. He is changed; that must be why I didn’t recognize him at first. As he inclines his head toward a waitress, depositing his empty wineglass on a tray, I see he has been cured.
But it is more than that: He is heavier, his stomach a round swell under his button-down shirt, his jawline blurring into his neck. His hair is combed straight across his forehead, the same way my dad wears it.
I try to remember the last time I saw him. It might have been the night of the raid in the Highlands. I had gone to the party mostly because I was hoping to see him. I remember standing in the half-dark basement while the floor thudded with the rhythm of the music, sweat and moisture coating the walls, the smell of alcohol and sunscreen and bodies packed into a tight space. And he had pressed his body against mine—he was so thin then, tall and skinny and tan—and I had let him slide his hands around my waist, under my shirt, and he had leaned down and pressed his lips against mine, opened my mouth with his tongue.
I believed I loved him. I believed he loved me.
And then: the first scream.
Gunfire.
Dogs.
“You look good,” Steven says. Even his voice sounds different. Again, I can’t help but think of my father, the easy, low-belly voice of a grown-up.
“So do you,” I lie.
He tips his head, gives me a look that says both
But no. He was a different boy back then.
“So. When is the happy event? Next Saturday, isn’t it?” He puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels.
“The Friday after.” I clear my throat. “And you? You’ve been paired, then?” It never occurred to me last summer to ask.
“Sure have. Celia Briggs. Do you know her? She’s at UP now. We won’t be married until she’s finished.”
I do know Celia Briggs. She went to New Friends Academy, a St. Anne’s rival school. She had a hook nose and a loud, rattling laugh, which made it always sound as though she was fighting a bad throat infection.
As though he can tell what I’m thinking, Steven says, “She’s not the prettiest girl, but she’s decent. And her dad’s chief of the Regulatory Office, so we’ll be all set up. That’s how we scored an invite to this shindig.” He laughs. “Not bad, I have to say.”
Even though we are practically the only two people left on the deck, I suddenly feel claustrophobic.
“I’m sorry.” I have to force myself to look at him. “I should get back to the party. It was great seeing you, though.”
“Pleasure’s mine,” he says, and winks. “Enjoy yourself.”
I can only nod. I step in through the French doors and snag the hem of my dress on a splinter in the threshold. I don’t stop; I give my dress a sharp tug and hear it tear. I push through knots of partygoers: the wealthiest and most important members of the Portland community, everyone scented and powdered and well- dressed. As I make my way through the room, I pick up on snatches of conversation, an ebb and flow of sound.
“You know Mayor Hargrove has ties to the DFA.”
“Not publicly.”
“Not yet.”
Seeing Steven Hilt has destabilized me for reasons I can’t understand. Someone presses a glass of champagne into my hand, and I drink it quickly, unthinkingly. The bubbles fizz in my throat, and I have to stifle a sneeze. It has been a long time since I’ve had anything to drink.
People whirl around the room, around the band, dancing two-step and waltz, arms rigid, steps graceful and defined: patterns forming and reforming, dizzying to watch. Two women, both tall, with the regal looks of birds of prey, stare at me as I push past them.
“Very pretty girl. Healthy-looking.”
“I don’t know. I heard her scores were rigged. I think Hargrove could have done better. . . .”
The women move off into the swirl of dancers, and I lose the thread of their voices. Different conversations overwhelm them.
“How many kids have they been assigned?”
“Don’t know, but she looks like she can handle a litter of ’em.”
Heat starts to climb into my chest and cheeks. Me: They’re talking about me.
I look around for my parents or Mrs. Hargrove and don’t spot them. I can’t see Fred, either, and I have a moment of panic—I’m in a room full of strangers.
That’s when it hits me that I have no friends anymore. I suppose that I will make friends with Fred’s friends now—people in our class and rank, people who share similar interests. People like these people.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm down. I shouldn’t feel this way. I should feel brave, and confident, and careless.
“Apparently there were some problems with her last year before she was cured. She started manifesting symptoms. . . .”
“So many of them do, don’t they? That’s why it’s so important that the new mayor aligns himself with the DFA. If they can shit a diaper, they can be cured. That’s what I say.”
“Please, Mark, give it a rest. . . .”
Finally I spot Fred across the room, surrounded by a small crowd and flanked by two photographers. I try to push my way toward him but am blocked by the crowd, which seems to be growing as the evening goes on. An elbow hits me in the side, and I stumble against a woman holding a large glass of red wine.
“Excuse me,” I murmur, pushing past her. I hear a gasp and a few nervous titters, but I’m too focused on getting through the crowd to worry about what has attracted their attention.
Then my mother is barging toward me. She grabs my elbow, hard.
“What happened to your dress?” she hisses.
I look down and see a bright red stain spreading across my chest. I have the inappropriate urge to laugh; it
