Shelter (23 page)

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Authors: Susan Palwick

Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General

BOOK: Shelter
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    Meredith shuddered. "So Daddy can spy on me everywhere I go?" "Merry, that's not how it works. The files aren't even online until they're uploaded. If they're not online, he doesn't even have potential access to them, and online they're protected."

    "You believe that? You trust him with files that would be MacroCorp property? After what he pulled with you and Jack?"

    Constance sighed and gave her a small smile. "Especially after what he pulled with me and Jack. He knew what was happening for five years and kept his nose out of it, and he only intervened to save our baby."

    "So you'd have aborted? To avoid scandal?"

    "I don't know if I would have or not, but I was thinking about it. Your father acted to prevent that. And he's kept his promise to me and Jack not to interfere in our lives now."

    "How do you know that? He could be listening right now. He could be watching every move you make in this house. He could—"

    "He could have divorced me and tried to kick me out of the house and fired Jack and ... and who knows what all, and he didn't." Technically, legally, Preston and Constance were still married, but Jack and Constance had had their union solemnized by Matt in a brief, quiet ceremony in the solarium, with only Brenda and Meredith—and Preston himself—as witnesses. The laws protecting sexual diversity would have allowed a triad, but they had all decided against it; it was too complicated, and any legal union would have become public record, subject to scrutiny by ScoopNet and its competitors. The ceremony Matt performed was strictly spiritual, not legal. "Meredith, your father has only acted in our best interests. And he can't access the recorded memories. And I want you to get a rig. Will you at least think about it?"

    "Sure," Meredith said. "Sure, I'll think about it." She had already done all the thinking she intended to do, but she was too tired to start another series of arguments. This would buy her some time. "So have you decided what you're going to name the baby?"

    Constance beamed. "We aren't sure. Either Forrest or Theophilus."

    "Theophilus?"

    "It was Jack's father's name." That must be why he'd named his own son something short and simple, Meredith thought. "But we'd call him Theo, or maybe Ted, so he wouldn't sound too much like a yogurt culture."

    Meredith laughed despite herself "Theo's good. I like Theo."

    "Theo Forrest," Constance said dreamily, looking down at her stomach. Forrest was Preston's middle name. "I think Jack will be happy with that. We can't wait until you come home, honey. Only six more weeks!"

    Only six more weeks until I have to decide what to do, Meredith thought. She didn't want to come home. She wasn't sure she wanted to stay at the Temple, either. All she could do right now was pray to. the Goddess for guidance, and hope that something would happen to make the decision for her.

 

    Nine

 

    IN three more weeks you can leave," Raji said cheerfully. They were in the laundry room, where Meredith was washing her dirty sheets by hand. The dorm had already done its machine loads for the week, and running another, just for Meredith's sheets, would have wasted too much water.

    Merry gave her wet linen a savage wring. "Did I say I wanted to leave?"

    "Well, look, it's not like you're happy here."

    "I didn't say I wanted to leave!" Why had he followed her back here, anyway? Just so he could lecture her? Wasn't he supposed to be peeling potatoes or something?

    Raji shrugged. "Okay, so you want Hortense to leave. Do you think that's fair?"

    "Gaia's gas, Raji, she peed all over my bed! I get back from taking the therapy dogs to a pediatric oncology ward—do you have any idea how much fun that is?—and all I want to do is lie down for two seconds before I head back to the dog runs and start shoveling turds, and I walk into my cubicle and Hortense is sitting in a puddle on my bed, with her adult diapers around her ankles! I think I have the right to be upset about that, don't you?"

    "No, not really. Annoyed at the work, yeah. Personally mad at her, no. She couldn't help it."

    "Fine, I know that, but then she shouldn't be here. I mean, there are places—"

    "Sure there are. Shelters for old sick people. Hospitals." Raji's voice was very quiet. "You hate hospitals, remember? That's part of why you aren't happy here, because you have to take the therapy dogs to hospitals."

    Merry closed her eyes. "There are reasons senior-care centers exist, Raji."

    "Sure. They exist for families who don't have time to take care of their ailing elderly. We have time. Our life here is about having that kind of time. Washing some sheets is so much skin off your nose?"

    Merry took a deep breath. "The first night I was here, I offered to repaint the common room, and Gwyn said, 'You won't have time; why do you think none of us have done it?' So I'm not allowed to try to make my living environment more pleasant, but I'm also not allowed to complain about washing sheets? If I'm expected to make time for this, I think I should be able to make time for that too, don't you?"

    Raji shrugged again. "If you feel that strongly about the common room, talk to Matt about it."

    "I can't," Merry said bitterly. "He'll think I love rooms more than people. And he won't let me renew."

    "Do you want to renew? Why? Just to get away from your parents? You know what Gwyn would say: this isn't a runaway shelter."

    "It's not a runaway shelter, but it's an old folks' home? Raji, that's ageism, and you know it."

    "On Gwyn's part, or yours?"

    "Oh, stop it! Would you stop sounding so much like Matt? You don't even want to be here! You're the last person in the world who should be accusing me of being here for the wrong reasons! You're here because of your parents too, Nethead!"

    She hoped she'd hurt him, but he just laughed. "Touche. Speaking of which, before I forget, my folks invited you over for dinner again on Saturday."

    "And mine invited you for Sunday," she said savagely. "We should just arrange a hostage trade and be done with it." She and Raji had quickly discovered that they got along better with each other's family than they did with their own. Whenever their days off coincided, they ate dinner with one set of parents or the other, so that whoever was visiting could run interference for the one whose parents were providing the meal. Raji spent so much time talking to Preston on the Net that he knew him better than Meredith ever had, and both Jack and Constance appreciated Raji's interest in MacroCorp. Sonia and Ahmed Abdul-Allam, meanwhile, hoped that Meredith's healthy skepticism about her family's business, and preference for creatures over software, would somehow infect their son. They loved her stories about the SPCA, and every story she told them meant that much less time they spent nagging Raji about his Net habit.

    Raji thought they were hypocrites. The first time he and Meredith had gone there for dinner, Meredith said, "Remind me again what your folks do for Sierra-Audubon?"

    Raji had snorted. "My mom's CFO. My dad's corporate director of major gifts. They aren't exactly field biologists. I mean, they care about conservation and everything, but they spend all their time in offices. Neither of them could tell you the difference between a kestrel and a canary, and they both hate hiking. It makes my father's back hurt and it sets off my mother's allergies. That's why they're so fanatical about having me do the Temple thing, I think. They really aren't into it themselves, but they feel like they should be."

    Meredith liked Sonia and Ahmed, who were kind and gentle and never, ever asked her about her father. And she liked having Raji at her own family dinners; it made her feel less excluded by Jack and Constance's cocoon of intimacy, by the way Jack's hand so often rested casually on her mother's stomach, by Constance's chatter about prenatal genetic screening and nursery furniture. Preston rarely spoke up when Meredith was there—true to his word, he joined the conversation only when invited, although he had chimed in when everyone sang to her on her fifteenth birthday—but sometimes Merry found herself wondering if he felt excluded too. When Raji was there, she had her own little secret society.

    She kept telling herself that was all it was. Raji really was older than she was—he'd be going to college next year, after all—and it wasn't like they had anything in common outside Temple. But lately she'd been waking, heart thumping, from dreams of his tall, brown frame; right now, she was entirely too conscious of him leaning against the sink, propped casually on a hand resting only inches from her elbow. She could smell his peppermint soap, and imagined she could feel the heat from his body, although it was probably only the heat from her own.

    Stop it, she told herself Matt and her mother definitely wouldn't let her renew if she became too involved with Raji. That was what the celibacy vow was for. She'd masturbate before she went to sleep; that would help.

    "Look," Raji said now, evidently oblivious to her turmoil, "the point is that you don't mind when animals are dirty, and we're animals too, Merry. I think Hortense is at least as valuable as a dog or cat."

    Not to me, Meredith thought. She knew she couldn't say that; she knew he shouldn't even be thinking it. "So you think Matt won't let me renew even if I want to?"

    "I have no idea. I wasn't talking about Matt."

    "But you think I shouldn't renew." She plopped her sheets back into the soapy water, concentrating on scrubbing so she wouldn't have to look at him.

    "Why are you doing that? You've already washed them twice! See that, Merry, if you could just picture Hortense as ... as a big nonfurry dog or something—"

    "So you think I shouldn't renew," Merry repeated. She wasn't about to tell him the real reason she was washing the sheets again.

    ''I'm not the person to ask; you know that. I'll be out of here in a redhot second the minute they let me."

    "Out and rigged," Merry said, sneaking a sidelong glance at him. He yearned for the equipment, but his parents wouldn't let him get it until he was twenty-one.

    He grinned. "And you'll be out and a vet."

    "No way," she said. "I can't stand seeing animals in pain. You know that."

    "That's why you'll be a vet. Merry, we're really more alike than different. You know that, right?"

    She looked away again, pulse galloping. "Do I?"

    "Sure you do," he said. "Neither of us really wants to be here. We both prefer different populations, ones some people would say aren't real, or don't matter. Animals. AIs. You can't make yourself love people, you know. You can make yourself act nice to them, but you can't fake the feelings."

    "I know," she said. Was he talking about her? Oh, Goddess, why did life have to be so complicated?

    "Excuse me," Gwyn said from the doorway. "Am I interrupting something?"

    "Just laundry," Meredith said, her mouth dry. She shot a glance at Raji, and saw to her consternation that he was blushing.

    "Good," Gwyn said. "Raji, no cutting chores to hang out with the pretty girls; you know that. You're supposed to be in the garden weeding, as of ten minutes ago."

    "My watch stopped."

    "Bullshit. Get back there, kid. Come on, scoot."

    He scooted, and Merry said, "Gwyn, I know I'm supposed to be helping out in the runs—"

    "Don't worry about it. I did it."

    Merry blinked. Just when she was sickest of the dorms, something always happened to surprise her. "You did? Thank you! That was really nice, Gwyn."

    Gwyn snorted. "Yeah, well, you don't have any trouble shoveling dog turds. I thought rinsing Hortense's piss out of your sheets would be a bigger challenge for you. She's upset, you know. Harold lost his temper and yelled at her for messing up your bed, and she's ashamed. You need to go talk to her, tell her it's okay."

    Merry swallowed, tasting metal. Why did so much of life at the Temple seem to revolve around excrement? "Uh, and I take it I'm supposed to sound sincere when I say that?"

    Gwyn gave a sharp bark of amusement. "Good for you. Stay honest. Merry, if you can't do it kindly, don't do it at all—but you ought to be able to remember wetting the bed yourself. You're certainly young enough."

    "Thanks. "

    "Don't mention it. And by the way, we're having a dorm meeting to discuss the Hortense problem tonight. I thought you'd be glad to know that. "

    "Will she be there?"

    "Of course, and so will Matt. These things get discussed in community."

    Meredith fought the impulse to pump her fist in the air. If Hortense were gone, renewing would be a lot easier. Maybe everyone else was finally admitting there was a problem. Maybe Meredith wouldn't have to worry about playing the heavy anymore.

 

    * * *

 

    "All right," Johann said. "So we're all agreed, then. Harold will work on finding more comfortable diapers for Hortense, and the dorm will invest in waterproof mattress covers and one extra sheet set for each bed."

    "Did we ever answer the laundry question?" Anna asked.

    "About doing an extra load per week, you mean?" Johann frowned. "Uh, I think we got distracted by the issue of finding a socially conscious manufacturer of waterproof mattress covers. Does anybody remember? Gwyn."

    "Look, if there are enough soiled sheets for another load, we'll do another load, that's all. We'll have to see how it goes. With any luck, the new diapers will solve the problem."

    "Oh, okay," Anna said. "That makes sense."

    Matt had been sitting back quietly since the beginning of the meeting; now he cleared his throat and said, "Neither Hortense nor Merry looks very happy. I'd like to hear from you two."

    "Hortense is upset," Harold said. He had his arm around his wife, who was huddled into his chest. "She thinks Merry hates her."

    Everyone looked at Meredith, who sat with her hands clenched on her knees. I can't believe this. I can't believe this. What will it take to get her out of here? I can't even suggest locking doors for the cubicles, because they'd take it as an attack on community. "Meredith?" Matt said. "You've been very quiet."

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