Dissidence (2 page)

At least it was almost closing time. The shop was completely deserted now, and I could hear the sinks running in the back where Sal must have been cleaning up. I tossed a few chairs up on top of their tables and then groped around in the maintenance closet for a mop. By the time five-thirty rolled around and Marcus made an appearance from the kitchen, the floors and tables were shining and the register had been counted.

“Nice work.”

“Thanks
.
” I bounced on my toes, anxiously awaiting the end of that statement.

“You can knock off. I’ll see
ya
Monday, bright and early.”
Like he really needed to add that last bit.

Outside, I found Peter standing in the exact same spot I’d found him in after work nearly every day for the past three years
:
leaning lazily against the trunk of an old oak across the street. He was nothing if not predictable. Sunlight filtered throu
gh the leaves, reflecting off
his dark hair and making it appear lighter. I assumed I could consider Peter a friend. After all, I could tolerate his presence better than anybody else’s, and he took all of my snide remarks and kept coming back for more. So, I figured
that qualified him as a friend—
a
fool
, but a friend too.

“How was your day?” Peter’s legs were so long that he had to check his stride when we walked together. I’m not exactly short, but I’m no jolly green giant either, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to jog to keep up with him.

How was my day? Was he seriously asking me that? He knew I’d just spent the day at
work,
right?

“Fantastic, Peter.” My words dripped sarcasm as I plastered on my best you’re-sort-of-a-moron grin. “How was yours?”

“Thanks for asking, but it was completely awful . . .” he began, like the pro he was at
ignoring my mockery
, before proceeding
to launch into some spiel about broken alarm clocks and over sleeping.

Figured, his alarm clock malfunctioned and got him a few extra hours of sleep, while mine had gone off an hour and a half early, leaving me sitting on a fire escape in the blistering sun.
It was revenge, I was sure of it. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to beat it into submission every morning when it went off.

Peter was still rambling, and I think there may have been something about his dog eatin
g his homework in there, but I wasn’t
sure because I’
d completely stopped listening by that point. He was so full of it. We hadn’t even had homework since school ended when we were thirteen and we
’d
started our apprenticeships. Unless he called those dusty old files he brought home from his work at the archives “homework”, which he probably did. Either way, I knew he didn’t have a dog.

In a desperate attempt to make him stop, I brought up the interlude I had with Blondie and the brunette at work.
Big mistake.
I should have expected the classic Peter freak out, but I was just too tired to properly think through the repercussions of my blabbermouth that far in advance.

“The Head of S
ecurity?
As in
the
H
ead?”

“Yes, Peter
.
T
here is only the one.” Honestly, how many heads did he have?

“It’s like you’re trying to give me a stroke or something.”

And he was off . . .

“Oh, relax Peter. He didn’t care, and she was being completely ridiculous.”

“So were you, Leigh. She can’t just say no. You know that.”

Leigh, he was the only one that called me that. He was probably the only one that could
survive
calling me that, but considering everything he put up with from me, I supposed I could let one little nickname slide.

“Why not?
The only reason they have the power to tell us what to do is because we let them. They say ‘jump’ and everyone moans and groans about it, but then we turn around and ask ‘how high?’ with a smile on our faces.
It’s
stupidity personified . . . in abundance.”

“That’s just the way things are. How many people do you know who haven’t married the person they were paired with?”

None,
but I wasn’t going to admit that to Peter.

“Exactly,” he declared triumphantly.

Apparently my silence was just as effective as saying ‘none.’

“Well, if my mate is awful then I’ll be the first.”

He shot me a grin with ‘placation’ written all over it.

“I mean it,” I insisted.

“I know,” he agreed, still sporting that same look. Part of me hoped my mate would be refusal worthy just so I could watch Peter choke on it.

When we finally reached the residential district, we parted ways, and I walked the rest of the way home in blissful silence.

***

Before the sun even got the chance to break through my bedroom window, a knock at the front door woke me. I buried my head deeper in my pillow, hoping they would just go away if I ignored them. Five minutes later, the persistent little bugger was still knocking. Evidently they couldn’t take a hint.

I didn’t even bother dressing
,
just pulled on my robe and ran a brush through my dirty
blonde hair. I’
d always hated that description,
dirty blonde. It made me feel like maybe if I washed it a little more it would turn just plain blonde and that would be better somehow. My brown eyes sort of resembled dirt too. Whatever, I’ve never claimed to be pretty and it was way too early in the morning to care about any such things.

When I eventually got around to answering the door, Peter was standing there. Of course it was Peter, who else would it have been? And, of course, he was holding a cake. I’d only told him my theories on the stupidity of celebrating birthdays every year since forever, but it was like he never heard a word I said. I swear he must have had a way of tuning out my voice or something.

“You are aware of what time it is, right?”

“It’s seven-thirteen.”

Just checking before I killed him.

“Seven-thirteen on a
Saturday
.
Are you crazy? What are you doing knocking on my door at seven-thirteen in the morning, on a
Saturday
?”

“It’s seven-thirteen on your
birthday
,” he clarified, looking rather proud of
himself
. Clearly he was unaware of the fact that his life span had just dropped to mere moments. “In exactly two minutes you’ll be sixteen, and I wanted to be the first one to wish you a happy birthday.”

“You know you’re going to be the
only
one to wish me a happy birthday.” I guessed I could let him live a couple more minutes. Only . . . “How do you know what time I was born?”

“I
do
work at the archives.”

“You know that’s creepy, right?”

“Yep.”

“Well, in that case, you’re early. Go away.”

“Honestly, I thought it would take you longer to answer the door, but
it’s
seven-fifteen now, so happy birthday, Leigh.”

Dork . . . I meant . . . “Thanks.”

I managed to convey gratitude, but I couldn’t quite stop the eye roll that accompanied it. It was almost like my eyes had a mind of their own in the presence of stupidity. Resigning myself to exasperation, I let him in and watched as he cut pieces of the nicely decorated cake for each of us. At least he wasn’t dumb enough to try and get me to make a wish. It probably would have involved something very large
and heavy running over him right then
. Although, even if he ignored every last thing I told him, it was still nice to have him there. So
mething about spending
my
birthday
alone was kind of depressing, not to mention pathetic.

“So what do you think?” He lifted his plate slightly to indicate he was asking about the cake he’d brought me.

“It’s good. Sal
make
it?”

He
nodded
,
his mouth too full to s
peak. Sal had a gift for baking,
one that I
sorely lacked
. Maybe if I had spent more time in the actual
kitchen
at work . . .

“Have you checked the mail yet?” Peter inquired once he’d managed to swallow the disgustingly large bite he took and helped himself to my glass of milk to wash it down.

“My mate file isn’t going to come today, Peter.”

“It could,
you never know. You should check.”

“Even if it did, I’m in no rush to see it anyway.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“Not particularly.” I shuddered to think what kind of person they were going to pair me with. If my work assignment was any indication, clearly we would be the
perfect
match.

“Oh, come on,
wuss
,” Peter prodded.

“Well
,
if you’re in such a rush to get rid of me, why don’t you go and check?”

He pushed past me to the front door, frowning at my insinuation.

“Nothing yet.”

Shocker.

“Told
ya
so.
Guess you’re just going to be stuck with me a while longer.”

“Hope I’ll survive,” he teased, flashing me his best grin.

“You won’t if you show up at my door at seven in the morning on a weekend again.” That smile may have kept him out of trouble with everyone else, but it didn’t fly with me.

“So, what are you doing for the rest of your special day?”

“My favorite thing of all time . . . absolutely nothing.”

Peter peered at me squinty eyed, clearly trying to weigh how serious I was. I was serious enough that if he tried to drag me out of the house, I was going to have to beat him.

“All right then
.
I’ll
do nothing with you.”
Smart man.
I knew there were brains in there somewhere.

Once the sugar rush set in, I found the energy to head back upstairs to shower and change. The rest of the day seemed to fly by as we lounged on the sofa, munching on snacks and watching whatever happened to be on the television. Considering they no longer produced a
ny new programs or movies, we’
d already seen almost everything there was to see over the years, but it still kept us occupied and sufficiently brain dead for hours.

At around seven, the weekly Presidential address took over all of the air waves. Once a week, it overrode every channel, and we were forced to listen to President
Syms
drone on about the glorious state of the country and how well everything was functioning . . .
yada
,
yada
,
yada
.

‘Next year, we will be commemorating the centennial of the worst tragedy in the history of our world,’
our brilliant President informed us.
‘Memorials are already being planned for each of the colonies to remember all that we lost.’

What exactly was it that we were supposed to ‘remember’? The
bombs fell a hundred years ago. N
o one remembered anything about it. No one was even alive then.

‘The millions of lives lost to tragedy…’

“Tragedy?
  More like stupidity,” I blurted out, and Peter gave me a patient smile like a parent would give an unruly child. It may not have been the first time he’d heard this particular tirade. “Well, seriously, it’s not like it was an
accident
. They lau
nched nukes for crying out loud,
lots of them, from all over the place.” I whirled my finger around in the air, like I didn’t already sound crazy enough, but once I got started there really was no stopping me. I couldn’t even stop myself. “And it’s not like they didn’t know what would happen when they did it, either. It’s a miracle any of us are still here at all.”

Sometimes I marveled at how so few idiots could have gained so much power while so many supposedly ‘intelligent’ people sat back and let it happen. In the end, I
chalked it up to laziness.
I assumed that everyone held to the theory that if he’s such an idiot then no one
would
vote for him, but what they failed to consider was that when given the choice between dumb and dumber, even dumb can win. And in some circumstances, when the difference is hard to tell,
dumber can even come out on top,
which is what must have happened to put that guy in charge.

“Didn’t there used to be like
hundreds of
millions of people in this country alone?” I demanded. Peter only nodded, still engrossed in the program. “Well
,
how many are here now?”