Undertow (2 page)

“That's gross, Lyric,” she says, then shoos the backpack away like it . . . well, like it's really full of used socks and undies. The closet doors fly open, followed by a symphony of squeals. Inside are thrift-store treasures: artfully ripped jeans, vintage band T-shirts, authentic 1950s housedresses, day-glo bangles, cocktail dresses, big clunky shoes (both awkward and terrible for walking), and dozens of peculiar hats stored in hatboxes. I've been collecting it all since I was ten, digging through bins at the Salvation Army and stalking eBay. I had big plans for these clothes, but now my closet is a museum dedicated to a life interrupted. I can't wear any of it, not if I want to fade into the background of this town. Not that I want to, but it's safer that way.

Bex, however, refuses to give up on me.

“What says,
Look at me
?” she cries as she sorts through the rack, dragging things out, eyeballing them, then tossing aside what does not meet her approval. “Oh, yes, this is the one.”

She's found it. Buried far in the back, as far as I could hide it, is a vintage champagne-colored flapper dress. She holds it up against my body and gasps. It's beaded and hangs about midthigh on me, shimmering like heat on asphalt. I discovered it buried inside an old chest at an estate sale in Gravesend and guessed it was from the 1920s and probably one of a kind. The owner's son let me haggle him down to ten dollars just before the vintage-shop vultures swooped through the doors. One of them chased me—literally chased me—down the sidewalk and offered me three hundred bucks for it, but I couldn't give it up. I was in love. I carried it home like I would a newborn baby, hand washed it, repaired a few loose stitches, and fantasized about the day my body would fit into it. I was going to wear it to school and watch boys fall downstairs when I walked by. I was going to cause a panic in that dress.

“This is so inappropriate.” Bex giggles and shoves it into my hands. “It's perfect.”

A little bit of my heart breaks when I swap it for a pair of black jeans and a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt instead.

“TV! Internet!” Bex shouts, and yanks the clothes away. “This outfit will give birth to a billion mean comments. You'll become a meme like that bitchy cat. Don't shake your head at me. I'm serious. When it happens, I will pretend I don't know you. I'll be a crappy friend, but I'll do it. I swear.”

I reach for my clothes and she reluctantly hands them back. Her frown shouts,
I miss the old Lyric!

I miss her too. I miss the glitter princess and the Sailor Moon wannabe from four years ago. I miss the days when I strutted along the catwalk known as Coney Island, all hair and dangly earrings and clogs like I was fifty feet tall. Now I have to be small. I have to be a mouse.
Squeak. Squeak.

There's a heavy knock on the door, and then it slowly opens. My father peeks in, if a six-foot-six-inch cop can peek in anywhere. He's a mountain, hands like catcher's mitts, and shoulders as broad as the Brooklyn Bridge. He's in his police uniform, black shirt and shorts, sunglasses, and his Easter Island head—always watching, always unamused.

“Lyric, I need to speak to you,” he says, gesturing out into our tiny living-slash-dining-slash-closet room. I follow and close the door behind me.

“I hope I don't have to tell you how important it is for you to keep your head down today,” he lectures in a low voice.

“You don't.”

“Lyric, don't give me attitude. This is serious.”

“Dad, I know,” I say, squeezing past him to the kitchen, where there is more room.

“Keep your distance. Don't get involved. Don't try to be nice. Don't talk to the new kids. Just go about your business.”

“I know!” I snap. How many times is he going to deliver this lecture?

“I need to be sure,” he hollers.

My mother enters from her bedroom. Her raven hair is tied up, and her face freshly scrubbed. She looks tired but still beautiful. “Don't fight while Bex is here,” she begs us.

“Sorry, but I've heard this speech a million times.”

“Cut me a break, Lyric, today of all days,” my father whispers.

“Cut
me
a break. I'm the one who has to go there,” I cry, then turn my attention to my mother. “Why are you still in your pj's? You should get dressed.”

She lowers her eyes and shifts from one foot to the next. It's a sad little dance she does when she's upset.

“You're not coming,” I say. I'm crushed and don't care to hide it.

She inhales deeply and looks at my father “I want to, but—”

My irritation turns to rage and I roast him with my gaze. “Just forget it.”

“It's too dangerous,” my father explains. “There will be police and military everywhere, and then the kids, too. She could be recognized.”

“Leonard, no one has identified me yet,” she says.

“The feds tracked almost all your friends down, Summer, and each one of them disappeared, along with their families. It's just you and Angela Benningford now. We can't take the risk.”

My mother winces like she's been slapped. “Am I going to miss her graduation?”

“You're being ridiculous, Summer.”

“What about when she gets married?” she groans.

“Summer.”

“Are you going to let me see my grandchildren?” she cries.

My father throws up his hands. “You're not a prisoner here. We can always leave, Summer. If we left, we could have normal lives. I have friends at the blockade who could help us get out even without identification. We could start over in Denver, or—”

“Shhhh!” I point at my bedroom door, quietly dreading that Bex will burst through it with a million questions. It's a miracle that she hasn't figured us out yet; the girl who hides in ugly clothes, the mom who never leaves the house, the father who lives on the edge of panic. I wait, but
there is no burst, no million questions. She's probably too busy liberating more of my clothes.

“I'm sorry,” my father whispers. “I saw Terrance Lir last night. He's escorting the children to school and acting as a spokesperson.”

“Is Rochelle with him? And Samuel?”

My father nods. “They're all back. There are men with them too. They look like Secret Service.”

“Where have they been?” I ask.

My father looks at his feet. There are rumors of prison camps, detention centers, mass graves even, but no one knows for sure. All we know is that most of Mom's friends have vanished, and if we're discovered, so will we.

“I don't know, but they look horrible—skinny as sticks and wearing the same clothes they had on the day they disappeared.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“Summer, I can't! If someone saw us talking, they might make the connection.”

“But he can tell us about my family,” my mother begs.

My father shakes his head. “It's best if we keep our distance, especially you, Lyric. He's going to be in the school every day. He's probably going to reach out to you, but you have to avoid him. You can't let anyone think you know him.”

“You want me to ignore him?” This hurts my heart. Terrance Lir was like an uncle to me when I was little. When he and his family disappeared, we cried for days. I can't imagine turning my back on him, especially if he's been suffering.

My mother pulls me into a hug and squeezes like I am never coming home again. Her kiss leaves a wet ring of electricity on my cheek. “Be careful, and don't forget to breathe.”

“You too.”

She smiles at me. It's a crumpled thing, too small for her face. I remember when it used to shine like a star, fueled by her endless joy, but now it's running on fumes. She can't even muster enough power to bring her eyes along for the ride.

My father goes to his room and returns with his gun. While I eat cereal, he checks the clip to see that it's loaded, reinserts it, and clicks off the safety. He double-checks the charge on his Taser and gives two canisters of pepper spray good shakes before putting them in his pockets. Then he turns to me.

“Get Bex. It's time to go to school.”

A
s soon as the elevator doors open,
I
wish
we had taken the stairs. Mrs. Novakova, short and squat, is lurking inside, like a creepy garden gnome peering out of the brush.

“Getting off?” I ask.

She frowns and shakes her head. Of course she's not getting off. How else will she interrogate us? I press the button for the lobby and hold my breath when the doors slide shut.

“You take these girls to the school, Leonard?” she asks my father in her thick, growly accent. She's been in our building for fifty years, ever since emigrating from Eastern Europe—maybe Hungary, maybe Russia—I can't remember. It's someplace where the neighbors used to spy on one another for the government.

“Yes, Mrs. Novakova,” my father says as he watches the floor counter blink from four to three to two . . .

Mrs. Novakova's mouth curls in disapproval, revealing her lipstick-stained teeth. “You never catch me near that school today. Mixing with us is wrong, especially the children. They are animals, and filthy, too! Always digging in trash cans, making too many babies, and living in filth. Like gypsies back home. Only good gypsy is dead gypsy. You stay away from them. You get disease. Who knows?”

“If they had a disease, I think we'd all have it by now,” my father says. “They've been here awhile.”

“Make no difference! You have crazy cow disease for ten years, then kaput! A man walks around, not even knowing he's dead. That's their plan. They spread sick to us, wait for us to die. I try to tell people. No one listens to old woman. Don't you bring one of them back here!”

“I won't, Mrs. Novakova,” I say.

Bex looks like she's going to laugh, until I shoot her a look. Mrs. Novakova is old-school evil who rats on anyone she deems suspicious. Neighbors who have found themselves on her bad side have been dragged out of their beds and questioned by cops and gang members alike. I've learned to let every word I say to her roll around in my mouth to dull the sharp edges first.

“What are police doing to get rid of them, Leonard? I pay taxes for beach and I'd like to go down and take a walk,” she barks. “My husband and I spent every Friday night strolling along pier, until the coloreds and the Polacks took over. They bad enough. Now it's those things.”

It takes every ounce of self-restraint for me not to roll my eyes. When her husband was alive, they fought day and night. An hour didn't go by without her screaming to everyone who would listen about what a disappointment he was, how he had never amounted to anything, how she should have married Pavel, a very well-to-do tailor who had the common courtesy to die young and leave his widow a fortune. Her husband passed away two years ago. He choked on some soup. Really. I mean, who chokes to death on soup? Someone who's looking for a way out, that's who.

By the time we reach the lobby, Mrs. Novakova has given us an advanced-placement class on “the Chinks,” “the Spics,” “the Japs,” “the Kikes,” and “the towel heads,” all of whom she describes as filthy and “up to no good” and plotting to kill us all. My father has a patience with her he never has with me. He says “Good day,” and when the doors slide open he leads us outside.

“Someday she'll die,” he promises when she's out of earshot.

“I wouldn't bet on it,” I reply.

Unfortunately, outside it's even more oppressive than inside. It's ninety-frickin'-eight degrees with a thousand percent humidity. Welcome to the early morning ugh of Coney Island, a sauna trapped inside an aquarium locked in a carwash next to a water park in hell. I sweat from every pore. My jeans glue themselves to my legs. My bangs drip like I used maple syrup to get just the right look. Awesome. I'm going to look like I swam to school, and because the universe hates me, here come the reporters to show the whole world my shame. They pounce like dogs on a pork chop, running across streets and through front yards, scampering over parked cars and surrounding us with microphones and questions. Their eyes are wide and eager. They flash smiles full of chalk-white teeth. Their spray-on tans have dyed their faces a rusty orange.

“Are you students at Hylan High?” one of them asks. Her hair is so motionless, it could actually be a helmet. I ignore her just like my father coached me. Keep your head down and they'll go away. It usually works, but there are hundreds of them blocking the sidewalks and a dozen more racing in our direction. The neighborhood has been swarming with reporters for three years. They have a free pass in and out of the Zone, but I haven't had to deal with this many in a while. Even my father is thrown.

“Can you tell our viewers your names?” one of them shouts.

“My name is Officer Leonard Walker,” he says, stepping between Bex and me and the cameras.

“And you're a dad. Do you feel safe sending your girls to school today?”

My father nods. “The National Guard, United Nations, U.S. Army, Coast Guard, Homeland Security, and the Sixtieth and Sixty-First Precinct SWAT teams will be on campus to make sure things are safe. The NYPD Anti-Terrorism Division has done a great job as well. The students will have better protection than the president of the United States today.”

“How do you feel about sending your daughters to school with the—”

“I think it's a big step forward for everyone,” my father interrupts. He doesn't believe it, but that's what the mayor wants all the police to say.

“Are you worried about violence?”

“Not from them. Our neighbors on the beach are pretty relaxed when they are unprovoked,” my father says as he continues to push us forward.

“Have you heard that Governor Bachman has threatened to block the doors to prevent the new students from entering?” another reporter asks.