call you,” Michelle said. “When we need you, we’ll call.” Lila felt a flicker of unease, a brief pause and thump of her heart, a sensation she was having more often these days. Michelle unaccountably winked. “You could have fun.”
An up-and-comer. Federal had sent Lila an up-and-comer. “Are you staying here?” Lila heard herself asking. “Are you going to be in Dayton a while?”
“I live in Pittsburgh, but I’ll be in and out.” Pittsburgh, east up the Ohio River.
What did that mean? What did that mean? And Lila knew, as Michelle rose and walked out the door, that Lila would have difficulty resting that evening, that she’d be up with her discarded laptops flicking through old and potent images, Ohio water history, herself in the old days, her lovers in the old days, periodically squirting honey in her mouth and sucking on a piece of lemon. Tonight she’d probably go through two lemons, maybe three, putting off the moment that she placed her head on her pillow and pulled up her covers, nestling her hands, which always needed warming, between her thighs. Tonight the rituals of her solitary sleeping wouldn’t console her, because when the lights went out she would be troubled relentlessly, wondering her old worries about where she’d gone wrong, and on top of that, what were the Feds thinking, who was behind it, and why had they had sent to Lila, a woman who made no secret of her proclivities, such a young and creamy up-and-coming girl?
“WANT A BUZZ?” Kennedy, her hand trembling, lifted the bottle from the table.
“No thanks, just straight coffee. I’m cutting back.” A relief to sit in this familiar seat, across from a familiar face, after the events of her morning. Lila felt the memory of Michelle whirl away, the simple sight of orange-and-blue cushions washing her morning clean. Coffee-bar decor, like the national mood or skirt lengths, tended to cycle: bright and garish to cozy and dark. The latest incarnation was bright.
“Self-denial.” Kennedy rolled her eyes. “Are we getting old or what? I got up in the middle of the night to pee and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Oh my God, talk about an uto.” This was a private joke, their own acronym: uto, pronounced oo-toe, meaning ugly, tired, old. Lila wasn’t sure anymore which one of them had made it up. Kennedy’s belly was as vast as Lila’s; she had a problem—freely discussed—with recurring yeast under her breasts. “So what have you been up to?” Kennedy said. “They still working you hard at water?”
Lila shrugged. She had nothing to hide from Kennedy. Back in the late twenties, when Kennedy was executive director of the Metro Library, she and Lila had shared a difficult lover named Leesa. Over time and multiple conversations, Kennedy and Lila had become allies. Leesa threw over both of them to marry an African male, and was now stuck in Cleveland in an enclave of traitors and Alliance functionaries. Lila and Kennedy both enjoyed the thought of Leesa growing old with a devious man. “A lot of undercurrents these days,” Lila said, shaking her head. In her old days she was delighted how many metaphors referred to water and liquids. Now she barely noticed.
Kennedy nodded. “In the library too.”
“Agriculture sent a youngie-girl to talk with me.”
“To talk with you? In person? A youngie-girl in your office?” Not surprising that Kennedy focused on the youngie: Kennedy had never been interested in politics. Agriculture to her was probably no more suspect than Education. She shook her head in wonderment. “Why?”
“You tell me. Her manner was oblique. Referred to my being a hero to her mother.” Lila and Kennedy exchanged a rueful look. “Said they’d be contacting me. Then she left.”
“Was she sexing you?”
“Maybe. Can you believe it? Nothing direct”—Lila paused—“damn it.”
Kennedy shook her head in appreciation. “I’m surprised anyone from Agro could be subtle.”
Lila bit her fingernail consideringly: maybe Kennedy did understand about Agro. “She seemed apologetic about it.” Lila eyed Kennedy. “That might be subtle.”
Kennedy frowned. “Maybe they told her to act apologetic.”
“Subtler yet.” Lila shook her head, dislodging the image: the girl’s wanton eyelashes, her dim scent of lemon … “You read anything good lately?”
Kennedy smiled. “Believe it or not, yes. I read Nenonene’s autobiography. I can see why they want to suppress it. It’s inspirational.”
“Poor beginnings and a rise to consciousness and power?” Nay-no-nay-nay, Lila thought, accenting the third syllable slightly. Quite a melodious name for a despot.
“Exactly! He was one of fourteen children. And his father died of HIV, even though the vaccine was out. Did you know he taught himself English using a typewriter?”
“I hadn’t heard that.”
“He did! Tremendous discipline. He doesn’t believe in waste, so he drinks only water from the faucet, never uses a cup. He has a special chef he trusts, but he eats right out of the pan. He sleeps in a single bed. And every morning he wakes up and walks around the basement of the old Cleveland Ritz-Carlton thirty times. Thirty times.”
“For exercise? Why not take a walk outside?”
“People might shoot him, that’s why. Lila. Don’t be naive.”
“He’s pure.” Lila smiled, remembering a photo of Nenonene standing on the hood of a parked car, wearing a white suit with a high collar and a fez-like cap with horizontal stripes, holding up his right arm in a benediction to the hundreds of people around him. A brilliant move, that outfit: a get-up like a priest’s when he was actually a general. “That’s why people like him.”
“Pure, right. Some people think he’s pure Antichrist.”
Lila smiled. “Someone called me the Antichrist once. You come home and rub lotion on your hands and think, are these Antichrist hands?”
“I wouldn’t think anyone would call you that, you being a woman.”
“Ah, but not a real woman.”
The coffee-bar door opened, and a man of maybe twenty-five entered, a small boy with curls at his nape holding his hand.
“Have they invited you up to the Grid yet?” Kennedy said. “I hear a whole brigade from Consort’s going.”
As the young man waited at the counter, the boy beside him sagged to his knees. “Daddy!” the boy said.
“On to the Grid? A tour?” Lila asked, Kennedy’s words just sinking in. No one went on the Grid. When the Gridding occurred the adults of the area had all been classified into Farming, Manufacturing, or Professional, and the farm people alone—the effs—were given the option to stay. Now the effs who worked the Grid were so cloistered the government paid the state of Florida to arrange a private Grid getaway two weeks every February.
“Stand up!” the father snapped.
“Apparently. It’s a business thing, I’m sure. No one really thinks they’re going for free.”
“You can’t stand up?” The father jerked up the boy by his arm until his feet barely grazed the floor. “Three years old and you can’t stand up?”
Lila
