The cliffside plantation estate has a rose garden filled with well-pruned hedges and exotic, aromatic flowers.
Risa, having been raised in the concrete confines of an inner-city state home, was never much of a garden girl, but once she was allowed access, she began coming out daily, if only to pretend that she isn"t a prisoner. The sensation of walking again is still new enough to make every step in the garden feel like a gift.
Today, however, Roberta is there, preparing some sort of miniature production. There is a small camera crew, and smack in the middle of the garden sits her old wheelchair. The sight of it brings back a flood of too many emotions to sort through right now.
"Would you mind telling me what this is all about?" Risa asks, not sure she really wants to know.
"You"ve been on your feet for almost a week now," Roberta tells her. "It"s time to deliver on the first of the services you"ve agreed to perform."
"Thank you for wording it just the right way to make me feel like I"m prost.i.tuting myself."
For a moment Roberta is fl.u.s.tered, but she"s quick to recover her poise. "I meant it no such way, but you do have a knack of taking things and twisting them." Then she hands Risa a sheet of paper. "Here are your lines. You"ll be recording a public service announcement."
Risa has to laugh at that. "You"re putting me on TV?"
"And in print ads, and on the net. It"s the first of many plans we have for you."
"Really, and what else do you have planned?"
Roberta smiles at her. "You"ll know when it"s your time to know."
Risa reads over the single paragraph, and the words go straight to the pit of her stomach.
"If you"re unable to memorize them, we have cue cards prepared," Roberta says.
Risa has to read the paragraph twice just to convince herself she"s actually seeing what she"s seeing. "No! I won"t say this, you can"t make me say this!" She crumples the page and throws it down.
Roberta calmly opens her folder and hands her another one. "You should know by now that there"s always another copy."
Risa won"t take it. "How dare you make me say this?"
"Your histrionics are uncalled-for. There"s absolutely nothing in there that isn"t true."
"It doesn"t matter. It"s not the words, it"s what"s implied!"
Roberta shrugs. "Truth is truth. Implications are subjective. People will hear your words and draw their own conclusions."
"Don"t try to doublethink me, Roberta. I"m not as stupid or naive as you"d like to think."
Then the expression on Roberta"s face changes; she becomes coolly direct. No more posturing. "This is what is required of you, so this is what you will do. Or perhaps you"ve forgotten our arrangement. . . ." It"s a threat as thinly veiled as the sheerest silk. Then out of nowhere they hear- "What arrangement?"
They both turn to see Cam coming out into the garden. Roberta throws Risa a warning glance, and Risa looks down to the crumpled piece of paper at her feet, saying nothing.
"Her spine, of course," Roberta says. "In return for very expensive and state-of-the-art spinal replacement surgery, Risa has agreed to become a part of the Proactive Citizenry family. And every member of the family has a role to play." Then she holds out the paragraph to Risa again. Risa knows she has no choice but to take it. She looks to the video crew, who wait impatiently to do their job, then back to Roberta.
"Do you want me to stand beside the wheelchair?" Risa asks.
"No, you should sit in it," Roberta tells her, "then rise halfway through. That will be more effective, don"t you think?"
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.
"I was paralyzed-a victim of the clapper attack at Happy Jack Harvest Camp. I used to hate the very idea of unwinding, then overnight I was the one with a desperate medical need. Without unwinding, I would have been denied a new spine. Without unwinding, I would be confined to this wheelchair for the rest of my life. I was a state ward. I was an AWOL. I was a paraplegic-but now I"m none of those things. My name is Risa Ward, and unwinding changed my life."
-paid for by the National Whole Health Society Risa has always thought of herself as a survivor. She managed the treacherous waters of Ohio State Home 23 until the day she became a "budget cut" and was pruned for unwinding. Then she survived as an AWOL, then at harvest camp, and then even survived a devastating explosion that should have killed her. Her strength has always been her keen mind and her ability to adapt.
Well, adapt to this: A life of minor celebrity, all the comforts you could desire, a smart and charming boy infatuated with you . . . and the abandonment of everything you believe, along with the abdication of your conscience.
Risa sits on a plush lawn chair in the backyard of the cliffside estate, looking out at the tropical sunset, pondering these things and trying to infuse perspective and peace back into her mind. There"s a powerful surge against her soul, as relentless as the waves crashing below, reminding her that in time the strongest of mountains is eroded into the sea, and she doesn"t know how much longer she can resist it, or even if she should.
There was a news interview this morning. She tried to answer questions in a way so that she never actually had to lie. It"s true that her support of unwinding is "a matter of necessity," but no one but she and Roberta know what has made it so necessary. No matter how hard she tries, though, things come out of her mouth that she can"t believe she"s said. Unwinding is the least of all evils. Is there actually a part of her that believes that? The constant manipulation has left her internal compa.s.s spinning so wildly, she"s afraid she"ll never find true north again.
Exhausted, she dozes, and it seems only seconds later she"s awakened by someone gently shaking her shoulder. It"s night now-just the slightest trace of blue on the horizon holds the memory of dusk.
"Sawing wood," Cam says. "I didn"t know you snored."
"I don"t," she says groggily. "And I"m sticking to my story."
Cam has a blanket with him. It"s only as he wraps it around her that she realizes how chilled she has gotten while she slept. Even in this tropical environment, the air can get cool at night.
"I wish you wouldn"t spend so much time alone," he says. "You don"t have to, you know."
"When you"ve spent most of your life in a state home, solitude feels like a luxury."
He kneels beside her. "We have our first interview together next week-they"re flying us to the mainland-has Roberta told you?"
Risa sighs. "I know all about it."
"We"re supposed to be a couple. . . ."
"So I"ll smile and do my job for the camera. You don"t have to worry."
"I was hoping you wouldn"t see it as a job."
Rather than looking at him, she looks up to see a sky full of stars-even fuller than the sky over the Graveyard, but there, she rarely had the time or the inclination to look heavenward.
"I know all their names," Cam offers. "The stars, that is."
"Don"t be ridiculous; there are billions of stars, you can"t know them all."
"Hyperbole," he says. "I guess I"m exaggerating-but I do know all the ones that matter." Then he begins pointing them out, his voice taking on just the slightest Boston accent as he accesses the living star chart in his head. "That"s Alpha Centauri, which means "foot of the centaur." It"s one of the closest stars to us. That bright one to the right? That"s Sirius-the brightest star in the sky. . . ."
His voice begins to feel hypnotic to her, and it brings her a hint of the peace she"s been craving. Am I making this more difficult than it has to be? Risa wonders. Should I find a way to adapt?
"That dim one is Spica, which is actually a hundred times brighter than Sirius, but it"s much farther away. . . ."
Risa has to remind herself that her choice to get with Proactive Citizenry"s program was not out of selfishness-so shouldn"t her conscience be appeased? And if not-if her conscience is the only thing dragging her to dark depths, shouldn"t she be able to cut it loose in order to survive?
"That"s Andromeda, which is actually a whole galaxy. . . ."
There is a sense of arrogance to Cam"s bragging, but also an innocence to it, like a little kid wanting to show off what he learned in school that day. But he never learned any of this, did he? The accent with which he now speaks makes it clear that the information was someone else"s that got shoved into his head.
Stop it, Risa! she tells herself. Perhaps it"s time to let the mountain erode, and so to spite the part of herself that would resist, she gets out of her chair and lies on the gra.s.s beside him, looking up at the spray of stars.
"Polaris is always easy to find. It"s directly over the North Pole-so if you know where it is, you can always find true north." Hearing him say that makes her gasp. He turns to look at her. "Aren"t you going to shut me up?"
Risa laughs at that. "I was hoping you"d put me back to sleep."
"Oh, am I that boring?"
"Only slightly."
Then he reaches over and gently brushes her arm.
Risa pulls away and sits up. "Don"t! You know I don"t like to be touched."
"Is it that you don"t like to be touched . . . or that you don"t like to be touched by me?"
She doesn"t answer him. "What"s that one?" she asks, pointing. "The red one?"
"Betelgeuse," he tells her. Then, after an awkward silence, he says, "What was he like?"
"Who?"
"You know who."
Risa sighs. "It"s not a place you want to go, Cam."
"Maybe I do."
She doesn"t have the strength to fight it, so she lies back down and fixes her eyes on the stars as she speaks. "Impulsive. Brooding. Occasionally self-loathing."
"Sounds like a real gem."
"You didn"t let me finish. He"s also clever, loyal, pa.s.sionate, responsible, and a strong leader, but is too humble to admit all that to himself."
"Is?"
"Was," she says, covering. "Sometimes it feels like he"s still here."
"I think I would have liked to have known him."
Risa shakes her head. "He"d hate you."
"Why?"
"Because he was also jealous."
Silence falls between them again, but this time it"s not awkward at all.
"I"m glad you shared that with me," Cam says. "There"s something I"d like to share with you, too."
Risa has no idea what he"s going to say, but she finds she"s actually curious.
"Did you know a kid named Samson when you were back at the state home?" he asks.
She searches her thoughts. "Yes-he was on the harvest camp bus with me."
"Well, he had a secret crush on you."
At first it boggles Risa how he would know this, and when the truth dawns on her, a surge of reflexive adrenaline triggers her fight-or-flight response. She gets up, fully prepared to run back to the mansion, or jump off the cliff, or whatever it will take to get away from this revelation, but Cam eclipses her like a moon before one of his precious stars.
"Algebra!" he says. "He was a math whiz. I got the part of him that does algebra. It"s just a tiny part, but when I came across your picture, well, I guess it was enough to make me stop and take notice. Then, when Roberta heard that you"d been captured, she pulled strings to get you here. For me. So it"s my fault that you"re here."
She doesn"t want to look at him, but she can"t stop. It"s like looking at a traffic accident. "How am I supposed to feel about this, Cam? I can"t pretend not to be horrified! I"m here because of some whim you had, but that whim wasn"t even yours! It was that poor kid"s!"
"No, it wasn"t like that," says Cam quickly. "Samson was like . . . like a friend who taps you on the shoulder to get your attention . . . but what I feel for you-it"s all me. Not just algebra, but, well, the whole equation."
She turns her back to him, grabbing the blanket and wrapping it around herself. "I want you to go now."
"I"m sorry," he says, "but I didn"t want there to be any secrets between us."
"Please leave."
He keeps his distance, but he doesn"t go. " "I"d rather be partly great than entirely useless." Wasn"t that the last thing he said to you? I feel it"s my responsibility to make that wish come true."
And finally he goes inside, leaving her alone with way too many people"s thoughts.
Ten minutes later Risa still stands with the blanket wrapped around her, not wanting to go inside, but the circular pattern of her own thoughts begins to nauseate her.
I can"t give in to this-I must give in to this-I can"t give in to this, over and over until she just wants to shut herself down.
When she finally steps into the house, she hears music, which is not unusual, but this music isn"t being pumped through the sound system. Someone is playing cla.s.sical guitar. The piece sounds Spanish, and although many things sound Spanish when played on a cla.s.sical twelve-string, this has a definite flamenco feel.
Risa follows the tune to the main living room, where Cam sits, curled over the instrument, lost in the music he"s playing. She didn"t even know he played-but she shouldn"t be surprised; he came loaded with a veritable full house of skills. Still, playing guitar like this requires the melding of many things: muscle memory, combined with cortical and auditory memory, everything linked through a brain stem capable of coordinating it all.
The music lulls her, disarms her, enchants her, and she begins to realize that these are not just other people"s parts. Someone is pulling those parts together. For the first time Risa truly begins to see Cam as an individual, struggling to pull together the many gifts he"s been given. He didn"t ask for these things, and he couldn"t refuse them if he wanted to. As horrified as she was by him five minutes ago, this new revelation soothes her. It compels her to sit at the piano across the room and begin a simple accompaniment.
When he hears her, he brings his instrument closer, and sits beside her. No words are spoken; instead they communicate through the rhythms and harmonies. He lets her take control of the piece, lets it evolve at her hand, then she seamlessly gives it over to him again. They could go on for hours, and soon realize that they actually have, but neither one wants to be the first to stop.
Maybe, Risa thinks, there is a way to make this life work, and maybe there"s not-but right now, in the moment, there"s nothing more wonderful than losing herself to the music. Until now, she had forgotten how good that feels.
47 * Audience