its alabaster fineness.
“Mind if I sit here?” she said.
“Sure. I mean, go for it.”
The simple but primordial movements of her legs swinging over the bench seat and her ass settling down awakened emotions in me that had been absent since Calley’s abrupt leave-taking.
“Nia Horsley. Used to live over on Garden Parkway.”
“Nice district.”
Nia snorted, a surprisingly enjoyable sound. “Yeah, once.”
“I never got over there much. Worked in East Grove. Had an apartment on Oakeshott.”
“And what would the name on your doorbell have been?”
“Oh, sorry. Parrish Hedges.”
“Pleased to meet you, Parrish.”
We shook hands. Hers was small but strong, enshelled in mine like a pearl.
For the next two hours, through two more shifts of diners coming and going, we talked, exchanging condensed life stories, right up to the day of disaster and down to our arrival at Femaville 29. Maybe the accounts were edited for maximum appeal, but I intuitively felt she and I were being honest nonetheless. When the refectory workers finally shooed us out in order to clean up for supper, I felt as if I had known Nia for two weeks, two months, two years—
She must have felt the same. As we strolled away down Avenue B, she held my hand.
“I don’t have a roomie in my tent.”
“Oh?”
“It’s just me and my daughter. Luck of the draw, I guess.”
“I like kids. Never had any, but I like ‘em.”
“Her name’s Izzy. Short for Isabel. You’ll get to meet her. But maybe not just yet.”
“How come?”
“She’s made a lot of new friends. They stay out all day, playing on the edge of the camp. Some kind of weird new game they invented.”
“We could go check up on her, and I could say hello.”
Nia squeezed my hand. “Maybe not right this minute.”
* * * *
I got to meet Izzy the day after Nia and I slept together. I suppose I could’ve hung around till Izzy came home for supper, but the intimacy with Nia, after such a desert of personal isolation, left me feeling a little disoriented and pressured. So I made a polite excuse for my departure, which Nia accepted with good grace, and arranged to meet mother and daughter for breakfast.
Izzy bounced into the refectory ahead of her mother. She was seven or eight, long-limbed and fair-haired in contrast to her mother’s compact, raven-haired paleness, but sharing Nia’s high-cheeked bone structure. I conjectured backward to a gangly blond father.
The little girl zeroed in on me somehow out of the whole busy dining hall, racing up to where I sat, only to slam on the brakes with alarming precipitousness.
“You’re Mr. Hedges!” she informed me and the world.
“Yes, I am. And you’re Izzy.”
I was ready to shake her hand in a formal adult manner. But then she exclaimed, “You made my Mom all smiley!” and launched herself into my awkward embrace.
Before I could really respond, she was gone, heading for the self-service cereal line.
I looked at Nia, who was grinning.
“And this,” I asked, “is her baseline?”
“Precisely. When she’s really excited—”
“I’ll wear one of those padded suits we used for training the K-9 squad.”
Nia’s expression altered to one of seriousness and sympathy, and I instantly knew what was coming. I cringed inside, if not where it showed. She sat down next to me and put a hand on my arm.
“Parrish, I admit I did a little Googling on you after we split yesterday, over at the online tent. I know about why you aren’t a cop anymore. And I just want to say that—”
Before she could finish, Izzy materialized out of nowhere, bearing a tray holding two bowls of Technicolor puffs swimming in chocolate milk, and slipped herself between us slick as a greased eel.
“They’re almost out of food! You better hurry!” With a plastic knife, Izzy began slicing a peeled banana into chunks thick as Oreos that plopped with alarming splashes into her bowls.
I stood up gratefully. “I’ll get us something, Nia. Eggs and bacon and toast okay?”
She gave me a look which said that she could wait to talk. “Sure.”
During breakfast, Nia and I mostly listened to Izzy’s chatter.
“—and then Vonique’s all like, ‘But the way I remember it is the towers were next to the harbor, not near the zoo.’ And Eddie goes, ‘Na-huh, they were right where the park started.’ And they couldn’t agree and they were gonna start a fight, until I figured out that they were talking about two different places! Vonique meant the Goblin Towers, and Eddie meant the Towers of Bone! So I straightened them out, and now the map of Djamala is like almost half done!”
“That’s wonderful, honey.”
“It’s a real skill, being a peacemaker like that.”
Izzy cocked her head and regarded me quizzically. “But that’s just what I’ve always been forever.”
In the next instant she was up and kissing her mother, then out the hall and raising puffs of dust as she ran toward where I could see other kids seemingly waiting for her.
Nia and I spent the morning wandering around the camp, talking about anything and everything—except my ancient, recent disgrace. We watched a pickup soccer game for an hour or so, the players expending the bottled energy that would have gone to work and home before the disaster, then ended up back at her tent around three.
Today was as warm as yesterday, and we raised a pretty good sweat. Nia dropped off to sleep right after, but I couldn’t.
Eleven days after the flood, and it was all I could dream about.
* * * *
Ethan was really starting to get on my nerves. He had seen me hanging out with Nia and Izzy, and used the new knowledge to taunt me.
“What’s up with you and the little girl, Hedges? Thinking of keeping your hand in with some target practice?”
I stood quivering over his bunk before I even realized I had moved. My fists were bunched at my hips, ready to strike. But both Ethan and I knew I wouldn’t.
The penalty for fighting at any of the Femavilles was instant expulsion, and an end to government charity. I couldn’t risk losing Nia now that I had found her. Even if we managed to stay in touch while apart, who was to say that the fluid milieu of the post-disaster environment would not conspire to supplant our relationship with another.
So I stalked out and went to see Hannah Lawes.
One complex of tents hosted the bureaucrats. Lawes sat at a folding table with her omnipresent laptop. Hooked to a printer, the machine was churning out travel vouchers branded with official glyphs of authenticity.
“Mr. Hedges. What can I do for you? Have you decided to take up one of the host offerings? There’s a farming community in Nebraska—”
I shook my head in the negative. Trying to imagine myself relocated to the prairies was so disorienting that I almost forgot why I had come here.
Hannah Lawes seemed disappointed by my refusal of her proposal, but realistic about the odds that I would’ve accepted. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Not many people are leaping at what I can offer. I’ve only gotten three takers so far. And I can’t figure out why. They’re all generous, sensible berths.”
“Yeah, sure. That’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
