“Yeah.” Avril breathed again.
“The ground rules. Number one. We can’t be lovers. Not ever. That will only backfire sooner or later.”
“Agreed.” The thought hadn’t crossed Avril’s mind.
“And food: No sharing food. Or clothing. We keep things picked up and clean.”
Avril nodded. The idea seemed amenable. Not the tone, though.
“Music on earphones. We can decide later how to decorate. Now we should set up the furniture.”
“You’ve thought this through.”
“I want everything ready as fast as possible. I got here late, and I’m going to work hard and learn all I can, and that’s all I care about.”
“Me too.” Not really.
They quickly stacked the beds into bunks, agreeing—or rather, Avril conceding—that the lower one was for Shinta. They arranged the desks and other storage on either side of the window, with the left side for Avril. She excused herself as Shinta continued to unpack.
She wondered about her new roommate as she walked out. Was she just a random student, or was she sent to spy on Avril? And if so, by which side? You can never trust anyone.
She had contacts in the mutiny besides Cal. She’d spoken to a senior at Dejope Hall’s start-of-the-semester welcome party, a short, energetic woman named Hetta, the one who promised to get her in touch with someone else, who turned out to be Cal, but he was just a setback.
She was going to find Hetta.
Berenike knew her grandparents were named Linda and Christopher Swoboda. They had lived in the Milwaukee area, and perhaps they still did, so she hurried to rummage through the customer database of the autocar franchise where she worked. The momentarily empty reception area had a counter on one end that held a screen and equipment, all of it emblazoned with the teal corporate logo for AutoKar. A pair of teal plastic benches waited for customers in front of a wall-sized window, where that morning she’d hung a small American flag on corporate orders, grumbling during every minute that it took her. Electronic panels on the opposite wall depicted cars slightly more lovely and spacious than the real thing.
Assistant managers had mid-level access to the database, and the franchise was popular, so if the Swobodas existed, she could find them—and in the process violate at least two big rules against accessing the database for personal use. No one could tell why she was looking them up, though. And she was hardly the first to search for personal reasons.
There they were: in a well-heeled suburb and about the right age. He was a retired doctor who had worked in oncology at a large hospital. She was also a medical doctor and had retired from teaching at a medical college. They frequented garden supply and athletic equipment stores, as well as specialized grocery stores and local parks. Lately only Christopher had called for a car. Linda had been deactivated, which probably meant death—with divorce, she’d be in the database at a different street address. Judging by the times he called for an autocar, he had a lot of free time. His photo showed a smiling man with features a lot like his dark-haired, round-faced daughter, Momma, who had hated him for decades.
Momma had always said that when Berenike was adopted, both she and Papa had been unemployed—which wasn’t unusual—and they had no insurance, so Momma’s parents thought they shouldn’t try to raise a child. She said her parents were horrified by the idea that she and Papa possessed so few resources and yet had dared to start a family.
“Think of what’s best for the baby,” Grandmother Linda had said, according to Momma, who had apparently made it all up. “We can take her for a while, just until you get your lives in order again.”
“My life is in order!” Momma said she answered, still shrill with rage years later. She would add as Berenike got older, “They got a court order. Child welfare inspectors! Private detectives! That’s how much they wanted to snatch you. We couldn’t take our eyes off you for a moment. You were so unbelievably precious to us.”
She added when Berenike got even older, “They were always trying to control my life. They hated your father. Called him totally fucking useless. They did everything they could to undermine our marriage.”
Berenike would be bombarded by these pronouncements around the holidays, when families were supposed to gather and bond. Once, on the day before Thanksgiving, she was shoveling dry cereal into her mouth to get to school on time when she dared to ask a question.
“When was the last time you talked to them?”
“You were two, so thirteen years. Lucky thirteen!” Scorn sparkled in the words.
“Then why are you still so angry about it?”
Momma leaned in close. “You don’t know how much they tried to hurt me. The things they said about me. Slander! They tried to ruin our credit rating by getting a court order. We had just enough money to raise you but not to pay a lawyer, too. They bad-mouthed us on every network they could. You’d have led a better life when you were little except for all the harm they did to us, to our family.”
The next day, during the holiday dinner, Momma continued the tale. “They got obsessed about you, Nike. They couldn’t leave us in peace.”
Berenike remembered that dinner’s processed turkey and stuffing from a cheap takeout, spiced with well-aged resentment, and even at the time she’d felt sure she wasn’t hearing an especially accurate story. She’d already realized that if she knew more, she might feel differently about her grandparents and her parents. There were never completely innocent parties in any battle.
Bearing that in mind, she stepped outside the AutoKar franchise office during her lunch break and took the first step, steeling herself for the likely consequences. She dictated a formal electronic mail message, very polite and proper. “… and I believe you may be my grandparents … I know there are disagreements between you and my parents, but if you would be
